Historical Context: Alabama State Council on the Arts

~ fortherecordadah

The Historical Context for the Alabama State Council on the Arts has been posted from the Records Disposition Authority (RDA) approved by the State Records Commission on October 26, 2022. The RDA establishes disposition requirements by designating records as either temporary records which may be destroyed after a specified retention period, or permanent records, which must be preserved in perpetuity. The complete RDAs for close to 175 agencies can be found on the Alabama Department of Archives and History website.

From the first existence of humankind, creative expression has been an act shared by every culture and people group. Societies develop art-making traditions rooted in visual images, musical sounds and rhythms, bodily movement of dancers, transformation of actors, and the prosaic and poetic words spoken aloud or written on a page. Each of these forms has developed over centuries, in as diverse an array as the cultures in which they are produced. Government support of art has a complicated history, with financial, religious, and political leaders frequently involved in using art to validate and justify political and social power.

Following the establishment of academies of art during the Renaissance and the formation of guilds across Europe, creative practice was often focused on continuity of established aesthetics.[1] African mask-making carried spiritual importance.[2] Drumming as a form of communication required rules and patterns to be set as in spoken and written language.[3] Many Asian cultures followed a model of reproducing a masterwork, with very little artistic flourish by the individual creator.[4]

Art as part of modern society was affirmed and supported during the Enlightenment and the revolutions that created the United States and transformed Europe. Public institutions including museums, symphonies, and ballets were established, often as the result of the ouster of a previous patron, such as a monarch, and placing their art and artists in the public hands of fledgling democracies. This transformation of power introduced masterpieces to a public whose access to art had previously been limited to folk traditions, utilitarian objects, and self-taught artists.[5]

In the United States, federal and state governments supported the architecture, sculpture, paintings, and other forms of art needed in the planning of cities and public buildings. Frequently, the approach was neo-classical, a visual complement to the ideas of divine providence and manifest destiny based on foundations much earlier than 1776. Publicly funded art helped to create an irrefutable sense of order and history in the republic.[6]

National arts programs with missions broader than singe projects were either unsuccessful in their attempts or sadly neglected. The National Arts Commission ended after two years without funding (1859-1861); legislation to establish a Federal Arts Council failed in 1877; and the National Conservatory of Music experienced steady decline between its founding in 1885 and its closure in the 1920s. The Council of Fine Art was established in 1909, met once to approve the site for the Lincoln Memorial, and was then defunded. Subsequently resurrected as the Commission of Fine Arts the entity today has authority to review design and aesthetics of construction within the District of Columbia.[7]

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries philanthropists, like Carnegie, Barnes, Libbey, Frick, and Vanderbilt established significant institutions dedicated to providing art to the public. After decades of laissez-faire industrialism, these titans, and the quickly growing number of wealthy members of the Progressive movement provided substantially greater financial support of arts organizations than was available from federal or state treasuries. Direct, effective federal support of artists and the creation of art was virtually non-existent until the formation of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression. [8] The WPA created the Federal Arts Projects and Federal Writer’s Projects in order to employ nearly ten thousand out-of-work artists. These types of federally funded projects were meant to produced art, not to nurture the artistic creativity within every citizen. [9]

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy commissioned a report on the availability, and participation in the arts across the nation. The final report, published in 1963, found that interest and desire to participate in the arts were growing, “citizens were claiming the heritage of Walt Whitman, Edward Hopper, Frank Lloyd Wright, Martha Graham, Louis Armstrong, and other great American artists as their birthright, and they wanted access to music education, dance performances, professional drama, and regional artists.”[10] The report also noted that the ability to engage in the arts was divided along socioeconomic and racial lines. Minorities and rural communities had far fewer opportunities to engage in any form of the arts than their wealthier, cosmopolitan counterparts.

On September 29, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act creating the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), an independent federal agency. The legislation provided that the NEA would distribute funds to individual states, which would then support and expand access to the arts in their communities. The NEA required that the states create an administering agency and match any funding received, dollar for dollar.[11]

Alabama was one of the first states to answer the call to better fund the arts. Through an executive order on April 8, 1966, Gov. George Wallace gave operating status to an Alabama State Council on the Arts. Alabama Act 1967-551 formally established the State Council on the Arts less than a year later. The Council consists of governor-appointed members with diverse backgrounds.

