by Sandra Beckmeier

It's no big secret that the National Endowment for the Arts has a new chairperson. Ms. Shanklin-Peterson has been serving as the agency's Deputy Chairwoman for Grants and Partnership and was formerly Executive Director of the South Carolina Arts Commission.

Of late, Peterson holds the task of stepping in after Jane Alexander's return to private life, having established new priorities for the NEA, including launching two unprecedented initiatives to assess not only the health of nonprofit arts organizations and artists around the country, but also raising community involvement in the arts and the public perception of the Endowment's role. Speaking from a local perspective, this is no simple task.

In April of 1994 more than 1,000 artists, arts administrators and government leaders joined together at ART-21 to examine issues that Alexander identified as critical to the future health of the nonprofit arts in America: the role of artists in society, lifelong learning in the arts, the arts and new technologies, public/private partnerships and issues like our cultural legacy.

What was established in concrete, so to speak, was the importance of creating connections in order to sustain and nurture the arts in America, while helping to integrate them more fully into our communities. The country is so short on "big" things -- heroes, villains, conflicts -- that we've had to inflate little things and pretend they're big.

For example, our statesman used to revile Hitler, Mussolini, the godless Reds -- large and sinister enemies who wanted to take over the world. Now the focus of evil in American life is...not the popular accounts of determining the virtue of classless women as human beings -- but the tobacco industry, which seems to be the latest scandal to stimulate our hyper-stimulated political class.

The future of the NEA? Hard to tell at this stage, but I ask you, whomever you are, why does a country as wealthy and vast as the U.S. still fall so far behind in supporting what can ultimately save it -- art? The congressional cutbacks in funding of the arts in the past five years have dramatically increased competition for funding, and thus have caused many fine organizations to stop applying, which is a very serious problem.

It's a simple ideology to invent. Mark Twain didn't need a grant to write. Artists and arts organizations could just flip the finger to funding cycles, but when in trouble those funds sure come in handy -- they're needed. Relying solely on funding as a means to survive won't alter issues surrounding contemporary art that is sponsored in America: where the artist sits inside a container, possessing the mind and voice to create regardless of the walls created by censorship. It's a shell that contains many artistic voices, and it is these artists who have to define what is refining them. Censorship is only a word; when given the power it can refine, alter, even mold a society.

With all the changes within the NEA, the book of jargon created in the "American Canvas" translates into far-reaching definitions, and it will be interesting to see where the next decade takes us. The NEA wants to improve the climate for culture, transmit our cultural legacy, and let go of the elitist approaches which have both supported and hindered the arts in America. I think it's strange how the NEA would take so long to figure it out, but at least arts and education are being promoted so it's not another sell-out all together.

What fits nicely for censors in all this shuffling around of "the challenge to act" is that the government won't be the evil anymore, because corporations will be given the power to control, condemn and reject whatever doesn't fit their mission statement. I'd be willing to bet that Pop will become so large it will explode, and diversity as a marketplace fueled by the media which at times forces a homogenizing effect, can undermine diversity, depending upon who is listening. There is access to the arts, but as it stands, only the privileged have it in the container. Hopefully the "new" findings will save the NEA, or maybe Mark Twain could just re-invent the wheel and pass out some far-reaching advice from his grave.