NEA Chair Landesman lauds Minnesota - but warns of hard work ahead

Posted at 7:16 PM on August 25, 2010 by Euan Kerr
Filed under: Funding, Policy

Rocco Landesman has lots of love for Lowertown.

"If I could put Lowertown in my briefcase and take it around the country, and be able to say 'Aha! See? Look that the arts presence, what a cluster of artists can do to transform a neighborhood, a community, a city.' Lowertown is exhibit A."

Landesman, a former Broadway producer who now chairs the National Endowment for the Arts took a whirlwind tour of St Paul today, meeting with the folks in Lowertown, before heading to SteppingStone Theater for a town hall meeting with some 300 members of the Minnesota arts community.

It's part of Landesman's ongoing national "Art Works" tour, a six month campaign to promote the importance of cultural activity to the economy, to job creation and for future innovation.

Landesman says as a Broadway theater guy he likes "Art Works" as a slogan because it's a triple entendre.

As a noun it covers pieces created by artists.

As a verb it means the way art 'works' on an individual in a profound and personal way.

The third way is about the work of the arts, the jobs and the economic muscle produced by people who work in creative pursuits.

He lauded Minnesotans for passing the Legacy Amendment which provides money to support arts and cultural activities. he says it's the only state in the nation which has "arts baked into its constitution," as he put it.

"Now we only need 49 others."

He says Minnesota has the three things necessary for a successful and beneficial arts community: creative artists, engaged audiences, and supportive corporations and foundations. He says as he's toured around he seen some communities with two of these three, but few with the full set.

Of course Landesman was preaching to the choir, but he did take the opportunity to warn the crowd arts funding should not be taken for granted. He talked about how the inclusion of arts funds in the Recovery Act was used as political weapon by opponents to claim the entire package was frivolous, even though it was just $50 million in a $787 billion budget.

Landesman quoted a member of Congress who said it was ridiculous to spend the $50 million on the arts when it could be spent on "real jobs like road-building."

He says it was then he realized just how tough his job would be.

Landesman says he wants to change that bias against the arts. It's his aim at the NEA to as he put it "be making the case wherever we can, in the public sector, with the Federal agencies, with Congress. also with the private sector, corporations, foundations, individuals, that the arts have a real role in this country's coming out of recession, in neighborhood revitalization, in economic development, in urban renewal, in the real world."

He says this is a very different narrative from simply saying individual arts organizations are in trouble and need help. He says that the arts do face challenges, so a new message has to be found.

Landesman was supported all the way by his host for the day, US Representative Betty McCollum. She sits on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Environment, which has jurisdiction over the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She stressed how important arts jobs are to the economy, and the knock-on effect the loss of such jobs can have.

During the meeting Landesman took questions about the impact of budget cuts on arts programs in the schools, the lack of coverage of arts issues in mainstream media, and how cultural exchanges might aid international diplomacy.

After the meeting the mood seemed buoyant, with many people pleased that Landesman had come to speak,

"It brings a spotlight onto what's going on here," said Jack Becker, of Forecast Public Arts in St Paul. Becker acknowledges that NEA funds don't make a huge difference to individual artists, but the visit has great symbolic value.

"I see it as a good reason to get people fired up again and back to work!" Becker laughed.

The occasion was of such significance to SteppingStone's Artistic Director Richard Hitchler, that he came back early from a vacation on the Superior Hiking Trail.

"This is usually one of those types of things that would have ended up at a much larger institution, but I think with his message, the chairman's message, that really ties in to what we are doing here at SteppingStone."

Hitchler points out how the company provides jobs, theater classes, and community building.

"I, as the leader of this organization, am responsible to a number of employees to make sure they are paid, they are paid on time, and they are paid a living wage. I am also responsible to make sure that the kids that we serve are served well, and the only way I can do that is to count on the artists to be there and to be working with the youth."