CLEVELAND, Ohio – The board of Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, the group that allocates money raised by the county’s cigarette tax, met Monday before a packed room in downtown Cleveland to hear what President Joe Gibbons called “sobering” news:
Over the next decade, there will be fewer dollars in the pot to publicly fund the arts in Cuyahoga County – an estimated loss of $500,000 per year through 2020, said Meg Harris, CAC’s director of administration.
And, come April, more artists and community organizations will compete for those dollars, when the arts agency board votes to approve new guidelines for grant applicants with an eye toward funding a more diverse pool of recipients than in previous years.
Millions are at stake: Last year, $12.6 million in general operating support grants went to 57 organizations large and small, from the Cleveland Orchestra to Brecksville’s Theater on the Square. Another $1.9 million went to 184 nonprofit organizations to fund special art projects.
At Monday’s meeting, the board discussed a series of proposed moves meant to address the reality of dwindling dollars and the agency’s goal to spread those dollars among more “cultural partners.”
One of those proposals includes cutting the allowable maximum request for special art projects from $35,000 to $30,0000, a suggestion that Karen Lazar, executive director of Chagrin Arts, called “a drastic reduction” in available funding.
That and other changes are still on the drawing board, subject to responses from long-term recipients such as the Cleveland Museum of Art and prospective community groups yet to be funded, said Karen Gahl-Mills, executive director of Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.
Between now and April 17, the date of the group’s annual board meeting, CAC staff will be in contact with stakeholders, asking for help in hammering out a draft of new guidelines.
When completed – and Gahl-Mills doesn’t anticipate that happening before April 1 – that draft will be circulated to area arts groups.
“That is our ongoing, feedback-loop process,” said Gahl-Mills. “We will be in touch with these organizations to ask, ‘What do you think? What’s the good, what’s the bad, what’s the ugly?’ “
Whether through a survey or one-on-one conversations, Gahl-Mills said, “we will commit to getting a sense of, ‘What excites you about this? What worries you about this?’ “
That process was in full swing Monday night, when the board opened the forum to public comments.
While some who gathered for the two-hour meeting at Playhouse Square’s Ideastream voiced impassioned support for the move meant to bring greater “equity” to arts and culture funding, others were skeptical of the “roadmap” used to reach that goal.
The first to speak was Kevin “Mr. Soul” Harp, a visual artist born and raised in the Lee-Harvard neighborhood and mentored by a local, unsung graffiti artist who never received a CAC grant.
As a black man in America, Harp said he knows the way government works – while it creates “the illusion of inclusion,” the reality is “business as usual.”
Watching the $14 million to $15 million awarded annually by Cuyahoga Arts and Culture flow to “prestigious institutions” rather than into programs to benefit black kids starved of creative opportunities and young artists “in communities that have always been overlooked” is “a sin,” he said.
“We come from the dilapidated parts of Superior, Woodland, St. Clair and [East] 105[th Sreet],” he said. “And still we rise.”
The remedy, he said, is a commitment to actually expanding the distribution of grants to underserved artists and communities, not simply giving lip service to the idea.
Audience members responded to Harp’s speech with applause and snaps.
Later, board member Gwendolyn Garth agreed. “I’m tired of talking,” she said. “Either we’re looking at new ways to be equitable or we’re not.”
Not so fast, said others. While everyone can agree diversity and equity are worthy goals, many in attendance were still smarting from an earlier action by the board.
From 2009 through last year, the arts agency awarded more than $4 million to 161 individual artists, writers and performers through its Creative Workforce Fellowship program.
The board discontinued the program in 2016 in the hope of creating a new one designed to “empower artists to use their artistic practice to address a question or a problem that they identify in their community,” Gahl-Mills said after a board meeting in November 2016. The grants would have been managed by a nonprofit in Washington, D.C. But following a public outcry, those plans were scrapped.
On Monday, Cleveland Heights playwright George Brant addressed the board to lament the loss of the popular program.
“When I was lucky enough to be awarded the [Creative Workforce] Fellowship, I felt personally valued, and, as I traveled around the country I would tell other theater makers about the fellowship. They were amazed and envious that here in Cleveland we so valued the artist.
“Since then, unfortunately, a number of changes have been made to the individual artist program that have reduced our perceived value,” he continued.
“. . . The money granted has been halved . . . the program itself has been put on hiatus twice; the individual artist is apparently no longer valued for [his or her] intrinsic value but is being asked to become a community art-maker.
“The definition of an individual artist has been broadened to the point of becoming a non-definition, again reducing the value of those of us who have made working in the arts our life’s work, not a hobby.
“. . . At every open forum held, we are allowed to speak, which is wonderful, but it is very clear that our voices and our opinions are not valued.”
The paradox of all of this “is that we are supported by the community itself,” Brant said in conclusion, pointing to the overwhelming support of voters of Issue 8.
By any measure, county support for public arts funding in Cuyahoga has been remarkable. Since 2006, the first year voters approved a 30-cents-a-pack tax on cigarettes, $154 million has flowed to area nonprofits and individual artists though CAC. In 2015, voters renewed the 10-year cigarette levy by a resounding 75.2 percent vote in favor.
Despite the largesse of Cuyahoga County residents, in the last decade, revenues have decreased an average of 3.6 percent per year, Harris explained in her report to the board. (Put another way, tax earnings in 2006 were roughly $20 million; by year 10, they had dropped to $15 million.)
The reasons for the decreases are simple: More people are kicking the nicotine habit for health reasons, with more to follow if a tax increase on cigarettes (an additional 65 cents a pack) in Gov. John Kasich’s proposed 2018-19 budget passes. (Such increases have historically pushed more smokers to go cold turkey.)
Dealing with those losses is more complicated. Like the appreciation showed to “Mr. Soul’s” speech, applause also followed Brant’s remarks, highlighting the polarization in the room.
To address some of Brant’s concerns, Gahl-Mills announced that two-time Creative Workforce recipient Raymond Bobgan, executive artistic director of Cleveland Public Theatre, had agreed to help put together a community advisory committee to make recommendations to the board for how best to recognize excellence in independent artists.
Bobgan said he hoped to have something for the board to consider in the fall.
The next meeting of the board of Cuyahoga Arts and Culture is 4 p.m. Monday, April 17, at Ensemble Theatre, 2843 Washington Blvd., Cleveland Heights.
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