Illinois Governor Tries to Slash Arts Funding

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This message from the Executive Director of the Illinois Arts Alliance needs to be acted on by you if you are an Illinois Resident. The Illinois Theatre Association and my own local arts agency, The Buchanan Center for the Arts will see major budget shortfalls if these 35% cuts are allowed to stand in the Illinois Arts Council's 2008 budget.


Governor's Budget Slashes Funding for the Arts
A chorus of voices is needed to restore state's investment in the arts and arts education!
Dear Friend in the Arts,
We must act now to send a powerful message to Governor Rod Blagojevich, Senate President Emil Jones, House Speaker Michael Madigan, and other state lawmakers that the arts are not pork!
The Governor’s FY08 spending plan calls for a dramatic 35% cut (over $7 million) to the Illinois Arts Council (IAC) budget. This decrease in funding will undoubtedly have a devastating impact to the arts statewide and significantly reduce the funds available for IAC grant programs. Furthermore, the Governor completely eliminated the Arts and Foreign Language grant program through the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE).
This dangerous decision will have very negative implications for all the people of Illinois. Support from the Illinois Arts Council is crucial to the success of artists, arts organizations, and entities providing arts programming throughout the state. Strategic investments made by the Illinois Arts Council to community theaters, dance studios, schools, local festivals, libraries, museums, and park districts enhance our overall quality of life and have a significant impact on the economic health and vitality of the state - creating jobs, boosting tourism, and revitalizing downtowns.
The budget approved by the legislature on August 10, 2007 would have increased the Illinois Arts Council's budget by $3.6 million from last year’s budget level and brought us very close to our goal: a budget of $24 million for the Illinois Arts Council, or $2 per person, per year in Illinois. The budget also would have increased the Arts and Foreign Language grant program at ISBE to over $6 million in FY08 to assist school districts in providing valuable arts and foreign language programming.
The Illinois Arts Alliance is moving forward with an aggressive campaign to restore full funding for the Illinois Arts Council and arts and foreign language education funding at the Illinois State Board of Education. We NEED your help now more than ever before!
Please tell Governor Blagojevich, senate and house leadership, and your state lawmakers TODAY how essential the arts are to you and your community. We have made it extremely easy for you to effectively advocate for the arts. Here is what we are asking you to do:
1) Write two letters to lawmakers using the talking points provided in the links below
a. One requesting that funding for the Illinois Arts Council be restored to $23.2 million as proposed by the General Assembly on August 10, 2007
Click Here: http://capwiz.com/artsusa/il/issues/alert/?alertid=10235401&type=ML&show_alert=1
b. The other urging lawmakers to restore funding to the Arts and Foreign Language grant program through the Illinois State Board of Education. Click Here: http://capwiz.com/artsusa/il/issues/alert/?alertid=10235931&type=ML&show_alert=1
2) Make two phone calls to the numbers listed below expressing your concern with the proposed budget cuts to the arts and urging that funding be fully restored for the Illinois Arts Council and the Illinois State Board of Education’s Arts and Foreign Language grant program.
a) Ginger Ostro
Budget Director for Governors Office of Management and Budget
Ginger.ostro@illinois.gov
312-814-0023
b) Governor Rod Blagojevich
312-814-2121 (Chicago) OR 217-558-0880 (Springfield)
While the road ahead is rocky, together we can restore full funding for the arts in Illinois! Should you have any questions or concerns please contact me at 312-855-3105 ext 14 or email joy@artsalliance.org
Sincerely,
Ra Joy
Executive Director
Illinois Arts Alliance

THINGS I DIDN'T KNOW by Robert Hughes--a book review

Connections are often a key to the enjoyment of the stories of other's lives and I discovered a fair number of them while reading Robert Hughes' fascinatiing memoir titled Things I Didn't Know. First off Hughes and I share the same birth year--1938, That means our historical memories contain some common guideposts in spite of his youth in Australia and mine in the United States. We share early childhood consciousness of World War II, and being just a bit too young for Korea. We both were married with children before View Nam heated up. We both have lived in and loved London, have had a life threatening medical problem, and spent a career in the arts--though his has clearly and deservedly been far more distinguished.

Aside from our experiential similarities, I also admit to a long time admiration of his work. When I directed Timberlake Wertenbaker's magnificent play Our Country's Good, Hughes' The Fatal Shore was my research bible for the understanding of Australian history and character. A few years later, when teaching a course on the history and development of the arts in America, I used his American Visions for several class assignments. I must also admit to having The Culture of Complaint on my bookshelf and to reading his art columns in TIME regularly over the years.

Early on in the book, Hughes cemented my endearment by revealing that Ken Tynan was one of the critics he admired and wanted to be like. Ooops! another connection of his life to mine. Ken Tynan was a kind of hero to me too. In my judgement Tynan has written the best body of theatrical criticism in English since Bernard Shaw and I tried to make that point in my doctoral dissertation. Like Tynan Hughes felt that you need not be a talented artist to critique the arts, but you do have to have had made some attempts to practice the art you intend to comment on if only to learn how . . . "difficult certain effects that one sees in the work of real masters can be to achieve. It demonstrates that nothing, not even facility itself, is easy. Without knowing about such matters, one cannot write usefully about art."

