Category: issues

“Arts Council England has warned that the level of arts funding set out in Gordon Brown’s spending review will create a difficult few years for arts organisations. On Monday the chancellor announced an extra £230m for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, equivalent to a 2.3% increase per year in real terms. But according to ACE, the Treasury is engaging in some double counting.”

What’s to become of Boston’s troubled Strand Theatre? Financially strapped and managed for two years by novice theater operators, the Strand was booked and programmed erratically. Youth programs were canceled for lack of funds, and producers were reluctant to mount shows at the theater, which garnered a reputation for inept, if not unethical, booking, marketing, and management practices.” Boston Mayor Thomas Menino sommissioned a study and has some recommendations for how to fix things.

London is draining the twentysomethings out of the rest of Britain. “In the City of London, Camden and Tower Hamlets, the proportion of twentysomethings has risen to 13 per cent, while it has fallen by 1.7 per cent to 6.6 per cent across Britain as a whole. In Wandsworth, 16 per cent of residents are aged 25 to 29. The influx of young people in some parts of London is up by 4.8 per cent in ten years.”

A Seattle art student goes to the Ballard locks to take photographs. Police and Homeland Security officers descend, demanding identification. They show up at his home demanding ID. Why, when dozens of others at the locks are busy snapping pictures? Could it be the way he looks?

From the recent Americans for the Arts study: “Arts businesses – both for-profit and nonprofit – comprise 4.3 percent of all U.S. businesses and employ 2.99 million people. California was found to be the bellwether of the country’s arts industry, with more arts-related businesses – 89,719 – than any other state. New York ranks a distant second with 45,671.”

When people think of arts cities in Texas, most think of Austin. So why wasn’t Austin on the recent list of best arts cities in a study by Americans for the Arts? “Austin was not on the initial list because it and other midsize urban areas such as Portland, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham were not included in the study. So the American-Statesman requested follow-up research from the advocacy group. With midsize areas counted, according to data provided Tuesday by Americans for the Arts, Austin would rank third in the country with 3.46 arts businesses per 1,000 residents. The Santa Fe and Bellingham, Wash., areas would rank Nos. 1 and 2.” [sign-in requires first name: Use “access”]

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin is expected to name a new minister overseeing culture this week. His last appointment to the Heritage Ministry job had no background in the arts. “The hope is that this time around, Martin will, in the words of the Canadian Conference of the Arts, ‘appoint a minister . . . with knowledge of, and experience in the arts and cultural sector’.”

A year after Michigan slashed arts funding, another round of cuts appears to be on the way. “Across Metro Detroit, arts and cultural institutions are surviving — if not thriving — in the face of budget cuts, a sluggish economy and shrinking corporate and private sponsorship of the arts. But with another state budget deficit looming, they’re bracing for the state arts budget to be cut again, if not eliminated entirely.”

The US House of Representatives has defeated a measure that would have limited the Patriot Act. “On a vote of 210 to 210 — a roll call that GOP leaders extended for more than 20 minutes to sway dissident Republicans — the House rejected an amendment that would have limited the Patriot Act by preventing the Justice Department from searching library and bookstore records to probe individuals’ reading habits.”

US state budgets are in better shape this year, and so arts funding may not be targets of cuts this year in most parts of the country. One survey sees “state expenditures growing by a national average of 2.8% during the next fiscal year. And one of the primary reasons why state legislatures and governors have cut arts funding so deeply — deficits — appears to be cresting and perhaps even receding a bit.”