Today, a great victory has been won by everyone in the state of Kansas who loves the arts. The Governor this morning signed the budget, which includes $700,000 for the newly-created Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission.

Advocates from all corners of the state spoke – and spoke loudly. Our voices have been heard. A big thank you goes to all of you who have helped spread the word through your communities and to your elected officials about the importance of public arts funding in all of our lives.

Congratulations to all on a job well done.

Thank you for your support of the arts in Kansas.

That’s from Kansas Citizens for the Arts, which led what can only be termed a phenomenally successful advocacy campaign to bring arts funding back to Kansas. A campaign that forced a sitting governor to beat a very public retreat from the idea of removing the arts from government in one of the nation’s most conservative states.

The new Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission represents a merger with the state’s Film Services Commission, and the combined total for the new agency is essentially the same as what the arts commission alone was working with before all the controversy. But even so, arts advocates have occasion to celebrate this year, along with Sarah Fizell and the rest of the folks at KCA. In fact, if anything, this is an even bigger win for the rest of the US than it is for Kansas. For years, conservative ideologues have been trying to kill funding for the arts at the state level, but the threat of losing matching federal funds from the NEA had always held them in check. So finally, one governor follows through and eliminates funding entirely, and he gets lambasted mercilessly for it all year and has to reverse his stance in the very next budget. What does that say to the next governor who might be thinking about following Brownback’s lead?

It says you don’t want to mess with arts funding.

People are understandably looking for silver linings in this situation, and for me, there is at least one: this controversy has revealed genuine, broad-based public support for funding the arts in a very red state. Brownback’s desire to be rid of the Arts Commission was no secret. He originally eliminated it via executive order in February, which could easily have been the end of the matter. But a well-organized opposition campaign on the part of Kansas Citizens for the Arts was successful in convincing Kansas’s Senate — currently dominated by a 32-8 Republican majority — to override Brownback’s order. Subsequently, the Kansas House of Representatives — currently dominated by a 92-33 Republican majority — agreed to leave the money for the Arts Commission in the budget. But Brownback refused to back down.

Kansas’s legislators didn’t need to try to override Brownback’s veto. In fact, it was the only one of presumably many line-item vetoes that provoked this response. The motion to override even managed to garner a majority of the votes cast, 50-44 – but the measure failed because it would have required an absolute two-thirds majority (84 votes).

Late Wednesday night, the dogfight over the Arts Commission was the top story on the Topeka Citizen-Journal‘s website. I don’t mean it was on the front page, I mean it was the #1 story in all of Kansas. For those of you who don’t know your state capitals, Topeka is Kansas’s – so this is the newspaper that all the political types there read. Various news stories have referred to the Arts Commission as “politically popular” and its demise as “controversial.” Editorials from diverse local sources like the Lawrence Journal-World and the Clay Center Dispatch have criticized the defunding of the commission. The pressure has apparently led to Brownback pledging that “some of” the money left over from his inaugural will go to support the new, private arts foundation he wants to set up to replace the Kansas Arts Commission. The backlash may even have indirectly saved public broadcasting from meeting the same fate, although Brownback promises that will be on the chopping block next year.

This is all to say that, as far as this lifelong East Coaster can tell, this story has been a Big Deal in Kansas. And that’s a good thing. Kansas Citizens for the Arts marshaled 5,000 emails on behalf of the Arts Commission – a big number for a state that size. People are upset about how this has played out, as they should be. If that upset can be translated into votes for candidates who recognize the practical — and political — value in supporting the arts, so much the better.

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Various other reactions and think pieces in response to this news follow:

In a long rant, Barry Hessenius begs us not to let this moment pass by without pledging to do something about it. He suggests donating money to advocacy organizations, and setting up more 501(c)(4) advocacy organizations, 527 organizations, and political action committees at the state and local levels to get the job done.

In an open letter written prior to Governor Brownback’s veto, Alex Aldrich, director of the Vermont Arts Council, clarifies his organization’s reliance on government funding to do its work. As the only one of the 50 state arts councils to do its work as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the Vermont Arts Council had found itself drawing the attention of Brownback as a model for the system he wanted to set up. Yet Brownback conveniently ignored the fact that the VAC receives a significant subsidy from the state government (exactly what Brownback is trying to get away from), which is what makes it eligible for NEA funds as well.

