The Austin Creative Alliance is appealing urgently for public reaction to legislator Simpson's budget amendment, just filed and aimed at defunding the Texas Commission for the Arts.
The demands of the time are such that new interim executive director Marcy Hoen is still using a template with the signature of departed longtime director Latifa Taormina -- but the creatives have found time to cap the appeal with the group's new logo.
The old logo, a clunky inward-bowed rectangle, is still on the website.
Save the TCA!
Immediate Action Required!
UPDATE 4/1/2011:
Rep. Simpson (R, Longview) has just filed a TCA-killing amendment
UPDATE 2/18/11: The House budget version (HB1) comes to the floor today. Please call your representatives immediately and ask them to vote NAY on any amendment -- similar to Rep. Simpson's -- that would further reduce the appropration for the Texas Commission on the Arts.
The TCA has already sustained a 52% reduction - any further would amount to killing the agency.
PLEASE TAKE ACTION NOW AND CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES!
WHY SUPPORT THE ARTS, ESPECIALLY NOW? . . . . Aside from the fact that they generate 4.9 BILLION dollars for Texas of which a teency tincy percent goes back to the arts, and aside from the fact that they are the largest growth area for new jobs in the state.....
WHAT WE NEED TO SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS IS CREATIVITY - the ability to generate something fresh - which also entails the ability to face a problem and create something new from what is broken. THAT IS WHAT THE ARTS DO. THAT IS WHAT THE ARTS TEACH US.
To quote Arlene Goldbard's recent talk in Austin* (click for link to text and video)
"In a world morphing at light-speed into something none of us can foretell, fear and loss can be paralyzing. Creativity is the antidote: it is both our greatest challenge and our greatest need.
You can see these same capacities in action when we make music, dance, or theater: we collaborate, expressing a shared passion for beauty and meaning, stretching to accommodate each other, negotiating differences, holding space for everyone, and thus expanding possibility.
Artists rehearse for life's challenges through imagination and improvisation, exploring the limits of their powers and the synergies that can be created when they are aligned.
Making art, we learn how to move past the easy and obvious into essence, how to discard what no longer serves and explore the unknown.
Reflect on the business world: in IBM's most recent biennial CEO study, Capitalizing on Complexity,** interviews with over 1,500 CEOs and managers from both the private and public sector in 60 countries and 33 industries revealed that the "single most important leadership
competency" needed to navigate an environment of escalating complexity was creativity."
* Arlene Goldbard, author and arts activist, gave the keynote at the annual conference for the Association of Perferforming Arts Service Organziations here in Austin, March 8, 2011. The Creative Alliance hosted the conference.
**Capitalizing on Complexity: Insights from the Global Chief Executive Officer Study, IBM Corporation, May 2010
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