Cutting the Arts

[ysabetwordsmith]

The Dumpling is now bragging about saving money by defunding government oil paintings.  Which is to say, cutting a vital support of the fine arts.  >_<  

Comments

[arlie]

Official portraits of politicians are a vital support of the fine arts?

I guess I'm totally not plugged into either the artistic or the art-supporting communities.

I'd figured this was going to be about grants to artists etc. (Does the US even do them? Canada does, or at least did when I still lived there.)

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Official portraits of politicians are a vital support of the fine arts? <<

They commission artists to paint the portraits and pay tens of thousands of dollars for each. That supports those oil painters. While I'm not a personal fan of politicians, I am enough of a historian to recognize the values of portraits to art, culture, and history. They show us who was valued, how those people dressed, what were the conventions of posing, the paints and techniques used at the time, etc. That's a valuable resource, even if many of the people portrayed are not the most upstanding members of society. And it allowed some number of people to be professional oil painters, which I see as a good thing.

>> I'd figured this was going to be about grants to artists etc. (Does the US even do them? Canada does, or at least did when I still lived there.) <<

That fluctuates over time. The United States has many stunning examples of public art, such as statues, memorials, and murals in famous buildings along with important paintings. But funding for artist grants, along with major commissions, has dwindled over time. I find this sad.

When we have great artists, we should put them to making art full-time, not force them to do work that other people could do and restrict art to a hobby or side job. I feel the same about writing and other great cultural endeavors. For fucksake, the history books are full of examples of starving creators who died in squalor but were later considered great. I'd really like to see people stop making this mistake, and really support creativity. Some other cultures in the past have managed it for some professions, so we know it can be done. Commissioning public art is a step in the right direction, by supporting civic artists.

Meanwhile, over in Terramagne ...

From my notes on T-America's budget:
The National Endowment for the Arts gets enough to merit an entry. It's 0.012% in L-America and 1.20% in T-America. So this is by far the biggest jump: T-America spends 100 times what L-America does. Why have starving artists when you can have public art and artists who can support themselves? Some of the funds go to enrichment programs such as scholarships and residencies, or to locations such as museums and artist colonies. However, much of the money pays for actual works of cultural material. Many of those works go straight into the public domain, either because the project parameters stipulate it from the beginning (much the same way government science projects typically free their data) or because the creators choose to release it that way. Primary fields include paintings (both canvas and building murals), sculptures, music, theatre (dances and plays), and literature.

Another feature of T-America is that most towns, even smallish ones, have at least one civic artist who makes things like park benches, bike racks, or murals. They usually have at least one writer who makes commemorative poems or prose for special occasions. That means when you go from one town to another, it's not all the same; there's a lot of interesting local variation to enjoy. Bigger cities employ whole fleets of creative people. If you go to River City, it's plastered with paintings of famous musicians, poetry about paddleboats, plays featuring its historic figures, and so on.

You can see a few examples in "From the Deepest Part of Ourselves." The True Blue Bikeshare has smartly painted bikes and corrals with sculptured bikers on them; it's part of the public transportation system supported by a combination of municipal funds, grants, and donations. The garden follies in Mill Creek Park commemorate a long-ago soup fight. There are statues of famous local people. Local newspapers support local (or state) writers and artists. The food truck park has picnic tables made from reclaimed wood, by volunteers, a different expression of public art. There are Little Free Libraries scattered around, a charming display of woodwork; some are made by volunteers, but in other cases the park service or a business owner has hired someone to make them. Real Live Writers is a storefront for creative writing, and the same people get hired by the town to do civic writing sometimes. They live and work downtown and everyone knows who they are. There are more examples in some other poems, too.

Any town can do that. Mine has a good six or eight murals scattered around. The hometown of Popeye has a magnificent trail of sculptures of the characters.

Re: Thoughts

[(Anonymous)]

You mention River City; is there a master list of L-America to T-America city correspondences? I know Easy City is New Orleans, and I'm pretty sure Eastbord is at least part of the BosWash Corridor, but other than that, I'm kinda stumped sometimes as to whereabouts a story is set.

--Jessica