On ARTSBlog, Kathy Smith shares her perspective as executive director of ARTSConnect, an arts service organization based in Topeka, Kansas. ARTSConnect was set up following the City of Topeka’s decision to end public funding for the arts entirely. It was the private entity that was supposed to pick up the slack, and in this way bears a striking resemblance to Brownback’s vision for a private Kansas Arts Foundation. Sadly, Smith’s experience doesn’t suggest much promise for that model: after three years, ARTSConnect had to cease making grants to the arts community due to a shortage of resources. I guess that, contrary to the beliefs of many conservatives, private money doesn’t “rush in” as soon as the government decides to stop funding something.

Jay Dick, Director of State and Local Government Affairs for Americans for the Arts, contends this is all about power: Brownback, having been rebuked by his own legislature, felt he had to teach them a lesson by showing them who’s boss. (I think it’s about power in a different way, too. Some folks might remember that Brownback was briefly a candidate for President in 2008, and quite possibly still has his eyes set on that post. Gaining notoriety by becoming the first governor to destroy a state arts council in the name of smaller government helps to get him headlines and establish cred with the conservative wing of his party nationally.)

Janet Brown, the executive director of Grantmakers in the Arts who spent many years as a devoted arts advocate in another Prairie state, South Dakota, lets loose an invective against Sam Brownback and gets off some great one-liners like:

Brownback believes, or at least he says he does, that the private sector can pick up the difference in state and federal funding in his state. Does he know he’s in Kansas? Does he think that corporations and private foundations (of which there are few) will care about giving $500 to an arts fair or main street gallery in communities like Pratt, Lakin, St. Francis or Parsons?

This decision only perpetuates the stereotype that if you are a “real” artist you wouldn’t live in a place like Kansas or Nebraska, or Missouri or South Dakota. The myth that the Midwest is a vast wasteland of culture lives on in Brownback’s veto.

Laura Zabel, executive director of Springboard for the Arts in Minnesota, lived in Kansas until she was 22 and lets Sam Brownback know exactly what his state has lost in people like her. Laura’s open letter is a must-read. It employs what I call the “I am the face of your brain drain” approach, which I love because I can only imagine that it must feel like getting squeezed in the nuts to any budget-conscious state official who might be reading it. In devastating sentence after sentence, Laura points out that:

• in 13 years, no one has ever asked her why she left Kansas;
• she has paid nearly $37,000 in taxes to Minnesota since she left;
• her entire family – two parents and three siblings – has moved to Minnesota as well, resulting in a loss of tax revenue for Kansas of approximately $100,000 thus far; and
• her and her siblings’ six young children, having grown up surrounded by the arts, will now have little incentive to return to Kansas in the future. “In short, Governor Brownback, I think you’ve lost this family for good.”

Laura’s letter makes the excellent and rarely-heard point that this is not just about the arts organizations who were once directly funded by the state and will no longer be. It goes much, much deeper than that. It’s about building and maintaining an infrastructure for creativity – a friendly environment for cultural expression. If that’s missing, you’re going to lose people: smart, motivated people. As Laura sagely points out, “energetic, college-educated” folks like her — attributes shared by most artists and arts administrators — are like walking bags of money to states and cities. It only takes a few of them deciding to leave to make a big difference to a place like Kansas.

Big News

• The Nonprofit Finance Fund’s founder and CEO, Clara Miller, will be the new head of the F. B. Heron Foundation, one of the pioneers of using a foundation’s endowment investments for mission-related purposes.
• What would the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange be without Liz Lerman? Just the Dance Exchange, apparently.
• Lois Weisberg, longtime head of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, is out amid that agency’s continuing shakeup. Read an interview with her about it here.
• The Washington National Opera and Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will merge. (h/t Jonas)

Big Intrigue

• Has the Pepsi Refresh contest been tainted by voters-for-hire from India for the past six to nine months? (Cf. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk being used for spam.)
• Thanks to a Fellowship applicant, I just discovered this year-old, incredibly detailed (and critical) examination of the Richard Florida phenomenon from the perspective of cities who paid for his advice over the past decade. The more I learn, the more I think of RF as a kind of complex and fascinating Rorschach test, someone who reveals more about ourselves by our reactions to him than by anything he says or writes. Hear a recent interview with him by Steve Dahlberg and Mary Alice Long.
• I’m starting to get increasingly freaked out about internet security, and this news that a researcher has developed wifi password hacking software using Amazon Web Services doesn’t help. Says the poster: “Cloud computing makes it easier for hackers to take advantage of weak security networks. There will be some huge and successful attacks this year. The level of preparedness is just not high enough to expect anything else except for some very high profile break-ins.” Uh oh.
• More state arts councils in states run by Republican governors are in trouble. Now it’s Kansas that may be the first to see its arts commission go. Janet Brown, as always, offers wisdom on the role and value of state arts agencies.

