NEW YEAR WISHES

As Jimi Hendrix said on his live recording with Buddy Miles, “Happy New Year first of all!”

In the spirit of the moment, I have put together a wish list for the coming 12 months. Some of them are large in scope (global, even), and some are more intimate—suitable for a state the size of Vermont. Please share with me your own wishes, but above all else, have a safe and pleasant New Year!

I wish …

… to wake up sometime in January 2008 and learn that the proposed increase for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was a typo and that the real figure is $200 million, thus bringing NEA closer into alignment with its 1992 appropriation. For now, we are all well-satisfied with $20 million! Thank you, Rep. Welch, Sen. Sanders and Sen. Leahy. Your hard work and support for the NEA and for the arts in general are well-appreciated.

…to convince, by the end of the 2008 Legislative session, the Governor and a 2/3rds majority of both the House and Senate that the Arts and Cultural sector in Vermont is a profound income-generating sector that far exceeds the cost of the state’s investment in it through us. Not only will the $20 million NEA increase directly impact our program support, but any grant from the NEA comes with a matching state requirement—which for Vermont could mean a significant increase in our state appropriation. Over the years, our own studies have shown consistent, 7-to-1 returns on our own investments in Vermont communities: for every dollar the Arts Council invests in programs throughout the state, the organization receiving our funds generates seven dollars from local and private resources. We are an “income center” to the State of Vermont, not a “cost center.” We need to get better at explaining this to all of our legislators so that they really understand it.

…policy-makers in Vermont allow local investment in the Creative Economy to occur primarily (though not exclusively) in the Arts and Cultural sectors. We already have large state agencies that support (or easily could support) innovation in Agriculture and Commerce/Community Development. Sure, “improvements in technology,” “sustainable and clean energy production,” “affordable housing,” and “affordable health-care” are all crucial to Vermont’s vision of itself in the 21st Century, and established systems already exist to facilitate investment in those areas. However entities that support individual creativity, like our museums, galleries, and performing arts centers, only have us and relative to the growth of the rest of state government in the last 15 years, our budget is 30% smaller.

…the School Boards across the State would recognize that learning in the arts, and learning about the arts are not just words in the No Child Left Behind Act, but crucial investments that not only help kids with certain types of learning disabilities or “engagement issues” stay in school and become productive, but they offer a safe, time-tested means to practice being creative, collaborative, and focused on achieving positive outcomes. As Liz Lerman once said, if anyone in the Bush White House had done theater in high school or college and used the skills they picked up in rehearsals as part of the planning process for invading Iraq, they would have learned very quickly that their script lacked a coherent ending. Arts Education should be the last thing on a school’s chopping block, not the first.

… for Vermont’s creative sectors to seek out the Vermont Council on Rural Development’s "Council on the Future of Vermont" meetings all over the state and play a very visible role in these important, once-in-a-generation discussions. We all have to figure out how to confidently manage Vermont’s unique natural, cultural, and economic assets so as to not destroy them even as we exploit them. Call me biased, but if it’s a conversation about innovation, creative workforce preparation, building community and social capital, improving public transportation, creating more affordable housing and health care, improving access to fiber-optic technology, and managing our energy and environment so that there is some of both in the coming generations—artists MUST be at the table. After all, history has shown that artists’ creative output is consistently the most thoughtful and honest reflection of the human experience. And what is needed most is creative thinking, right?

…Vermont would listen to Sen. Bill Doyle and the Snelling Center for Government and consider a proposed four-year election cycle for the Governor and other statewide elected officials seriously. It helps create better long-term policy and, as an added bonus, makes us pay more careful attention to who we vote for.

…every man, woman, and child in the state of Vermont will participate in Art Fits (our next planned statewide community arts project like Palettes of Vermont), and as a result of their incredible experience, will be inspired to contribute $1 to every one of their local arts organizations, and then—after thinking about how little that is, contribute another dollar! That $1.24 million will sure do a lot of good in communities all over Vermont!

Does anyone out there have any more to add?

Happy 2008 to all of you!

IN DEFENSE OF COVER BANDS

A cultural terrorist by the name of Marcus Westbury dropped a bomb on the morning of October 18, 2007.

The Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald published an article by Mr. Westbury that has essentially challenged the entire notion of supporting the performance of western classical performing art forms, from symphonies to operas and beyond. His thesis is that organizations that perform works by Beethoven, Mozart, Verdi, Bach, Brahms, etc. are little more than glorified “cover bands” and why should such entities suck up so much of the available resources that are provided to support the arts?

“My argument isn't about form and it isn't an extreme one. It's about scale, equity and magnitude. I do think it would be a loss if Australians were to lose all connection with our vast and glorious European cultural heritage.

“But Opera Australia receives more than $10 million a year from the Australia Council. Sure, opera is lavish, expensive and glorious but I simply cannot think of a single sensible, logical or sane reason why one opera company is valued roughly on par with more than 400 separate organisations supported by the music, dance, literature and inter-arts boards of the same organisation.”
Wow. KaBOOM!
This thesis opens up a pretty large can of worms and challenges those of us charged with “supporting the arts in all its forms” to define what exactly we mean by that phrase.

Back in the mid-1960s it was pretty clear. “Supporting the arts” to us mostly meant providing resources to schools and arts organizations that would perpetuate art-forms of and educate audiences in western classical art forms. In America, this definition expanded over time to include distinctively indigenous forms of art—such as jazz, the blues, and musical theater—all of which represented a blending of cultural influences that, initially at least, used the instrumentation of western classical art forms.

But with the opening up of the world’s cultures through the internet, and with our increasing exposure to so many extraordinary nonwestern art forms from India, Asia, Oceania, South America, and Africa that have influenced several generations of creative people, the ascendancy of art created by “dead, white, western males” has been challenged, to say the least.

And that’s just for starters. The very nature of experiencing art is undergoing a massive shift. Those of us above a certain age (50?) expect performances to be in halls that seat large numbers of people so that the art provides an embracing communal experience. The latest trends are tracking this common experience to be dissolving to the point where performers and creators are creating works of art to engage “gen-aught” audiences of ONE. Even more perplexing, the timing, location, and media used in the presentation of the work are determined not by the creator/presenter but by the audience through its I-pod, computer, or other multi-media device.

I am not insulted at the notion that a symphony orchestra might be nothing more than a cover band. Those words are meant to be inflammatory and rile every self-respecting symphony manager, conductor, musician, and audience member out there. But all they make me want to do is to articulate why these art forms are important to support and maintain.

I believe that in order to understand other cultural experiences one must have a solid grounding in one’s own culture—which, in America, is still dominated by western-European influences.

I believe that we support opera companies and symphonies today because they have withstood the test of time and offer valuable insight to all citizens of the world (including those of us from “the west”) about western culture and values.

I believe that nothing builds social capital more effectively than sharing a profound arts experience with other members of one’s community. Theater, dance, opera, music deliver the goods again and again. They have proven their worth.

I also believe this conversation is far from over.

What do you believe?

SUBPRIME CHARITY

I admit that despite majoring in English and American Literature and Languages, and spending a great deal of time stumbling and mumbling through “the classics,” poetry usually succeeds in eluding my comprehension. But every now and then something triggers a bizarre “poetry recall” in my brain. Then it’s up to me to figure out the relationship between the experience and the poem and draw some kind of essential life-lesson from it.

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.

Women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

When I first read this e.e. cummings poem in high school I thought it little more than a lark—a tour de force—written by a clever man who eschewed all literary and poetical conventions, and whose evident purpose in life was to frustrate my academic aims, such as they were.

But recently I read a story on Bloomberg.com titled Subprime Losses, Slashed Bonuses Threaten Funding to Nonprofits and phrases from this poem started bubbling up in my head. I needed to know why.

children guessed (but only a few
as down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that no one loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone’s any was all to her

According to the article, many charities, including arts organizations, depend on significant year-end contributions from corporations and their employees to close the income gap of their annual operations. For some, this year-end bounty amounts to as much as 40% of their annual contributed income. This year, the “subprime mortgage situation” (which might be more accurately referred to as The Big Swindle) is resulting in massive “write-downs” (losses) by financial juggernauts like Citigroup and Merrill Lynch.

