Arts Grants

President Clinton in his proclamation in support of National Arts and Humanities Month in October 1993, highlighted both the contemporary challenges and the potential for creative dialogue which face the arts in the 1990's.

We are a nation called to artistic and intellectual responsibility at a critical time in the history of the world.... Our traditions of free inquiry and expression help to shape political attitudes and cultural values around the globe.

Through the arts and humanities we gain a deeper understanding of ourselves as individuals and as a society.... As we become an increasingly diverse society, the arts and humanities will help us to deepen our understanding of one another, honor our differences, and celebrate our shared experiences and values as Americans.

The Nathan Cummings Foundation arts program supports a vision of the arts as a vehicle for education and cross-cultural understanding which will advance these goals.

We live in a time when artists from many different cultural traditions are entering and enriching the national cultural dialogue. At the same time, recent analyses of financial support for the arts confirm that funding has been declining in both the corporate and public sectors. Thus our arts program seeks to address contemporary issues of cultural equity in an environment of significant demographic change and funding constraints.

ARTS EDUCATION

Our challenge within the field of arts education is to invest Foundation resources where they can have the greatest impact on the lives of children. The majority of our grantees represent arts organizations offering programs with potential for national replication. We are especially interested in programs that offer the power and potential of the arts to youth in at-risk situations through long-term, sustained commitment.

The Foundation supported INTAR Hispanic American Arts Cent er, a leading multi-arts center focusing on Hispanic-American theatre and visual art, to develop an internship program through which Latino and African American students can learn about the theater and develop job skills. Interns were identified from New York high schools and received academic credit for six hours of service per week over the course of one school semester. They volunteered at such non-profit arts institutions as Jean Cocteau Repertory Theater, the Latino Collaborative, the Drama League, and Circle Rep. In addition, INTAR facilitated bi-weekly dialogues focusing on the students' experience and job-related skills. We believe this program serves a dual purpose of providing youth with meaningful, on-the-job experience in the arts while at the same time bolstering the volunteer base in non-profit theaters.

ARTS

In recognition of the increasingly important role that museums are playing as educational institutions for elementary and secondary school groups, the Foundation supported several national initiatives designed to strengthen the museum-school relationship and to serve multicultural student audiences better. Among the projects which the Foundation supported was MUSE Film and Television's video pilot project to create user-friendly and age appropriate video introduction to museum collections. The project will help students, particularly those who may lack any previous museum-going experience, to feel informed and welcome.

CREATIVE AUTONOMY/ARTS ADVOCACY

Our support for artists and arts institutions embattled by censorship and intolerance stems from a belief that free artistic expression is vital to the preservation of First Amendment values as well as the development of our society's full creative potential.

In 1992-1993, Artsave, a project of People for the American Way and a grantee of the Foundation, documented more than 204 challenges to artistic expression in 43 states ranging from Alaska to Georgia. We are concerned with the practice of looking for solutions to cultural conflicts through the suppression of artistic expression.

The Foundation's grants to such national programs as Artsave, the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, and the American Civil Liberties Union's Art Censorship Project, enable the creative community to defend its First Amendment rights through strategic programs in public education, advocacy, and litigation. These grantees share the philosophy that artistic expression is critical to the life of our society as well as to the intellectual and spiritual growth of human beings. Censorship denies the public the opportunity to learn from art, and to engage in dialogue about the important social issues that art can express.

Three years old, the ACLU Arts Censorship Project has become a recognized legal and educational resource for the nation's creative community, with a specialty in litigation and advocacy. They have engaged in precedent-setting cases of national importance, educated the public and press about censorship issues, and provided resources, expertise, and backup o ACLU affiliates in local censorship battles.

NEW AGENDAS/ACCESS AND DIVERSITY

We believe in the unique ability of the arts to challenge our assumptions and enrich our understanding of one another across cultural boundaries. We believe a diversity of views is critical to that dialogue . To increase cultural diversity within the arts, we support arts institutions and community-based arts organizations in their efforts to create new agendas, develop new leadership and capacity, and become more accessible.

Our grant to the Native American arts service organization, Atlatl, helped to strengthen communication among Native American cultural programs and agencies through Artswire, an interactive national computer network. The grant is helping to create a forum for broad-based discussion within the Native American community on issues pertinent to their culture, and with groups from outside their culture, assuring Native American artists access to resources and referrals within such mainstream arts networks as state arts agencies and museums. Ten native cultural organizations from Fairbanks, Alaska to Washington, DC have begun to work on-line together. Through this grant, the Foundation hopes to facilitate the development of strategies for Native American cultural advancement which are generated from within the community itself and which use advanced communications tools as a vehicle for dialogue.

We believe that the development of new creative talent and leadership among groups that have been underrepresented in the arts world requires sustained support of the talent "pipeline." We must help younger people to find a place in the arts community. To this end, the Foundation supported projects which advance the professional development and talents of people of color in the visual and performing arts.

Within the visual arts, a grant to the National Gallery of Art aided minority students in making the transition from academic to professional life as they begin careers in museums, universities, and other arts institutions. Throughout their 9 month paid tenure, interns work in a closely-supervised, tutorial relationship with museum staff, from whom they can learn professional practices, research methods, and administrative skills. The minority internship program has served as a model for other cultural institutions interested in establishing their own internship program.