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State of the Arts: The Arts Can Change Lives

Jamey Dunn
WUIS/Illinois Issues

I would not be a reporter today if it weren’t for the drama program at my high school. I was a pretty shy kid. Sure, I had friends, but I also had a very difficult time talking to strangers. Knowing I had to make a speech in front of a group of people would cause me to lose sleep for days. In conversations, I often mumbled or spoke too softly for people to hear. 

I had friends who were performers. They were funny, bright, quirky and talented. I was always a little jealous that what made me sweat and stutter seemed to come so easily to them. Then one day when I had come to support friends at a high school play audition, a few of them convinced me to face my social anxieties and fears of public speaking by physically dragging me onto a stage. 

I don’t remember how the audition went, but I got a small part in my school’s production of the play “Our Miss Brooks.” I can’t say I was any kind of sensation, but I remembered all my lines. Being on stage was such a rush. It was like skydiving to overcome a fear of heights. 

I went on to participate in community theater productions, where I met lots of wonderful people and gained confidence in my ability to interact. I was never going to make a career out of it, but I do think it was a direct step on the path to the work I love today. 

This is just one personal example of how the arts can change lives in many unexpected ways. We may not all have the talent or vision to become professional artists. But the arts can make us better, more-rounded people and can do the same for our communities. 

Arts programs in Illinois have been struggling with budget cuts for years. However, the recent recession coupled with the state budget crisis means less private and public funding for the arts. The Illinois Arts Council (IAC), a state agency that distributes state funds for the arts, has watched its budget be sliced in half during the last three years and has suspended nine of its programs because of the cuts. 

Rose Parisi, director of programs for the Illinois Arts Council, says the state’s late payments have also hurt the arts community. “That is especially hard for smaller organizations that really are operating already on a bare bones budget. …They are bound by the rules of the state. They still have to do the project if they accept the money, [regardless of when the state actually pays them.]”

The Illinois Policy Institute — a research group self-described as being “dedicated to free market principles” — created a budget plan to tackle the state’s deficit, which called for cutting the entire budget of the IAC: “Funding for the arts and related programs belong in the private sector, which has demonstrated its ability and inclination to support cultural endeavors. Chicago in particular is known for its world-class entertainment, which draws talent from around the globe. Strangely, the state is still providing money to many of the city’s most prestigious organizations, despite their star power and expansive donor base.”

Kristina Rasmussen, executive vice president of the Illinois Policy Institute, says her organization supports cutting IAC’s budget “not because we hate the arts or want to see the arts disappear, … we believe that arts funding should be focused in the private sector.”

Rasmussen says it is a matter of priorities and that during a budget crisis, communities should be able to choose whether they want to spend state funds on more basic services. “Is a public arts installation more important than having another officer on the street?” She adds that if people and businesses in the private sector knew the arts were not getting government help, they might be more likely to step up. 

However, Parisi says without public funding, large portions of the population would miss out on cultural opportunities. She says the council does not fully fund any endeavor, but it does help make arts more accessible by allowing organizations to charge less for admission to events. It also puts money into the arts in low-income and rural areas, where there are often fewer potential investors. 

“Funding enables any communities, regardless of size or wealth, … to have arts in their community.” Parisi says. “We’re able to fund arts in almost every community in the state, it could be as small as a little performance in a public library, or it could be a large ongoing theater company.”

One such program that helped communities that may not have a variety of cultural opportunities cover the costs of bringing in artists for performances and workshops has been cut. The Arts Tour program was suspended for fiscal year 2010. “When your budget’s been cut as much as ours has been, it was a program that we just didn’t have the resources for,” Parisi says.

Art businesses are just like any other small business, Parisi says, and they help stimulate local economies. As of 2009, Illinois had more than 25,000 arts-related businesses, which employed more than 124,000 people. “The sector really does employ a lot of individuals, both as employees and contractors with organizations. …When businesses are thinking about moving to a particular community, they want to see that there are cultural assets in that community.”

She points to a theater production as an example. People attending a play might also buy dinner and pay for parking in the area. The theater company would likely hire a print company to produce posters and handbills, a drycleaner to clean costumes and maybe even a construction company to assist with building sets. 

The IAC is working on a database project to help arts operations have more business information. The Illinois Cultural Data Project, the majority of which is funded by private donors, is collecting standardized data on arts organizations, such as funding and staffing levels. Once the program is executed, cultural organizations will be able to compare themselves with other organizations in their region or of their size, as well as ones in other participating sates across the country. Data will also be useful to help make the case for funding and can be used for academic research. Parisi says the IAC plans to have early results in the spring. 

“It’s not a bad thing to understand more fully your organizations’ strengths and weaknesses. … Money is important, and it is always going to be a primary concern. … But it is our responsibility to also give them resources and opportunities to grow and understand themselves as organizations … to give them resources and tools that will help them make better decisions.”

Parisi says one recent bright spot in the Illinois arts community was the successful use of stimulus funds to preserve jobs in the creative sector. The Illinois Arts Job Preservation Grant helped 19 organizations hold onto 25 jobs, and many of those have found ways to keep those individuals employed even after the grant runs out. “A lot of them were faced with having to lay off an employee. And that employee may have been the only paid full-time employee in the organization.”

Arts programs in schools have also taken a hit because of recent budget cuts in education. Darcy Nendza, executive director of the Illinois Music Educators Association, says music teachers are facing layoffs and big changes to what is expected of them. “So you used to teach at two schools, and now you are teaching at five,” she says.

The added responsibilities raise stress levels and cut down on time for preparation and the availability of teachers to kids outside of class. Nendza says the number of layoffs in arts education were “as bad as we expected, maybe worse.” 

She says one positive she sees in music education is the emergence of nontraditional classes, such as guitar and piano lessons instead of performing ensembles. While ensembles are still important, Nendza says offering a variety of options appeals to kid’s shifting interests and draws a wider group of students into music programs. 

When children are taking art classes, they are learning a multitude of life skills. Nendza says employers are looking for the “skills to be creative critical thinkers that can innovate, and those skills are taught every day in arts education.”

Similar to my experience, many students learn communication skills through the arts, where they often work with others to produce a creative product — even if it is only taking a teacher’s advice on how to improve a painting or a musical solo. “You learn to think creatively. You learn to collaborate. There’s so much that the arts have to offer in terms of leaning,” Parisi says. 

Nendza also points out that art classes and programs may be the reason some students who do not enjoy other extracurricular activities get excited about going to school. 

Both Nendza and Parisi acknowledge that all areas of state government are facing financial worry. 

Nendza says that when it comes to education cuts, everything is on the table and that she doesn’t think the arts are being specifically targeted. She also says funding shortfalls are nothing new to arts education, but the situation is worse than usual in the current economic downturn. “We have not pinned down what the new reality is.” 

Nendza and Parisi also agree that the arts community is especially well-equipped to adapt to change and less-than-ideal circumstances because its members are “resilient” and “creative.” Both commented on the strength of the arts community in Illinois. “This is not going to be the end of the arts in Illinois. … The arts community is not falling apart. It’s regrouping, and it’s as agile as ever,” Parisi says. 

It seems regardless of what happens with funding, members of the arts community plan to stick to that old theater trope: “The show must go on.” 

 

The biggest elephant in the room during the veto session will be the prospect of an income tax increase.

Illinois Issues, December 2010

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