Today I celebrate my 20th anniversary as a Wyoming resident. I was a relatively young man embarking on a new career in arts administration. In 1991, I didn't really know what that entailed. I was just happy to be working as the literature program manager at the Wyoming Arts Council.
Some people get degrees in arts administration. Many more wander blindly into the field through their arts pursuits. I'm in the latter camp. In pursuit of an M.F.A. in creative writing, I discovered that the arts need administering. Poet (and past Colorado poet laureate) Mary Crow asked if I'd be interested in serving on a committee for the CSU Fine Arts Series. Mary was very persuasive. I agreed.
Next thing I knew, I was attending even more meetings when all I really cared about was my fiction writing. But a few months into it, I found myself having lunch with Pulitzer Prize winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks and escorting the legendary Ethridge Knight to a workshop at the Larimer County Jail. I drove to DIA and picked up National Book Award winner Larry Heinemann and spent the day picking his brain about "Paco's Story" and his experiences in Vietnam. Over the next two years, the writers came in quick succession: Linda Hogan, Maya Angelou, Russell Martin and David Lee. Lee, a CSU grad and one-time Utah Poet Laureate, wanted to see his old campus so I took him on a tour. We were both surprised that my T.A. office was right next door to what once had been the dorm room of a girlfriend.
I was a bit star-struck in the literary sense. But what most impressed me was that part of the university's mission was bringing fantastic writers, dancers, musicians and visual artists to campus to provide students personal contact with some of the best creative minds of our day. The Fine Arts Series was funded through taxpayer dollars and student fees. And many volunteer hours. While so many university pursuits seem oriented around sports, it was encouraging to see that the same sort of dedication was directed at the arts. The arts were important. They needed administering and I might just be the person to do that.
My first grant application went down in flames. That just incited my Irish stubbornness and I studied the tenets of good grant-writing. My second grant application was rejected. I began to realize that there was an arts infrastructure. I contacted the Colorado Council on the Arts. They freely gave their advice. And I also heard that there was a program that provided grants for artists and writers in schools. I signed up. But before I could do my first residency in rural eastern Colorado, I applied for -- and was hired for -- the position as lit guy at the Wyoming Arts Council.
Twenty years later, I still like my job. I now supervise all grants and fellowships to individual artists. I learn something new every day. There are days when I butt heads with a disgruntled visual artist or writer or performer. They care deeply about their work, as do I.
The arts can be a battleground.
The arts mean creativity. Our current Tea Party-dominated politics reject government involvement in the "frivolities" of the arts. The Tea Party represents selfishness and fear. The arts represent creativity and hope and the future. And a righteous anger at the politics of the past.
That's why I do what I do. Creativity and hope. I want to leave a better Cheyenne, a more vital Wyoming, and a better world for the next generation.
Showing posts with label NEA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NEA. Show all posts
Rep. Cynthia Lummis votes against further cuts to the NEA
Stunned Wyoming arts advocates passed this along to me so I'm sharing it with you:
House Votes against NEA Funding Cuts; Strong Comeback for Arts Advocacy
July 29, 2011
From: Thomas L. Birch, Legislative Counsel, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies
The vote in the House of Representatives on July 28 demonstrated a strong victory for arts advocates intent on gaining legislative support for federal arts funding. The amendment offered by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), a freshman in Congress and a member of the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC), would have reduced 2012 appropriations for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to $125 million from the level of $135 million proposed in the bill approved by the House Appropriations Committee. Walberg sponsored a similar amendment last February to bring 2011 NEA funds down to $125 million. That amendment passed by a vote of 217-209. Yesterday's vote, recorded at 181-240, defeated the Walberg amendment.
This time around, the voting patterns noticeably shifted. Even some of our champions in Congress were surprised at the size of the winning vote. In February, 22 Republicans joined all but three Democrats in voting against the arts funding cut. This week, all Democrats and 55 Republicans voted together to defeat the move to reduce the NEA funds. Conservative Republicans teamed up with moderates from their own party to carry the vote. Almost half the Republicans voting in support of the NEA's budget and against the Walberg amendment are, like Walberg, freshmen in Congress and RSC members.