How much, you ask? $40 billion and counting. These losses will not only affect those corporations’ charitable capacity (Merrill Lynch will most likely cut way back from its 2006 level of $40 million), but it will also mean that the year end bonuses of the management staff who got our money into this mess will be cut by five to fifteen percent. Five to fifteen percent of what, they don’t say. But I think we can assume at least eight figures…

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then) they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

Something is out of whack here, isn’t it? I am the director of a $1.5 million dollar a year not-for-profit agency in the public trust, and can barely afford cost-of living increases for staff much less a year-end bonus—and that’s in a year when we end up with a positive fund balance. That other people, managing billion-dollar portfolios into a negative balance, can expect a year end bonus at all, much less one that is smaller than last year’s by a mere 15% is nothing short of criminal.

Our expectations, our values, our SOMETHING have all gone topsy-turvy on us—sort of like the language of this poem. $40 billion vanishes with a few strokes of a pen, and charities are made to suffer the consequences...!?!

The wishful-thinking-adolescent me used to think that maybe the poet was under the influence of a controlled substance when he wrote this poem. Now I’m not so sure. In the context of cummings’s verses, this whole subprime mortgage scandal is making a whole lot more sense…

one day anyone died I guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men (both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain.

[anyone lived in a pretty how town by e. e. cummings reprinted with permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation]

MARTIN LUTHER KING MEMORIAL

For the past several years a foundation has been set up to oversee the fundraising for and design and construction of a memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the Mall in Washington DC about halfway between the Lincoln Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial.

The foundation is well on its way to its $100 million goal, and it recently announced the selection of the artist who would design, construct and oversee the installation of the centerpiece of the memorial—a 4-to 5-ton monolith made of granite on which would be carved images of the civil rights struggle that was Dr. King’s life work and which ultimately transformed America. So far, so good.

Lei Yixin, a well-respected stone carver, perhaps best known for his numerous larger-than-life statues of Chairman Mao Zedong was announced as the lead artist. And the granite that the monument would be made of? Also from China.

If you’re like me, this doesn’t sit well with your sense of the importance of place, of community, and of paying attention to things like symbolic acts. And if you’re like me, you’ll want to do something about it. Something like writing a letter to John Castaldo of the Barre Granite Association and telling him how much you support his efforts to get an American artist using American granite to create this American monument. Better yet, go to the Martin Luther King Memorial Foundation website and where it says “contact us,” and do so. Let them know your thoughts.

The point here is NOT that Lei Yixin is a bad artist. Nor is the point that Chinese granite lacks some essential qualities that can only be found in American—especially Barre—granite. I recall from 9th grade geology that igneous is basically igneous wherever it’s from.

No, the point here is symbolic, which is why it’s become such a cause celebre. Do we believe that Martin Luther King’s monument should be crafted by an artist best known for his representations of one of history’s most repressive dictators? Should five tons of stone be pulled from the ground, carved, and then shipped 10,000 miles because it’s cheaper? What about the carbon footprint of that little task?! What about the insult to all granite quarries and workers throughout the country, of which some of the most notable are literally in our own back yards?

Most important, did anyone think for a moment about what Martin Luther King might have thought of this decision? Or was it purely a “how inexpensively can we get a good looking monument made out of granite” kind of a business decision?

Last week, along with the Governor and many other notables, and as the final act of a two-year “Art in State Buildings” project, we re-dedicated the 133 State Street State Office Building—the big marble one on the west side of the State House Lawn that used to be the headquarters of the National Life Insurance Company. Several people remarked that “they don’t make buildings like this anymore.” There was a time, early in the last century, when we built buildings and erected monuments that mattered simply because of what they represented. National Life was the most important private employer in the State for decades, and their headquarters was built to show off that stature. No expense was spared in building it, and the detail of the ceiling friezes and other decorative touches are matched only by the overwhelmingly solid construction values that allowed the state to occupy the building for more than 40 years with virtually no maintenance. Our 20-year old program added significantly to the interior work spaces with significant works of art commissioned from Elizabeth Billings, Andrea Wasserman, Nick DeFrieze, Emily Mason, and Eric Aho.

