California's funding
for the arts — along with many other important items — was decimated
in the last budget. This was easily the most difficult budget vote I
have ever cast, and I know most of my colleagues on both sides of the
aisle would agree with me on that.
But it is the arts I want to focus
on now. The arts do not come free. Children, of course, are natural
artists — they paint, sing, dance, act and create with little or no
prompting from any of us. But as artists develop and prepare to give
their gifts to the larger world, they require sustenance — and they
always have. From the Greek support of the first theaters and
dramatic festivals in ancient Athens, through the Medici family's
patronage of the finest painters, sculptors and musicians of the
Italian Renaissance, artists have needed government and private
funding to continue their work. The image of the starving artist is a
quaint and romantic one, but it is hardly what we would wish on
anyone.
Professional arts organizations,
such as local symphony orchestras, require even more of us than
individual artists do. But, like any investment, the return we get
from these dedicated and civic-minded organizations is well worth the
capital we put in. What every culture leaves to posterity is its art.
And I, for one, am more than willing to invest in the culture that I
will leave to my grandchildren, and to the ages to come.
But the relationship between
modern government and the arts has long been a testy one. Some in
government are suspicious of art and artists. And, some artists are
nervous about what government will require of them if they accept
public money. They are apprehensive that the money will come with
strings attached, and that this will compromise their artistic
freedom.
To some extent, both of these are
true. Great art does sometimes have the power to challenge authority,
and, to some extent, grant money always comes with qualifications.
But I want to get past those shorthand notions about public arts
funding, because I believe it is vital for us to understand one
another better.
We are truly at a turning point in
the relationship between government and the arts. I had one of the
hardest fights of my life this year to prevent the legislature from
eliminating the California Arts Council entirely. Not just defunding
it, but eliminating it from the state. I have no idea how or why this
proposal came about, but it was made and it very nearly happened —
California almost became the first state in the nation to abolish all
public funding of the arts.
As it is, we will continue to fund
the arts, but at a level that is the lowest in the nation. Lower than
Mississippi. Lower than Alabama. Lower than North Dakota. The state's
General Fund, which last year gave the California Arts Council about
$18 million, will now fund it at $1 million. We will thus be spending
less than 3 cents per capita on the arts. For comparison, the
national average is $1.00 per capita. The math on that is fairly easy
— California spends about 3% of the national average on the
arts.
This is shocking. In part, it is
due to the unprecedented budget deficit we faced this year. We
eliminated entire state agencies in this budget, we made enormous
cuts to health care and education, we slashed and slashed even
deeper, and we barely made it out alive.
But we could have found some of
that $17 million we cut in the arts somewhere else. We didn't. There
was no political will to do that. In addition to myself, there were
only a handful of legislators in either party, in either house, who
were keenly interested in what would happen to the arts. Please pay
special attention to that — this year, there was virtually no
constituency for the arts in the Legislature. I don't know how that
happened. But it is something each and every one of us has to help
reverse.
This is a crisis, but that means
it is also an opportunity. My job, over the next year, is to get
across a simple message to artists — just because we do not have the
money to fund the arts, that does not mean we cannot foster the arts.
Every artist in this state is valued — if not in monetary terms, then
certainly in spiritual terms. Artists are the soul of a society, and
even in this budget catastrophe we have not abandoned our
soul.
And arts organizations such as
local museums, symphonies and theaters are the churches that help
nurture those souls. Sometimes they are cathedrals, and sometimes
they are soup kitchens, but whether they are as grand as Disney Hall,
or as humble as the 50-seat theater on a back alley, we cannot get by
without them.
It is going to be a very hard year
for the arts, and I suspect there will be more hard years to come.
But we have to keep getting the message out — the arts are not
decoration, and they are not a frill. They are the beating heart of
our body politic.