Eugenics in Vermont

-The Other Paper

Ninety years ago on March 31, 1931, Vermont signed into law “An Act for Human Betterment by Voluntary Sterilization” for the purpose of eliminating from the future genetic pool, persons deemed “unfit” to procreate. Vermont joined over 30 other states that enacted Eugenics-inspired legislature targeting people by race, national origin, gender, poverty, and disability.  

Here’s the language from the bill: “Henceforth, it shall be the policy of the state to prevent procreation of idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded or insane persons, when the public welfare, and the welfare of the idiots, feeble-minded or insane persons likely to procreate, can be improved by voluntary sterilization as herein provided.”

The bill was the culmination of UVM zoology professor Henry Perkins’ research. In 1925, he established and directed a Eugenics Survey to measure “delinquency, dependency, and mental deficiencies” in order to preserve “old pioneer stock.” 

Perkins and his team compiled files on thousands of Vermonters, collaborating with state and municipal officials and the Vermont Department of Welfare, sharing confidential information resulting in children being removed, individuals institutionalized and incarcerated, family connections severed, and hundreds being sterilized. 

His surveys targeted Abenaki bands and other indigenous people, Vermonters of mixed race or French-Canadian heritage, the poor, and persons with disabilities, among others. Records are incomplete, but at least 253 people were sterilized as a result of this legislation. This practice shamefully continued until 1957. 

In 2019, UVM apologized for its “unethical and regrettable” eugenics role of supporting Henry Perkins’ research and stripped his family’s name from a building on campus. It was a powerful ceremony about truth and reconciliation.

This session, I re-introduced Joint Resolution JRH2 for both the House and Senate. It “apologizes and expresses sorrow and regret to all individual Vermonters and their families and descendants who were harmed as a result of State-sanctioned eugenics policies and practices.” A similar resolution was first introduced ten years ago. The time is long overdue for public acknowledgement of the state’s role in this dark chapter of our history. The resolution is co-sponsored by forty three other House members. 

As we worked on the resolution in committee, heart wrenching testimony was received from impacted individuals sharing stories of finding hundreds of pages from the surveys about their families, mothers changing their names and moving continually to avoid being targeted, and relatives desperate to assimilate and giving up all traditional cultural practices and languages. 

Nancy Gallagher’s book, “Breeding Better Vermonters” details the history within our state, illustrating the familial carnage. In Pondville, VT, the Doless family’s seven children were taken away from the parents in 1928 and sent to the Vermont Industrial School and the Brandon School for the Feebleminded as it was called then. Three of the four oldest children were subsequently sterilized prior to discharge.

One woman described to our committee what it was like to be isolated and segregated in the Brandon School, and another shared a letter found in her relative’s attic from Brandon’s superintendent in 1932 telling him that due to the “mental retardation” of his two children, it would be inadvisable to return them home. 

Merely an apology from the legislature acknowledging the state’s role in this travesty is inadequate. The resolution recognizes that further legislative action should be taken to address the continuing impacts of eugenics policies and the related practices of disenfranchisement, ethnocide, and genocide.  

Everybody gains with cultural cross pollination

-VTDigger

In 1983, Trisha Brown unveiled her choreographic masterpiece, “Set and Reset,” at BAM’s Next Wave Festival. I was the company’s managing director. Immediately after the premiere, I stuffed my backpack with resplendent reviews, flew to London, and got a Eurorail pass. Art Becofsky from Merce Cunningham’s company had given me a list of European sponsors. I visited cities in England, France, Germany, and Italy meeting with producers, festival directors, and agents. 

It was rather haphazard; nothing was prearranged. Meetings were organized after I arrived and first found a hotel. Somehow it worked, the relationships established during this trip developed into a touring network for the company. Years later, Trisha told me, “Europe gave me my career,” as it had for so many other American artists.

Next stop for me was working as managing director for Christopher Hunt, director of the PepsiCo Summerfare Festival at SUNY Purchase. American debuts of foreign ensembles were central. Highlights included The Stary Theatre of Cracow’s dramatization of Andrzej Wajda’s “Crime and Punishment” (1986) and William Forsythe’s “Artifact” with Frankfurt Ballet (1987). Experiencing these works, live in real time with others, was revelatory.