Built more than 80 years ago, 133 State Street is a monument to American industry, a monument to the effort of state workers who deliver as best they can on the promise of good government, a monument to the Vermont work ethic, and the visual cornucopia that makes Montpelier a great place to visit. It was built by private industry to last. It will be maintained to serve the public for the foreseeable future.

In a hundred years, what will we say about the Martin Luther King Memorial? That we were too cheap to honor one of the towering Americans of the 20th century with a work created by another American using American materials? I for one, believe that spending a few extra hundred thousand dollars to ensure that its done right, would be a most worthwhile investment.

HEART AND SOUL

A few evenings ago I succeeded in traumatizing my children for the second time in less than a week. First we watched a PBS documentary about the latest theories on global warming. By the time my kids are my age, the seas will have risen 25 meters, their Grammy’s house, like the rest of Florida, will be under water, and the resulting dislocation of the hundreds of millions of souls who live less than 50 feet above sea level world-wide will have paralyzed the economic and social structures of our planet.

Then, several nights later, we watched another PBS documentary, this time on the global disappearance of honeybees. No one really knows why, but last year one-third the total population of nature’s “pollinating army” literally disappeared. This phenomenon, known as colony collapse disorder, is apparently the result of a combination of pesticides, starvation, and disease. What was traumatic was learning that, while most grains (corn, rice and wheat) are wind-pollinated, virtually all fruits and vegetables, including nuts are pollinated by honeybees. As the narrator put it, without bees we might all have to learn how to subsist on gruel.

For my kids, that last comment was the kicker. Having been cast this past summer in a local theater production of “Oliver,” subsisting on gruel was the scariest thing anyone could have said.

By way of comforting my kids, I tried to think of how best to put this information in perspective. I thought about buying the best ten acres of arable land and having fun learning with them how to defend it against all comers during what will surely be a brisk period of Armageddon. But none of us wants to leave Montpelier, and none of us likes guns. Then I thought of ignoring the problem and hoping I die before being held accountable. But where does that leave the kids? Then I thought as a family perhaps we should join some radical “earth first” movement. But that won’t work because life has taught me that radical attempts to “fix” large problems often create newer, more complex ones. Finally, I thought of a very neo-conservative solution and decided to join the American Family Association’s effort to remove all public funding from PBS since they’re the reason my kids are now so miserable. You heard me. Kill the messenger.

Okay, so none of the options was particularly attractive.

In between viewing documentaries one and two, I attended a three-day conference in Burlington sponsored by the Orton Family Foundation on community planning, and among many important sessions and conversations with caring, intelligent people, a desire was expressed to capture the essence of and motivation behind the Community Heart and Soul Planning movement. By the end of the conference a manifesto of sorts had been drafted and was circulated for signature among the 300 plus participants.

The first paragraph of the Declaration of Heart and Soul Community Planning reads as follows:

“We the undersigned believe that every community must explore and express what makes it special—its Heart & Soul elements—and with specificity describe those tangible and intangible elements that if lost would fundamentally change the character of their place (emphasis mine). Once articulated and acknowledged, community Heart & Soul serves as the “Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” for citizens as they make decisions about the future.”

The declaration goes on to lay out several guiding principles for what community Heart and Soul stands for, all of which speak to such things as core values, social capital, and a positive vision for the future.

Now it might sound suspiciously like I am advocating for the radical “earth first” fix. That may, in the end be true. But I prefer to call it what it is…embracing the Heart and Soul movement by taking a page out of the Honeybee Playbook.

Honeybees basically do one thing…and do it well. They collect pollen, return to the hive, drop off their pollen load, do a little dance to communicate where the best pickings are, and return for more pollen. They repeat this cycle many times a day, every day until they die. On the occasions that the hive is attacked (by a bear, say), they throw themselves into the fray with a vengeance until the marauder is driven away—sometimes at the cost of the hive, but usually at the cost of several large honeycombs and a few hundred bees.