As a somewhat crusty old curmudgeon myself, I also admire Hughes' unabashed cultural snobbery. He rues the damage done to artifacts and locales by what he calls the "toxic combination" of "mass tourism, local greed, and grossly insensitive restoration" that has literally "ruined the ruins" and turned whole sections of Europe into Disneyfied parodys of themselves. London's Bankside today, with its wine bars and museums of torture nestled up alongside the re-constructed Globe, would seem to be a perfect example of what he was talking about.

A full chapter is devoted to the great flood of the Arno in Florence in 1966. He was able to convince the BBC to send him to cover the story and his descriptions of the destruction and damage to so many classical masterpieces is compelling. The experience of seeing those treasures destroyed and hearing some so called new wave artists claim that their loss was no tragedy at all actually soured Hughes on the "potency of the avant garde." He remains convinced today that although some new works of art may have value, that the majority of so called "cutting edge" or "radical" works have little or no value. Newness is not a value in and of itself. Correlating with that is his pessimisstic view of modern media and journalism. The internet, the networks, and the fourth estate, he claims, have chosen to dumb themselves down to the level of "mushy celebrity-obsessed blithering" and "cretinous impressionism."

All in all Hughes' autobiography makes a lively read. It is acerbic, entertaining, and thought provoking.

Wind but no floods in Monmouth

It was a Thusday filled with storms, lighting, and thunder. Monmouth and environs took a hit from powerful straight line winds that may have gone as high as eighty miles per hour. Power was out for most of the city. Ours returned around two AM Friday, but others were not so fortunate. We had several huge limbs crash down on our driveway plus lots of other branches all over the yard. Our backs are sore from pulling and bending for most of the day on Friday. Kirkwood, a neighboring town, had damage to over 200 homes and a lot of the bumper corn crop between here and Roseville has taken an awful beating.

Dress Codes for Students and Faculty Make the News

JK Wilson comments about interesting new scholarly requirements at Illinois State University. You can read about the new dress codes at the site below and also see some of Wilson's comments.

Today's InsideHigherEd.com has an article about dress codes for business students (and faculty) at my institution, Illinois State University.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/08/22/dress

My blog entries about the dress code are at:
http://collegefreedom.blogspot.com/2007/08/no-collared-shirt-no-dress-shoes-no.html
http://collegefreedom.blogspot.com/2007/08/dress-codes-for-college-students-people.html

Advocating for Theatre Arts via Illinois Theatre Association

Anyone who looks at this blog occasionally might be forgiven if they think that all we do is travel and promote things at the Buchanan Center for the Arts and the Warren County Public Library. But my career was in the theatre and my heart still lingers there even though it is more difficult to keep up professionally when the financial support that one used to enjoy while teaching is no longer there.

A lot of my theatre energy is now directed toward serving as Director of Advocacy for the Illinois Theatre Association, where one of my duties is to write a monthly column for their newsletter. The August article is reproduced below.

"Having just returned from the 2007 Convention of ATHE (Association of Theatre in Higher Education) in New Orleans, where I gave a short paper on my Advocacy Involvement with the Illinois Theatre Association, I thought this might be the time to mention that advocacy materials are available on the ATHE website. http://www.athe.org/ You will find the Advocacy section under Resources. One site in their info bank that I mentioned a few months ago is still first rate. Take a look at
the Kennedy Center’s ArtsEdge. http://www.artsedge.kennedy-center.org/

A part of advocacy is pursuing rights for the members of our profession and you might find the following ATHE position paper on “Partner Benefits” interesting and helpful (even though it is aimed primarily at college teachers). http://www.athe.org/files/pdf/PartnerBenefitsPositionPaper.pdf

Now here’s a little gold mine. All in one place the Arts Education Policies of all the states in the union. Check out Illinois and a few others. Read, and then perhaps weep. http://www.aep-arts.org/database/results2.htm?select_state_id=11


The Arts Education Partnership (AEP) has an arts education advocacy DVD, called Visions of the Future: Education in the Art, which offers reflections on the past and perspectives on the future of arts education from key leaders of education, arts and philanthropic organizations. As a bonus the DVD includes The Arts and Children: A Success Story, an advocacy video produced by AEP in 1996 featuring Meryl Streep. Check it out at http://www.aep-arts.org/publications/info.htm?publication_id=23

The final part of Advocacy this month is to remind you that renewing your membership in ITA (Ilinois Theatre Association) and committing to attend the convention in September is the sort of ‘put your money where your mouth is' proof that you do want to have a stake in influencing theatre arts policy in Illinois and in the country. All arts activities need your support!" If you want more information on the Illinois Theatre Association click on its web site at the left in this blog.

Mississippi River Journey--Part 9 New Orleans Potpourri

You get stacked four high in the cemetery while waiting for a spot in a large mausoleum.


The famous Royal Street corn stalk fence makes you think of Iowa and Grant Wood


Don't even think of trying to shinny up one of the balcony supports unless you have iron shorts on.


What's New Orleans without a pile of beignets and cafe au lait on a Sunday morning at the Cafe du Monde?

Mississippi River Journey--Part 8 New Orleans Architecture

One of the most enchanting things to do when in New Orleans is to take a simple walk through the French Quarter. The people watching is superb, the eateries are as ubiquitous as pubs in London, and the architecture is studded with frosting like traceries of wrought iron and garden baskets. No need to comment. Just take a peek.