Chip & the Block – Funding in the Arts

Jesse: Welcome to Chip and the Block. Today we’re discussing  funding in the arts. The thing is that I go to an art school that is run by the State, and the State simply has no money. And because the State has no money, we get no money. So for me there are no props, no sets, there are no costumes, and there is a lack of shows in general, and…

John: Wait! Just step back a second. Explain to me something. So LACHSA (LA County High School for the Arts) was utilizing funds that the Government provides to a publicly run Los Angeles County High School that is fundamentally an art school. The Art School requires that you have a high academic standing to audition, then the kids who audition are generally talented in whatever field they are in?

Jesse: Yeah.

John: So essentially it’s a group of academically and artistically talented kids in a State funded school. Yes?

Jesse: Yes.

John: Good. And with the current economic downturn, and the California State Government being basically in default, funding has dried up? Prior to this economic downturn LACHSA had access to resources that it no longer has access to?

Jesse: Yes. We had the money to do three, four shows a season, we cut down to two and that was even doubtful. Our fourth year project, which is like the Seniors show, has been cut down to no props, no costumes, we don’t have the space on the weekend. We have to do a show in the middle of the week,… They started the year off as normal. Then the Principal just sent an email out just saying “Guess what? We don’t have any money, so all your stuff is getting cut.”

John: Let me ask you this; Why is it important, in these incredibly difficult times, where everybody’s suffering, not just the artists, but everybody’s suffering, why should the State foot the bill for a bunch of kids to be creative?

Jesse: I think creativity is the most important part. Because it provides the actual sustenance of life. Yeah, you need math and arithmetic and all those other hard basic education, right? That’s one of those things you need. But the Art is what makes life beautiful. If you have the protein base of knowledge without any sprinkling of flavor, that is Art on top of it, life becomes mundane.

John: My opinion personally is that imagination, the ability to imagine things that are not necessarily concrete, is at the foundation of how we connect with each other as people, and that within our culture, I think fundamentally what’s missing is the connection between imagination and soul. Like our culture is becoming very soul-less because we’re so focused on this economic agenda that we can’t really focus on the connection that seems to be missing, which is how do we humanely connect and actually change the world for the better? And I think that’s what the Arts do. Which is the same as you are saying that things are becoming mundane.

Jesse: All I’m saying is that if you don’t have art in the world, it becomes sort of a 1984-esque world.

John: Which is unfortunately where we are.

Jesse: No, we’re moving towards a Huxley, Brave New World sort of world.

John: I’m saying that’s exactly where we are. I think that the pharmaceutical industry is anaesthetising our culture; I think that most of our art is entertainment as spectacle without substance, and I think a great deal of what we’re doing, in terms of how the government and the people are interacting, is this incredible division between this Big Brother (huge government) and the individual. And the artist is the one who speaks for the individual and the collective. Because it’s the individual speaking with imagination for the collective.

Jesse: Sure, but I do think that money is necessary for the arts. And you can have art that is just art.

John: I was in Senator Feinstein’s office the other day and I had an interview with one of her aides, and I spoke very clearly to the needs of the freelance community, trying to get a message to Senator Feinstein about what’s occurring and the nature of gridlock, and the fact that I was really offended that a lot of these Senators are receiving $160,000.00 a year, and medical benefits for the rest of their lives,  for not doing their job. I said yes there is a crisis going on, and the crisis is both political and artistic. Because the political agenda and the economic agenda are driving the arts.

Jesse: That’s true. There is no art for art sake. Art for art sake is no longer acceptable because it’s either too taboo or it’s too strange or it doesn’t fit or nobody wants to see it because they won’t like it as much as they possibly can, but the people who love it come back and then it spreads. But there is just this lack of daring.

John: So, how do we address the issue of either creating an artistic underground, where there is a communally based support system, sort of like Bitter Lemons, that actively engages in helping the creation of the arts and is all about getting around the government and the funding agenda? I’m not sure how realistic that is, because unfortunately what’s happening, (and we talked about this in our first blog), is that there is so much panic and fear right now, because there is just no work and no money, that nothing is really happening. It’s very stagnant right now.

Jesse: I think people aren’t going to care. People only want to do something if they’re going to get to perform. I feel that it won’t be a completely sharing experience if that was to happen. The idea of an underground is awesome but will it actually happen in reality? No.

John: It’s happened. It’s cyclicly happened. I was part of an artistic underground in my youth when I was your age.

