The case has already been made that culture needs candidates, in this election cycle and beyond. That case has been made by many—including myself—not on art-is-good-for-you truisms but on cold, hard, conservative principles.
Remember the figures from this column three weeks ago: In 2005,
Seattle’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs (OACA) got a $2.57
million budget (minus funds for public art). That year, OACA and
Seattle’s arts institutions returned $12.3 million in city-government
revenue. That’s not counting money that went to the state, the county,
and local restaurants and hotels. (Nearly 1.9 million people traveled
to Seattle in 2005 to see art—and spend money—here.) The
conclusion: Arts funding is not a handout; arts funding is an
investment. And if artists and arts advocates want to get anywhere,
they’d best stop behaving like beaten dogs and start behaving
like a force to be reckoned with.
First, the culture constituency must rally its resources and figure
out what it wants. I’ve been asking artists and administrators that
question and have heard a broad spectrum of answers: relief from
crushing business taxes, stronger advocates, a job-share project to
spread around medical benefits—and even “nothing.” Housing and
health care were major themes, as well as financial incentives to help
developers preserve arts venues instead of gentrifying them into
extinction.
Over lunch at Cafe Presse last week, Susan Trapnell laid out a
constellation of changes Seattle could make to stimulate its arts
ecology. (Trapnell is a senior consultant at the Arts Consulting Group,
has managed the Guthrie, and is largely credited with saving ACT
Theatre in 2003.) A big one for large institutions: unrestricted
funds. Most local grants are handed out for specific projects. By
the time they arrive, the ground may have shifted, revealing new needs
and opportunities—but the money is chained to its preordained
purpose, keeping institutions sluggish and bureaucratic instead of
nimble and responsive.
A big one for fledgling artists: lottery grants. “Nobody
knows who the right new artist is until after the fact,”
Trapnell said. Let’s own the risk, and stop wasting time and
money on applications that don’t predict what artists will do anyway.
Trapnell told a story about a nephew who left investment banking to
work with the rural poor in West Virginia. One night, he had dinner
with some old investor friends and brought a jar of pennies. “Here’s
the difference between your business and mine,” he said and dumped the
pennies on the table. “You take those pennies and turn them into
dollars. I take those pennies and write reports on where they all
went.”
These are small, initial ideas. I’ll report more in the coming
weeks. But smarter investment—detaching strings from grants,
taking risks on young innovators—would be an excellent start. 
