Earlier this spring a group of Southern Arizona artists and arts supporters launched a grassroots advocacy effort to maintain local arts funding, and specifically to support the area’s local arts agency, the Tucson Pima Arts Council (TPAC).

They launched the TPAC Arts Advocacy Network, to keep local advocates updated about:

  • Current arts funding news in Southern Arizona;
  • Action alerts, providing instructions related to immediate advocate action (sign a petition, email a letter, call a   councilperson, attend a City Council meeting, or participate in a creative art action); and
  • Arts actions to demonstrate the value of the arts.

So far the network has 171 members. Their first order of business? Protecting TPAC’s budget for grants and services, as the arts agency has withstood several rounds of funding reductions since the beginning of the recession.

Southern Arizona Artists at the Tucson City Council Meeting; Tuesday, May 11, 2010; Photo by Denise Uyehara

For several weeks the TPAC Arts Advocacy Network carefully planned testimony for the May 11 Tucson City Council Meeting. Local artist, administrator and advocate Karen Falkenstrom of Odaiko Sonora, captured the group’s actions on the TPAC Arts Advocacy Network Blog:

http://tpacartsadvocacy.ning.com/profiles/blogs/couldnt-have-choreographed-it

We encourage you to read her post, and you can view photos and video footage on the site.

Executive Director of TPAC, Roberto Bedoya, said of the group’s testimony, “They were fearless when talking about our cultural communities’ economic and civic value, and they were exemplary of what cultural citizenship looks like – how to make the political and social argument to policymakers about the arts community’s importance and how they/we contribute to the well-being of Tucson. The speakers had the weight of conviction embedded in their remarks about what they do and why – because of their deep passions for art and this place, never failing to mention the significance of public funds to their practice. Ultimately they were eloquent, poetic and inspiring.”

We concur. We are so proud of the TPAC Arts Advocacy Network for its coordinated and localized response in support of public funding for the arts, in what is still a painfully difficult time for state and local budgets. Their unified voice and efforts to demonstrate the arts industry’s broad public benefits are deserving of loud praise.

Good work, TPAC Arts Advocacy Network! Onward.

Jaime