Guido Comments on Arts and The Economy

December 11, 2008

I want to step out of the guide role here for a few year-end moments, to turn a reflective eye, if you will, on the arts---on Capital-A Art---and on what it all means for us here in this community of communities we call KAXE-land.

The first thing that strikes you is how lucky we are, all across the listening area, from Brainerd-Nisswa-Pequot Lakes-Deerwood-Aitkin to Bigfork, Bemidji to the Iron Range, and pretty much every place in between: as we’ve seen, month after month, there’s a lot of Art happening in this big neighborhood, and much of it is very, very good. Whether it’s local school-kids doing a watercolor mural celebrating human rights or protesting hunger and homelessness---or a troupe of professional jazz dancers from Chicago---opportunities to create and witness Art around the northland abound, not equally everywhere, but wherever you are you’re within driving distance of most of those opportunities.

We’ve been documenting for thousands of years what creative self-expression (aka Art) does for the human body and spirit. It flat-out makes us healthier, and safer. People with backgrounds in the arts are more tolerant of diversity. They’re more flexible, more adaptable in unfamiliar circumstances. Their areas of reference are wider and more user-friendly. As students, they perform better provably on everything from achievement tests to college entrance exams. As employees, they’re more desirable for all of the above reasons; also, their communication skills are generally well developed, either broadly or in one or two modes or media in particular. In this total global environment, the only thing more critical than artful communication is cool water.

Recently, we’ve been documenting what Art does not only for quality of life but for the state’s economy, in studies commissioned by the McKnight Foundation and implemented mainly by Minnesota Citizens for the Arts. Art in Minnesota accounts for almost $840 million in annual economic activity, generating nearly $100 million in state and local government revenues. In the Arrowhead Region alone, it’s $30-plus million in commerce, accounting for $17 million in household income in northeastern Minnesota. Every dollar the state invests in Art---by way of the State Arts Board or the Regional Councils or any other way---every dollar guarantees a return on investment of $11. When was the last time you heard your Economic Development Agency talking about Art in their incentive and stimulus discussions? And remember: the McKnight Foundation is not in the habit of funding smoke-and-mirrors research; this math is strict input/output analysis, using Nobel Prize winning economic-theory models.

Another calculation: when someone comes to your town, even from just a few miles away, to see your community theater group or orchestra or a world-famous touring production, they’re going to spend on average $45 per person, and that’s not counting show tickets. It’s food and lodging and gas, locally handcrafted coffee mugs, a touristy/novelty necktie for the geezer uncle back home. Shopping. Even the locals will drop $20, before tickets, when they go out to a play or concert or ‘Bambi on the Hood’.

But to me what’s most fascinating, most telling, about Art is this: Art outlives us. It’s what we leave behind, our marker. It connects us to what’s past and what’s next. Our cities fall down, or get bombed or buried by volcanoes. Our political institutions morph and implode. Faiths go up in smoke. Celebrities are forgotten. But Art survives: we’ve got it from as far back as we go, as a species, and if we ever lose sight of this…I can’t even finish that thought.

To all my friends and colleagues at the Edge Center in Bigfork, Ironworld and Range Arts and Lyric Opera House, Crossing Arts Alliance, Ripple River Gallery, Jaques Art Center, Bemidji Community Art Center and the too-numerous-to-mention other venues in that gifted town, MacRostie Art Center, Brewed Awakenings, Itasca Orchestra and Strings Program and Community Chorus and Children’s Theatre, Grand Rapids Players, to everyone who’s ever crossed the Reif Center stage or exhibited in our lobby, to all the organizations and people I talk about every month, and to all the organizations and people I’ve forgotten to talk about: best of the holidays to you and yours from me and mine, and, Scott-Hall-willing, I’ll do this again in 2009.

Steve Downing, a.k.a. Guido, is the Development Director at The Reif Center in Grand Rapids