In 1988, I became curator of performing arts at Walker Art Center in Minneapolis for eight years. International artists diversified programming as well as engendered artmaking in the community. Butoh dancers, Bulgarian singers, Tibetan chanting monks, Cuban jazz legends, Burundi drummers, and Grand Kabuki performers were cheered alongside European choreographers. Neil Bartlett and Bloolips introduced a very particular British camp sensibility, exploding theatrical possibilities for local queer creators.

These virtuosos were curated amongst an intentional community of like-minded presenters and agents who traveled together to see work and be in contact with artists and peers worldwide. My Eurocentric lens broadened through journeys to Australia, Cuba, France, Israel, Ivory Coast, Japan, Mexico, and Russia. 

Experiencing artists’ fully produced work in their home countries was far superior to studio showcases during American booking conferences. And since we were traveling in a group, if a few of us got excited about an artist, a tour became instantly viable. In addition to attending performances, bus rides to the Gulf of Guinea, Guadalajaran drag shows, and overnight trains to St. Petersburg forged lifelong friendships as our world views changed and aesthetics redefined. 

These trips were resource-intensive, but through the intrepid efforts of people like David White and Sam Miller, philanthropic support enabled cohorts of Americans to research artists, network with international administrators, and present an array of worldwide artistry throughout the country. This work was often highly subsidized by foreign governments recognizing the importance of global exchange. 

Furthermore, I taught workshops with colleagues in Bratislava, Buenos Aires, Sofia, Salzburg, Toronto, and Warsaw. American marketing and funding strategies did not always translate; I often learned more than our lesson plans offered. Shared meals and post-performance drinks were as essential as daytime curriculum. In Bytom, while lecturing with Silesian Dance Theatre (1995), I encountered the unmitigated hell of Auschwitz – life changing indeed.

Internationalism was also important while I was executive director at Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco. Chief curator Renny Pritikin invited Japanese sculptor Kenji Yanobe’s robotics (1997) and British filmmaker Isaac Julien’s media installations (2002) to complement the Bay Area focus in its galleries. Alonzo King’s explorations with Shoalin monks and people from the Ituri Rainforest expanded his choreographic range on the stage. 

More recently, I was executive director at Flynn Center in Burlington (retiring in 2018). Artistic director Steve MacQueen programmed Canadian circus groups alongside Angélique Kidjo, Gilberto Gil and Compagnie Hervé Koubi as well as emerging dancemakers from the Congo, Mozambique and Japan. As important, he curated a New Voices series featuring New American immigrant musicians living in the community. Everybody gains with cultural cross pollination. 

Sadly, opportunities for curatorial research travel have diminished considerably and immigration visas became more cumbersome, restrictive and expensive. Consequently, world artists all but disappeared in many presenting seasons. 

With the Biden/Harris administration, I do hope a renewed commitment to the import of internationalism will be rekindled. Philanthropic support will be essential. Open borders are more necessary than ever. 

As the sector rebuilds post-pandemic, composer Arvo Pärt reminds us, “This tiny coronavirus has showed us in a painful way that humanity is a single organism and that human existence is possible only in relation to other living beings.”

Imagining a post-pandemic art world

-VTDigger

I attended my first political rally while still in high school at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Earlier that year, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated, many cities were in flames, and antiwar sentiment raged. The convention site was locked down, but I jumped right into the street protests. Television news cameras filmed the police riot that bloodied and bruised us as we chanted, “The whole world is watching.”

Amidst the civil unrest of that decade, an aesthetic revolution was also percolating. Peter Brook’s The Empty Space and Jerzy Grotwoski’s Towards a Poor Theatre called for reimaging a stripped down essentialism. Their credos echoed Anna Halprin’s task-oriented movement and Yvonne Rainer’s No Manifesto. John Cage, Terry Riley, and Ornette Coleman deconstructed compositional notions. Amiri Baraka’s plays called out white racism, New Wave filmmakers embraced quirky realness, and visual artists tossed out all the rules, as art performed life.

