Artists are often solitary creators, but the arts community in Northeast Ohio has been coming together in recent years to assert its importance. Much of the activism has centered on making an economic case for arts and culture. Beyond that, what is our strategy for enlivening the region with art? How can art be an integral part of livable communties? How can it help us tell our story?

To paraphrase economist Richard Florida’s theory from “Rise of the Creative Class” artists flock to cities with the right mix of a liberal culture, a vibrant street life and cheap, big spaces for making art or staging performances. By most measures, Cleveland should be a boom town for artists, and in some neighborhoods like Tremont, Archwood-Denison, the Quadrangle and Collinwood, artists have clustered, and galleries or art collectives have followed.

But, for all of our vacant warehouses and storefronts, world-class institutions like the Cleveland Orchestra and the Cleveland Museum of Art, well-respected outfits like Cleveland Public Theater and hipster outposts like the Beachland Ballroom, has Cleveland effectively promoted itself outside the region as a destination for artists?

We're asking local artists or “creative types” to think about a regional agenda for the arts in Northeast Ohio. Specifically, what can we do better as a city, as a region, to attract and retain artists?

What follows is the beginning of a list of ideas that Northeast Ohio can capitalize on right now to promote itself and become more attractive to artists. Take a moment to add your own.

Funding
How does Northeast Ohio compare to other regions in how much it invests in the arts per capita? How much public money is invested in the arts in the U.S.?

The National Endowment for the Arts’ 2004 budget was only $121 million dollars — of which $100 million is distributed after agency overhead is taken into account.

In 2003, states invested $354.5 million, falling to $273.7 million in 2004, a 23 percent decline, according to an NEA report. In 2002 and 2003 many state arts budgets came under strong fiscal pressures, in part because state governments were required to balance their budgets with falling revenues.

The U.S. Urban Arts Federation, which only counts the 50 largest local arts agencies, forecasted 2003 expenditures of $338 million by its members. The single largest urban funder is the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; in 2004 this agency funded the arts at a level of $118.8 million. The second largest urban funder in 2004 was the San Francisco Arts Commission, with expenditures of $25.5 million.

The Cuyahoga County cigarette tax to fund the arts which passed in 2006 was a step in the right direction. The county expects to generate $18 million per year for the next ten years to support 501(c)3 arts organizations large and small. Because individuals and cultural/civic groups (i.e. organizers of street arts fairs) can't apply for grants directly, some gaps remain.

So, what level of funding should the region shoot for, and is the cigarette tax going to get us there?

Create arts districts
What the local arts community is missing are meeting places, says Susan Miller, founding director of dance company The Repertory Project and a staffer with the Cleveland Arts Prize. People need bars and restaurants to go to immediately following arts events, so they can discuss what they saw and heard.

“Now where do artists and their fans go to await reviews? We have no El Morocco here,” she says. “Do we need to resurrect Jerome Zerbe (a Clevelander who invented the paparazzi in the early 20th century) to photograph the celebrities in their after party states?”

How can we encourage the organic growth of true arts districts, meaning, areas that attract working artists, not just creative types?

One idea is to give renovation credits and tax exemptions for restoring loft spaces for work/living with the stipulation that rents are kept down, says Jim Harris, who runs a local marketing firm and promotes arts events such as Jazz at Rockefeller Greenhouse. For renters, make sure transportation options and other amenities are easily available to them.

“Don’t tie (owner incentives) into large developments, but open it up to individuals and entrepreneurs working on small-scaled projects that producers, not consumers of art can afford,” he says.

More cohesive, grass-roots marketing
We need regional cooperation and cross marketing, Miller suggests. Rich online content such as videos of performances and a single, open source calendar that pulls from other self-serve calendars like RealNEO and GreenCityBlueLake, would fill seats and thus keep arts thriving. Connect the calendar with a Google map that one can use to get directions and a link to the arts spaces on the RTA trip planner with discounts if you have a transit pass.

The arts need a “Brain” map, so we can sort via discipline and or date, Miller adds. Everyone’s website should be there, not unlike City Search. Here’s a good example of a website that exists for dance in the UK. Something like this for all the disciplines in Northeast Ohio would be a good tool for locals and for marketing the region’s amazing arts offerings.

Connect artists to information
How about a comprehensive guide of resources made readily available to artists, suggests local artist Michael Lehto, a graduate student in Cleveland Institute of Art’s TIME program. For example, where's a good place to shop for health insurance (COSE has a good plan, I hear). Where are subsidized or low-cost studios spaces available? What are some of the best funding/grant organizations out there and what kind of projects are they giving money to?

More professional opportunities
Local painter and printmaker Corrie Slawson suggests that CIA expand its MFA program offering to include fine arts such as painting and sculpture (other than its tech-focused MFA) in order to attract more experienced artists and faculty.

Also, the local art gallery system needs to strengthen the connection between patron and artist, Slawson says. Too many art purchases happen in New York, meanwhile talented local artists are left to languish.

The best way to keep artists is to provide the market for them to sell their goods, Harris adds, maybe with a regional web portal.

Use Wikipedia to post some entries for local arts and provide links to them on an arts site or a section of another site, Miller says. This is a way to market regional arts to the broader community.

"We need to get people to realize if they had bought a Dana Schutz or an April Gornik when they were at CIA those works would be very valuable now and sought by museums," says Norm Roulet of RealNEO. "My parents bought CIA student work by Mark Petrovic and that is some of the earliest work by that important glass artist in any collection."

Build local appreciation for the arts
We need a better definition for "the arts" for Northeast Ohioans, young and old, says graphic designer Ann Pisanelli. "The arts" connotes "high-brow" things like the symphony, or museum. Most folks don't connect to this idea of the arts being for them. Helping people define "the arts" more broadly would open people’s eyes to their value in public education and family life and thus engage in the arts because they have redefined it, and now find it relevant to them.

I think you will find that people in NEO spend more money on lawn care and at Crocker Park than arts and culture, says Roulet. Sprawl and mediocrity have killed our regional economy and that includes for arts and culture. Re-educate, educate better, import more cultured people, and better people will support better arts and culture.

Others have suggested that we need to expand our definition of art to include other creative fields such as web design, advertising, architecture. landscape design and similar pursuits.

What do you think Northeast Ohio's arts scene needs? Add a comment.

Resources

• Arts Midwest
• Progressive Arts Alliance
• Performing Arts Fund
• Cool Cleveland
• Cleveland Arts Prize
• Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (CPAC)
• Artist Review Today
• PD Arts & Entertainment News weblog
• Red Dot Project, virtual and actual flat file collection of purchasable NEO art

Updates
St. Clair/Superior, Midtown area re-dubbed The Art Quarter