New Haven Advocate Vol.X No 4
September 5, 1984
By Mary Beth Bruno
Since there's no universal definition of what Arts Councils are supposed to do, or be, most of us have only vague notions that they exist to help artists by providing something more than tan, bejeweled arms to pour chilled white wine at opening receptions. What that something more is varies from city to city and state to state. In Columbus, Ohio the Arts Council runs the artists-in-the-schools programs and advises city officials on how to spend money for public art. The Arts Council of San Antonio, Texas provides many services but is most proud of it's weekly showcase on cable TV. The Rockland County New York, Arts Council's annual festival draws thousands of people to see-and-buy the work of local artists. The main stated function of these three councils, and of most arts councils in large cities, is to distribute state and local funds as grants to artists and arts organizations in their area.
In a small state such as Connecticut, such decentralization hasn't seemed necessary. All state arts grants come out of the main office of the Connecticut Commission on the Arts in Hartford. According to Commission spokesperson Tony Norris, only one of the state's 60 regional and municipal arts councils make raising and distributing funds its primary reason for being. That, of course, is Hartford. You don't have to know much about that super-corporate city to realize how large and plentiful philanthropic donations can get before tax time each year. Good thing there's a strong organization up there harvesting money full time for the arts.
So what about New Haven? What are the unique needs of artists and arts organizations in this city? What are their unique opportunities for growth? How can one low-budget not-for-profit organization located in the basement of an old foundry help to answer these questions?
This is exactly what Frances T. Clark - Bitsie to everyone who's ever met her - began thinking about when she took over as executive director of Arts Council of Greater New Haven in the fall of 1983. She assumed leadership of an organization that had, among its definite strengths and problems something of an identity crisis in this lively but bitterly fragmented cultural community. An active board of directors and president were on hand to provide continuity, but it was clear that with so much going on in New Haven, it was time for an active new direction.
The Arts Council had been established in the 60's to work with the city in the development of the Audubon Street Arts Complex-a project that has been brought out and reshelved countless times since. As major development efforts shifted to other areas of the city over the next two decades, the Arts Council began to change and broaden its focus. Audubon Street development ceased to be the only concern of the Council - providing technical assistance and coordinating activities of existing arts organizations and individuals suddenly seemed more important.
When Bitsie Clark's predecessor, Baker Salsbury, resigned in 1983, he a mandate for his successor: to find "a unified voice and commonality of purpose in the New Haven arts community, and to represent them every time the city embarked on a major economic-slash-cultural development project in which the cultural benefits were in danger of getting slashed right out of the plans." Drawing on her years of experience managing Girl Scouts and School Volunteers, Bitsie Clark threw herself into bringing forth that unified voice.
The first sign of progress to emerge was the Art Service Consortium, a committee which brought together representatives from the main arts service organizations in the greater New Haven area. The goal was to eliminate overlap and competition, and to work on complementing each other's efforts. Begun in February this year, the Consortium includes Ruth Resnick of City Spirit Artists a union that works to match artists with paying jobs; Christine Spiesel of Artspace, a relatively new group that plans to turn a piece of downtown real estate into a community gallery and performance space. Debbie Weiner of the Office of Cultural Affairs, the branch of city government responsible for promoting the arts; Lou Auld of the Shoreline Alliance of the Arts, an established and exemplary Arts Council on the shore; and Bitsie Clark. The Consortium is staffed by Robin Golden of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, thereby providing one single contact person for outside groups who want to communicate quickly with all arts service organizations in this area.
Benefits of the inter-organizational cooperation have already been proven by a successful workshop of grant-writing that the Consortium sponsored a few months ago. The potential of this super-arts council - or "megagroup," as Spiesel calls it-seems unlimited. Possible future plans include joint membership fees and joint grant applications for operating funds - possibly even to the NEA. If all goes as planned, New Haven artists will soon begin to know and take advantage of every possible service that Consortium member organizations can offer. "We really want to get the message out on where to go for what," Spiesel explains.
"There's a lot of networking happening this year," adds Ruth Resnick. "Bitsie has opened doors and people feel it. They're making an effort to work together.... There's a healthy atmosphere in the arts in New Haven."
Other results of the Art Council's commitment to maximizing assistance to artists are the establishment of Arts Assist and Business Volunteers for the Arts. Both programs are directed by Robin Golden. The first makes the expertise of Arts Council employees available to members who need help setting up boards of directors, researching grants, or organizing publicity campaigns. The second program, Business Volunteers for the Arts, will make the legal, financial, and promotional expertise of many members of the business community accessible to artists for little or no money. That resource program, which has been hugely successful in other cities, will get underway this fall. Golden says, "The more services we off, the more reason there'll be to join the Arts Council," says Golden. "We'd like all artists to join."
That would be more than a symbolic coup-it would mean a substantial increase in income. Currently, individual and organizational membership dues account for one-third of the Arts Council's annual $200,000 income for operating expenses. Another third comes from grants from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the New Haven Foundation, and various corporations. The Arts Council raises the remaining third through its programs.
"We'd like to steadily decrease the amount we receive from the New Haven Foundation and increase the amount we earn," Golden says. That would go half way toward pleasing critics in the community who believe not only should the Council not be competing with arts organizations for foundation grants, but it should be earning enough off real estate and other projects to actually grant funds to artists, as arts councils in larger but perhaps less wealthy states do.
Golden believes there are other solutions to the problem of limited funds for the arts in the New Haven area. Members of the business tell here that there are many corporations willing to donate money, but they just haven't been asked.
Doing that asking is one of the tasks the Arts Council has ahead of it. And it's not the only one. Membership data and renewal procedures have to be updated; currently the Council has no accurate tally of how many paid-up members it has. The computer system has to be effectively installed and utilized. Staff turnover has to be stabilized. "We're trying to prioritize," Clark says. "This organization tends to think big-there are many things to be done at once."
Meanwhile, plans for large open forums for artists, smaller closed ones for specialized groups (such as all large performing arts producers), and various other new projects continue to roll through the halls and glass doors of the newly remodeled Arts Council Office. Bitsie Clark eternal troop leader, manages to keep a clear head. She's aware of the passionate, but often conflicting, needs and opinions of the various members of this richly diverse arts community. "We're not interested in the Arts Council being all things to all people," Bitsie says. "We're interested in hooking people up.... If we're doing our job, we'll pull it all together."
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