Don’t let life intimidate art

Bureaucrats who face shrinking revenue and rising costs have been quick to hack away at arts funding, labeling them expendable luxuries in tight times such as these.

Gov. Bobby Jindal, for example, has threatened to cut 83% from one statewide program that supports small-scale arts programs, and another 31% from a fund for symphonies, operas, ballets and other classical arts programs.

Arts groups have thrived here by complementing tax-funded grants with support from arts patrons and corporate donors. But shrinking profits now challenge that private sector largesse—not to mention the fraud by Stanford Group, until now a major supporter of Baton Rouge arts.

Everyone from the governor to the Legislature to small business owners to the mayor should reconsider the wisdom of whacking arts funding. The price of such narrow-minded thinking is not worth the savings.

But at the same time, the arts community must become more accountable for its future. Symphonies, art galleries and arts organizations now must reinvent themselves to become more independent and, thus, competitive as their economic reality evolves.

Arts and cultural events typically aren’t robust competitors in the modern market of entertainment, where hit movies, pop concerts and video games thrive by enticing the masses to spend their disposable incomes. Symphonies, operas, ballets, museums and art galleries have to get better at cultivating and growing their audiences or face elimination.

The governor and Legislature may find easy-pickings in lopping out big chunks of already woefully under-funded arts—especially as they weigh even larger cuts in such politically sensitive areas as higher education and health care. Those institutions enjoy entrenched lobbying power and they’ll fight for every penny. The arts, meanwhile, lack legislative muscle, and so are vulnerable to things like Jindal’s threatened 83% funding cut, which would save the state about $3 million, a mere drop in the bucket of its $1.3 billion drop in revenue.

We challenge the governor and Legislature not to ignore arts funding. Yes, budget cuts are necessary—even prudent—but they should be properly weighed, and spread across the spectrum of state programs, and not loaded up onto vulnerable programs because they lack lobbying sway.

Similarly, businesses that have nobly committed to supporting the arts in good times must not stop cold turkey. Just think of a Baton Rouge devoid of a thriving arts community, where efforts to recruit top-flight applicants with solid balance sheets will prove futile if they view our community as a cultural wasteland.

Mayor Kip Holden likes to call us America’s next great city, and he’s been reassuring residents our economy remains strong. Then we challenge you, mayor, to commit to strengthening your financial support of the arts, and to fight for every penny of state and federal support we deserve.

Industry may loom large as Baton Rouge’s lifeblood, but our heart and soul lay in local art; the blues, jazz and Cajun music; within the symphony, the opera, the theater; in art galleries; in arts education programs for children; and in public cultural events. These things bring our community together across racial and socio-economic lines more effectively than our schools, our churches or other institutions.

And though the rewards the arts grant us may not appear on state budget spread sheets or corporate quarterly earnings, the quality the arts bring to our lives is vital if we are to prosper as a community.