Art & The Public Purpose: A New Framework Launches

A stellar group of founding endorsers, including many community artists featured on CAN, has just released a new proposal calling for “a bold new investment in culture, a policy recognizing that culture holds the key to a future we can believe in.” The project Web site — www.newculturalpolicy.org — features an online petition, a way to share stories of culture and community, and information on how to promote the Framework and seek endorsements from organizations and officials.

The founding endorsers first came together as part of a May 12, 2009, White House Briefing on Art, Community, Social Justice, National Recovery. After a briefing with administration officials that focused on the role of culture in national recovery, we adjourned to Busboys & Poets café to hold working group sessions about what to do next. I convened a working group on cultural policy.

I’d been frustrated for almost as long as I could remember about the narrow and unimaginative way we tend to think of cultural policy in this country. Most prior U.S. policy proposals focused entirely on funding for artists and organizations in the form of competitive grants that follow the model of private patronage. Resources are always scarce, and the net result is a system in which grant-seekers spend far too much time competing for funds few of them will receive, instead of being able to focus on their important work in community cultural development. Mainstream arts advocacy tends to be a matter of hopeful beneficiaries lobbying for their own funding, and the arguments typically marshaled haven’t had much success. In fact, since the Reagan years, the real value of National Endowment for the Arts funding (to pick the most visible of our federal cultural agencies) has declined by nearly 45 percent!

I wanted to see if there was a better way to do it. Instead of the copious boilerplate that makes up most policy proposals (trying to be comprehensive, they tend to sound like contracts, with lots of technical language and a million small points), I thought it might be possible to create a simple, elegant proposal laying out a few strong points that could sum things up in a way everyone could understand. I thought the old school of advocacy had missed the boat by aiming too low with platitudes about excellence and modest proposals that excited no one: What we need now is to think in a much larger frame, conveying all that we know about art’s power to cultivate the qualities that can support democracy, such as imagination and empathy. I approached writer Jeff Chang, figuring that the differences in our generational styles and approaches would be a help, and, between us, we crafted a policy proposal we presented to our May 12 working group, which comprised more than 20 of the 60 or so artists and organizers who took part in the briefing.

Working group members were excited by the idea, unanimously deciding to move forward. We gave ourselves a real challenge: to use plain language to convey the necessity of a major new investment in art’s public purpose, one that reflected the values of democracy and equity we cherished. A drafting group was assembled: Judy Baca of SPARC, the renowned public art group; Jeff Chang (whose best-known book is “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop,” a history of hip-hop); Bau Graves from the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago; Nick Rabkin, co-author, “Putting the Arts in the Picture: Reframing Education in the 21st Century”; MK Wegmann of the National Performance Network; and myself. We all volunteered our time in researching, drafting and discussing, and SPARC provided the technical help to build the Web site.

The Framework that has just been released is the result of our collective efforts, and we have high hopes. Now the challenge is to build a large and active group of individual and organizational endorsers, circulating the Framework as widely as possible, and helping it to inform national thinking about the public interest in culture. Because it isn’t tied to a specific piece of legislation or an election, a tax-exempt organization can endorse it without endangering its legal status. We are urging people to circulate it, write about it, speak about it and generally raise a ruckus in support of a major new investment in culture.

People who understand the power of culture and community seem to have unlimited opportunities to be defensive these days as the arts again come under attack: hiding out, running away, hoping those who attack us will tire of it and relent, fighting fire with fire. What all these responses have in common is allowing others to set the agenda. For me, this Framework is about setting our own agenda, working with comparable energy to bring about what we desire.

In crafting the Framework, we asked ourselves this: What if we dedicated ourselves to putting artists to work for art’s public purpose, mending our social fabric, promoting freedom of expression and a vibrant, inclusive national dialogue, and revitalizing both education and commerce with the creativity that has always been the wellspring of our energy and success? What if we dedicated ourselves to cultivate the imagination and empathy essential to national recovery and sustainable community?

Together, we have the power to craft the narrative that defines this moment, to choose whether those who look back on this time will see us running scared or standing for all that we know is true. I urge us all to act now as though we believe that art is the secret of survival — which it is — and that our own creative actions are precisely what’s needed to save and strengthen democracy. Please read the Framework today and consider whether you want to join a group of talented and respected artists and creative organizers in calling for five key concepts that hold the key to cultural recovery and its role in national recovery:

1. Use creativity for the common good. Recovery means building a new foundation for economic growth, improving infrastructure, aligning us in public purpose, then sustaining these gains. Artists and cultural organizers already contribute to every community, urban and rural, educating the whole student, cultivating resilience through public art projects, bringing the healing power of dance, drama and story to senior centers, hospitals and prisons, and more. They innovate, inspire and engage. In health, education, social services, employment and training, environment, transportation, community development, energy, international relations — every aspect of our democracy — our public sector can be more effective by infusing its work with the power of culture, forging partnerships with artists and organizations. National policy should mandate that every agency recognize cultural action as a valid instrument of the public good.

2. Engage all of us. To succeed, our national goals need everyone. Our cultural landscape is a rich and varied tapestry of heritage and new creation. The right to culture — to honor those who came before, express ourselves and take part in community life — is a core human right. Our national policy should mandate equal opportunity to contribute to and benefit from cultural life, whether our families are indigenous to this land, have lived here for many decades or just arrived; whether we live in cities or the countryside; regardless of color, creed, orientation or physical ability. The way we support, protect and promote culture should reflect our best, our national commitment to equity, fairness and inclusion.

3. Build on cultural memory. Every community’s cultural fabric is made of shared places, customs, values and creative acts. The stronger it is, the more likely that kids will stay in school, businesses will thrive, neighbors will celebrate and learn from each other. When we forget this, we pay a price. How would our cities be different if policy-makers had considered the cultural lives of the neighborhoods leveled to make way for new stadiums, performing arts complexes and freeways? Cultural policy should be modeled on laws assessing environmental impacts, considering the human and cultural cost of public actions before approving plans. Instead of winners and losers, we should strive for partnerships between community members, the public sector and entrepreneurs.

4. Put artists to work to support cultural recovery. We need a “new WPA,” a public service jobs program addressing all our national goals — clean energy, excellent education, sound economy, good health and more. It should include putting artists and creative organizers to work for the common good using every art form and way of working: providing well-rounded education, sustaining and caring for the ill, engaging elders in creativity, rebuilding community infrastructure to reflect our best. Seventy-five years ago, the WPA supported five arts programs as part of FDR’s program to recover from the Great Depression. It worked. Today, jobs are still the engine of prosperity; when tied to public purpose, no investment brings greater impact.

5. Stand for free expression, supporting democratic media. Real democracy requires inclusive public conversation, respecting diverse voices, providing the proper tools for an open society. We are long overdue to address media monopolies, using regulation to defend free expression. To earn the world’s respect, national policy should stand for free cultural exchange and free speech, including robust public media and universal, affordable high-speed Internet access. Neither government nor corporations should have the right to control expression, exploit others or restrict devices or infrastructure for the widest possible information transmission. Artists, like all who work for a living, should benefit from the fruits of their labors.

Arlene Goldbard is a writer, speaker and consultant on culture, politics and spirituality, based in Richmond, Calif. She is a long-time veteran of the community cultural development field who began writing about cultural policy (including public service employment for artists) more than 30 years ago. She worked at the San Francisco Neighborhood Arts Program in 1973, when the first CETA arts jobs were created. Her most recent book is “New Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development” (New Village Press, November 2006). Subscribe to her blog, read about Cultural Recovery and download her writings at her Web site: http://arlenegoldbard.com

Original CAN/API publication: October 2009