Artists inherit an idealist

Arts advocates have a new, outspoken leader in their fight for integration in education. The chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Rocco Landesman, is not afraid of the bullies in Congress who are against arts funding. He was confirmed in early August and he is already speaking his mind, calling the current allocation of $155 million for the arts “pathetic” and denouncing the proposed increases as insufficient.

It is good timing for a maverick of the arts to rise to power as many art programs and art institutions are facing serious cuts as a result of the recession.

• Museums and performance centers are losing federal funding, putting artists across the country out of jobs.
• High-schools and colleges have had to make sacrifices and while every department is facing cuts, the arts seem to be hit the hardest.

Chairman Landesman believes this trend should be reversed because investing in the arts will ultimately benefit the economy.

“Art should be part of the plans to come out of this recession,” Landesman told the New York Times. And he believes Obama hired him for that purpose; BAM was the first presidential candidate ever to make an arts platform part of his campaign. His plan’s three top priorities were:

• expanding public/private partnerships between schools and arts organizations,
• creating an Artists Corps, and
• publicly championing the importance of arts education.

Despite his campaign promises, we haven’t seen much action for the arts in Obama’s first six months of presidency. His proposed arts budget increases for 2010 are very slight—an increase of 3.9% (from $155 million to $161.3 million). And when compared to Obama’s 2010 budget for the federally funded National Science Foundation (NSF) of $7 billion, arts funding falls extremely short.

Landesman believes that the arts and culture sector of the economy is vastly overlooked, and he aims to shed light on its benefits. A 2007 report by Americans for the Arts found that the arts generate 6 million jobs, $30 billion in tax revenue, and $166.2 billion in annual fiscal activity. It’s clear that the arts contribute to the economic prosperity of our country and Landesman plans on proving it by reinstating federal grants to individual artists (a practice eliminated in 1996) and encouraging arts in education.

Think you’re helpless as government takes art programs away from your school? Think again. You have the power to change this and help save the art:

• Invite community leaders to your concerts, or arrange performances at PTA meetings or even City Hall.
• Turn a local performance into an "informance" by having interesting art facts placed inside the concert programs.
• Ask your local TV and radio stations to publicly recognize local music and art programs and advertise events throughout the year.