Funding, ticket sales and sponsorships are down, but art
continues to flower in California. Can it keep going, or is a stark
winter about to set in?
Living commission to commission with a reliance on the kindness of others has been a long tradition for artists, and things are no different for modern-day artists, often relying on a balanced mix of sales and grants or endowments to help them make the rent while they paint, sculpt, compose or choreograph.
But the funding that many artists rely on is being divided from a vastly shrunken pool of resources reflecting major changes not only in the economy, but in the way Americans see art. Public art interests in the state have faced sharp decline – California now ranks 50th in the nation for public arts funding – and many creative groups and galleries have closed up shop for good.
This decrease in interest for the creative efforts of today’s artists could also spell trouble for tomorrow’s as declining art education, a byproduct of the demand for ever-higher test scores and nearly three decades of program erosion, leaves students with little training in or appreciation for artistic trades, particularly theater and dance.
“The art situation is just struggling,” said Don Jensen, a Morgan Hill-based woodworker who also works as a landscape architect to supplement his income. “If it wasn’t for the dedication of the artists themselves, we wouldn’t have much. Almost everybody has a sugar daddy or a job. There’s just not nearly enough demand for the arts in our area to support it full-time.”
In fact, just six of the 15 art galleries listed in the 2004 South Valley Phone Directory are still in business, and galleries that used to dot Northern California are fewer and farther between.
Around the country, the art scene changed dramatically following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The tragedy changed the kind of organizations most Americans gave to, and larger funding sources, such as corporations and foundations, took tumbles in an uncertain stock market, leaving less money available for distribution in support of the arts.
In a potentially disastrous confluence of events, all five major income streams for the art world – revenue from ticket sales as well as gifts from foundations, corporations, individuals and the government – have gone into decline, according to John E. McGuirk, program officer for performing arts at The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in Menlo Park. And while art sales continue to thrive, the market has moved away from original pieces into the sale of less-profitable prints and lithographs.
“If we go back 10 or 15 years, we had an art market that was dominated by collectors,” said Charlie Clark, owner of Leedo Gallery and Framing in Gilroy. “These are people who would collect a certain artist exclusively, but that market is pretty much gone. Mainly people now are buying stuff to decorate their homes with. They don’t care who painted it. They’re going for the color to match the couch rather than the merit of the art.”
State support for art programs such as county art commissions, artist-in-residence programs and minority theater has been among the hardest hit, with funding for the California Arts Council, a state agency responsible for dispensing grants to programs inspiring tomorrow’s artists, cut by $17 million in 2003. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cut, which represented more than 90 percent of the council’s operating budget, slashed its total funding to just under $3 million between state general funds, federal matching funds and special art license plate revenues.
“We had a program that ensured there was some sort of centralized arts organization in every single county in California,” said CAC spokeswoman Mary Beth Barber.
“Since the cuts, that network has decreased. There are some counties with no centralized art organization or that are working on a strictly voluntary basis, but we can’t track that. When we lost the funding, we also lost the funding for the people that were following those programs.”
It’s a dangerous situation for the state, said Barber, because California’s creative industries rely on fresh talent to maintain profitability.
“California is great because people here are so creative,” said Barber. “But it all starts with the lowest common denominator, which are local art organizations working with communities and kids. When you don’t help out on that level, it affects the whole.”
As an example, Barber cited the multi-billion-dollar Hollywood film industry.
“Where do all those lighting technicians, those stage managers first learn to do those things?” she asked. “They typically get their first exposure in community theater. Support for the arts and for art education is almost an artistic R&D for the rest of the creative industries in California.”
Beginning in 1970, the state eliminated its requirement for art-course training in elementary school teachers. This was compounded when, in 1978, state residents passed Proposition 13, a property tax cap that resulted in budget shifts and, ultimately, large staffing and program cuts, particularly in the arts. In 1983, the state’s high school reform law changed graduation requirements, requiring students to take either one year of foreign language or one year of performing arts instead of requiring both.
In 2001, California re-introduced requirements that elementary school teachers possess minimum levels of art education experience after the state’s education board outlined course requirements for art education in 2000. However, they did not provide any additional funding for programs, said Laurie Schell, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group California Alliance for Art Education.
“In many cases, the arts programs are existing in the margins and when a school is being judged by test scores in reading and in math, districts have a hard time, sometimes, accounting for the fact that they are spending money on programs some see as extras,” Schell said.
And while studies have correlated early art education with higher test scores, increased attendance and greater creativity, Schell is reticent to place too much emphasis on debated research.
“There is a link; there is correlation, but we have to be careful,” said Schell. “The Mozart effect is not proven beyond the shadow of a doubt. This does not mean, for instance, that the arts make people smarter in math, but whether it’s good for anybody or not. Existing educational code in California says the visual and performing arts will be provided to first through 12th grade students, and it is considered a core subject area in No Child Left Behind.”
Placing emphasis on the arts now could be critical to California’s future as an arts and entertainment leader, said John Kreidler, executive director of arts education and advocacy group Cultural Initiatives Silicon Valley.
“I believe one of the things that happened with the San Jose Symphony (which went under in 2003 and later reopened as Symphony Silicon Valley) was a declining base of people who fit the profile of what we know are the audience for symphonies,” said Kreidler.
“Most people who go to symphonies read music and have some experience with Western European musical style. I’m not being critical at all. I’m just saying that if you don’t keep a base of people who know that field in an area, you’re bound to sink.”
Not everyone is convinced of that idea, though. Hollister artist Shannon Grissom believes artists must be willing to work within the changing dynamics of the global marketplace like other businesspeople.
“The way most artists go about selling their work – it’s set up for the artist to fail,” said Grissom. “You sell a painting here, you sell a painting there, but you don’t get anywhere. As much as I love to do what I do, it is a product, and I’m responsible for marketing it.”
Rather than decry the move of profitable art sales from individual paintings to prints and lithographs, Grissom has embraced the trend, turning her attention toward marketing her reproductions.
Though some artists may complain about marketing and self-promotion, for Grissom, it has actually driven up the overall value of her art. Grissom’s reproductions have been popular, and as their price has gone up, the prices of her originals have followed. These days she sells most of her canvases for $2,000 or more, but it’s not by spending all her time in the studio.
Grissom estimates that two-thirds of her day is devoted purely to marketing herself, and the time has been well spent. She has a successful public access television show, an upcoming children’s book and a nomination for the first Artists’ Academy Awards under her belt, and she’s currently searching for ways to market her goods to an even broader audience.
“Right now I’m really working on the print and reproduction-ware market, which is tableware, curtains, anything that you can print a painting on, because, unlike a one-time sale, I’ll continue to get royalties from that,” said Grissom. “It’s not supposed to be, ‘Oh! I’m an artist and everyone should buy my work.’ If I stayed in the studio all day, all I’d have would be a bunch of paintings with no one to buy them.”
When it comes to younger artists entering the scene, Grissom is hopeful. Tough economic times have left plenty of pocketbooks empty, but they’ve also pulled the artistic community together in a show of strength, she said, and things are looking up on the educational front, too.
Though funding remains low, artists are continuing to produce a profit – California artists alone registered more than $300 million last year – and education is changing for the better.
“It’s going to take a long time to make up for the fact that, for 31 years, teachers were not required to have art in their backgrounds,” said Kreidler. “But since a year of art education is now a requirement for incoming freshmen at the (University of California) and (California State University) level, high schools are going to have to ramp up their programs. Hopefully, other schools will follow suit.”