Jesse: In your youth! In my youth there is no underground.

John: That’s part of apathy. Don’t you think that your generation has a certain amount of political and social apathy? In other words, in my youth, I was just post-Vietnam, and I was very politically and socially active, and part of that was a certain arts activism. And maybe in a certain way, one of the things we’re looking at is the potential, that your generation is being asked to become more socially and politically active in order to enable, enoble and support the arts. Really, realistically, is there anything that you see your group of artist friends doing, that actually engages with the social fabric?

Jesse: We try, but people don’t care.

John: People didn’t care in Vietnam.

Jesse: Well, then people reeealy don’t care. No one cares. There is this big not caring.

John: That’s apathy. So, social activism is engaging people through imagination, so that the apathy gets dissolved.

Jesse: But it’s not so easy as it was. I think there is this internet and Live sort of “blah”. So that information is no longer important.

John: (laughs) “Live sort of blah”… Are you saying that the overwhelming amount of information that’s available, because of the internet…

Jesse: ….makes important things impotent.

John: That is really important what you just said. You just said that you believe that the plethora and the readily available information, entertainment and distraction, that’s available through social networking and technologies, is making it such that it is very difficult for the youth to engage, and makes people apathetic?

Jesse: Sort of. You’re missing the most important thing which is that because there is so much of it, the important things get lost in the sea of…

John: …digital vomit.

Jesse: Yeah.. Like you could be watching on YouTube some kid dancing around, someone giving a talk at TED, and then somebody punching somebody in the face, all in the same five minutes. And will you care any more about one or the other? No.

John: I think a talk from somebody at TED has more of a lasting effect then watching somebody getting punched in the face.

Jesse: Not if it was an epic punch… You’ll hear about it the next 10, 15, 20 days.

John: That’s a really good point. So what you’re saying to me is that you think that apathy and information go together. So the question I would ask, because in a certain way, although we didn’t have the internet distraction, I still think there was a certain amount of apathy and disinterest, and a certain amount of vitriol that went on between the generation above me and the message we were trying to get out; Which was, we wanted to get out of Vietnam, we wanted to set a political and an artistical agenda that was more based out of the post hippie pre-disco area. So we tried, we created and performance art, computer based media, entertainment with a clear social agenda happened. Not always, but it happened.

Jesse: But the thing is that you got the message out. The message wasn’t lost in the sea of vomit. You were able to transmit the message and deal with the response of it. Whereas here the message doesn’t reach anyone and it doesn’t make any difference.

John: That’s not entirely true. There is a methodology within the digital format where messages become viral and certain messages catch on within the cultural consciousness and propagate.

Jesse: But it’s a crap shoot. You don’t know if it will catch on or not.

John: But that’s not the issue I don’t think. In other words, using your same logic, the willingness to risk, unless you’re willing to risk whether or not your message is going to get out, then the message simply isn’t going to get out. It’s actually the same principle idea, which is that in order to change the apathetic perspective, that the ecolomic agenda is driving the arts, your generation has to become less apathetic. In all regards.

Jesse: But if everyone puts out something, nothing will get seen.

John: But that’s the same with your art though. In fact that’s what’s happening in your generation. The “American Idol” sort of entertainment, that pop culture idea that everybody can sing, that anyone can be a star, fame for the sake of fame, purely because someone is well known in a reality show, all of that contributes to watering down the pool.

When I started as a musician, you had to be able to actually play an instrument. You had to be good at your instrument. You had to be good in the studio. You had to be able to utilize technology in a creative way and actually know the skill and craft of what you were doing. And now, based on technology and information and easy access, anybody can do anything, and there is this huge pool of mediocrity that goes with this plethora of information. And unless you guys take a stand and say, regardless of funding, regardless of the political stance of our culture and climate, we’re going to choose to take a stand and do this, regardless of whether people hear it or not. If you don’t choose to risk then nothing can change. Because in general, I think the messages that go viral, are the ones that people take a risk about, whether anyone hears them or not.

We welcome your thoughts. We want to know what you think funding and the arts have to do with each other. We want to know what you think about how a message can get out.

Which might lead us to our next topic: How can we get a message out?  How can we make art and imagination, and reconnecting to a more vital sense of soul, more accessible within our culture. We’re open to any opinions, thoughts, questions, you want to ask, or that you want us to discuss.

Thank you for joining Chip & the Block.