By JASMINE MAHMOUD
Published online: November 5, 2009

Issue 2 Sneak Peak. Despite our best efforts, The Arts Politic Issue 2: Bias is not yet published. It *soon* will be. (*A few weeks, fingers crossed). In this interim, we intend to sustain arts political dialogue with sneak peaks of content from the upcoming issue. Thank you for your engagement, and please let us know your thoughts.

On the heels of yesterday’s mini-interview with Seattle City Council Candidate turned Councilmember-elect, Sally Bagshaw, here’s another Issue 2 sneak peak. Elizabeth Glidden, a current Minneapolis, MN City Councilmember for Ward 8, ran for re-election in Tuesday’s campaign. I spoke with her a few weeks ago to learn more about arts policy and the arts landscape in Minneapolis.

Elizabeth Glidden

Minneapolis is pretty neat. Second to New York City in theater per capita, Minneapolis is flush with renown established and emerging arts centers and artists, and has rich arts policy resources, planning and results (for example, the Clean Water Amendment and the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, where arts economist Ann Markusen researches). Glidden is also pretty neat. She is a violinist and a policymaker who spearheaded support for the resident-led Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center and worked with Ann Markusen to harness local artist conversations that resulted in the first artists-only business association. She also has a laudable “Arts” tab on her Council website. (TAP urges all policymakers to follow Glidden’s example!)

The refrain from yesterday’s sneak peak remains true: local arts policy is crucial to sustaining and advancing local arts landscapes, practices and communities. (My post-dated way of saying: investigate your local candidates for their arts policies and ideas, and VOTE). Here’s the sneak peak.

JASMINE: Tell me about South Minneapolis Arts Business Association (SMARTS), first artist-only business association. What has your involvement been and what are some of SMARTS’ highlights?

ELIZABETH: Early in my tenure in 2006, I had sought out Humphrey Institute Professor Ann Markusen. I had met with her in 2006 because I was really interested in her work on arts and economic development. One of the things that she pushed through is the importance of neighborhood centers [and] smaller arts projects. We had decided that one thing that would be good to do, would be a series of meetings to try to draw out ideas from the artist communities about what would be some tangible things to do to help get artists more connected with the city, but also utilize their own economic development power better. At our kick off meeting, we had Ann Markusen and a well-known artist from the Twin Cities, Seitu Jones. From that series of meetings, the really concrete thing that happened was the South Minneapolis Arts Business Association. They have some other strategies for keeping artists connected, and I’m hoping that they will continue to grow an energy so that they can be a place where we can look and say how can the city partner better with smaller arts organizations, and individual artists.

JASMINE: Who are some of your favorite Minneapolis-based artists and arts groups?

ELIZAEBTH: I’ll actually mention her as one of my favorite artists, my policy aide, Andrea Jenkins, because I love spoken word too. And she is a local spoken word artist who performs all over the city, and she has curated a number of reading programs.

JASMINE: I’m curious about your senior policy aide who is an artist. How has she influenced your approach to the arts as a policymaker?

ELIZABETH: It has helped both of us to keep [the arts] more on the front burner. Because she’s involved in the arts in a different way than I am. Musicians are completely different than anybody else, were all nerdy. My crowd before was amateur musicians, and maybe knowing a little bit of the professional musician community. But Andrea knows this whole different realm of artists, more of the playwrights, and the spoken word artists. So I think she’s more in tune, and that helps me be more in tune to the happenings around town, the performance art stuff. She is just part of that community, too. So it’s not just that she knows about it, she’s part of it. So I think it just helps to keep [the arts] on the front burner for us.