Talking Structural Overhaul at Every Turn

Last week we had the California Arts Advocates lobbyist in San Diego to present a briefing on the current political realities in Sacramento. The message I took away was simple: change is coming because every aspect of state government is broken. This is echoed in our California headlines about the need for prison reform, education reform, water infrastructure investment, and budget reform. Even the infamous Prop. 13 of thirty years ago is up for reexamination because of the state's chronic budget crisis in good times and bad.

The recognition that reform is needed at the national level has also dominated the headlines for the past year. Whether we're talking health care, finance and banking, or green house gases, the basic subject is the same: how to organize policy and regulation to ensure sustainability. The degree to which reform happens now or is swallowed by politics remains to be seen.

I'm not hearing many of the same conversation amongst arts and culture colleagues. We are all proceeding with the assumption that whatever super structure overhauls come out of DC and our own state capitals we won't need to radically rethink our own business model or change how art is experienced. My impression is most people devoted to the arts think we will just adapt. Even more worrisome, we are treating the macro-trend of declining arts participation as a marketing and programming problem. We aren't thinking of it as a structural probelm.

The arts will be much better off if we lead government agencies and foundations to a new reality instead of waiting for them to push, pull, or overwhelm us with their own agendas. We are undergoing a national redesign and the arts have an important role to play in it. 

Some efforts are underway. This New Cultural Policy proposal for improving our nation through the arts launched last week. It is full of broad ideas. I assume the specificity is still in development or for individual artists and arts organizers to create. And I'm not sure how the authors are communicating these ideas to elected officials or building partnerships. I see it as the beginning of a conversation.