The Honorable Robert Pitts

President Atlanta City Council

Atlanta City Hall

Atlanta, Georgia 30303

Sir:

An article by Catherine Fox of the AJC ("Atlanta needs new approach to public art" 12-3-00), raised several issues concerning the city's commitment to art funding. Her assessment comes on the heels of Georgia State's Research Atlanta's five-month arts-support study, which called into question the seriousness of art philanthropy in Atlanta in general. Ms. Fox draws attention to the city's "percent for art" ordinance, which as you know, sets aside 1 percent of all money budgeted for city projects to be spent on art. Her basic contention is that in 1977 when the ordinance was passed, it was a very forward-looking move. However, she points out, "Nearly a quarter century later," Atlanta has been left in the wake of such cities as Dallas, Nashville and Charlotte. Bluntly concluding, "Our ordinance is antiquated," she declares the City Council could remedy all this by passing the "public arts master plan." Ms Fox claims, this plan would address such problems as no funds or mechanisms to preserve existing art, no vehicle to capture all the public funds that should go to art projects and a lack of an appropriate mechanism for the new level of stakeholder participation that the public expects when a work of art is going into a neighborhood.

These comments are probably all appropriate to some extent, nonetheless the black community has a totally different perspective on this problem. To address her first point, African American patrons of the arts are at the trickle-down end of the funding pipeline and what ever funds that manages to reach black people go to funding white imitations of black art or to badly planned festivals. Her most revealing point concerns the absence of a " mechanism to capture all the public funds for art projects." Beginning in 1977, under the City's "percent for art" ordinance, white arts groups set up boards and councils to capture all arts funding. These groups function as arts funding catch basins. Plugged into all funding receptacles and based on the limited information available to the public, the study conducted by The Richard L. Kirksey Memorial Foundation concluded, 90 % of arts funds going to these whites catch basin groups pay for administration and staffing.

Finally, regarding "stakeholder participation," this study reveals the total lack of equality in funding information availability, consideration in granting awards, types of projects funded, original amounts awarded and whether grants are re-authorized is based on race. The impact of race as a variable is a reliable predictor of whether or not an artist gets funded. Groups controlling arts funding are 99 % white. Blacks involved in these groups are tokens without any direct or independent granting authority.

These catch basin arts groups are located in white communities and serve the interest of those communities, even though tax funded both blacks and whites pay for arts. There are no black community based arts groups doing community out-reach that receives funds directly from city, state or federal government sources in Atlanta. The few funds that reach the black community come through some white group that vets black requests. There are no black arts groups that have any say so about whether or not white groups get funded, let alone serve as a catch basin for arts funds. It may very well be that more funds are needed, but first this study of arts funding in the black community suggest a full audit of arts funding needs to be conducted to see how much funding is available? What recipients have received grants over time? What groups control how much of which arts fund? How fair, open and equitable are their grant processes? How much grandfathering goes on between groups to aid certain groups in obtaining arts funds? Why do black artists in Atlanta have to go through whites to get arts funding from the city of Atlanta?

Sir, enclosed is a letter to the Director of the Georgia Council for the Arts, which raises many of the same questions. Personally, I have worked with young black artists trying to develop a community theater in Atlanta since 1997. I have made contact with any number of local, state and national arts groups on their behalf. These correspondences sought information regarding their interest in supporting this group. Not one of these groups indicated the slightest interested in doing anything to help black children learn and experience art in a relevant way. Atlanta's beautiful young people have worked wonders pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, and they are only asking for the same level of assistance that white kids receive not handouts. I request the Atlanta City Council look into this matter and provide the community some answers about what is currently happening to arts funding before more money is poured into supplying jobs for whites to capture and administer arts funds. More important, I wish to know what are your plans for making the distribution of arts funding by the city more equitable. I thank you in advance and await your timely response.

Respectfully,

John Burl Smith