Mon 12/12 @ 3:30PM
As we reported previously, changes to the Creative Workforce Fellowships, funded by the arts & culture tax and awarded to individual artists, were proposed in November by the board of administering agency Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC). Instead of focusing on artistic quality, they prioritized using art to effect “community change” and opened the fellowships to non-artists with ideas for addressing social issues. They intended to vote on the changes at their board meeting at the Idea Center Mon 12/12.
Artists in the community, who worked hard to pass the levy renewal last year, were up in arms. Conversations were occurring in person and online and people were being urged to contact the board members and attend the meeting on 12/12.
Today, Tue 12/6, CAC posted on their web site that it will be taking no action on the individual artist support at that meeting.
It said, “In the last few days, National Artists Strategies, a potential partner for delivering fellowship support to Cuyahoga County artists, notified us that they are not comfortable submitting a proposal at this time. NAS wants to ensure its work can be positive and productive, and, given the disagreements that have surfaced in the community, they have decided to step back. We are disappointed by the decision, but respect it. This decision has nothing to do with their confidence in the program they were to bring to Cuyahoga County.”
The involvement of NAS was another sticking point for the arts community. From the Fellowships’ initiation, Cleveland’s Community Partnership for Arts & Culture (CPAC) has been the vehicle for delivering the fellowships. The decision to move that role to Washington, D.C.-based NAS ruffled feathers, especially since no reason was given for cutting out CPAC and one of the levy promises was that the money would remain and circulate in the local community.
CAC’s statement continued, “In the meantime, we are moving forward to identify a new way to provide support for individual artists that aligns with our mission to strengthen and inspire the community. Unfortunately, this means we will not be able to get money into the hands of artists as early as we had planned in 2017. The comprehensive, mission-aligned program we seek cannot be built in a few weeks and currently does not exist in Cuyahoga County.”
The current fellowships end December 31 2016 as does CPAC’s program.
CAC appears to be subtly shifting some of the blame for this fiasco to CPAC, saying “We offered the CWF for eight years, but we have not been able to work together with CPAC to adjust the program design to better reflect our mission of strengthening the community though investments in arts and culture like we have in our other grant programs.”
Although CAC did not host extensive public discussions on the changes before dropping them in November, its statement said, “We understand that some artists are opposed to the change in direction that we discussed at the November board meeting. We have also heard from many artists and organizations who support this new approach to our individual artist funding.”
Without such public discussions, it’s hard to assess who opposed the changes and who supported them and what their agendas might be.
CAC promises, “We will continue to develop a new approach to support artists in a way that provides flexible, meaningful dollars, while opening up a program to different types of artists and making a larger impact on our community. We will keep you updated as we work through the process to find just the right program for the community and will provide ample opportunities to provide feedback to us. We are taking all input under careful consideration and will continue to work to strike a balance that meets our organizational objectives and the needs of artists in the community.”
Hopefully those will be in an open forum and not back channel ways that they can spin as support for whatever they decide.
Although the board says it will take no action this Monday, it says it will “briefly discuss our new direction for individual artist funding.” It would still be a good idea for those concerned to attend this meeting just to make the board of CAC aware that people in the arts community are watching and listening. It takes place at the Idea Center’s Miller classroom starting at at 3:30pm.
cacgrants.org/media-room/news/post/update-on-support-for-artists