Mandatory Reading
Dunkirk NY – You must read this. You must. The author of this blog, Barry Hessenius, has written a remarkably objective, trenchant and perhaps even prophetic blog post, concerning how the last five years’ worth of predictions about the state of the arts in this country have turned out, and what the future may possibly hold. He writes at a national level, as a proponent for local arts organizations and art educators nationwide. A few key paragraphs to whet your appetite:
“Last year’s election and the Obama Campaign model generated considerable excitement and optimism in the sector that real “change” was in the air, and certainly systemic, dynamic change seemed, if not inevitable, then, at least, possible. Early hope that we might somehow replicate the online success of aggregating huge numbers of small and individual supporters has fallen by the wayside as somehow we seemed content to wait for it to just happen of its own accord. It did not. If there was a window of opportunity to tap into that feeling across America, it was a very small window and we neither had the know-how to even begin to capitalize on it, nor were we in any position to do so in terms of people or infrastructure. While we celebrated the inclusion of the arts in the stimulus package and believed that under Obama our fortunes would now change, campaign enthusiasm is axiomatically very difficult to sustain in the electorate post an election, and much of that energy has dissipated under the weight of the continuing economic plight, the seemingly never-ending American foreign involvements and the threat of those that want to harm us, and, perhaps most of all, the now more pronounced than ever partisan divide that increasingly makes cooperation and working together virtually impossible. Again, the reality of our sector was survival mode and nobody was charged or empowered with the formal pursuit of any of these larger enterprises. The Administration, it seemed, has larger and more pressing matters on its plate.”
“While we have recognized for some time that there is a divide and disconnect between making and consuming art in the new technologically empowered private (or amateur) sector as compared to our nonprofit arts organization ecosystem, we have yet to get any kind of handle around how we can deal with that challenge and it continues to loom ominously out there like some dark star. At the same time, we now have verifiable studies that confirm that our audiences continue to shrink, yet our reseach hasn’t provided us with real clues how to stem that downward spiral in the short term. And while we know our traditional funding and revenue streams – from philanthropic and public sources, earned income, audiences, and from individual donors — are all undergoing sea changes, we still don’t yet know where all this is going or where we will end up, and we have only band-aid solutions so far. If the bleeding gets really worse, many of us may be in big trouble.”
“Despite official designations to the contrary, nowhere is art thought to be a core subject. We have to make it a core subject – legally as well as within people’s consciousness – and in that order if we wish to succeed. This is a losing game without substantial political clout – which we do not have. Arts education that is not mandated will forever be subject to outside parental and community support to survive. At the core of the belief that the arts are just a frill is that arts education is not on a par in importance with math and science. This is more than an issue of educating the public. It’s highly political.”
Plenty more where that came from. H/T Ian David Moss. -twl
