BLOG: Why Arts!
Sam Adams
It's the early 1980s.
Melbourne is being “out-festivalled” by cities within Australia and around the globe.
The state Premier (Governor) wants out of this shadow. He sends scouting parties and researchers to check out 100 annual art events in other cities.
They report back saying a Melbourne arts festival would improve the standard of arts in the city, promote multiculturalism, heighten the profile of Melbourne as an international and cosmopolitan city and create jobs.
The proposed festival gets a green light in 1986.
The first festivals are an off-shoot of the famous Spoleto Festivals in Italy. The Melbourne festival’s initial budget is set at $1 million. Most of the funding comes from state government.
It's 20 years later.
The festival is now called the Melbourne International Arts Festival. It has grown to showcase a wide variety of international and local talent. It presents over 90 events in three weeks. It has a budget of over $4.5 million (Australian). State and local governments pay for about 80 percent of its budget.
Melbourne consistently ranks the one of the most livable cities in the world.
Back home, arts funding in Portland is a polite but brutal competition for scant public funds.
We rank 24th in per capita among U.S. cities in public spending for the arts.
We get a much higher quality and quality of art than our meager public finding deserves.
With relatively little public support, Kristy Edmunds then at Portland Institute for Contemporary Arts (PICA) launches the Time Based Art (TBA) festival in 2003.
It’s smaller. But, in its own way it strives for the ambition, presence and impact of the Melbourne International Arts Festival. Government pays for about 12 percent of the festival’s costs.
Portland was ranked as the 42nd most livable city in the world last week.
Kristy is now the director of the Melbourne International Arts Festival.
It’s become a small world.
I’m the new arts and culture commissioner in Portland. Jesse Beason is my staff Public Policy Director for this issue.
I have been in Melbourne this week on my own scouting party.
Don’t worry. I’ve been around the block. I know it’s dicey to compare different political and government systems. The difference in the details really does matter -- although if you spent time here, you would not find in its major aspects to be too much different than the U.S.
It is fairer in my mind to compare our respective values, priorities and their practical impacts.
When it comes to expressing values and priorities: money talks the loudest.
Public funding for the arts in this country is jaw-droppingly robust compared to the U.S.
Just the State of Victoria, Australia will spend more on the arts than the entire budget of the U.S. government’s National Endowment for the Arts.
Really.
As an aside, public support for sports appears equally robust in Australia.
Why?
I heard answers like…
“We put a high value on bringing the community together.”
”A lot of our identity is expressed in out arts.”
“Eighty percent of Australians live in an urban area; they need something to do.”
“You can’t be a place of innovation and not be a place for the arts.”
Conversely, Australian companies give relatively little to the arts. I am told they consider arts funding the job of government to provide as a basic service.
“That’s the government’s job.”
While that may never be fully true for us, Portland can and must do better than 24th in per capita arts support among U.S. cities.
Why care?
Anemic support for the arts creates a creative brain drain from Portland (a hard place to get started and then too many have to leave to actually make a living at it); a lack of confidence in local artists to mount new work (i.e. because they need tickets sales); lack of venues for international artists to perform locally (until the TBA and White Bird); no global creative profile for Portland.
We have a strong case to present. Arts education helps students learn at all subjects. Innovation supported by the arts will be the basis for our creative and knowledge-based economy. The arts attract the most creative types. Studies show that our access to the arts enhances our quality of life.
Does that mean funding for the arts is more important than let’s say job creation, public safety or transportation? I do not see it as an either/or: I see the arts as an integral part of Portland’s basic services.
Posted by Sam Adams on October 16, 2005
(3) Comments | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Filed Under Arts & Culture, Blog, Melbourne, Regional Arts & Culture Council
Comments by site visitors
Admittedly,
I am a Portland patriot, and not extensively traveled.
I will not pretend to be able to compare
the Greater Portland Arts community to others
with much validity or objectivity. But I have had a
growing conviction for some time that the here and now
of Portland Arts and Festivals is indeed special,
if relatively unsupported.
There are many people in town that feel the same.
I talk to them all the time. Perhaps with insightful statements
like this coming from our new commissioner,
as an example of civic leadership, we the community,
can also find the will to give the Arts in Portland
the support they need.
Art and Culture are renewable, expandable treasures.
They are an asset if properly cared for and cultivated.
Not a wasteful drain of limited resources.
A creative city draws the best and brightest.
Innovators, Entrepreneurs, the Pioneers.
The return on investment would indeed be bountiful.
Posted by: Tom Hale | Oct 20, 2005 1:10:47 AM
Just after reading the NY Times piece on Mayor Bloomberg and his support for the arts in New York, I'm thrilled to read this statement, Sam.
I want to get old in Portland, and a vital, dynamic cultural landscape is a critical reason for that. I also don't want to look back on the early aughties as another high-water mark in arts production and cultural activity. I'd like to see institutions sustained and non-institutional players (independent artists and artist groups, curators, performers) supported by the city.
It will be interesting to look at Melbourne and see how the money is spent, the priorities, the reach.
We have so much in place, from RACC to PICA to PAM to PNCA, Reed, and Marylhurst, it's not as if the city has to invent anything, just put its will and financial muscle behind some of these players and their programs.
At the same time, we are so lucky to have dedicated and serious independents who write, organize, and pepper the city with art in unexpected places.
I'm really grateful to you for spending time to consider this topic, helping us appreciate what we have while envisioning what we can be.
Posted by: Lisa Radon | Oct 28, 2005 11:35:19 AM
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Thank you Sam, for such a critical statement. It's constantly frustrating to be dealt a false choice in deciding between having a stable economy or strong schools or having a vital arts community with strong government support. You don't make citizens decide between having a fire or a police department-you realize that both have a critical impact on safety, the same way arts and education both are critical pieces in a livable community with smart, engaged citizens.
Posted by: Tomi Douglas | Oct 18, 2005 4:54:29 PM