- Public support for the arts is remarkable.

80% of Americans have engaged with the arts in the last year.

76% consider the arts personally important.

And sizable bipartisan majority support public funding for the arts.

But today's guest warns that the atmosphere for public funding of the arts has become problematic over the last 12 months.

She's Erin Harkey this week on "Story in the Public Square."

(lively thoughtful music) (lively thoughtful music continues) Hello, and welcome to "Story in the Public Square," where storytelling meets public affairs.

I'm Jim Ludes from the Pell Center at Salve Regina University.

- And I'm G. Wayne Miller, also with Salve's Pell Center.

- And our guest this week is Erin Harkey, chief executive officer of Americans for the Arts, one of the premier arts advocacy organizations in the United States.

She's joining us today from the Windy City, Chicago.

Erin, thank you so much for being with us.

- Thank you for having me.

- Well, you know, we wanted to have this conversation because of the important role that arts plays in public life in the United States, both historically and today.

And when we're talking about the arts, we're talking about the visual arts, we're talking about performing arts, we're talking about literature, both poetry and prose.

Traditionally, what is that role?

What have the arts meant to public life in the United States?

- Well, I think the arts are, you know, sort of inextricably linked to public life.

And I think they impact everything that we do as human beings.

And in some ways, they're so close to us.

So you mentioned, you know, the visual arts, the performing arts, but it even happens in the sort of interstitial spaces, right?

So when we wake up in the morning, and we turn on music to get us pumped for our workout, right, it is so incredibly connected to how we, I think, both communicate with one another and how we sort of recognize and sort of see the world.

- Do you think that we take it for granted?

- I think in some ways because it is so connected to what we do, and it can be sort of taken for granted.

I often talk about how we as arts advocates have thought about sort of campaigns, right?

Sort of messaging campaigns, storytelling campaigns about how we help to communicate, right, the sort of value of the arts.

And one of the things that we sometimes think about is how would we be able to communicate what a day without the arts would actually look like?

And we find that to be an impossible task because, like, where would you start?

And then where would that end?

It is really just so much a part of who we are, from, you know, the design of our clothing to the jewelry we wear, to the things that we listen to, to what we see, you know, every day, to how we communicate, to, you know, what we read, right?

So I think it is easy to take it for granted when it is, again, so incredibly intrinsic to what we do as human beings.

- So in other words, it's universal.

Certainly.

- It is universal.

Yeah, one of the statistics that I love to sort of quote... So Americans for the Arts, as you mentioned, is the nation's leading arts advocacy organization, and one of the ways that we do that is through research.

So we do economic impact studies, we also do public opinion studies.

And one of the statistics that I like the most is that nearly 80% of Americans believe that the arts are personally important to them.

So in a country of this size, that's a pretty significant- - That's remarkable.

You can't get the 80% of Americans to agree that the world is round, right?

That's a remarkable statistic.

- Yeah, it touches everybody.

It means something to all of us.

- So, can you get into a little more detail on the economic impact of the arts?

I think that's probably lesser understood by some people than by other people.

But it's a huge impact, a dollar impact.

- It is.

- It's an impact in terms of hiring employment.

Anyway, I'm going on.

Will you be more articulate and take it from there, please?

(laughs) - Yeah, of course.

I'm happy to.

I always give this sort of economic impact statistic with a little bit of a caveat, because when you're in front of arts audiences, it's important.

Like, none of us are getting up every day because, you know, we're trying to contribute to the GDP.

But it's, you know, important, I think, to your point, to articulate the real scale of the arts in this country.

So, it's a $1.2 trillion industry.

That's bigger than agriculture and construction.

It provides 5.4 million jobs and contributes about 5% to the GDP.

So that is massive, right?

And if we start to think about it in terms of scale, right?

Then we start to think about why, you know, public policy is important, why investment is important, because if something that big and important to the economy isn't healthy and strong, then there are economic, sort of social, and sort of human consequences to that.

So it's a pretty significant part of the economy here in the United States.

- So we are based out of a university who has an institution named for Claiborne Pell, who was the United States senator who authored the legislation that created the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

So we understand, I think, intrinsically the value of this, and this show began with a small grant from our local Rhode Island Arts Humanities Council.