By the time I moved to New York in the early 1970s, the next wave of post-modernism was blossoming: Meredith Monk performing in parking lots, Trisha Brown dancing on rooftops, David Gordon improvising with Grand Union at the 14th Street Y, Phillip Glass playing at the Whitney, and Patti Smith singing in St. Mark’s Church. By the next decade, these iconoclasts were appearing in major theaters and opera houses—proof that change oftentimes emanates from the fringes.

Not all was high art. Charles Ludlum’s camp extravaganzas ignited gender-bending hijinks in bars, clubs, and small theaters across the East Village. All was fabulous, nothing was sacred. The annual queer pride parade allowed us all to be theatrical and political.

Today, the convergence of COVID-19 closing down public events, along with the explosive outrage with continued police carnage in communities of color, brings us to a similar inflection point as the late 1960s. Once again, a fundamental shift wherein art is stripped of any pretense is emerging. As well, the enormous chasm between aesthetics and inequity must be addressed as systemic racism is dismantled.

Perhaps it is a gift that we are currently forced to live in a continuous present, with no past, and no future, just now. Artists and organizations are re-examining their practices. Art can no longer be treated solely as a transactional product, with audience as consumers. What is important now is how culture can be essential in our communities.

Makers shifted to online strategies to create, disseminate, help others, and enliven protests. Organizations struggled at first, not realizing their missions were not tied to shuttered galleries and stages. However, many are slowly pivoting to seeing themselves as virtual community centers. Black Lives Matter must also manifest in staffing, governance, and programming within cultural organizations to redress structural racism. Embracing this new normal will have profound impact as we slowly rebuild our social, economic, and civic lives.

We are in this liminal moment imagining a post-pandemic art world. The opportunity in this crisis will be lost, if in hindsight we simply rush to put everything back together the way it was. As Peter Brook reminded us 50 years ago, “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage.”

The arts are essential businesses

-VTDigger

The economic damage to our arts organizations is profound and will be long-lasting. Theaters, museums, galleries, music clubs, and community art centers were the first to close in the pandemic and will be the last to open. Vermont Arts Council and Vermont Humanities Council surveyed the field and found the cultural sector has already lost $14.4 million with future losses estimated at $21 million with no opening dates in sight.  

As Covid-19 forces us to live in a continuous present, planning has been impossible. Performances and gallery exhibitions scheduled months, even years in advance, were canceled, and future events are tentative at best. Thousands of arts workers lost their jobs and performing artists that depend on touring lost all income for 2020.

The creative sector employed more than 40,000 in our state. Arts organizations have been economic anchors for downtown businesses. When I ran the Flynn Center in Burlington for eight years, I can attest that the 1,400-seat theater often provided 500+ diners at near-by restaurants, in addition to customers for neighboring bars and coffee shops. 

Rutland’s Paramount Theatre and Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, along with other venues across the state are economic drivers in their communities as well. Vermont Arts Council’s latest estimate of event-related spending by cultural audiences totaled $44 million (not including ticket income) – a very significant amount for downtown businesses.

Summer festivals won’t be happening this year, and they will be sorely missed by residents and tourists in Dorset, Putney, Guilford, Weston, St. Johnsbury, and other towns. Mainstage venues in White River Junction, Barre, Montpelier, Burlington, and elsewhere will be hard pressed to offer fall productions. And museums and galleries across the state, including in Woodstock, Brattleboro, Bennington, Shelburne, and Stowe are struggling as to when they can welcome visitors again.

Emergency relief dollars from the federal CARES Act of $800,000 is being distributed through the Vermont Arts and Vermont Humanities councils, but this is not sufficient to stabilize the field. The governor has proposed a $400 million economic recovery package. However, the arts are peripheral in the plan and need to be deemed as essential as retail, food and accommodation services, and agriculture. Grants are needed far more than low interest loans. Even with skeletal staff, significant overhead costs are being incurred with absolutely no revenue generated at present.

