Michael T. Martin

Q. What’s better than sitting on the stoop? 

A. Talking with a bunch of elementary school kids on the stoop who are out of school for the summer about what they are up to, what they want to do, and just generally hanging out. 

Two of the girls want to be artists and it got me to thinking about the availability of arts education and funding. Even though we’re supposedly coming out this recession state budgets are suffering. Inevitably, education funding, and specifically funding for the arts, will be cut. 

I guess this is the big question for those of us involved in arts education and community development but I wonder how we’ll foster their creative minds and create opportunities to explore the arts more meaningfully in the future. 

Currently in my city, New Orleans, there are a lot of nascent organizations that are fighting this fight. One which I worked for, the Creative Alliance of New Orleans, has already had a successful project at the abandoned Colton School, serving as an exhibition space during Prospect 1. Their community involvement is inspiring, providing free or subsidized space to artists in exchange for teaching neighborhood kids about art, but again, this model is dependent on outside funding and internal fundraising. 

I hope that as community developers and art lovers we can continue on this relatively new path of creative economy investment. The girls I chatted with today would certainly benefit from it. Our goal should be to brainstorm innovative ways for that investment to continue and flourish. The arts allow the brain to function in different ways that will be imperative for the post-Recession local, regional, and global economy. New Orleans is ripe for such investment, as are many other cities, so lets get on with it.