The Heart and Soul movement gives us humans a way to model this bee-havior. It requires us (the worker bees) to determine, within our own communities (the hive), what we care about. We do our best to provide for our community (collect pollen); to protect it from its enemies (bears); and to make sure that all that is good (the honey) gets passed on to feed future generations who repeat this cycle. [It should be pointed out—with amusement I hope—that male bees do practically nothing except, when necessary, fertilize the queen. Any socio-political lesson to be learned from this, of course, I leave to the imagination of the reader!]

I certainly have no comforting answer for my children about the global problems facing us in the coming fifty or 100 years. But I can help them, teach them, and set an example for them about how to do what’s best for our own community from within.

I think, ultimately, that is what will be our salvation. Each of us, in our own way, will turn to what we each know to be important within our own communities whether “Community” is defined as a place, a region, or people bound by common practice. We must learn how to place a value on that which is important, nurture it, protect it from external attacks, and by doing so, allow it to survive into the future.

Bees don’t think about global politics. They don’t think about moral issues or economic interdependencies. They basically do one thing, and in doing it, set in motion a chain of events that, among other things, results in the food chain at the top of which we sit. We have to imitate their behavior and bind it to the tenets of Heart and Soul community planning with intention, determination, and integrity. We can do this. We must. One person, one community, one hive at a time.

WHEN REICH IS WRONG

In an October 1 Opinion piece published by the Los Angeles Times, former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich showed to the world just how quickly someone once at the center of American political life can lose touch with reality. He proposed cutting the tax deductibility of contributions to universities and arts institutions in half because…”let’s face it: These aren’t really charitable contributions. They’re often investments in the lifestyles the wealthy already enjoy and want their children to have too. They’re also investments in prestige—especially if they result in the family name being engraved on the new wing of an art museum or symphony hall.”

He particularly focuses on Harvard University’s $30 billion plus endowment and a Lincoln Center Gala supported by hedge-fund leaders who make up to $1 billion a year.

He goes on to propose the following “modest proposal. At a time when the number of needy continues to rise, when government doesn’t have the money to do what’s necessary for them and when America’s very rich are richer than ever, we should revise the tax code: Focus the charitable deduction on real charities” (ones that, according to Reich, actually serve the poor).

Wow. This thesis just cries for a reasoned response. But where do I start?

Maybe I should ask first what could possibly have caused the government to not have the money to do what’s necessary “for them” (the poor) or to have made America’s very rich “richer than ever.” But, nah, that would be too cheap a shot and WAY too political.

Maybe I should point out that three years ago Harvard completed the transition to need-blind and legacy-blind admissions and furthermore, because of its endowment, is now able to cover the entire tuition, room, and board cost of any student whose parents are unable to contribute towards those costs. How’s that for a response to Reich’s assumptions about Harvard serving only legacies of wealthy donors and not serving the needs of the poor? On second thought, that might lead him to accuse Harvard of being the exception that proves the rule--despite the fact that Harvard’s actions are not, at this point, all that exceptional.

But wait, there’s more to Harvard (and other “elite institutions of higher learning”) than money and legacies: what about the research it does that the government can’t do and the private sector won’t do without a sufficient profit-motive? Shall we “just say no” to all that?

So let’s take the argument to a local level. Should we (the public) stop supporting River Arts in Morrisville through a combination of public funds and tax-deductible contributions simply because the services it provides to everyone in its community are arts-based? How about the services of Vermont Arts Exchange, Rockingham Art and Museum Project, the Chaffee, the Chandler, NEK Arts, and countless others? Why stop there? How about pulling the plug on all public and tax-deductible support for community economic development that involves the arts: destroy the Creative Economy in Vermont right at its source?

I could run us all through a quick review of all the great programs and services currently at work in Vermont communities, including Head Start programs, health care, identified schools, corrections, recreation and scores of others, each of which is arts-based and each of which would blast Reich’s thesis to smithereens. But that would still avoid what I believe is the most important question that we should be asking of ourselves and each other:

What exactly do we want our generation’s legacy to be, as framed by the actions of our government and the uses to which charitable contributions from our wealthy citizens is put? Put another way, what do we want—as a citizenry—the direct and indirect impact of government funding to result in?

