A little bit about the GCA

I think the recent drăma surrounding GA state legislature's attempt to completely cut the budget of the Georgia Council for the Arts last week became a great barometer for the cultural crisis our city is facing...I'm not going to "cover" that story here. For great coverage of the issue and links to other great articles from AJC and Creative Loafing, check out Lara Moore's post on the Burnaway blog.

What's interesting to me is the depth and lack of depth to the conversations surrounding art funding that I participated in or avoided over this last week. Fortunately my favorite conversation happened on Facebook, so I can share it on this blog, and maybe keep this one going. The big issue is where is the quality work that functions as a worthy community service and justifies public funding.

After the jump I tell it like it is. 

The financial argument makes sense: cutting the arts loses money and jobs for the people who support their families with the arts...but how do we argue against the popular idea that art is a luxury activity or a waste of time/energy in a world where money is an endangered resource?

Here's a great quote Kristi Swarts of the AJC included in her article:

“This is shockingly irresponsible government. Somebody needs to tell Washington that we’re in a serious recession,” said Kelly McCutchen, executive vice president of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation. “The average Georgia family is worried about paying rent and utility bills and not going to the opera on a Saturday night.”

Personally, I think/know the current system is in desperate need for reform, and might muse in further posts about what that system might look like (feel free, please to comment) but the best thing to grow out of this whole GCA fiasco is a great wake-up-call to artists in Georgia to step up their game and prove their worth to the community.

In the current environment where the news is covering the "Tea Party Movement" and the narrative of popular news seems to be that all Americans hate government, it is interesting to see people demonstrating in the streets as they did on the 19th for STRENGTHENING public programs...There is a popular and very old tradition in this country of seeing public programs as third-rate and only a resource for the lowest echelon of society (artists, the homeless, college students, pregnant teenagers, colored people) while seeing free-market competition as the most efficient way to create quality goods and services. I disagree that the market creates the best programs. Private companies are obligated to increase the value of their stock, and in turning a profit, the needs of the consumer take a second-hand to the profit incentive. With public programs, the consumer is the investor, and I believe there is a responsibility for the public to truely invest in public services.

Too much of the current system--public and private--is out of date. Beurocracy and out-dated systemic segregation makes our ability to provide public programs and "good government" inefficient. There is a cycle of poverty going on within our publicly funded endeavors, and it is becoming harder and harder to justify the value of any government service. But I ask what would happen to the CDC if it was run as a private entity, that is--with a profit incentive...

I hope the relevance of this tangent is clear. How are artists to adapt to the 21st century economy, and is making money a good indicator of quality/success for an artist? These are heavy questions, and I'm afraid I don't have the patience to type a thourough discourse at this time, and I'm sure you don't have the attention-span to read it, so I will open this conversation up and hopefully re-visit the issue in future posts.

Some important questions that have come up: Do the arts deserve public funding? How do the arts serve the community? How do we measure the success of an artist's work?