The Importance of the Arts and Government Funding

Yesterday, Howard Sherman, the director of the American Theatre Wing, posted a blog entitled This is not a Political Blog. In it, he opens a discussion about why governments find it so easy to cut arts funding programs — like the National Endowment for the Arts in the U.S., or the various arts programs that have been cut (or threatened with cuts) in Canada (see the situation in B.C., for example).

The heart of the discussion begins with this statement:

“The reason the NEA (and the NEH and NPR and PBS) make for such easy targets is that their audiences and their artists fail to make a case for their intrinsic value.”

He has an excellent point. Those of us involved in the arts — those for whom the arts matter deeply — can talk about their importance all we like, but for the most part, we’re just preaching to the choir. How do we make this something that people outside the arts believe in?

In the blog post, Sherman talks about how, from time to time, there have been discussions about creating a “Got Milk?”-style ad campaign for the arts. After all, pork, cotton, and milk still need to remind people of their importance — so why not the arts?

But is an advertising campaign really the way to go? I’m not so sure. How would it be paid for? If even a few cents of public money were used, you know it would be immediately jumped on by the folks at The Sun and likely decried by conservative leaders (see Stephen Harper’s “average Canadians” comment from a few years ago). So what’s the solution?

The part of Sherman’s post that really got me thinking was this:

“A big part of the problem is that those of us who are profoundly dedicated to the arts hold them as a sacred belief; we are called to them as surely as religious leaders are called to the cloth. Yet to pursue the comparison, religious leaders spend one day every week making the case for the relevancy and value of their religion (these are called sermons), while we spend our time selling tickets to individual productions or exhibits.”

He’s absolutely right. We don’t spend a lot of time making the case for the value or relevancy of our craft. Instead, we spend most of our time shilling for people to buy tickets to individual shows.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t be trying to sell our work — of course we should. But why aren’t we also spending time encouraging people to go to other people’s shows? And not just within our own disciplines. Theatre folks should be promoting dance, visual art, music — everything. How else can we raise awareness of all the incredible work happening around us?

People who are passionate about the arts get that they’re important. But people who don’t care — who never attend shows or galleries — often see the arts as something elitist, something for the rich. Not for them. And in a way, we help feed that belief by only promoting our own work. If we’re not championing the arts in general, how can we expect someone who sees public arts funding as wasteful to view us as anything other than (as our Prime Minister put it) whiners complaining about our cushy, subsidized lifestyles?

I think we all need to do more to talk up other shows, other artists, other disciplines. We all need to work harder to raise general awareness of the arts, and bridge the gap between those who care about the arts and those who don’t yet care.

To that end: if you have something you want me to promote — let me know. I’ll promote the heck out of it, whether it’s theatre, dance, a gallery show — whatever. All I ask is that you do the same. Promote a show that’s not yours. Promote something outside your discipline. Boost the arts as a whole, not just the thing you’re directly involved with.

How else can we “make the case for the relevancy and value of our art”?