The question I wanna ask, though, is, can you say a little bit about the importance of public funding for the arts over the last 50 or so years?

- Yeah.

Well, the NEA and the NEH actually just had a really big birthday, sort of 60 years.

And we had a chance to really reflect on that sort of founding legislation.

And I recommend to you and to your viewers, if you have a moment, to really go back and look at sort of the founding documents that created those agencies, it's pretty beautiful and sort of aspirational.

But public funding for the arts is absolutely critical.

So yes, there's, you know, a mix of how nonprofit arts organizations are funded in this country, including private philanthropy, contributed revenue, earned revenue, and sort of public funding.

And the reason that public funding is so important is that it is the most equitable way to support the arts in the country.

So the NEA actually did a fantastic study a few years ago, where it mapped contributions from the top 1,000 arts foundations in the country, adjacent to where NEA dollars were going.

And it revealed that public funding for the arts from the NEA was in some 700 more counties than the sort of private philanthropy.

So it is designed in a way that it is more equitable, and it gets into harder-to-reach parts of the country that don't have the benefit of high-net-worth individuals or large arts philanthropic sort of infrastructure.

The NEA is the largest funder of the arts in rural America.

- [Jim] Wow.

- So we are taping this toward the end of 2025, which is the first year of the second Donald Trump administration.

In general, what has his approach to the arts been in his first nearly year of his second administration?

Just speak generally, and then we'll get into some of the particulars.

- Yeah, I mean, this, you know, believe it or not, is probably one of the most consequential (laughs) arts presidencies that we've had.

And I think, you know, there definitely has been a sort of concerted effort to, you know, influence the arts in this country from, you know, what happened to the cultural agencies during sort of the DOGE in terms of, you know, the collapsing of funding to arts nonprofits, to libraries, and to museums in particular.

Also, you know, seeing, of course, what's happening at the Smithsonian in terms of, you know, reviewing content and, of course, the Kennedy Center.

So there have been a number of, I think, actions both in terms of how the agencies are faring, but also things related to the executive orders that are impacting the arts in this country.

- You know, earlier this year, arts organizations all over the country had their funding, their grants reviewed, and in some cases cut by the Trump administration.

What has that meant for individual artists, for museums, for libraries that have traditionally been the beneficiaries of that government support?

- Well, it's devastating.

It really is devastating.

And in particular, sort of going back to what I said earlier, particularly devastating in communities where public funding isn't the only funding that these organizations are receiving.

So rural, you know, hard-to-reach communities are gonna be impacted by this the most.

I think, you know, the funding that was coming from the cultural agencies, so we're talking about the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for Humanities, and also the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which funds both museums and libraries and actually provide significant grants through those programs, is, you know, sort of really significant.

And people and organizations rely on those funds to support their programs and also leverage those funds to raise additional dollars.

So a loss of public funds can really have sort of cascading effects in terms of the overall sort of bottom line for small and mid-size organizations in particular.

- Yeah, Erin, the thing that I've struggled to comprehend myself in these intervening months is you cited this data, these opinion surveys about how widely supported the arts are and how valued they are by the American public.

Yet these cuts, these reductions in federal support for the arts, took place with almost nary a whimper outside of the arts community.

Does that tell us anything about the relative disconnect between the arts and the communities they served?

Or is it more just about of the political strategy of the Trump administration that flooded the zone with so much change, it was difficult to figure out where to respond in the first place?

- I think it's probably the latter, right?

I think there's so much happening in this country and a lot to be sort of concerned about.

A lot of, you know, areas are seeing sort of, you know, decreased investment, and the arts are, you know, one of those things.

And so I think raising what's happening in terms of arts and culture to the level, right, in terms of all of the things that sort of need to be addressed and protected in this moment, you know, is a challenge for sure.

But I would say, you know, that I do believe that, you know, people around the country do really value and support the arts.

It continues to be a really sort of bipartisan issue.

And, in this moment, it's difficult to find things that we can agree on, right?

But there is still really strong support across the aisle for the arts and for these cultural institutions.

And, you know, we're working, you know, very closely in communities to, you know, really raise how these cuts and, you know, continued fluctuations to funding from the federal government will impact communities.

