One of the hottest button issues for some is the use of public funds to support “the arts”. As you know educational arts programs are being cut or eliminated in many public schools. This has had a very slow erosion on the arts over the past 30 years. Most of the time it comes to the forefront of public consciousness when the resulting art is controversial (one example being the Vietnam Memorial).
We saw historically that development of the arts has occurred through funding from the church (Renaissance/Baroque), or wealthy patrons (through the early 1700s), to a burgeoning middle class (end of the 18th Century) to a more mass market approach that developed from advances in music publishing by the 19th Century. Today, art projects are often “endowed” from foundations, corporations, the government, or private individuals in the US.
Discuss how you feel about public funding of the arts. How can you insure your community, or state, insures that there is good support for development of this cultural endeavors?