The State Council on the Arts enthusiastically launched its mission of funding arts-based projects. In its first full year of operating, the Council awarded most of its available funding to grants for performing arts projects but, by 1969, had expanded its scope with more than forty grants for literature, visual communications, architecture, and historic preservation, in addition to music, dance, and theater.[12] Staff assisted communities wishing to form non-profit art councils. These local councils became eligible to receive grants from the State. The State Council on the Arts began publishing pamphlets and newsletters and holding conferences to engage with and educate non-profits. By the early 1970s, Alabama community arts councils, which had been practically nonexistent before the State Council on the Arts’ creation, numbered in the dozens. In 1973, the Council received a grant from the NEA to create the Alabama Assembly of Community Arts Councils and Communities under its leadership.[13]

Simultaneous to assisting the community arts councils in their local programming, the State Council on the Arts worked to provide statewide programming. The Council introduced its Artists-In-Schools program in 1973. The Artists-In-Schools program brought artists, dance companies, and touring theater groups to perform or provide lessons to students across the state, adding more performances and reaching different schools each year. The programs and grant recipients of the 1970s highlighted a focus on providing quality art experiences from different disciplines to school-aged children.[14]

With the appointment of M.J. Zakrzewski as executive director in 1969, the Alabama State Council on the Arts became supportive of folk arts. Passionate about Alabama’s rich folk art traditions, Zakrzewski pushed the Council to fund arts beyond high art such as ballet, theater, and painting. The State Council on the Arts arranged the first folk arts awareness program in 1976. Under Zakrzewski’s leadership, the Council’s publications highlighted and advertised Alabama folk artists such as multimedia artist Jimmy Lee Sudduth and Black Sacred Harp singer Dewey Williams.

In 1984, the Council unveiled the Folk Art Apprenticeship Program. The program funds Master Folk Artists offering lessons to an apprentice in skills such as basket making, pottery, and quilting. Prospective students of a master folk artist apply for apprenticeship grants to cover the costs of materials and travel. The master-apprentice system promotes and protects folk culture in a traditional fashion. Many apprenticeship grantees go on to national acclaim.[15] When the NEA faced accusations of supporting only “elitist art” in the early 1990s, Alabama was identified as an example of how the funding apportioned by the NEA supported all arts.[16]

Despite the federal recognition, Chair of the Council Fred Delchamps felt the Council had stagnated and urged that the chairmanship position be rotated every two years, insisted that meetings become more streamlined, and sought a more professional and better documented grant-making process. The reorganization also saw the appointment of Albert Head as the new executive director in 1985. Head established program areas for performing arts, literary arts, folklife, and visual arts, and hired staff with expertise in each discipline. While the programs changed throughout the following three decades, the structure of trained professionals as leaders of each program area remains the same.[17]

During this time, the Council re-evaluated the grant-awarding process. Head established a peer review system for each program wherein experts in specific arts provided recommendations to Council members. The first grant peer review occurred in 1986. Thanks to twenty-first century technological advances, the peer review system has become even more expansive and representational. Currently, knowledgeable individuals read and score applications and can meet to discuss the applications. Council staff summarizes the comments from the review panelists and provides these to the Council’s Grants Review Committee. The Grant Review Committee’s recommendations are then provided to the Council for consideration.

