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.

WHO DECIDES WHAT

Since the beginning of our fiscal year (July 1) the Arts Council has awarded 52 competitive grants to artists, arts organizations, schools and community groups. These awards were made at the recommendation of several panels who were gathered by staff from around the state to sit and review applications and make their recommendations to the Council’s Board of Trustees. Fifty-two applicants have thus far received good news. They are, for the most part, happy. But what about the 59 applicants who were not recommended for funding? How are they feeling?

Disappointed, to say the least, and in some cases angry. But the most prevalent reaction is frustration. Most people contact us when they don’t get a grant to find out why. (It’s interesting to note how many successful applicants do the same!). Inevitably they ask how many were funded out of how many applications. The answer is almost always a smaller percentage than seems possible.

What happens in the Arts Council panel meetings? Who actually chooses which applicants get funded, and which do not? These are just two of many questions about the Council’s grant process that we field every year. Some are based on assumptions people have about art, about the Council, and about people who appear to have a special “in.” Others are based on the disappointment of not getting funded at all, or getting only partial funding.

So let’s deal with some of these questions and assumptions.

Assumption: “If you know someone at the Arts Council, you’re far more likely to get a grant.”

Fact: The most influential people in the competitive grant decision process are the “peer-panelists.” These are people who are gathered for the various panels based on their availability, their expertise, the fact that they have no conflicts of interest with people applying, and their general knowledge of the arts and of Vermont. We also pay attention—all else being equal—to geographic and gender diversity whenever possible.

The role of a panelist is to familiarize themselves with the applications, understand the review criteria, and apply Council policies (such as no conflicts of interest) where appropriate in making their recommendations. Council staff’s role is to keep the panel on task and on time, to take notes of the discussion for applicant feedback, and to make sure trustees receive panel recommendations in a timely fashion. The trustees’ role is to ask questions if anything seems out of the ordinary and to direct staff in those rare instances where a panel recommendation is not taken. In my 10 years at the Arts Council, trustees have overturned only one panel recommendation and that was because the organization in question went out of business between the time the application was reviewed and the trustees met.

So, to be clear, the Arts Council staff doesn’t make grant decisions; panelists and trustees do. Having said that, however, I admit that there is one way that knowing our staff will help your application quite a lot.

Someone who has called the Council's program staff (Michele, Sonia, or Stacy or even, God help them, me!) for advice on what program to apply for, or how much to request, or what kind of support materials to include will no doubt fare better in the review process than someone who hasn’t. Does this mean that our word is gospel? No. It means that we see a lot of panel discussions and we have a sense of what tends to be important to a panel and what tends to be not so important. Someone who asks questions is more likely to fare better than someone who doesn’t or who, worse, makes an assumption and acts accordingly. In every case, whether you don’t get funding or not, we encourage you to ask for the panel’s feedback. It’s a key part of becoming a better grant writer

Assumption: “The same people get funded every year so there’s no point in applying.”

Fact: While it is true that some arts organizations' and cultural organizations' grants tend to crop up again and again, this is not so much a reflection of the review process as it is a reflection of the consistently high caliber of these particular applicants—arts institutions whose names come readily to everyone’s lips. I’d even go a step further—it is because of their consistently high standards that they have become institutions worthy of our funding.

As for educational grants, while there are many great artists who would like to teach, there are still relatively few artists who have achieved a level of mastery in their art form AND an understanding of the issues that all Vermont public school educators deal with in the “Vermont Framework of Standards…” and “No Child Left Behind.” But if a school can demonstrate how an artist fits perfectly into their curriculum, then—yes, you probably have a better chance of receiving funding than another school that doesn't have that level of preparation.

But getting back to the accusation that underlies the assumption: that there exists a cabal of arts-funding decision makers who have their favorite group of “go-to” grantees. The truth is that even those institutions that seemingly get a grant every year don’t! Instead, even they fall victim to the biggest problem the Arts Council faces: a lack of funding.

Reality: Lack of funding is by far the most significant reason why more grants aren't funded or funded in full.

The legislative appropriation the Arts Council receives for our grant budget has stagnated for 10 years while the rest of state government has grown 30%.

How can you help change this? Become an advocate! Contact your legislators and let them know you care about the health of the arts in Vermont. Invite them to be your guest at a concert or a play in your community that has received Council funding. Or, perhaps more notably, take them to an event or visit an organization that would have benefied from receiving grant funding.

The Council will thank you and, more importantly, so will all those folks that didn’t get funding they hoped for.

SUPPORT THE NEA

In Vermont, we have a very strong and independent-minded Congressional delegation whose legacy includes being among the staunchest supporters of our tiny Federal Arts Agency. During the darkest days of the early 1990s the Vermont delegation was among the small minority that stood up to the powers trying to eliminate the NEA.