My personal opinion is that our government should be a reflection of how we want to be governed. It should manage our public safety. It should regulate industries that have a tendency to pollute our streams, our air, our airwaves, etc. It should provide for those who can’t provide for themselves. And (here’s the kicker) it should support those institutions who serve as beacons of hope, of innovation, of creativity, of knowledge and understanding—because it is they who inspire us and who lead us forward into the future. Their work is more often built on a dream or a vision, and not on a well-documented market need. Their inventions and services belong to all of us because their work tends to be in “the public good.” Thus, their work depends on direct (tax support) and indirect (tax deductible contributions) from our government.

In Robert Reich’s world-view, there appears to be no room for all the positive things for which the government can and should take some responsibility. Is he really that cynical? Or is he that out of touch with what is really happening. Mr. Reich…before you write another opinion piece, please come to Vermont. I’ll be happy to show you a lot of government-supported, arts-based activities that will surely change your world-view just a little.

STAND UP FOR FALL

A few years ago, Ellen McCulloch-Lovell, President of Marlboro College, told a group of arts presenters that it was likely going to be the artist community who first finds the courage to ask the difficult questions about the state of our world. As I recall, she was referring to the conflicts in the Middle East and Southern Asia. But drilling for oil in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge—an environmental issue if there ever was one—was also big back then as was the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education act and the National Endowment for the Arts’ (NEA) budget.

I have no problem sharing my negative opinions about NCLB and my positive opinions about the NEA because those things directly impact the arts. But until now, I have felt it inappropriate to share my opinions about global economic and political issues. What has changed?

Vermont’s foliage, that’s what.

For years my wife and I have looked forward to September; kids back at school, crisp mornings, warm afternoons, great hiking, and of course, the foliage. Almost nothing beats September in Vermont—except possibly October. For the last couple of years however, we have noticed that the colors haven’t been as vibrant as they once were.

At first, I thought it was yet another symptom of middle age—the rods (or is it the cones?) on my retina must not be as responsive as they once were, surely. Perhaps my own increasingly faulty memory has imbued past fall seasons with far more resplendent chromatic displays than they deserved.

This year, however, I finally have to come clean. I am a musician by training, but as the Executive Director of the Vermont Arts Council I am viewed by many as a spokesperson for all the arts. But the artist in me has to admit, at long last, that the colors are bad; dull, brown, and crispy.

What is going on?

Last week the Times Argus wrote an article on a leaf fungus called Anthracnose, a blight that evidently has been around for ages. This year is supposedly “good” in that Anthracnose levels are far lower this year than in recent years. Okay. I’ll accept that on its face, but if Anthracnose is the culprit, why are the leaves worse this year than ever? Could it be something else? Acid rain? Warm temperatures? All of the above?

The obvious threats to our environment and our collective reluctance to call crispy-fried foliage by its true name—a nightmare—has at last awakened the sleeping beast in me. Now it is my turn to enter into this fray because if I don’t, I will not be able to stare at myself in the mirror every colorless morning for the remainder of this pathetic fall season.

I am not a scientist. I am not even a native Vermonter. But I am somewhat observant, and I listen to my friends who are sugarmakers. I hear their stories of dying sugar maple trees. I see the evidence myself—there is one on my block that can’t be more than 30 years old (shouldn’t they live to be 150?). I’m really not trying to make a political statement here, after all dying maple trees and dusky brown leaves have been creeping up on us for at least a generation and impact all of us, regardless of whether we vote red or blue (or orange or yellow).

Are we going to have to wait until the oceans are lapping at the steps of the Metropolitan Museum or drowning the Old North Church before the masses wake up and do something? It doesn’t matter whether it was Shakespeare or some other playwright who made the phrase “sound the alarums” famous. We just have to get busy and start sounding them…

The environmental decay, of which this fall’s foliage is but a symptom, affects us all—regardless of your position on global warming. Al Gore and Bill McKibben are not the issue. Your own senses are. Trust them.

It doesn’t take a lot of courage to stand up for fall. If you’re like me, you’ll do it because you miss the colors.