2010 ushers in a new decade and by all accounts a changing arts and cultural landscape.

The National Endowment for the Arts’ 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts finds:

1. Audiences for the arts continue to decline and age at significant rates.
   
   
2. The largest drop in arts consumption comes from people ages 45 to 54, which has traditionally been the most dependable group of participants.
   
   
3. More Americans are going online or turning to broadcasts and recordings to engage with performances rather than attending live arts events (with the exception of theatre).

The results are sobering. It’s time to ask some hard questions: In light of the trends in arts participation, where is the need to continue to build new arts venues? Given that public and private funding for the arts are also in serious decline, how many nonprofit arts venues can a community reasonably sustain over time? In Pennsylvania there is a bias in favor of funding the acquisition and construction of cultural projects over investments in programming. Each year hundreds of millions of dollars are allocated for arts capital development while the Commonwealth’s existing 600 arts nonprofits must share less than $7.5 million for operating support. (Thirteen of them alone receive $2 million of that total amount) A building does not a program make—or sustain. As arts advocates, how can we affect funding priorities to invest in people, in arts jobs and programs that engage young and old alike?

The value and impact of the arts is something to be illuminated. Our message will resonate if our voices speak out for the common good, not our own self-interest.

This decade demands creative solutions. Are we up to the challenge?
Of course —we are the arts.

Thank you.

Cooperatively yours,



Randall Forte
Executive Director
Lehigh Valley Arts Council