Wow, An Editorial About Saving the Arts

[Anderton]

I'm not making this up. It's an editorial in USA Today.

 

Okay, we all know concertgoers, performers, live sound people, local theater, etc. are screwed.

 

BUT this opinion piece shows how important the arts are to the economy of the United States. Since all people care about is money, hopefully they'll read this. Here are some important quotes:

 

The arts amount to an $878 billion industry, according to 2017 data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Last year, the arts and related industries represented 4.2% of gross domestic product, a larger share of our economy than agriculture and transportation. Add to that knock-on effects for business of all kinds: from the lumber yard that supplies wood for set construction to the electricians who hang the lights. Whenever people go see a performance, it sets off a wave of spending that helps keep afloat local bars, restaurants and public transit. In major arts districts, that money overflows into hotels, retailers and airlines, too.

 

Lawmakers looking to jump-start commerce should do the math: A thriving arts scene is an economic multiplier. It also generates an outstanding return on tax dollars. Nonprofit arts organizations annually spin some $5 billion in government allocations into more than $27.5 billion in tax revenue.

 

As for the upfront costs of such a plan, a recent open letter to the U.S. Senate offers a reasonable start at just under $44 billion. That"s 5% of the arts" value added to the economy, and proportionate to the $50 billion bailout of the airline industry.

 

It"s also less than 1% of our federal budget. Any claim that we can"t afford to support the arts is fiction. Consider that the Pentagon has spent more on military bands than our entire government has allocated to the National Endowment for the Arts.

 

So the next time sometime says that we're not important, that it's more important to bail out an organization that has high-paid lobbyists in Washington (and possibly compromising pictures of some Senator with a poodle), it's time to take a look at what the arts contribute to the country.

[SteveCoscia]

... it's time to take a look at what the arts contribute to the country.

There are so many facets to how art contributes to society and commerce. Here in Philadelphia, the best nightclub musicians advertise their teaching/coaching services on social media. The absence of club dates forced many to seek other revenue sources. Considering music's therapeutic value, it's no surprise that depression and suicide are on the rise, especially among young folks.

 

Hopefully greater arts awareness will remedy things.

[KuruPrionz]

Truly a great article and a breath of fresh air.

 

I took 2 semesters of Art History, starting with the cave paintings in France - estimated to have been done 17,000 years ago. There are many earlier examples of humans creating Art.

As well, there are many times in history when Art was quelled, whether by disease (Black Plague in Europe) or oppression (Chairman Mao) (sorry if I just got too political).

 

Time has shown that humans will have Art, they will create and there may or may not be any reason for it other than that we can and must.

 

Things are pretty dire right now. This too shall pass. Remember that the instrumental song Rumble was banned from the radio and Louie Louie sparked an intensive investigation by the FBI.

 

This too shall pass.

[Greg Mein]

I believe art in and of itself carries on unabated by the creative, however, the business side to it will likely continue to suffer for a while yet.

[Anderton]

I believe art in and of itself carries on unabated by the creative, however, the business side to it will likely continue to suffer for a while yet.

 

I agree, and some of the business will not come back for a long time, if ever. Anything that was on the decline before the pandemic may disappear altogether.

 

However a silver lining in all this (or at least an aluminum lining) is that with people staying at home, they're getting used to the idea of paying for things they get over the net, whether it's Netflix or a better version of Spotify. So perhaps there will be at least some value placed on intellectual property, and the "everything on the internet should be free" mentality will start to fade.

[KuruPrionz]

I agree, and some of the business will not come back for a long time, if ever. Anything that was on the decline before the pandemic may disappear altogether.

 

This is the history of business forever. There are many examples, one that involves Art and Artists might be the way that photography replaced painting and many portrait painters lost their livelihood when the cost of making photographs reached a certain point.

 

I would agree that the virus brought change this time around and that isn't always true of business change.

 

What is interesting to me is that Painters then began the "Impressionist" and "Surrealist" styles to generate creations that the camera could not. Of course, photographers responded by experimenting with possibilities - is it inherent in Art that often new forms are created by doing something that would traditionally be considered "wrong"? And, now that we have had Photoshop for a almost 3 decades, the blowhards among the Photography community have stopped calling Photoshop Artists "Graphic Designers" as if that was some sort of low and degraded status.

 

I lived the fringes of that latter bit of history, I started using Photoshop 1.07 in 1992 and just about the first thing I did was find out what it could do that was wrong, bad and morally corrupt - because FUN and NEW!

 

I fully expect to see new Art emerging in part as a result of this unusual situation with the virus. There has been significant change already in the way we are allowed to create, which affects WHAT we create and how we offer it.