Review

NEA Chair Rocco Landesman visits and gives year-end rundown, illustrating why 'Art Works'

Mid-America Arts Alliance Director Mary McCabe introduces the panel which includes NEA Chair Rocco Landesman and Kansas City's Suzie Aron and artist David Ford, December 9, 2010. Image: photo © MAAA by April Befort

Last month, a packed house at the Mid-America Arts Alliance's event space witnessed an inspired, synergistic event: the visitation of National Endowment for the Arts Chair Rocco Landesman and a dialogue between some of the most influential luminaries in the Kansas City arts and development scene. The director of Mid-America Arts Alliance, Mary Kennedy McCabe, with the former Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City President/CEO, Joan Israelite, introduced moderator Henry Fortunato, who preceded to eloquently reflect upon the esteemed panel of local  forward thinkers, Suzie Aron, William Dietrich, and David Ford. The group had collected to discuss many topics, but the subject of creative place-making emerged as dominant in many conversations.

Fortunato set the tone by stating in his introduction: "Creative place-making is a goal to partner private, public, non-profit and community sectors so that they can work together even more to improve the social and physical character of places large and smal. This, in turn, engenders naturally creative locales to foster entrepreneurial and cultural industries to generate jobs, goods and services."

Mid-America Arts Alliance is a nonprofit regional arts organization whose stated mission is to bring more art to more people via exhibitions, performances, educational programs, and professional development opportunities throughout the Midwest. Not disappointingly, this talk brought some big, new ideas to an attentive audience made up of representatives from all manner of disciplines, arts-related and otherwise (including mayoral candidate Mike Burke), as Landesman and others weighed in on the state of the arts in Kansas City — and beyond.

Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts Rocco Landesman, a St. Louis native, spoke at Mid-America Arts Alliance as part of his KC visit December 9. Image: photo © Mid-America Arts Alliance, photo April Befort

Landesman's choice to make Kansas City one of the stops on his year-end junket speaks to the recognition the city has maintained as an obstinate, artistic stronghold. His visit to Kansas City included an NEA grantwriting workshop at the Kansas City Public Library and the keynote address at the Downtown Council's annual luncheon. A St. Louis native, Landesman has a special place in his heart for Missourians on any side of the state. Playwright Tony Kushner called his appointment in 2009 "potentially the best news the arts community in the United States has had since the birth of Walt Whitman."

Throughout its 45-year history, the NEA has striven to foster artistic excellence and broaden access to under-served communities — just as the MAAA seeks to do on a regional level — and Landesman brings to the table decades of hands-on production and risk-taking experience. The FY2010 NEA budget of $168 million gives Landesman more funding options than any chair has had in more than 10 years.

A fair portion of this funding will channel into the recently announced "Our Town" grant, which will allow modest, targeted grants to assist arts-related organizations to revitalize their communities. It is built upon extensive independent studies which report that investments focused on the neighborhood level can produce a better place to live and a healthier local economy. The NEA will be working in dozens of locations around the country to develop arts districts, sponsor festivals, and commission public art.

Working forward

"Art Works" is Landesman's motto and mantra. He sees this term functioning on three levels: the actual art itself that the agency supports, the way that art shapes our lives, and its potential beneficial effect on our communities and economy.

"The arts are obvious and significant parts of this country's economy," Landesman reflected. "Nationwide there are 5.7 million arts-related jobs and 2 million full time artists. But artists do something more, something that other sectors do not necessarily do: artists build sustainable communities."

Landesman cited the research project by social scientists, conducted by the Reinvestment Fund at the University of Pennsylvania, whose findings found that the arts make three major, visible contributions:  Arts are a force for social cohesion and civic engagement; they make a difference in child welfare, and acts as a poverty fighter.

Rocco Landesman talks while local realtor and arts supporter Suzie Aron looks on. Image: © Mid-America Arts Alliance, photo April Befort

"If you have a district with an increase in artistic activity — where it is populated by that culture, people involved in the arts, you will have more people likely to vote, more people who will join other civic organizations, Landesman said. "We found that low-income groups that had high cultural participation were less like to have truancy and juvenile delinquency rates.  And naturally these communities tend to have a greater economic cohesion."

Fellow panelist William Dietrich, who came to KC in 2002 to take the helm of the Downtown Council and has played a key role in downtown's revitalization, added: "We're building a downtown for a new generation. We're looking to a new economy, and especially focused upon creative industries to help build economic centers. There are many new and innovative and tools to make this happen." Dietrich noted that there are over 300 creative and related industries downtown which employs approximately 4500 people.

Of course the rebirth of the Crossroads Arts District was a hot topic. It should be. As everyone in the room seemed to agree, the exciting and buzzing arts centrifuge has gained, as Landesman confirmed, something of Washington-level recognition. One would be hard pressed to document many areas in other states where residential, commercial and artistic growth has bloomed so obviously in an area that was, until recently, written off as a wasteland. Landesman can vouch for it and has been to a lot of cities, and is taking notes on just how far the arts is transforming communities. "Now it's about getting people to understand it on a national scale and start making it part of domestic policy and planning."

Parallel places

Landesman cites the Over-the-Rhine area, in Cincinnati, Ohio, as another great example of how art transforms.

