The New York Times’s piece on the surge of arts cuts at the state level does a fine job laying out the facts and figures, but something about it seems a little… off. Mainly, it’s that author Robin Pogrebin picks Erika Nelson as the human face of the arts cuts.
Nelson runs something called The World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Versions of the World’s Largest Things, a van that contains tiny replicas of roadside attractions like the “World’s Largest Ball of String.” She is set to lose her $2,000 in funding from the state since governor Sam Brownback decided to completely liquidate Kansas’s state arts council.
It’s not that we don’t like the idea of Nelson’s wacky art truck — we love it! It’s just that if you wanted to provide one example of why public art was mere “frivolity” that could be cut with impunity — the case of the anti-arts side in the article — this project would fit the bill perfectly for the average reader. Unless you really got into the story of why it was meaningful to people. Which Pogrebin doesn’t. And the article is completely framed by quotes from Nelson. (Which is maybe why the Art Market Monitor blog immediately commented that, “intentionally or not, the article makes a fairly cogent case for [the] untenable position of arts grants in state budgets.”)
Contrast the sense you get from Pogrebin’s article to the sense of art’s tangible importance you get from Henry Schwaller, who was head of the Kansas Arts Commission before Brownback’s attack sidelined him. In an interview with ARTINFO about the effects of the loss of state arts support, Schwaller laid out the following example of why the arts matter in the Sunflower State:
The reason why the arts are important is not just the jobs, although that is part of it. It’s also because the arts create a quality of life, particularly in rural communities. There’s a small community in the southwest portion of the state, a tiny town near Dodge City, and its arts center is the community center. People go there — little old ladies go there to paint watercolors, but they also go there on the holidays to wrap Christmas gifts for service members in Iraq or needy children, and they gather there for coffee and other things, and that’s what the arts centers across Kansas do. They provide access to programs and a quality of life we wouldn’t have otherwise. As I said before, for young people, the Arts Commission and our programs give them exposure to things they have never seen before and probably would not see, and give them an opportunity to think creatively and be innovative.
Check out ARTINFO’s own coverage of the state arts cuts story, here.
Thanks for the ‘we love it’, but color me suckered by your image request of August 1st for inclusion with this article.
Yes, what I do is whacky, and yes, there’s a much much larger story and motivation behind the World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Versions of the World’s Largest Things and the exploration of what, exactly, these roadside monuments mean to the (usually underserved, rural, underrepresented) towns that house them. The wider goal of WLT Inc. is to tell the stories of communities that have erected monumental roadside attractions – they use them as cultural identity markers. I’m hoping that both NYT readers and ArtInfo readers will delve further, instead of getting hung up on the initial kitsch ‘hook’ of the title.
All y’all art readers should know there’s much more to the story… I do feel that the entire story (or lack of reporting of the story) is (partially) alluded to here, but I’m still a twee bit pissed.
Brownback vetoed recommendations by the Kansas legislature – predominantly Republican – to keep the Kansas Arts Council funded and not privatize it. Brownback went against the will of the people of Kansas. Which was communicated to him by our elected representatives. The majority of us Kansans wanted the Arts commission to stay. The arts centers are important to us. Brownback wants us to believe he is not anti-art by saying the private group can get all the funding it need by private donations. Well, I am not falling for his lie. Anyway, this will give M.T. Ligget plenty to sculpt about and the rest of us will also have much to tell Brownback – but it’s not like he will ever listen.
Someone should do an in depth story of this whole issue. It is a big story and I just read bits here and there mostly.
There is SO much more to WLT than you evidently know, and so much more work that Erika does in the art world. She works very hard for the art world in this country and also for the community she lives in. And she does a wonderful job and is an asset to Kansas and to her town. Erika is one of those people who enhance our world. Erika has certainly done more than her fair share to keep the arts moving and growing here.
As for Brownback, I get the feeling that he only listens so that he can plan his next move. I am so sorry he did what he did. I hope I’m wrong, but I am afraid that he may have damaged one of the best things about Kansas, our arts.
The utter lack of wisdom in cutting public funding for the arts in Kansas will become evident soon enough. It may be so (but I doub it) that private support alone can ensure thriving arts communities in large population centers that already have long-established and reasonably well-endowed museums, performance venues, etc. But what about rural areas?
Kansas is mostly rural, dotted with lots of very small towns. The town I live in, Hays, is not SO small (20,000 people), but it is isolated from larger cities. As Schwaller said, the quality of life issue is so important to those of us who don’t dwell in big cities. Erika Nelson gets that. Public art agencies play an important part in shaping good quality of life, and I predict the repercussions of Gov. Brownback’s decision will radiate to areas he hasn’t considered.
To posit just one, it is incredibly difficult to recruit (and keep) professionals of all kinds to small towns. Often the decision to relocate hinges on that nebulous “quality of life” factor. Thanks for making it that much harder!
Where I live, art, music, and theater are part of the fabric of our lives, not just adornments. It’s a big part of why I choose to live here. It is most fitting for government to have a hand in enhancing and enriching our lives through the arts, just as it subsidizes education and farm production. They’re all vital. When there’s not enough money to go around, the pieces of the public pie should get smaller, but using the budget crisis as an excuse to effect a political ploy is just plain cynical.
Whew! Maybe I should have written my own article.