The Arts Matter! Make Your Voice Heard

by Jaime Pfeffer

March 8th, 2008 in Art, Creative, Events, Lansing, Lansing / Jackson, Talent

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We all know how important arts and culture are in cultivating Michigan’s creative class. And we all know how important the creative class is to the vibrancy of Michigan’s economy.

So why, then, did funding for arts and culture programs in Michigan go from fourth in the nation in 2002 to fifty-first in the nation in 2008?

It just doesn’t make sense, says Neeta Delaney, president and CEO of ArtServe Michigan - a statewide institution that seeks to enhance the health and well-being of Michigan residents and communities through arts and culture.

“Recent statistics and reports all point to the importance of arts and culture in cultivating our creative class, yet the state has moved in the opposite direction,” she says.

Disappointing? Yes. But Delaney and members of ArtServe are on a mission to get statewide arts funding back on track so Michigan can compete in today’s increasingly competitive global society. But they need your help.

On March 19, artists, artist entrepreneurs, arts educators, parents and anyone else that has a vested interest in the state is encouraged to partake in ArtServe’s Arts & Culture Advocacy Day, a day-long conference being held at Lansing’s Historic Central United Methodist Church. Simply put, Arts & Culture Advocacy Day is “the one day out of the year to make your voice heard,” Delaney says.

Tickets, which cost $45 - or $30, using the special MiLife MiTimes promo code “MLMT” - include two keynote speakers, performances by the Peter Sparling Dance Company, networking and lunch. Event attendees will also be briefed on important issues within the arts and culture sector, and have the opportunity to speak directly with legislators about the importance of the arts in Michigan.

The two main initiatives of the day are as follows:

1 - To advocate for the arts: specifically, for a 50% increase in arts and culture funding this year followed by incremental increases through 2012. By that time, advocates would like to see funding back at approximately $27 million, or the level it was at in 2002.

2 - To launch “Michigan’s Competitive Edge”: this involves leveraging three of the state’s biggest assets - its natural resources, its creativity and its culture.

Another point on the agenda is to lobby for a $10 million increase in the Department of Education budget, which would ensure the continuance of the one-hour credit mandate in visual, applied or performing arts for graduating seniors of Michigan high schools.

To Delaney, the importance of something like Arts & Culture Advocacy Day cannot be stressed enough:

“Elected officials react to one thing: the people who elect them … So it is essential that advocates of the arts join hands with a greater group to show legislators that there is a growing number of people invested in the future of the arts in Michigan.”

For the day’s agenda, to register, or for more information on Arts & Culture Advocacy Day, visit ArtServe on the Web.

One of Detroit's biggest cheerleaders, Jaime Pfeffer moved to the Motor City from suburban Detroit five years ago. She started a blog, Girl in the D, in September 2004 to promote the positive aspects of Detroit and hasn't stopped touting Motown's good side since. Jaime left corporate America in 2007 to pursue her first love, writing.