{"id":4611,"date":"2025-11-12T10:52:51","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T18:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/?p=4611"},"modified":"2025-11-12T10:52:53","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T18:52:53","slug":"bill-ivey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2025\/11\/bill-ivey\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Ivey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"333\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4612\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image-1.png 333w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image-1-200x300.png 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 333px) 100vw, 333px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bill Ivey died this past weekend; he was eighty-one years old. It came as a shock to us &#8211; just last week he was here in Bloomington meeting with our arts policy students, something he loved doing. He was a great friend to our program, generous with his time and advice to students and to younger faculty. He had studied Folklore and Ethnomusicology here at IU, and enjoyed visiting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He is best known for having been Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts in the last years of the Clinton administration &#8211; you can read more about his career&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/musicrow.com\/2025\/11\/industry-leader-bill-ivey-passes\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I really enjoyed his 2010 book&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ucpress.edu\/books\/arts-inc\/paper\">Arts, Inc.<\/a><\/em>&nbsp;&#8211; an idiosyncratic look at American cultural policy, and what he saw as issues that were, unwisely, being neglected, such as with large corporations taking ownership of what ought by rights to be public domain national heritage. I used to assign to my students this essay he wrote for the&nbsp;<em>Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em>&nbsp;&#8211; \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.chronicle.com\/article\/america-needs-a-new-system-for-supporting-the-arts\/\">America Needs a New System for Supporting the Arts<\/a>\u201d (2005 &#8211; paywalled, sorry) &#8211; where he, rightly I\u2019ve always thought, took aim at a public and big-philanthropy sector that assumed&nbsp;<em>nonprofit<\/em>&nbsp;arts presenters were the unique and special home of anything seriously worth consideration in the arts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I first met him a little over twenty years ago, and enjoyed the chance to talk with him whenever I could &#8211; he was a very fine listener as well as a speaker, a really stimulating conversationalist. We could disagree on things &#8211; when Obama was first elected President, Bill was much more keen that the US create an executive position akin to a \u201cSecretary of Culture\u201d than I was &#8211; but our disagreements were always friendly, always with a smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We will all miss him here in Bloomington, and I send my condolences to his family and everyone close to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cross-posted at <a href=\"https:\/\/michaelrushton.substack.com\/\">https:\/\/michaelrushton.substack.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bill Ivey died this past weekend; he was eighty-one years old. It came as a shock to us &#8211; just last week he was here in Bloomington meeting with our arts policy students, something he loved doing. He was a great friend to our program, generous with his time and advice to students and to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":"","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":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-issues","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image-1.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3dIW5-1cn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3818,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2025\/07\/should-we-subsidize-arts-consumers-art-producers-or-neither\/","url_meta":{"origin":4611,"position":0},"title":"Should we subsidize arts consumers, art producers, or neither?","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"July 2, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"My friends Joanna Woronkowicz and Doug Noonan have started a new venture, Arts Analytics, where they hope to bring more extensive, and shared, use of data into arts policy thinking, and also to spur discussion. A recent post of theirs asked what is actually an old question in the arts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;issues&quot;","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1885,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2015\/04\/are-nonprofit-arts-organizations-special\/","url_meta":{"origin":4611,"position":1},"title":"Are nonprofit arts organizations special?","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"April 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"April 16, 2015 marked the opening session of a conference held at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington, on Advancing the Field(s) of Nonprofit Management: New Structures, New Solutions. I was asked to speak about the arts, specifically about relationships between nonprofit arts organizations and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;issues&quot;","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Blood alone moves the wheels of history!","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/my-speech.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2962,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2024\/02\/museums-are-not-like-highways\/","url_meta":{"origin":4611,"position":2},"title":"Museums are not like highways","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"February 14, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"In a New York Times op-ed, Laura Raicovich and Laura Hanna call for a generous increase in the way the government, in particular the federal government, funds arts institutions: As policymakers in Washington gather to draft a new budget for fiscal year 2025, they could solve culture\u2019s current financial crisis\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;issues&quot;","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1641,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/10\/what-do-college-students-in-the-arts-do-after-graduation\/","url_meta":{"origin":4611,"position":3},"title":"What do college students in the arts do after graduation? (updated)","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"October 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"They get to use what they have learned in college?: Among ... respondents\u00a0employed at the time they completed the survey, 64% of recent grads and 69% of prior graduates were in jobs they described as either \u201cvery relevant\u201d or \u201crelevant\u201d to their educational training. Or not?: The majority of arts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;issues&quot;","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"What does my future hold?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/art-students.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1425,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/07\/strategic-pricing-for-the-arts\/","url_meta":{"origin":4611,"position":4},"title":"Strategic pricing for the arts","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"July 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm pleased to say my book on pricing in the arts has been released - Amazon link here, and Routledge link (including for ordering e-inspection copies) here. What's it all about? As I do \u00a0on this blog, I have tried to give arts managers, and students of arts management, a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;issues&quot;","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"for what it's worth","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/my-book.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1330,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/06\/opera-and-arts-education\/","url_meta":{"origin":4611,"position":5},"title":"Opera and arts education","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"June 9, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Audiences for live performance of opera are aging and declining. What ought to be done about that? General Manager of New York's Metropolitan Opera, Peter Gelb, in an interview with the BBC (on which I posted, on a different topic, yesterday) has this to say: \"The box office has not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;issues&quot;","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"much to learn","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/NYCschool.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4613,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4611\/revisions\/4613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}