This was not true of the delegations from many other states. Although the NEA’s detractors are diminishing in numbers, there are still quite a few who, despite all our best efforts to educate and inform them, still have residual feelings of ill-will towards the agency, feelings that are even more misplaced now than they were during the worst of the culture wars from 1988 to 1996.

In the decade since it was “punished” by Congress and its appropriation cut 40%, the NEA, like the field it serves, has transformed itself. It no longer simply responds to requests for support from artists and arts organizations, most of which thrive in our major population centers. It actually reaches out and cultivates the arts in all corners of our country. In the last couple of years it has finally made good on its promise to award at least one grant to a constituent in every one of the 435 Congressional districts throughout the country—including the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Marianas, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa.

More importantly it has built on the “grassroots” legacy of former NEA Chair Bill Ivey and greatly improved its “brand identity” under the leadership of its current Chair, Dana Gioia. As a former brand manager for General Foods (word has it that he was responsible for introducing Bill Cosby to Jell-o Pudding Pops), Gioia has taken the NEA to a new level of participatory art-making and engagement. Projects like Poetry Out Loud, American Masterpieces, and The Big Read have made the arts more accessible to a much broader segment of the American populace than they ever were before. Sure there is probably not as much money going to symphonies, or opera houses as there was in 1992. But then, how could there be? The NEA’s budget is $50 million less now than it was then ($130 million if you factor in inflation)!

But the tide is turning back in the Arts’ favor. The House of Representatives wants to increase the NEA’s budget by $33 million—not because “punishment time” is over, but because the NEA and its network of regional and state partners (which includes the Vermont Arts Council) are, through the arts, making a positive difference in the lives of people throughout the country.

I have a request for everyone reading this column, and especially to those who are from out-of-state.

We need the Senate to follow suit and support the House’s recommendation. Right now the Senate has recommended a $10 million increase. That’s not a bad amount in the context of previous small increases, but it’s nowhere near $33 million. If the House version gets passed it means an increase to state arts agencies of at least $200,000. If the Senate version passes, it’ll mean an increase of about $70,000. I say the House version looks better.

In Vermont, we’re pretty confident that our two Senators understand the importance of supporting the arts in our communities and our lives. But what about the rest of the country?

If you are reading this in Vermont, please do two things. First, contact Senators Leahy and Sanders and politely remind them that you are counting on their support for the House version of the NEA appropriation, but more importantly to thank them for their leadership and support for the NEA over the years. Also, thank Congressman Welch for actually voting for the $33 million increase! Second, please contact everyone you know in other states asking them if they would consider writing a personal email to their Senators to support the House version of the NEA appropriation.

If you are not a Vermont resident and you are reading this, or it has been forwarded to you by a friend who is a Vermonter, please take a moment to contact your Senators and help them to understand just how important the arts are to your life and to your community. It doesn’t matter whether you are in northern Maine or southern California. The arts reach everyone, everywhere, all the time.

Over the years, I have witnessed many conversations on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. One bears repeating. A Congressman (not from Vermont) said, “I walked back to my office and checked to see how the letters were running on this issue. There were a grand total of three: two in favor, one against. I returned to the Chamber and voted in favor stating for the record that my mail was running two-to-one in favor of the bill!”

Your email WILL make a difference, especially if it’s from you and unencumbered by a lot of excess verbiage that our wonderful lobbyists in D.C. like to make sure get included in such messages. All you have to do is say "Please support the House version of the NEA appropriation, because . . ." and then tell your Senators a story about why the arts matter to you or to your community. The more personal the better.

Some need a lot of education, some simply need reminding. Either way, they deserve our personal thanks and best wishes, and our communities deserve more art.

On Art

In the space of a few short months the world, and especially Vermont, lost several of its brightest lights: John Engels, poet and teacher passed away in June; Lillian Farber, photographer, philanthropist, and activist and Louis Moyse, flutist, teacher, and co-founder of Music at Marlboro in late July, and then Rusty Jacobs of Woods Tea Company just this past week.

When even one luminary dies, the initial surprise and dismay is followed by several moments of contemplative silence during which you think about your own life and wonder what more you could do to make it have even a fraction of the meaning or impact of the life of person who just passed. Losing four is a shock to the system.

It is not for me to improve upon the impressive and beautifully written testimonials, editorials, and obituaries that have been written about these four artists by family-members, friends, former students, professional colleagues, and newspaper editors. Their passing, however, has inspired me to share a brief reflection on the role of art and art-making in general.

* * * * *

Since the mid-20th century our society has become increasingly disconnected from its cultural roots and has even dissociated itself from others who are culturally, ethnically, or religiously “different.” Television, personal computing, Game Boys and Blackberries, if not the root cause of this situation, have certainly exacerbated it—immunizing us to sometimes terrible images and sound bites because we no longer have time for the leavening influence of family or community to provide a vital context for those images and sound bites. Paradoxically, our increased connection to the world has left us more isolated within it.