Head also saw the need for improvements in preparing small organizations to apply for grants. His review of the 1985 awards revealed that the State Council on the Arts awarded grants primarily concentrated in large urban areas and well-established organizations. In one of his first newsletter articles, Head remarked, “We are increasingly aware that many arts groups in rural areas are outside the mainstream of information and do not find out about the grants programs and application deadlines until it is too late…we cannot very well make a grant where we do not have an application.”[18] The Council more broadly publicized grant guidelines and deadlines, and newly hired staff dedicated themselves to helping volunteer-run organizations prepare better applications.[19]

The work of providing information and assistance to the public continues to be a priority of today’s State Council on the Arts. Grant guidelines, deadlines, and applications are available on the agency’s website and regularly advertised by other arts-related organizations. Staff provide in-person and virtual assistance to grant applicants throughout the year, and applicants now have the option to speak to the Council’s Grants Review Committee concerning their project during a public hearing.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the State Council on the Arts shifted to providing more literary arts programs and addressing adult Alabamian interest in the arts. The 1970s-era Council had focused much of its resources on K-12 arts education; the newer Council believed that adults should also benefit from active arts participation. Events such as the Community Arts Leadership Institute (now known as the Bill Bates Leadership Institute) and Fellowship grants expanded the opportunities available to adult artists. Fellowship grants provide financial support to artists and arts educators seeking to increase their artistic skills and advance their careers.

Perhaps one of the most significant reorganizations of the State Council on the Arts under Head occurred in 1990 with the creation of the Alabama Center for Traditional Culture (ACTC). The ACTC furthered the agency’s mission of preserving Alabama’s folk culture through active documentation. In its first three decades, the ACTC recorded several music albums from the Wiregrass region, produced radio programs, published articles on topics as varied as gourd martin houses and bluegrass bands, and transcribed oral histories of Alabamian residents. The ACTC continues its work as the research-oriented division of the Folklife program alongside the grant-making division.[20]

Today’s State Council on the Arts continues to fulfill its mission “to enhance the quality of life and economic vitality for all Alabamians by providing support for the state’s diverse and rich artistic resources” through awarding grants, providing programming, and embracing technological changes that allow it to reach as many individual Alabamians as possible.

[1] The Art Story, “The Academy of Art.” The Art Story, Accessed September 5, 2022. https://www.theartstory.org/definition/the-academy-of-art/.

[2] Minneapolis Institute of Art. “African Masks and Masquerades.” Minneapolis Institute of Art, Accessed September 5, 2022. https://new.artsmia.org/programs/teachers-and-students/teaching-the-arts/five-ideas/african-masks-and-masquerades.

[3] Andrew Henley (Deputy Director of the Alabama State Council on the Arts), September 30, 2022, Montgomery, AL.

[4] Princeton University, “Copying and Imitation in the Arts of China on View at the Princeton University Art Museum” 2001. https://pr.princeton.edu/news/01/q1/0220-artchina.htm.

[5] Henley, September 30, 2022.

[6] F.K. Graage, “Government Support for the Arts: is There a Price to Pay?” (Master diss., American University, 1987), 5-8.

[7] Henley, September 30, 2022.

[8] Graage, “Government Support for the Arts: is There a Price to Pay?”, 8-10

[9] Mark Bauerlein and Ellen Grantham, “National Endowment for the Arts A History 1965-2008,”1-3.

[10] Mark Bauerlein and Ellen Grantham, “National Endowment for the Arts A History 1965-2008,”10.

[11] Al Head, “Alabama State Council on the Arts (ASCA).” Encyclopedia of Alabama, August 14, 2007. http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1276.

[12] Visual Communications is also known as graphic design.

[13] Leah Rawls Atkins, “Toward a Vibrant Cultural Environment: The Alabama State Council on the Arts, 1966-2000,” Alabama Arts Vol XVII No. 1, Summer 2001, 5-6.

[14] Ala-Arts, 1973-1977.

[15] Alabama State Council on the Arts, Carry On: Celebrating Twenty Years of Alabama Folk Arts Apprenticeship Program, 2008.

[16] Atkins, “Toward a Vibrant Cultural Environment,” 8.

[17] Atkins, “Toward a Vibrant Cultural Environment,” 8-12.

[18] Albert Head, “A. Head’s View” Alabama Arts, 1985.

[19] Head continued to lead the State Council on the Arts until his retirement in December 2018. Dr. Elliot Knight began serving as the new Director in January 2019.

[20] Joey Brackner, “Alabama Center for Traditional Culture” Encyclopedia of Alabama. February 22, 2007. http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1031.

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