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Missouri Gov. Blunt says the arts enrich the state and lure skilled workers
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Missouri Gov. Blunt says the arts enrich the state and lure skilled workers
By ROBERT TRUSSELL
The Kansas City Star
Posted on Sunday, Feb. 25, 2007
“Public support of the arts should be driven less by ranking and more by
just trying to help local organizations enrich people’s lives and create the
sort of cultural amenities that are important in attracting knowledge-based
workers and fostering economic development,”
GOV. MATT BLUNT
Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt wants to be absolutely clear: He likes the arts, he
believes in the arts and he thinks the arts should receive state funding.
“I think they’re important to our cultural well- being,” Blunt said. “I
think they enrich our lives. I also believe they have a very important role
to play in economic development.”
The Republican governor’s attitude toward the arts has been a topic of
considerable interest lately.
He has won fans among arts advocates, including some Democrats, for his
efforts to restore funding to the Missouri Arts Council and the Missouri
Cultural Trust after severe cuts under the previous administration. Last
year, in fact, he received an award from Missouri Citizens for the Arts for
those efforts.
But in January, arts advocates feared that a lawsuit filed by the Kansas
City Symphony against the State of Missouri would anger the governor enough
to drop arts funding proposals from his annual budget recommendation. That
proved not to be the case. Blunt recommended $7.8 million for the trust and
$500,000 for the arts council.
He’s particularly interested in how arts and culture can serve the so-called
creative class of workers. The arts, he said, can attract and produce
workers crucial to a high-tech international economy.
“Many of those knowledge-based workers want cultural amenities,” Blunt said.
“They want to see strong support of the arts. Our state (government) does
have a role to support the arts, and in doing so I believe it repays itself
many times over.”
The arts also boost tourism, he said.
“But the most important part is what it means for our quality of life and
well-being,” he said. “You can make a case that as we enter an innovation
economy, exposure to the arts helps young Missourians become innovators,
which is so important for global competitiveness.”
The Missouri Cultural Trust, set up as an endowment for the arts council, is
funded by personal income tax paid by nonresident athletes and entertainers
who perform here.
Four other “cultural partners” also receive money from the tax — the state
humanities council, public television, the state library system and a fund
for historic preservation. The original idea was for the trust to eventually
total $100 million. which in turn would leverage another $100 million in
privately raised arts money.
But the trust has a long way to go before it reaches $100 million. It
currently has about $28 million, and the Symphony’s lawsuit contends that by
under- funding the trust since 1997, the legislature has failed to follow
the law.
“My real focus is on the immediate goal of restoring the athletes and
entertainers tax, which, of course, helps the trust to grow,” he said. “The
ultimate goal is full funding of the athlete and entertainers tax toward the
five cultural partners.”
Blunt said the Symphony’s lawsuit flew in the face of his personal
commitment to cultural funding.
“We’re obviously very disappointed,” he said. “We’ve had a very good working
relationship with the five cultural partners, and those cultural partners
have seen that we’re working in good faith to restore the funding.”
Blunt also suggested the suit was politically ill-advised.
“(The cultural partners) know that members of the General Assembly generally
don’t respond well to lawsuits, and I think they see it as a negative step
forward in terms of public relations for the arts,” he said.
Blunt said his own tastes in music and art tend to be traditional.
At one time he was a “great fan of the impressionists,” but now he’s more
interested in the 19th-century painters who came before.
“(I have) a great interest in Missouri art, obviously,” he said. “George
Caleb Bingham, I think, is a fascinating figure not only in terms of his
biography but also in terms of some great portraits.”
Blunt added that he has been exposed to 20th-century art through his wife,
Melanie.
“We balance each other out,” he said. “She enjoys modern art perhaps more
than I do. But I get to experience a lot of modern art through her tastes
and interests.”
Blunt also recommended Simon Schama’s Rembrandt’s Eyes, a dual biography of
Rembrandt and Rubens published in 2001.
“I like to read about art,” he said. “I think art really does shape our
culture and shape history.”
Missouri, he said, was fortunate to have two major cities with significant
cultural institutions.
“It is amazing, our state, what we have,” he said. “It really is. Between
the St. Louis Art Museum and the Nelson-Atkins Museum, it truly is
remarkable, what is in Missouri.
“I’ll give you one example. I think there’s only two or three of the Monet
‘Water Lilies’ triptychs in the world, and two-thirds of one of those
triptychs are in our state. There’s one in Kansas City at the Nelson- Atkins
and then (there’s) one in the St. Louis Art Museum. That’s just one example
of the sort of cultural resources that exist in Missouri. Those are great
museums.”
Asked whether he’d like to see Kansas City and St. Louis ranked above other
Midwestern cities — aside from Chicago — as major cultural centers, Blunt
said that was not his immediate concern.
“Public support of the arts should be driven less by ranking and more by
just trying to help local organizations enrich people’s lives and create the
sort of cultural amenities that are important in attracting knowledge-based
workers and fostering economic development,” he said. “So I suggest that if
you were to combine the resources that exist across our state, I think we
fare very well, and anyone who’s interested in culture will have plenty to
do and see in the state of Missouri.”