{"id":5002,"date":"2017-08-23T02:00:59","date_gmt":"2017-08-23T06:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/?p=5002"},"modified":"2017-08-21T21:19:55","modified_gmt":"2017-08-22T01:19:55","slug":"storm-brewing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2017\/08\/storm-brewing\/","title":{"rendered":"Storm Brewing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-5004 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/StormBrewing-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/>I&#8217;ve written before about the impact funding inequity is having on political discourse about government support of the arts. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2014\/09\/the-visible-hand\/\">The Visible Hand<\/a> was a response to Barry Hessenius&#8217; observations about funding controversies in San Francisco three years ago:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.westaf.org\/2014\/06\/a-potential-deep-divide-in-arts-sector.html\">A Potential Deep Divide in the Arts Sector<\/a>. A colleague recently sent me the link to <a href=\"http:\/\/hillombo.net\/pennsylvania-hr-400-systemic-racism-in-public-arts-funding\/\">an article about a bill that has been introduced in the Pennsylvania legislature to examine &#8220;systemic racism in public arts funding.&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0If passed it would consider the state&#8217;s arts funding formula that &#8220;[privileges] white, large budget, older arts organizations.&#8221; <strong>The fact that in many places more than the lion&#8217;s share of public arts funding goes to organizations focused on the cultural tradition of upper class European whites is a center that will not hold.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I have long advocated for community engagement because it is good for the arts, good for organizations, and the right thing to do. Now, the argument of self-preservation, while clearly not the noblest of motivations, is unveiling itself as an increasingly urgent existential concern.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The demographic trends in this country are not going to reverse themselves. The percentage of the population for whom European aristocratic culture is familiar will only continue to decrease. Rightly, communities will want their own cultures supported by public policy and will be disinclined to see their tax dollars spent disproportionately supporting what is to them a foreign culture. Large urban areas with diverse populations and not insignificant public arts funding have been and will be the areas first affected by these concerns. But the storm is brewing and will spread across the country.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Community engagement, when properly understood and implemented, is about building relationships, mutually beneficial relationships. As such it is an invaluable tool for addressing the need to become valuable to many more segments of the population. However, relationship building cannot happen without trust and the profound inequities in arts funding are a nearly insurmountable obstacle to building trust. This is an issue we cannot ignore.<\/p>\n<p>Engage!<\/p>\n<p>Doug<\/p>\n<p>Photo:\u00a0<span class=\"ccIcn ccIcnSmall\"><a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/2.0\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Attribution\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/pw\/images\/cc_icon_attribution_small.gif\" alt=\"Attribution\" border=\"0\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Noncommercial\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/pw\/images\/cc_icon_noncomm_small.gif\" alt=\"Noncommercial\" border=\"0\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"No Derivative Works\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/pw\/images\/cc_icon_noderivs_small.gif\" alt=\"No Derivative Works\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/span>\u00a0<a title=\"Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/2.0\/\">Some rights reserved<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adc\/\">alexdecarvalho<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another shot in the public policy wars about funding inequity in the arts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Storm Brewing: Another shot in the public policy wars about funding inequity in the arts","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,13,47,16],"class_list":{"0":"post-5002","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-principles","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-community-engagement","10":"tag-equity","11":"tag-public-policy","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/StormBrewing-e1499886644429.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1G6h9-1iG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":899,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2011\/12\/the-pot-is-simmering\/","url_meta":{"origin":5002,"position":0},"title":"The Pot Is Simmering","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"December 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Everywhere I turn in my Google Reader, someone is talking about core issues in the arts. (Yes, I know I said I was only going to do one post per week over the Holidays, but come on, how could I resist this?) Certainly the Occupy movement is an explanation, as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Overview&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Overview","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/overview\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/BoilingWater.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4415,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2016\/02\/funding-is-not-an-issue\/","url_meta":{"origin":5002,"position":1},"title":"Funding Is Not an &#8220;Issue&#8221;","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"February 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Insufficiency of funds will never go away. It's a state of being in the nonprofit sector. Overfocus on it can get in the way of addressing potential causes of the insufficiency.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Overview&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Overview","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/overview\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Gold","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Gold-e1427122302387.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3559,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2014\/05\/plan-b\/","url_meta":{"origin":5002,"position":2},"title":"Plan B","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"May 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Plan B-From England, Making arts funding cuts \"politically dangerous or, even better, unthinkable.\"","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Principles&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Principles","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/principles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/PlanB-e1397574267805.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/PlanB-e1397574267805.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/PlanB-e1397574267805.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":281,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2011\/09\/public-value-public-funds\/","url_meta":{"origin":5002,"position":3},"title":"Public Value, Public Funds","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"September 17, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Fear and trembling I have. Yes. Talk of public funding for the arts. Happy no one will be. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Some time ago, Kelly Kleiman wrote a blog post for the Stanford Social Innovation Review that I only recently discovered: Second (and Third) Thoughts about Public Funding\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Principles&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Principles","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/principles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/BlueStar.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5396,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2018\/09\/targets-and-timeframes\/","url_meta":{"origin":5002,"position":4},"title":"Targets and Timeframes","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"September 26, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"To be sustainable, community engagement must benefit the arts organization in tangible ways. To be supported institutionally, the path to ticket sales, funding, and public policy must be articulated and tracked.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;The Practice of Engagement&quot;","block_context":{"text":"The Practice of Engagement","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/the-practice-of-engagement\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/TargetWithArrows-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3736,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2014\/09\/the-visible-hand\/","url_meta":{"origin":5002,"position":5},"title":"The Visible Hand","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"September 10, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Unlike the gradual shifts from economic and social changes, the transformation in public policy resulting from demographic shifts in the voting populace will soon become an avalanche.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Overview&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Overview","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/overview\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Hand","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Hand.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5002"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5008,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5002\/revisions\/5008"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}