Kansas has rejoined the other 49 states in the union in funding the arts. That’s good news for Iola —and for the dozens of other Kansas communities, large and small, that have used state and national funds to supplement their arts budgets.
When Gov. Sam Brownback vetoed funding for the Kansas Arts Commission last year, it cost the state about $1.3 million in federal arts funding. A small, but significant, part of that would have come to the Bowlus Fine Arts Center to pay part of the cost of productions staged there.
Gov. Brownback’s decision to leave the funding intact this year and create a new arts commission made up of the former Kansas Arts Commission and the Kansas Film Commission requalifies our state for federal support.
It is to be called the Creative Arts Industries Commission, in the hope that it will create more jobs for Kansas than the two organizations did operating separately.
Let’s not look this gift horse in the mouth.
Kansas should spend a few bucks helping motion picture entrepreneurs shoot pictures in Kansas. It should also invest in the small but very important arts programs that caring citizens have created and operated in almost every Kansas community of any size. That is a particularly good investment because state funding qualifies the state for two-to-one federal matching funds.
Will spending on the arts create jobs? We’re talking about $2 million, state and federal combined; plus an unknown amount of local investments. Sure, jobs are created and parts of salaries are paid. Attending plays, concerts, arts fairs and exhibits are a significant part of the tourist industry. Iola’s restaurants and motels benefit a bit from the traffic generated by events at the Bowlus. The impact on larger centers is proportionately greater.
But it’s both crass and futile to try and put a dollar figure on the value of music, drama, paintings, photographic art, and all the rest of the human strivings that shelter under the arts umbrella.
The dollars aren’t the point. It is reason enough, and more, to support the arts because the arts give Kansans fuller, richer lives.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
