On My Mind

May 28, 2011

Today more than ever, states that want to be competitive need a policy agenda that supports and nurtures the creativity and economic productivity of their citizens. With his veto of funding for the Kansas Arts Commission, Governor Sam Brownback has now declared his opinion that Kansas is too poor for that. The real poverty expressed in this action is not of the pocketbook; state arts agencies yield excellent return on investment in jobs and tax revenues.

In 2009, everyone was asking whether the change in the nonprofit sector was temporary, caused by the economic downturn or was the economy a catalyst that forced us to recognize that change had happened and this change was here to stay? I believe it was the latter. Pushed by technology, demographics, the changing behavior of audiences, and a disconnect between perception and the reality of the arts in our communities, there is a growing sense that funding changes are more necessary than we had first imagined.

At the 2009 GIA conference in Brooklyn, we asked participants to tell us how Grantmakers in the Arts can best contribute to building a successful nonprofit arts sector in this country over the next ten years. Participants provided 439 ideas, from which six strategies emerged. These strategies will drive the future work of GIA, which as a national association is uniquely positioned to serve the “greater good” of a vital sector of American society.

Note: this text was updated on this site on January 9, 2009.

No matter your political persuasion, your age or background, place or country of residence, your professional role or disciplinary affiliation, if you work in the nonprofit cultural sector—the presidential campaign that brought Barack Obama to the White House holds lessons for you. The campaign marks a watershed in popular consciousness, and we will all do well to adapt—or evolve—accordingly.

Some things to ponder:

1. People want to be inspired.

Wacintanka (wah-cheenh-tanh-kah) defies single-word English translation. Ask a number of Lakota speakers and you will likely get a number of English translations: patience, persistence, endurance, and so forth. Condensed, I believe it means discipline and it can be quite a science. The science of Wacintanka. Sounds a bit like Tao Te Ching,^* doesn't it? I don't know much about Tao, but wacintanka is very diverse in its application and permeates all that is good in the Lakota way of being.

At Target Community Relations, our weekly staff meetings culminate with the presentation of the week's "Pepper Grinder Award." Any staff member who has made a gaffe of significance is encouraged to self nominate, disclosing his or her outlandish act of stupidity to the rest of the staff. The winner (or loser, depending on your point of view) is presented with a gauche pepper grinder that must be prominently displayed in his or her office until the next meeting.

Mary Bain, who was Sidney Yates' longtime political and staff director, died recently. She was ninety-five.

Very awkward to speak politely about money in public, and yet it is so awkwardly at the heart of our culture. Here is Sophocles, in his Antigone. Creon is speaking, ironically misinterpreting the noblest of motives for the basest: "Money! There's nothing in the world so demoralizing as money. Down go your cities, Homes gone, men gone, honest hearts corrupted, Crookedness of all kinds, and all for money."

We also have Timothy from the New Testament: "The love of money is the root of all evil."

What often is lost in cultural policy conversations or research reports about the visual arts world is an examination of how ethnic-specific cultural practices and the dynamics of non-collecting museums and artist-centered organizations keep the art world from be-ing static and dull, from being victimized by the hierarchies of taste or the technocratic aims of cultural managers. Any analysis of the sociology of the visual arts field needs to speak about the relationship between the aesthetic content of a work and the contexts in which different aesthetic inquiries are supported.