Cultural organizations should also play a more central role in the governor’s $5 million set-aside to encourage Vermonters to explore the state and spend locally. Bread and Puppet Theatre in Glover should be a must-see on everyone’s travel itinerary. And the Hall Art Foundation in Reading is one of our state’s hidden jewels – exhibiting world-renowned artists in exquisite galleries.

As we begin to rebuild our social, economic, and civic lives post-Covid, arts are crucial for our well-being and community vitality. It may take years for the cultural sector to fully recover. Sadly, without significant investment, many anchor organizations may not be able to return – an incalculable loss to civil society. Vermonters need the arts, now more than ever.

Tom Stevens & John Killacky: After a respite from homelessness, now what?

-VTDigger

On Friday, March 13, Vermont was faced with an unprecedented question: What do we do in the face of an emergency of the size of the one in front of us, particularly for those without resources who were either living in the street, couch surfing or in congregate settings (shelters), and were considered high-risk “vectors? 

Amazingly, we provided adequate housing for most of our homeless by moving as many people as possible into hotels in order to mitigate contagion. There are currently 1,961 people in hotel rooms across the state, including 273 children. And this strategy worked — as of May 8, there have been no recorded cases of Covid-19 in any of the individuals now housed.

In addition, regional consortiums of community-based groups with innumerable volunteers provided supplemental services to this population, including delivering meals. These organizations banded together in the spirit of “Vermont Strong,” but these nonprofits are working beyond their bandwidth and fiscal capability. 

In our legislative work, we have been keenly aware of the deficiencies in our social safety net, as it applies to emergency shelter, affordable housing, and wrap-around services. We have seen us, as a state, get caught in the vise of budgetary restraint and diminished capacity, even though it is clear that by providing, at the least, four walls and a roof, mitigates many other social issues that come with poverty, food insecurity, and precarious housing.

And here we are, in a global emergency, and we housed every homeless individual and family we found. It was no mean feat, and we honor those who did the work: our nonprofits, Vermont’s Office of Economic Opportunity, Department for Children and Families, and the Agency of Human Services. 

Housing individuals and families in available hotel rooms was the right thing to do, but it is not sustainable. Which leads us to this question: what is the NEXT right thing to do? As the Covid emergency plateaus, it is important to have a humane transition plan. With the coronavirus still active, returning people back into shelters is not the answer and is a public health risk. Therefore, the state is extending hotel vouchers as well as supportive services and food near-term.

The pandemic highlights the need for a more integrated housing system, from emergency shelters to supportive permanent housing solutions – something that has been studied, but not capitalized for years. Current systems are untenable. Covid has shown us Vermont can house its homeless, at least temporarily, now we need to reimagine, reengineer, and build upon recent successes. The Agency of Human Services, with other state departments and housing advocates, is currently developing a “Rehousing Plan” to present to the Legislature.

We have in place an infrastructure that can act upon any plan we put in place, as any plan will essentially be the long-sought desired outcome of the affordable housing sector: to provide housing with dignity and the services needed to succeed with the hardest population to shelter in the state. All agree a Housing First model improves vulnerable lives, lessens support of other public resources, and builds more robust communities. Here are some of the issues discussed:  

• Better support for non-profit service providers across the state. Level state funding for many have compromised their abilities over the last few years. 

• Expand rental subsidies and arrearages support, including mobile homes, to maintain housing stability in the near-term as we rebuild the economy.

• Develop and rehabilitate permanently affordable housing units, so that lower wage income earners are not spending more than 30% of their income on rent. 

• Expand permanent supportive housing for individuals with complex needs, which will require acquisition of units in an incredibly tight real estate market. 

• Design, test, and support new and innovative programs by providers to remain responsive to existing and emerging needs. 

How to pay for these programs?

• Initial estimates calculate about $110 million is needed to jumpstart these efforts and the majority could come from federal Covid relief funds. This includes funding for support services, rental subsidy, assistance and arrearage programs, and capital expenditures. Given the strictures of the use of these funds, these efforts would focus on housing the homeless and providing long-term solutions.

• Longer-term, we need to examine how state tax credits are utilized to subsidize rental and home ownership opportunities as well as making annual budget decisions supporting these programs. With these investments, we can recognize through data collection and interpretation that we may save money currently allocated for emergency services.