Big Projects

• Behold the British versions of Kickstarter and Indiegogo. While we’re on the subject of crowdfunding, Kickstarter’s “best of 2010” list is apparently “super inspiring,” and Brian Newman writes about a really-cool-sounding, Kickstarter-supported restaurant-cum-art-project called What Happens When.
• Awesome map of spoken dialects across North America (via CultureFuture).

Big Data

• The new National Arts Index has been unveiled by Americans for the Arts. You’ll hear a lot about the topline number (97.7, supposedly a 12-year low), but I feel the NAI’s real value is as a compendium for yearly data on 81 separate indicators in one place. I’ll be writing more on this later.
• More Richard Florida: a study on beauty and community satisfaction; the geography of gun deaths. (Curious finding in the latter: McCain vote share was the single variable associated most with gun deaths at the statewide level, more so than poverty, drug use, or possession of guns.)
• Speaking of beauty, here’s Christian Rudder with another stellar stat-porn post on internet dating, this time on female attractiveness and male attention. Marginal Revolution’s Alex Tabarrok responds.
• From Helicon Collaborative, a snapshot of arts funding in California. (Also see item at the end of this post.)
• Technology in the Arts surveys tech adoption and implementation among arts organizations.
• In a TEDx talk, Charles Limb describes two neuroscience studies he’s conducted using MRIs of jazz musicians and freestyle rappers improvising.
• Courtesy the Center for Effective Philanthropy, grantees report on their perceptions of foundation evaluation and reporting practices.
• The good news: a majority of Americans oppose cutting government funding for “the arts and sciences” (thanks for the help there, Gallup!). The bad news: Americans are more enthusiastic about cutting arts and science funding than all but one other category the poll asked about.

Big Ideas

• Amid all the hubbub about “emerging” this and that, Michael Kaiser stands up for the old farts. And so does Dan Pallotta (though in his case it’s because he’s about to become one).
• More on the grad school debt racket, this time focusing on law schools. “Solving the J.D. overabundance problem, according to Professor Henderson, will have to involve one very drastic measure: a bunch of lower-tier law schools will need to close.” Gabriel Rossman explains the strong incentives professors and institutions have to feed the unrealistic dreams of their graduate students. Meanwhile, Rosetta Thurman explains why you may not need to go to grad school to accomplish what you’re looking to do.
• Kyle MacMillan on how orchestras need to change in the 21st century, via David H. Thomas. Speaking of David H. and new orchestra practices, here he is, a professional orchestral clarinetist mind you, coming out and saying that he’d actually prefer to see an HD broadcast of a great orchestra rather than a live, local orchestral performance in person. Wow.
• And while we’re on the subject of orchestras, check out the news that Alarm Will Sound conductor Alan Pierson will lead the Brooklyn Philharmonic. For those of you who are not new music nerds, know that this represents a very radical hire by the struggling Brooklyn Phil. If it pays off, orchestral music may never be quite the same. (And if it doesn’t, I’d be pretty worried about what’s going to happen to orchestras.) No pressure, Alan.
• Nina Simon on Paul Light on innovation. Great read.
• How’s this for attracting new audiences? Playwrights Horizons is offering babysitting services to theater attendees. Worth a shot, I guess.
• Ciara Pressler has a very deep and provocative post at the Fractured Atlas blog on how we are all marketers. I would go even further than her examples: I think that potentially every action one takes professionally (and, arguably, personally) has repercussions for what one might call “reputation management.” The way in which we manifest ourselves to others both publicly and privately is always, ultimately, marketing, whether we choose to think of it as such or not.
• Amelia Northrup rounds up some arts technology trends to watch in 2011.
• At White Courtesy Telephone, Albert Ruesga offers 24 “theses” about foundations. And if Sean Stannard-Stockton tells me I should read this blog, I’m a-gonna read it.
• Are liberals just predisposed to compromise more than conservatives? And does that give conservatives a lasting competitive advantage?

Big Opportunity

• The California Arts Council is looking for a new director.