Clearly, forces combined to win that outcome. The advocacy of NASAA's members was strong and engaged. Personal contacts carried the day. Our colleagues in other arts organizations were equally involved through their grass-roots networks. Our bipartisan champions in Congress stood visibly against the proposed funding cut. Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID), chair of the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, had pledged earlier to oppose attempts on the House floor to cut the NEA budget. He was true to his word and his Democratic colleague on the subcommittee, Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA), was eloquent on the floor in defense of federal arts funding. The co-chairs of the Congressional Arts Caucus played major roles during the floor debate. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) organized floor speeches with her colleagues to speak against the Walberg amendment. Rep. Todd Platts (R-PA) whipped votes against the amendment from among his Republican colleagues.
Here are the 55 Republicans who voted to hold the line on cuts to the NEA, opposing the Walberg amendment. Each of them deserves special thanks. Please let your representatives know how much you appreciate their position in support of the NEA budget and the important role the funding plays in your state.
Republicans voting against the Walberg amendment:
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Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming.
The House of Representatives plans to continue meeting through the weekend to finish work on the Interior Appropriations Bill—and to produce a plan for raising the debt ceiling—but their work is done on the arts appropriations.
Many thanks again to all of you for your effective advocacy in turning around an important vote on the way to realizing the best possible budget for the NEA in 2012. Please take a moment to express your thanks to your own representatives who stood up in support of funding for the arts.
Thank you, Rep. Lummis. Don't get to say that very often.
NEA"s "Our Town" grants supports creativity in our towns
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| Artist's rendering of Casper's Sunshine II development that will include an arts space for resident and neighbors |
One of those is a $50,000 grant for Casper to develop a public art space alongside the 26-unit Sunshine Apartments II development now under construction. The site is across from the Nicolaysen Art Museum and just west of where the now-demolished KC Apartments were located. Some of you may remember the rundown KC Apartments as a slumlord-run blight on the neighborhood that mercifully was closed down by the city and then demolished.
The new Sunshine II low-income development feature LEED-certified buildings and now an arts space.
Project organizers envision the space as a gathering spot for apartment residents and the surrounding community. The museum also intends to create educational and outreach programs for the site.
“It’s part and parcel with a whole mindset or plan for downtown Casper on how to integrate arts with our everyday lives,” said museum Curator Lisa Hatchadoorian.
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Hatchadoorian isn’t aware of any other public art spaces in Wyoming tied to low-income housing. Organizers hope their project will encourage similar efforts in other parts of the state.Read more: http://trib.com/news/local/casper/article_b59063b2-7991-51f2-8698-204d1b7b01fc.html#ixzz1RxrMkUst
“It’s a community-building experience,” she said. “A lot of times, when you have a public art space where people can interact, it just brings everyone ... it makes the community more available to each other. It just makes a better place to live.”
Another one of the NEA's "Our Town" grants goes to a neat "arts incubator" project just down the road from Cheyenne in Fort Collins, Colo.:
To support the creation of the Rocky Mountain Regional Arts Incubator (RMRAI) in the historic Carnegie building in downtown Fort Collins. The RMRAI will offer students and professionals a multitude of services to assist them in creating, redefining, and sustaining their creative careers in the new economy, including educational courses, internships, continuing education for practicing artists, and gallery and performance spaces.
The Beet Street web site doesn't say, but the org's name probably trades on Fort Collins' aggie reputation, namely its years as a center of sugar beet production. CSU got its start as Colorado A&M, home of a fantastic veterinary school and lots of farming and ranching courses. That's what the big "A" up on the mountain stands for. CSU grew into a place where the arts shared a campus with the aggie arts. What's interesting is that the university (my alma mater) now is investing heavily in green technology and sustainable agriculture, putting the A&M back into the name in new and interesting ways.
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