Published: Issue 1, Summer 2009

SPECIAL REPORT: The Arts & The Economy explores, critiques and ultimately provides working solutions for the arts–by examining the arts through economic issues. SPECIAL REPORT includes essays that explore cultural recovery as national recovery, 1950s CIA-led arts funding initiatives, economic-termed arts development in North Carolina, a critique of arts-led economic policies, and nonprofit arts strategies; a TAP*MAP, featuring regional voice-portraits of the economy’s effect on art making and arts communities; and a policy brief detailing strategies for an economic-and-whole-scale recovery of the arts.

In particular, here are the contents:

The national recovery demands cultural recovery argues Arlene Goldbard, who details an emerging and powerful cultural policy paradigm. Read: “America’s Cultural Recovery.”

The roots of arts policies are many, and include the Central Intelligence Agency.  Greg Londe particularizes CIA-funded magazine and arts projects of the 1950s. Read: “Marshall Plan Modernism: The CIA and the Big Little Magazine.”

Happy Valley, North Carolina is a rural town revived recently through economic/arts partnerships. Ardath Goldstein Weaver terms strategies of its success. Read: “Connectivity and Creativity: Learning the language of the creative economy.”

Arts for arts sake versus arts for economic sake. Doreen Jakob delves into the long-standing debate to ask the question: who really benefits from arts-led economic policies? Read: “Whose economy?: Understanding who benefits from arts-led economic and urban development policies.”

[From our online-only edition]: Arts foundation officer John R. Killacky sets down strategies for nonprofit arts success. Read: “Strategies for Arts Survival.”

TAP*MAP features voices from the field—artists, art-teachers, academics, regional arts council directors and activists—articulating how the current economy affects art making, arts communities, and arts industries. View: TAP*MAP: The Economic Landscape.

The Founding Editors close with a Policy Brief because we believe that before our nation can implement arts policy well, we must articulate arts policy well. Read: Arts Policy Strategies for the Economic Downturn.