Mere bureaucratic shuffling or large ideological shift? The new format of the Seattle Arts Commission, announced last Monday with the proposed budget for 2003, has a lot of arts groups wondering exactly what's going on.
The commission will henceforth be known as the Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, and now includes the City Film and Video Program (formerly in the Office of Economic Development), as well as the new Youth Music Commission. This new entity is now part of the Executive Department, under the eye of the mayor, with a new high profile.
Michael Killoren, who took over the executive directorship of SAC this past summer and will lead the newly reorganized department, sees this as an opportunity for synergistic development. "Synergy," in fact, seems to be one of his favorite words. His vision for growth in the arts is anchored in an idea about cultural tourism (he was previously director of cultural tourism for the Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau), which he encapsulated in an anecdote about a burly guy from Alaska whom he met last year at theater simple's production of Master and Margarita at Sand Point. This man from Alaska had seen the same production in Adelaide, Australia, and deliberately sought it out in Seattle, and while he was there, went to the Seattle Art Museum and a show at the Tractor Tavern. It is seductive, the idea that people might come here to experience a range of events, not only our most visible cultural entities (the opera, the symphony...).
The problem with this thinking--the rising tide lifting all the little struggling boats--is that it operates like the idea of the building year in sports: Everyone takes a loss while it's happening. The murmuring of resistance to this idea that I've heard is the kind that happens when an already small amount of money (SAC's proposed budget is down nearly $1 million from last year) is made available to more organizations. What happens when the Experience Music Project (for example) gallops in and is eligible for operating grants that small organizations depend on to survive? Will support for popular music edge out support for classical music? And does popular music--hardly a struggling voice in this city--need the kind of support that artists and theaters do?
Killoren's response is high-minded, but a bit evasive. "I don't buy into the idea of scarcity," he said. "Instead of talking about spreading the pie thinner, we have to grow the pie."
There's more to say about this. Wait and see.