The decline in quality of our public schools, the increased drop-out rate among adolescents, the increased sensationalism in our mass media, the perceived loss standards in our popular art forms, the disturbing upward trend of men under the age of 21 whose lives are now controlled by our corrections system are all related symptoms of a general lack of commitment to our community and to each other.

For me, the most powerful antidote to all of these problems is the arts. There is a transformation that occurs in a person when a work of art, a piece of music, a play, a dance, or a poem speaks to him/her for the first time from a place that our language centers are unable to process. Art is a language; a form of communication that uses different “alphabets” (sound, movement, color) to communicate common and uncommon aspects of our humanity to each other, regardless of our backgrounds.

The arts MUST be in all schools, preferably integrated into core curriculum so there is little opportunity for people to establish a belief that art is “for others.” When the arts are cut from a school budget, student engagement will decrease and truancy and delinquency will increase. The three “Rs—(and their offspring “STEM” (science, technology, engineering, and math)—ignore the arts. So I insist that the way to engage kids in schools is by focusing on the three “As”—Academics, Athletics, and the Arts. Every district, every school, every student should have its own plan for how it will pursue excellence in these three areas. Kids will naturally find their own areas of comfort, expertise and belonging. For some, the arts will only be an academic pursuit; for others the arts will be as physically demanding as a varsity sport. And for still others, the arts will be an end unto itself that at the very least keeps them engaged in school.

The arts MUST be central to our community life. As mass media, pop culture, Game Boys, and worse (drug abuse, divorce) challenge our community fabric to the point where locked gates and barred windows become a necessity, the arts can provide a nucleus around which shared values and concerns may be explored. The whole “creative economy” movement is, I believe, a recognition of the role of the arts in this revitalization process. Artists must be at every planning/zoning table, every chamber of commerce meeting, every public affairs policy debate, and every school funding discussion. The creative mind promotes aesthetics and good design in our public spaces. It also develops solutions to issues that sometimes perplex those of us who tend to only value rationality and measurable returns.

Finally, the arts MUST be a part of the image we project as a nation to the rest of the world. Cultural diplomacy is probably the single most effective tool we have to understand other cultures and reverse societal trends towards isolationism. The arts offer meaningful paths to building relations with people of different faiths and citizens of different races.

The arts are not just for the privileged few, the “elite.” They belong to us all because they come from us all.

IT IS ABOUT DECORATION

On July 18th the State House hosted a gathering on Vermont’s Creative Economy, attended by 200 people from all walks of life. As part of the day’s activities, the Speaker of the House, Gaye Symington, spoke and during her speech offered these words: ”the Creative Economy is not just about decoration.”

With all due respect, Madam Speaker, I disagree.

I’m sure most people have heard the story of Prime Minister Churchill’s famous response, at the height of the blitz, to a ranking member of Britain’s war department who proposed closing the theaters and all other “non-essential” businesses in London. “Good God, man, what are we fighting FOR, then?!”

I take Speaker Symington’s remark about decoration as a metaphor for the arts and culture in general since yes, literally, she’s right—the Creative Economy is not just about “decoration.” The most compelling aspect of the Creative Economy is that it offers clear targets to policy makers who are trying to figure out how to best make strategic investments in areas that benefit the public. The Creative Economy forces the public at large to discuss with each other how they want their communities to function. Part of that functionality has to do with housing, streetscapes, and job-creation; part of it has to do with schools and how well they prepare our children; and part of it has to do with recreation and art and culture and the opportunities to build “social capital” in a place.

I maintain that one of the clearest indicators that a place is primed for investment, for job creation, and for raising a family, is the degree to which its cultural life is supported locally. In order for a cultural life to thrive, there must be opportunity, recreational outlets, good schools preparing kids for jobs and for life, and other attributes that attract entrepreneurs and young marrieds and provide them with the wherewithal to call that place “headquarters” or “home.”

Where most or all of these conditions exist, there you are most likely to find a thriving cultural life, (this is key) and vice versa! It has become accepted fact that in so many cases, art and culture has led the way to the revitalization of the community. Artists discover a community, and move into its marginal structures especially if they are large and cheap. After a while, collectors and “groupies” show up, followed soon after by restaurants, galleries, and other community service providers (like laundromats and hardware stores). Following these come more infrastructure and “business development” investment, including better schools. Soon you have a thriving, integrated community.

From Soho to North Adams; Santa Fe to Burlington, Savannah to Brandon, we in the cultural community have seen this pattern over and over again. To us, metaphorically speaking, it IS about the decoration.

