As I understand it, Governor Mark Sanford has just vetoed almost half of the South Carolina Arts Commission budget...the half spent on agency staff and artist grants, apparently. (His veto slashes less than 10% of the entire state budget...didn’t touch public education).Several people in the Columbia office stand to lose their jobs next year, plus many individual artists and organizations will lose thousands of dollars in support.
Far-flung South Carolina artist friends are writing and calling their state representatives...demanding that the governor’s veto be overridden and that full arts commission funding be restored. At least half a dozen have contacted me via e-mail and social networking sites to do the same.
As a full-time artist in South Carolina, I should be outraged...right? But I’m not. I just keep thinking about who gets cut if the artists don’t. State budget money is finite. If artists keep their grants and the staffers keep their jobs...who will be de-funded?
Medicaid recipients, primarily. That’s poor people who can’t afford health insurance. Other social services too, of course...and law enforcement, highways, hurricane relief, etc.
Why not shutter all those useless interstate welcome centers?
Ultimately, this outcry reflects a much larger dilemma facing American artists everywhere: how much government subsidy do you require to make your art? Or this question: what percentage of government support is fiscally healthy for a professional artist? 50% government support? 75%? 100%?
Can your art be made without any government grants?
I’m a huge NASA fan. Best government program ever in my opinion. I can’t tell you how many times artist friends take me to task for that...call into question my sense of right and wrong.
“You want to spend billions on space exploration when people are starving in the streets? When school children can’t read? When art museums are closing?”
At this point—eternal damnation hanging in the balance—I look away, as if suddenly touched by an angel. My eyes closed, I whisper: “You know...you’re right.” This usually blunts the attack and we go back to being cast mates.
What if it had to be? What if you were forced to rely entirely on private patrons and ticket sales to support your art? What would that look like? How would that affect your work? Moreover, how would that affect the lives of people in your community?
I'm an artist and have made my living as a public school educator. Public education is being cut all over the place, including the upstate. I only do my art through private funding...usually my own. The bottom line is you're right that public funding is finite. If your art really matters to you, you do it even without funds.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment, Melissa. I think that was my point...you made it far better.
ReplyDeleteMake your art.
And then there's the issue of the artist's sense of entitlement, the all-too-common belief that artists should be wards of the state, that they should be protected from market forces because (I suppose) arts consumers aren't worthy to determine the monetary value of art. I rebuke that paradigm. Art is a commodity. Artists are (or should be) business people. If an artist's art isn't selling to his satisfaction, he has the same options open to him that anybody in any other line of work has.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, Tim.
ReplyDeleteOne of those options being LISTENING to his/her audience.
If the audience doesn't "get it," what can the artist do to bring them around? What does the audience "need?" And how can the artist meet that need?