"Historically it was a neighborhood filled with crack dealers, prostitution," he said. "One day a theater went in, then art galleries and the neighborhood transformed. "Now it's a place people bring dates."

In his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, Landesman remembers there was "a downtown that was once hollowed and barren, until a relatively recent sculpture garden in the City Garden became a place to go. Then restaurants and galleries sprung up around it. The arts were visibly part of the revitalization.

"In Boston's 'Combat Zone,'" Landesman explained, "Emerson College revitalized the Paramount Theatre and summarily created a thriving community of street life, and ultimately residences and businesses. "One of the main things we've learned is that people don't follow businesses," notes Landesman. "Businesses follow people."

Karen Paisley, of the Metro Theater Ensemble, talks with MAAA board member Gregory Glore. Image: © Mid-America Arts Alliance, photo April Befort

In response, Dietrich joked, "There is a cynical economic model that suggests bringing artists into a neighborhood, creating a new epicenter of an arts culture and robust economic area, then pushing them out into other neighborhoods that need revitalizing."

Aron, a real estate developer and well-respected by the arts community as a chance taker, noted that many students coming out of universities are staying, and many professionals who have moved out of Kansas City are now moving back.

"This trend speaks to the fact that Kansas City is a wonderful, dynamic community where people are concerned about what happens here. So they're reinvesting in their neighborhood. We are now operating with a strong support base in our creative institutions, and support staffs for profit and non-profit groups. That demonstrates what our community is all about. Now the concern is how to keep it."

Economic downturn was, of course, another hot, though less welcomed, topic, though no one seemed dissuaded by the growing plights of creative-based businesses in challenging times. "I often get asked by people how our city's artists are faring since the economy is so bad," said Aron. "I tell them, 'the economy has always been bad for artists. To them, this is just another normal day.'"

The hottest topic, appropriately, was Our Town,  a grant named for Landesman's love for the stage (Thornton Wilder's play). This ambitious program seeks to reach out to communities who recognize the benefits of a formidable arts scene and reward these regions with unprecedented monetary gifts.

"The Our Town Grant will invest in cities and towns that are recognizing their arts organizations as concerned citizens with specific jobs to do," Landesman outlined, "which is making and exhibiting the highest quality art, as well as serve a greater community purpose. We are framing this program as creative placement and looking at the strategies used around the country as models to shape the physical, social, and economic character of our nation."

Landesman also cited the importance of a program known as the Mayor's Institute on City Design, in which select mayors collaborate with teams of design professionals to tackle real-world problems they are wrestling. "This is an opportunity for conscientious public officials to spend a few days thinking of themselves as their city's urban designers," he said. "The Mayor's Institute on City Design is designed to support cities that use smart design, where artists and organizations are creating dynamic places where people want to live, work and play."

At a meeting of the US Conference of Mayors last month, Landesman presented a way for towns to build arts-related infrastructure and encouraged a direct line of communication to the NEA, which would facilitate contacts with federal agencies with potential funds available. But initiatives such as artist housing or a re-invented park wouldn't necessarily have to be NEA-branded projects. For example, using increased tax incentives or giving artists equity in their spaces allow the real estate values to appreciate.

"Business people are sounding more like artists every year," noted Ford, who was  recently awarded an Urban Hero Award for his multi-dimensional contribution and recognition maker of Kansas City. "They are becoming more open-minded, more elastic, exploring possibilities and taking chances."

He said that this city was lucky to have institutions like the Kansas City Art Institute, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary that recently expanded to the Crossroads, and the Charlotte Street Foundation that invests in gallery space, grants, and studios — all healthy signs of where the city's cultural legacy is headed. "These cooperative, private non-profit sectors working together is very much a compliment to the DIY approach artists have here," he said. "What we want to do now is find where we can tie all this together and acknowledge the leaders and the players. There are more kinds of art in this town then we know how to like. But we all know what it's destined to do."

"We hear lot of talk in Washington about the importance of small businessman, or entrepreneurs," said Landesman. "Artists are small businessman. They are entrepreneurs. The SBA (US Small Business Administration) needs to be more aware of that and realize that millions of small businesses are artists. On the other side of that coin, artists themselves have to identify with each other as an interest group in the economy. With respect to health care or access to other benefits in society, artists don't think of themselves that way. They should acknowledge and advocate for those rights like health care and housing program like any constituent."

"I'm not sure democracy is the greatest thing for art," noted Ford.

"But many artists are poor," replied Landesman.

"True," said Ford, "but so are many accountants these days."

José Faus, artist, muralist, and president of the award winning Latino Writers Collective, addresses the panel at MAAA December 9. Image: © Mid-America Arts Alliance, photo April Befort

______

This year will be an epic one for Kansas City. The Crossroads Arts District continues to bloom and, this fall, will meet the momentum of the opening of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, which, by the way, will be the only new major performing arts center on earth making its debut in this year. Kansas City is, irrefutably, a happening place, in all areas of the arts, and its growth in many ways mirrors what is going on with the refocusing of the NEA's mission.

"With the NEA as my bully pulpit, I encourage more insurgence of the arts into the everyday business of our sister agencies," said Landesman. "And when we succeed, I think that will be our legacy."

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