Approach I

Approach I for The Big Canvas Issue Guide
Extend the Arts Experience

This choice argues that arts and culture in the Philadelphia region deserve public investment because of the intrinsic, invaluable benefits they bring. Experiences in arts and culture uplift the spirit, inspire the mind, and heal the soul. They connect people across barriers of class, race and time.

This investment does not need to be justified according to business-school calculations. The benefits the arts bring are very real but can’t be reduced to crass dollars and cents. They are, to borrow from the famous credit-card commercial, “priceless.” The arts do bring significant practical benefits – jobs, taxes, tourism – but these flow from the intrinsic value. The arts should be supported as a basic human right, part of what makes us who we are.

In this view, the region should create an ample fund earmarked just for arts and culture. Further, the money should be spent primarily to support artists and art-making (because that, not institution building, is the true point) and to give residents of the region better access to arts and culture.

This approach notes that Philadelphia already has a rich, varied menu of arts activities. The goal is to build upon success, to bolster that menu and expand access to it. This approach seeks to transform the arts’ potentially vibrant role in individual lives into a matter of course, and a matter of right.

If the problem is not a lack of high-quality activity, then what is it? It’s a lack of communication, information and, above all, access. Fears about cost, convenience and “not fitting in” inhibit many people from taking part in cultural activities they might otherwise enjoy.

In this region, advocates of this choice note with exasperation, sports are crammed down people’s throats, with media and mass transit catering to fans’ every need. By contrast, much less is done to make it easy to learn about and take part in the arts.

Even dedicated arts patrons say it’s hard to keep track of all that’s going on around the region – not just events but the discounts, programs and offers that could open up access to the events. The result: Many fine events and exhibitions go sparsely attended.

This choice argues that, despite the best efforts of some, the region still lacks the comprehensive, easy-to-use clearinghouse for arts and culture information that citizens seek (and the news media don’t provide).

In the suburbs, add to this a strong complaint that not enough is done by the dominant, city-centric entities to support and promote ALL the region’s cultural assets.

HOW TO RAISE MONEY TO MEET THESE GOALS:
Supporters of this choice believe that a fund dedicated exclusively to arts and culture should be fed by earmarked revenues from state, county and local government. Many would favor dedicating a portion of casino revenues, as well as amusement-tax revenues from sports teams, to this cause. A regional entity run by arts and culture professionals would administer the fund and allocate the money.

SUPPORTERS TEND TO FAVOR THESE ACTIONS:
■ Set up a lively Web 2.0 information clearinghouse that lets the region’s residents know at a glance what experiences are available to them from the region’s cultural cornucopia.
■ Give grants for art-making, with the emphasis on individual artists, rather than institutions.
■ Take steps to ease the “intimidation factor.” Encourage people to sample more arts venues and forms of culture. This could include creating teams of “cultural ambassadors” who could coach and accompany new patrons. It could also mean more innovative programming and marketing to counter concerns about dress, cost, “fitting in” or “not getting what’s going on.”
■ Create a Culture Passport, a “smart card” that users could load with value to buy tickets, transportation or parking while getting a discount.
■ Put Philly Van Go on the road. This “culture bus” and/or train service would be a cultural experience in itself (music, readings, art), connecting the region’s residents to performances
throughout the region while also taking customers on “mystery tours” to arts venues they normally would not visit.
■ Give challenge grants to SEPTA or other transportation entities. The goal: Set up reliable masstransit service to and from arts and culture venues, including those in the suburbs. Stress reliable, late-night service to the suburbs, pinned to the times when performances end.
■ Subsidize occasional “free days” at cultural attractions, to encourage people to sample new places and to build support for the regional fund.

ARGUMENTS FOR THIS APPROACH:
✓ Art has priceless value in helping individuals understand themselves, their world, and other periods of history. It helps bridge many gaps.
✓ Transit and parking issues are a huge impediment to attending arts events. Why should sports fans be the only people to get mass-transit service tailored to their needs?
✓ Grants should go directly to the people who create art, not to organizations and institutions that spend funds on many things beside art.
✓ The problem around Philly is not a lack of quality activities; it’s that people don’t know where to find timely information.
✓ Arts and culture leaders need to overcome their lack of confidence. Defending the arts in terms of pragmatic goals such as jobs is demeaning, and condemns the cause to second-class citizenship.
✓ An arts strategy, to be truly regional, needs to offer clear benefits to the suburban residents who, frankly, will pick up a lot of the tab for this fund.
✓ People who make art for a living often struggle to make a living. Given the intrinsic value of what they do, artists deserve to make a family-supporting income.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST THIS APPROACH:
✗ Most taxpayers aren’t art purists. This approach will never summon broad-based voter support for the tax expenditures it seeks. Linking
the arts to other core community goals makes more sense.
✗ As a recent Rand Corp. study shows, local corporations tend to be AWOL when it comes to supporting the arts. The case for increased support must be made in terms a businessman can appreciate.
✗ Supporting individual artists piecemeal is a crapshoot, with lots of potential for cronyism. Arts institutions provide the context that helps
good artists thrive and are the logical first stop for art-making grants.
✗ This approach assumes the arts’ intrinsic benefits flow merely to individuals as isolated consumers. In fact, art is most powerful when created and experienced inside a community.
✗ A Culture Passport makes sense, but this approach offers it to all residents, regardless of income, which is unaffordable and unfair.
✗ A fund run only by people who make their living from arts and culture will cater to their narrow needs, not the community’s needs as a whole.
✗ This approach is really about supporting adult arts patrons in doing what they already do. It ignores the crying needs of youth around the region.

(Illustration by Tim Ogline. Photo of The Philadelphia Art Museum.)