By David C. Barnett
The head of the National Endowment for the Arts, Jane Chu, spoke to local arts leaders and a national conference of orchestras in two separate Cleveland-area events, this past week. And she made several other local arts connections, during a two-day visit.
Chu’s overall message focused on the importance of arts collaborations. She said there’s a trend away from the isolated artist in a garret. In an interview with 90.3, she noted that she has personal experience with reconciling different viewpoints, “because I was born into where the conditions were seemingly opposite perspectives --- having parents from China, and having been born and grew-up in Oklahoma and Arkansas --- navigating through a situation where you are figuring out how to honor all the different perspectives (and sometimes they’re opposite from each other), without force-fitting everybody to be alike.”
She called it a “Bok Choy-Corn Dog” perspective on life.
Wednesday morning, Chu spoke at the Cleveland Museum of Art about funding in an era of tight budgets. Afterwards, Chu expressed concern that the impact of the arts wasn't taken seriously, and she noted the positive potential of the arts, both educationally and economically.
For one example, she described an arts curriculum that helps teach weather concepts to kindergarteners. The N-E-A Chair also pointed to an arts center in Kansas City that helped spark the development of 400 businesses in a struggling urban district.
“So, the arts can spark vitality,” she said, “and we do ourselves a disservice in the arts if we think they're off in a corner, and they're for some people, but they're not for other people. I've seen first-hand for individuals and communities what the arts can do --- and they are transformative.”
Wednesday afternoon, she addressed the League of American Orchestras conference, downtown. On Thursday, she visited some area N-E-A grant recipients, including the Gordon Square arts district and the Cleveland International Film Festival.
