Artists seek respect, cash
By Joyce Marcel, Brattleboro Reformer, Wednesday, April 25
BRATTLEBORO -- They say that getting a group of artists to agree on anything is like herding cats, but Brattleboro's Alliance for the Arts, a loose network of local arts organizers, did a pretty good job with its Artist Town Meeting Tuesday night at the Latchis Theatre.
The meeting was inadvertently timely. The Brattleboro area has long been known as a good "arts town," and much of the energy in recent years has gone into defining and refining the area's "creative economy."
Recognizing that, American Style Magazine has just named Brattleboro one of the top arts towns in the country with populations under 100,000.
About 100 painters, sculptors, musicians, writers, ceramists, arts organizers and performers -- of all ages -- gathered to talk about current issues facing the arts community.
Broadly, these issues were: refining the cultural section of the Brattleboro town plan, stewardship of the arts, municipal funding for the arts, local artists' needs and other art-related concerns.
No matter how the issues were sliced and diced, however, they all came down to one thing: money, or the lack thereof.
Actor Jerry Levy framed it in terms of finding performing venues and being able to pay for productions. Brattleboro Arts Initiative director Gail Nunziata talked about trying to get funding from either the town, in the form of some percentage of the local option tax, or from the state.
Painter Scott Borofsky was among several people who suggested that new public buildings and public spaces be encouraged — or mandated — to include art.
Respect was another issue. Dalia Shevin, who described herself as a painter and a cupcake maker, talked about Tinderbox, a relatively new artists' collective of between 25 and 30 younger artists who congregate at a space upstairs at 17 Elliot St. She said that when the collective first formed, it had trouble with the town manager and fire department.
"You read a lot about how young people don't stay in Brattleboro," Shevin said. "To keep young people, you need stuff like Tinderbox. Even more than money, we need respect. We need people to know about us. We have struggled for legitimacy."
The town needs to respect art and artists more, Borofsky agreed.
"I remember when the town was looking for artists to paint around the holes in the concrete walls of the Harmony Parking Lot," Borofsky said.
"It wasn't respectful. They should have put together some kind of money — $100, $500 — surfaced the wall and asked artists for submissions. They should treat it as important. Not just 'paint around the holes.'"
Selectboard member Dora Bouboulis told the audience that in reality, there wasn't any money to be found.
"To make something happen, you've got to do it yourself," Bouboulis said. "You need to organize as a political force. There should be art all over the place, murals on the wall, at the exits onto the Interstate. But the realities of funding are these: Vermont has many times more needs than money at the state and municipal level. We're going to make serious cuts in vital services. Taxes are going up by huge percentages in the coming years. Infrastructure needs are going to be cut. The money just isn't there."
Several artists pointed out that since manufacturing has dwindled in Brattleboro, the arts — which includes galleries, movie theaters, restaurants, bars and entertainment centers — are expanding to fill the vacant spaces. As a result, they are attracting more and more people.
Gallery Walk alone -- which over the past 11 years has expanded to something like 55 venues -- fills up the town on the first Friday of every month and subsidizes the restaurants and shops.
Borofsky suggested that the town needed more "high end" galleries, the kind that attract magazine reviews and serious collectors. He suggested that Building a Better Brattleboro spend money to attract this type of gallery.
Town government should help out, he told Bouboulis. "You're our representative. Make this happen."
Creative people offer creative suggestions. Among those heard Tuesday evening: hold a juried biennial show of Vermont artists at the museum; piggyback a big art fair on the weekend of the Strolling of the Heifers; because Gallery Walk brings in so many people, the town should donate to the arts the parking meter money it collects from 4-6 p.m. on those days; businesses, which gain so much from the artists, should subsidize them more.
As the meeting came to a close around 9 p.m., painter Terry Sylvester, who is responsible for several treasured public murals in Brattleboro, warned that "murals on every wall" might not be in the town's best interest.
"It could be a little like Disneyland," Sylvester said. "I'm grateful to live in Brattleboro. It's worth appreciating for itself, and maybe not doing that much to change it."