• Realign Vermont’s property transfer tax funding. Prior to the emergency, the direct allocation from the property transfer tax was just under 50% of the statutory formula, with other funds allocated to the Vermont Housing and Conservation Trust Fund through sources such as the Capital Fund. Money used from the property transfer tax is incredibly effective in creating new affordable housing.

• Finally, we need to continue to work alongside the administration and our congressional delegation on upcoming stimulus and recovery bills to address unmet needs, secure necessary statutory and regulatory flexibility, enhance the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, HOME Investment Partnerships, and other federal resources.

The opportunity in this crisis will be lost, if in hindsight, we look back and see that we merely interrupted homelessness during this health cataclysm. Everyone deserves a home.

Lessons from the AIDS Pandemic

-The Gay and Lesbian Revie

In 1981, I was with friends celebrating the Fourth of July weekend at New York’s Fire Island Pines gay enclave when life changed. Buried on page A20 of The New York Times (July 3,1981) was a report about a new condition: “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals.” Doctors in New York and San Francisco diagnosed a form of Kaposi’s Sarcoma cancer normally seen in elderly men suddenly ravaging younger gay males. The article assured us that it was not contagious and that “no cases have been reported to date outside the homosexual community or in women.”

Soon enough, purple lesions of Kaposi Sarcoma became markers of those infected. Panic and fear fueled conspiracy theories and misinformation regarding contagion. Risk groups were first identified as “the 4 H’s”: hemophiliacs, heroin addicts, homosexuals, and Haitians. Another unfounded hypothesis accused the government of creating the pathogen to eradicate the gay and African-American communities.

In 1982, AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) was named by the Centers for Disease Control. It took another three years to develop a blood test for HIV once it was identified as the cause, and almost fifteen years to develop a number of anti-retroviral drugs that, taken in various combinations, turned the disease from a death sentence into a manageable condition. But before that, chaos ruled on the public health front as millions died.

Federal leadership was lacking as the pandemic began to spread. President Reagan did not publicly mentioned AIDS until 1985. Senator Jesse Helms (R-North Carolina) called for quarantining people who tested positive. Then Secretary of Education, William Bennett, suggested that prisoners with the AIDS virus should remain in custody after serving their sentence so they could not take “revenge on society.” Conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr. asserted in The New York Times: “Everyone detected with AIDS should be tattooed in the upper forearm, to protect common-needle users, and on the buttocks, to prevent the victimization of other homosexuals.”

With inaction, ignorance, and vitriol on the federal level, grassroots efforts organized. Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York (1982), San Francisco AIDS Foundation (1982), and AIDS Project in Los Angeles (1983) were early examples of communities mobilizing information, support, treatment, and advocacy.

In these initial years, without any substantive information, friends, families, and medical staff did not know how contagious the disease was, so the sick were isolated. However, many frontline medical workers were heroic. Soon enough, community heart circles began to provide home healthcare and hospice. These then morphed into weekly memorial services for our lost ones. My lived experience of this era is still quite raw. My notebooks list 119 lost to AIDS.

I worry that we haven’t learned very much about the importance of scientific information and compassion in these early days of responding to COVID-19. Not only here in Vermont, but also on Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, in the Hamptons and other east coast resort areas, social media posts warn second homeowners not to return, fearing they will use up scarce resources. Second homeowners are vital to many towns and states’ economies and they too are neighbors. Vermont Governor Scott’s directive to “Stay Home / Stay Safe” applies in whatever home we are in.

Already some European countries and China are discussing the dystopian notion of testing citizens to allow those showing immunity to return to work, even though researchers have yet to determine if the presence of coronavirus antibodies correlates with immunity and how long lasting it is. Best to let science catch up here. These COVID passports could separate the weak from the strong, the old from the young. Marginalization and stigmatization did not work in the AIDS crisis and it seems too early on in this disease to choose societal over individual rights.

We now all live with COVID-19. As we begin to mourn the dead, we will also need to embrace the survivors among us. May information sharing, self-care, community support, and advocacy continue to flourish in the dark days ahead.

