Art v. artists: let's have a National Arts Lottery

Government institutions, when they have the money, like to support the arts. Usually they mean by this, they like to subsidize the arts so as to make them more widely available, especially in areas with little local arts outlets. The focus is on expanding the audience for the arts, especially among young people.

Far less attention is given to the needs of artists. Far less money is given directly to individual artists.

To my way of thinking, this puts the cart before the horse. Artists come before the arts, and their needs should be primary. Most artists, early in their careers, need money to exist and buy time for their artistic work above all other needs. This is why direct cash payments to artists, more than anything else, "supports the arts." Some of this goes on, of course, sometimes more, sometimes less. The 80s were good in this regard, and I took full advantage of it. I lived on grants through much of the decade. However, I think there's a better way to give money to artists. The present system is a competitive grant, fellowship game that lets committees, for the most part, decide who gets the money. Having been on these committees, I think it's a poor program. It results in too much compromise to satisfy a majority of committee members, a process that tends to eliminate the most daring, original voices. Craft gets rewarded over vision.

This is why I support an impossible idea. An annual National Arts Lottery. The payment to artists would be determined like any other lottery winners, by a drawing. You have to meet some minimum criteria to qualify "as an artist," and then you name goes into the hat. If you get drawn, you get a check. If not, you try again next year. (A similar lottery would decide which groups get money for audience development.)

I think far more interesting art would be developed and supported by this National Arts Lottery than by the present system of grants and fellowships. And think of all the ridiculous, hot-air, critical pontification that would be eliminated in committee meetings!

p.s. For those interested in a profound discussion of the difficulty of critical discourse in the arts, I recommend Morris Weitz's Hamlet and the philosophy of literary criticism (Meridian books).