But that is only part of why I disagree with Speaker Symington. The other part is a little more mundane. The arts and cultural community need new funds for investing, for marketing and promoting its products and services, for developing its future leaders and sustaining its core institutions. As a sector within the Creative Economy, Art and Culture is far more sophisticated than it has ever been. We are creative collaborators. We are problem-solvers. We are trained to look at the unknown and revel in its possiblities. For us, a blank canvas, a blank score sheet, an empty, dark stage is an opportunity to try something new—to explore new cultures, new ways of communicating. And where the engineer is creative in that if you have a problem he/she will find a way to solve it, an artist is creative in that he/she will look at the engineer’s solution and say, “Cool—what else will it do?”

That approach is what sustains our popular culture today. Robert Moog took the contraption that created electronic tones and made the first functional synthesizer. But it was Walter (now Wendy) Carlos who created Switched On Bach and spawned a mega-industry that remains the United States’ number one export—popular culture.

But we have one problem…our history of marginalizing our artists and our culture because their outputs are considered “a luxury” by policy makers. Why is this? Is it because we have allowed the debate about the value of the arts to be centered on “how expensive it is” instead of “how many benefits are reaped as a result of investing in it?”

Value-added and niche-product Agriculture has a champion in Vermont in the multi-million dollar Agency of Agriculture. The money is there to be invested in ways that support “creative economy approaches to agriculture.” All it takes is a little political will.

But not so for the arts and cultural sector. We are historically under-resourced, and forced to compete among ourselves for an ever-dwindling supply of corporate and individual contributors. I for one am tired of this approach. We have solutions that can help our prisons, our state hospital, our schools, our communities, and our souls. If nothing else, the Creative Economy HAS to be about Art and Culture.

It’s like the social worker in South Bronx said 10 years ago: “We have all the money we need to fix the drug and homeless problem. What we are lacking are the aesthetic things that make life worth living—that make a community care enough about itself to make a difference. How about a garden with beautiful flowers? How about some art?”

For him, it is all about the decoration. For us too.

Welcoming the Creative Economy

A little more than 9 years ago I had the pleasure of representing Vermont at a small conference at the Tanglewood Center for the Performing Arts in Lenox, Massachusetts. The keynote speaker was John Williams (perhaps the most respected and successful composer/arranger/conductors of all time, especially for films) and in the course of his talk he introduced the phrase “creative economy” to me and the 50 or so other attendees from all over New England. Mr. Williams was surprised that at a reception earlier he had overheard a member of the economic development “establishment” in the Massachusetts State House wonder why, despite all indicators elsewhere in the state that showed the Massachusetts economy tanking, Berkshire County seemed immune. “Wasn’t it obvious?” asked Williams. “It’s because the Arts Organizations in Berkshire County have formed the backbone of what I refer to as its Creative Economy.”

Fast forward nine years—past two regional studies conducted by The New England Council (a regional Chamber of Commerce), numerous regional gatherings from Maine to Connecticut, and, in Vermont, thousands of hours of community-based planning meetings held in more than a dozen towns and villages in Vermont alone, not to mention additional work done locally throughout Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts—and the phrase has finally become a movement.

We can thank Paul Costello and the Vermont Council on Rural Development for that. For all the time I and the Vermont Arts Council have invested in promoting the Creative Economy, we couldn’t have done half as good a job as putting it in front of policy makers in Vermont as Paul and the VCRD have done.

On July 18th they will showcase what the Creative Economy really is in a conference entitled “Advancing Vermont’s Creative Economy”. The daylong “summit” at the Vermont State House will celebrate models of community success and explore how Vermont can best understand and adopt policies and programs that not only improve the state’s economic situation, but do so in a way that enhances and protects the quality of life Vermonters have come to value almost above all else.

The Creative Economy is not a Thing—it’s more like a state of mind. It is the set of conditions that must exist in a place in order for there to be a thriving sense of community with all that word implies—a good school system, good jobs, accessible cultural and recreational amenities, people who care about their neighbors, and about the condition of the world at large, and so on. And it is the result of what happens in a community when all of those amenities (schools, cultural institutions, etc.) are allowed to flourish: entrepreneurs, young marrieds, wealthy retirees, social engineers, are ATTRACTED to such places. They create jobs and families, build social networks, care for each other and foster a sense of shared values that gets passed on to future generations.

Last week I got an email from the head of our National State Arts Agency Association. He wrote, “The not-for-profit arts world is engaged in entrepreneurial adapting and hybridizing … to address the always increasing relative expense of labor-intensive endeavors in a technological society, to diversify revenues, and to aggregate capital in ways that enable it to compete with for-profit leisure time providers.”

(I actually spent some time deciphering this DC-speak) He’s saying what we in Vermont already know—or will certainly find out on July 18th. We have to adapt to survive. We have to identify and welcome new partners. We have to identify and adopt new practices and procedures. We have to encourage our institutions to develop what social scientists refer to as “a culture of change.” We have to welcome new ideas and not be afraid of them.

We have to welcome the Creative Economy.