Where art and legislation meet

-The Other Paper

As Vermont’s Legislature only meets January through May, I look forward to returning to work full-time on political matters. My off-season has been busy with constituent meetings, committee hearings, fiscal briefings, conferences and community events. I also taught a class at Champlain College this fall.

Artistically, I curated an exhibition of Vermont photographer Dona Ann McAdams that opened in Brattleboro in June then traveled to Rutland. Next month, it will be seen in St. Johnsbury with future stops in Stowe, Burlington and New York. I completed a short video project, elegies, featured in an exhibition, Love Letters, opening at Helen Day Art Center in Stowe Jan. 16.

Curating a 45-year retrospective of Dona Ann McAdams’s photography (donaannmcadams.com) was a year-long process of researching her archives, augmented with ongoing conversations with the artist and curators from the hosting institutions. The exhibition grew ever richer with input from others.

My video work, too, is collaborative. New York-based choreographer Eiko Otake and I wanted to create elegies to our dead mothers. We invited Brian Stevenson, production manager at Vermont PBS to join us (https://vimeo.com/375048275). The three of us worked together on script development, lighting, sound, camera shots and editing – a seamless process that improved the finished work.

I mention these projects because I believe my artistic practice parallels legislative actions. Moving bills from drafting to committee deliberations onto floor votes in both the House and Senate is also an iterative collaborative process informed by myriad voices – stakeholders, advocates, community members and other legislators, in addition to the governor. Bills constantly evolve and change. Compromise may be the best that can be achieved, given conflicting input, needs and resources.

Priority issues identified by South Burlington residents in a recent legislative survey include minimum wage, paid family leave and climate change – all requiring innovative solutions. We should see a moderate path forward on raising the minimum wage. Initially proposed was raising the base wage to $15 per hour over five years; more likely we will see a two- or three-year window with smaller increases.

The paid family and medical leave insurance program also has been scaled back considerably after an impasse last session. Federal employees now qualify for 12 weeks of paid leave. Last month the governor offered 8,500 state employees six weeks of paid leave. This is significantly less than current legislative proposals.

Hopefully, the artistry of politics will play out with a resolution benefiting all Vermonters.

Legislators and the administration are working together to combat our climate crisis. The governor presented a draft memorandum of understanding for Vermont to join 11 neighboring states and the District of Columbia in a regional compact capping carbon pollution from transportation, charging fossil fuel companies fees and returning that money to participating states.

Choreographing a path forward on this multi-state framework will truly require inventive alliances. This is not a carbon tax, but a cap-and-invest program, the proceeds used to invest in equitable, efficient, affordable and cleaner transportation options and workforce development in a revamped green economy. Comments and testimony are to be taken on the draft with a decision expected this spring.

In politics, as in art, vexing problems are best tackled from multiple perspectives with stakeholders involved. Resiliency and adaptability are also essential for best outcomes in life, art and politics. I look forward to calling upon the artist within during this legislative session.

Arts Advocacy through a politician’s lens

-VTDigger

My entire career has been as an artist and arts administrator. Forty-five years ago, I was dancing in Chicago, New York, and Winnipeg. My subsequent work in film and writing has focused on personal narratives around AIDS, disability, and queer identity. I managed dance companies (Laura Dean and Trisha Brown), presented contemporary performing artists (PepsiCo Summerfare and Walker Art Center), ran multidisciplinary presenting organizations (Yerba Buena Center and Flynn Center), and worked in philanthropy (Pew Charitable Trusts and The San Francisco Foundation). In all these positions, I championed artists, community engagement, diversification, inclusion, and access.

Since being elected to the Vermont House of Representatives last fall, my perspective has dramatically changed as to how best advocate for the arts and, in fact, how siloed arts organizations and their funders are. My legislative work focuses on economic development, tourism, heath, education, affordable housing, environment, and agriculture, as well as vulnerable populations: veterans, prisoners, the homeless, those suffering from substance use disorders, and survivors of physical and sexual abuse. Art is barely present in these conversations, but is so needed.

