Hello Austin Creatives!
Have just returned from participating in Arts Advocacy Day (organized by Americans for the Arts) in Washington DC. Spent a day with our very active Texans for the Arts members getting briefed on what we want Congress to support since these are issues that affect all of us. See below for details on that. But the hit of the day was our dynamic NEA Chair, Rocco Landesman! If you have not already been following all he is doing, visit the NEA site, and be sure to check out his ART WORKS campaign.
And where does his magic come from? The theater!! He is a brilliant B’way producer (The Producers, Angels in America, to name a few) who is bringing an exciting — and vigorous — entrepreneurial spirit to Washington that is turning everyone around when they think of ARTS. New messaging at last! Last Sunday’s New York Times headline was ”Mr. Broadway Storms Capitol Hill.” Who said theater doesn’t matter! It’s everything.
And what did we spend Tuesday in the halls of Congress visiting our congressmen about? These important issues:
- $180M for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
- Include IRA Charitable Rollover in legislation to extend “expiring provisions” that lapsed Dec 31, 2009
- Artist-Museum Partnership Act (S-405) to allow artists donating works to Museums, Libraries, Archives to claim fair-market value tax deduction for same.
I urge ALL of you write your congresspeople and urge support for these issues NOW!
(Of course, while I was in Doggett’s office, we also spoke about the need for work space for artists! More conversations about that coming as it was a good meeting)
And in between all that, we Texans talked about the HOT funds and am off to Houston at the end of the day to see what we can do to make sure ALL arts get funded. I shared Austin Arts Commissioner Bruce Willenzik’s wonderful World Series analogy to underscore the value of community arts and arts in the schools to our total program: If you just had the World Series, and no Little League, no baseball in schools, no farm leagues, how long would it last. Our arts — all of them — are part of an ecosystem. It’s an organic system. You cannot lop off a part and have it still work.
Keep up the good work!
