PLATTEVILLE, Wis. -- Do artists fret about the economy?
"We're artists; we're used to starving," quips Carole Spelic', a Mineral Point artist and director of ArtsBuild, the advocacy group based at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville.
Recently, southwest Wisconsin arts groups hosted members of the Wisconsin Arts Board, which meets at least once a year away from Madison. Board members came from as far away as Washburn, on Lake Superior.
"It's so we can tell the arts board who we are and what we have going on," Spelic' said. She led a daylong tour that started at Mineral Point's Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts, then to a sculpture garden in Hollandale and a co-op and gallery in Blanchardville.
They learned about three community theater groups in Darlington, drove past "barn quilts" on the way to Platteville and toured the university and Rountree Gallery. They also traveled to Folklore Village near Dodgeville and back to Mineral Point for a tour of the city's opera house.
Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton chaired the board's
about artsbuild |
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| ArtsBuild was launched by the University of Wisconsin-Platteville's Office of Continuing Eduction as a support network for artists in southwest Wisconsin. To contact ArtsBuild, go to www.uwplatt.edu/cont_ed/artsbuild/ or contact Carole Spelic' at spelicc@uwplatt.edu. |
"We're very fortunate (in Wisconsin) to still have an arts board," Spelic' said. In the fallout from the recession, other states gave their boards the ax or cut them severely. Wisconsin's board survived with minimal cuts.
"It's a lean organization on a shoestring. If people knew, they'd be grateful," she said.
It was a bonus for area artists to see and be seen, she said.
"They (board members) said it was good to see what they fund and things they don't fund. They also saw how much space there is between communities, driving through the cornfields and farms. They understand the challenge. I was also interested in the comparison to when they meet in a city. Here, people were very open. In urban settings, they said, people are more guarded."
Spelic' said that while artists and arts groups are used to making do with little money, both public and private sources of funding are drying up in the weak economy.
This summer, she received university grant money to travel to the National Endowment for the Arts headquarters in Washington, D.C., to learn more about grant writing.
"The NEA funds 50 percent of applications. I thought that's pretty good odds," she said. "But they said, 'You're so small.' But I said, 'Our region is small.'"
"My constituents are starving for" more places to exhibit, she said. "There's not a whole lot of locations."