Those of us with lived experience understand the profound transformative power of the arts; yet this does not resonate in a broader community context, especially for those disenfranchised. Art is still perceived as a luxury for the privileged, not a necessity for all. Cultural organizations need to recalibrate efforts and partner with local, regional, and national agencies of health and human services, education, agriculture, housing authorities, prisons, national parks, veterans affairs, and the environment in order to develop strategies for how the arts can be more fully integrated into their efforts.

There are many exemplar organizations that model this kind of service as central to their missions: Rhodessa Jones’ Medea prison project, Jazz House Kids, Appalshop, Vermont Abenaki Artists Association, Alliance for California Traditional Arts, Alternate Roots, First People’s Fund, Project Row Houses, Urban Bush Women, Axis Dance Company, and others. For these groups, authentic community engagement is a core commitment to nurture vibrant communities.

National arts funders, too, must continue to evolve funding criteria. While many have rightfully focused on racial equity and social justice to redress systemic racism, arts philanthropy also needs to address poverty as a central barrier. There is so much lost potential when arts funders don’t collaborate with other program area portfolios even within their own foundations. Integrating the arts into ongoing anti-poverty work is crucial.

Living now in a rural state, I witness the devastating realities of income inequality. People living through generational destitution, addiction, and trauma need the arts to help with healing. More money is not needed to diversify audiences for major institutions; investments need to be made to enable all community members to be enriched by art and culture in order to live more resilient lives.

Arts and the Creative Economy

-VTDigger

Since the legislature adjourned in late May, I have been busy with arts-related projects around the state: attending a conference about Creative Communities in Montpelier, opening an exhibition I curated at Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, visiting Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, speaking at the Governor’s Institute on the Arts at Castleton University and participating in a workshop in Salisbury. I enjoyed free events during Burlington’s Discover Jazz Festival and saw compelling theater in Waterbury Center’s refurbished Grange Hall Cultural Center. How pleasant it is for me to drive, windows down, amidst verdant fields – my favorite time of year.

On my road trips, I was reminded how essential cultural organizations are to the vitality of each of their communities, and how the arts are, in fact, economic drivers in urban and rural economic development. The Flynn Center, which I ran before becoming your legislator, employs 300+ people with an annual payroll of over $2.8 million. The Vermont Arts Council recently released a study showing that the creative economy in the Northeast Kingdom employs 3,327 individuals, 9.4 percent of the workforce of 35,500. The Arts Council is expanding its research state-wide to illustrate how substantial the arts sector is in each community.

As a legislator, I feel Vermont can do more for the arts. Few cities and towns, including South Burlington, provide direct support to artist residents. This year, the Vermont Arts Council received an appropriation of $717,735 from the state. This money matches federal dollars and provides small grants to artists and arts organizations. Additional dollars, locally and statewide, can have transformative impacts. 

As we seek to encourage younger people to relocate here, added support for the cultural sector will make our region even more attractive and deliver immense returns on investment. Additionally, increased funding for the Vermont Department of Tourism can expand promotion of the vast array of cultural offerings year-round. Our artists, museums, theaters and festivals are world-class and can complement outdoor recreation, agriculture and craft breweries as tourist draws. At my Brattleboro Museum opening last month, so many folks told me they visit the museum three or four times each year from out of state.

Here in South Burlington, arts abound. Katie Baritt’s public art project with community members decorating utility boxes has enlivened our neighborhoods in subtle, yet profound ways – bringing smiles to all as we drive, cycle and walk by. Lines Vermont dance studio just opened its beautiful facilities on Farrell Street. Next week, SoBu’s Nite Out Summer Series begins free music concerts in Veterans Memorial Park. Longer-term, city leaders are discussing the viability of a building a new performing arts center as yet another economic anchor.

In addition to arts-related activities, I had the honor of joining the governor and fellow legislators at Norwich University as we signed a law encouraging veterans to register on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Airborne Hazards and Open Burn Pit Registry. Military Affairs is part of my committee work, and I am proud that we were able to pass this bill into law this session, helping 10,000 Vermont Veterans deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan document the ill health effects of toxic contamination from waste disposal from open air burn pits on bases.