And we're collecting stories not only from people that work in arts institutions or arts organizations like myself, but you know, the students that are gonna be impacted, the teachers that are gonna be impacted, the veterans that are gonna be impacted by the loss of these programs.

- So the arts have been revered historically, going back to ancient Greece, going back to Roman times, during the Middle Ages, and I could go on through different periods of time.

They've been revered by people.

Has there been any historical precedent here or elsewhere in the world for what is happening now with this complete dismissal, and that's a mild word, of the arts by this administration?

- Well, you know, I think there have been... You know, certainly we can look at history, and, you know, history, you know, has a tendency to repeat itself, where, you know, the arts have been sort of, you know, for lack of a better phrase, under attack.

And I think the important thing to sort of remember here, and as you know, the arts community sort of is galvanized around, you know, protecting, you know, creative, creative expression, that the arts are also an important tool for us in helping to sort of remember normalcy, remember joy, right, as a connective tissue, and all of this.

And so, you know, I think we can look back in history and find lots of examples of how, you know, artists and sort of creative communities have come together in tough moments to, you know, provide, you know, that sense of joy and normalcy and connectivity for communities in tough situations.

- You know, Erin, so the FY'26 budget that the Trump administration proposed called for basically shuttering the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

Now, we're taping this in the middle of November, just as the government shutdown appears to be coming to an end.

Do we have a sense of how those institutions ultimately emerged from the government shutdown?

- I think we're really, really optimistic.

I think, you know, thanks in large part to, again, I think, you know, the bipartisan support that these agencies have, it does look like, you know, the zeroing out of these agencies will not happen.

We've avoided that.

I'm still very hopeful.

It's just to be determined, I think, at this point, what the sort of number, bottom line number, will ultimately be.

- What about in the educational world?

Teachers, for example, who are teaching in the arts or about the arts?

What impact has this had, and will this have going forward?

- Well, arts education is, you know, obviously very important.

I can, you know, speak to that specifically.

I was a young musician.

I was a cellist and played in youth orchestras as I was coming up.

And I don't think that I would have had the career or the life that I've had without that sort of, you know, experience.

And so I owe a lot to the arts educators in my life.

But I think, you know, I think instability... Of course, the Department of Education, which is something that we've not, you know, touched on, which will impact, I think, funding.

Our arts education funding, and sort of teacher training programs in high-need areas, is something that we need to sort of be looking at for sure.

You know, any instability in terms of, you know, funding to public schools will have an impact to, you know, arts education programs that are happening and providing access to students.

- You know, Erin, just reading general press coverage of this environment right now, there seems to be a perception that what the Trump administration has largely done is particularly try to shutter programs, programming institutions, or at least eliminate federal funding for those institutions that ran afoul of their sensibilities, particularly around issues like diversity, equity, inclusion.

The New York Times had a story; it said about of 35,000 museums in the United States, about 10,000 had had grants canceled last year.

And of those, 10,000 seemed to be exhibits and programs that the administration might dismiss as, to borrow their term, "woke."

Couple of examples at the time cited: The Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles lost about $660,000 in funding and another $160,000 in NEH funding.

And this is a museum that educates teachers about the history of Japanese Americans, including their detention during the Second World War.

What are you hearing from members of your community about the programming that they do?

Is there a fearfulness?

Are they changing content?

What's happening for artists and museums navigating these sorts of issues?

- Yeah, it's interesting.

I worked at the Japanese American National Museum, so I'm very, very familiar with that as an institution.

It's a terrific institution that provides a lot of benefit to the community.

You know, I would say that there's a couple of things that are, you know, happening.

And I think organizations are on a continuum in terms of, you know, being able to, you know, recommit themselves to the work.

And, you know, also on the other side, I think, you know, organizations are being, you know, extremely cautious in terms of what they're doing.

And I'd hate to say it, but, you know, in some ways, a sort of self-censorship, you know, fearing sort of retaliation for programs or fearing, you know, loss of funding for their organization if they proceed with certain programs.

I think it'll be interesting to see, you know, over the next couple of years, you know, what these organizations, once the funding is restored, what, you know, types of programs are gonna be supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

As you might have seen, a lot of their sort of current resources have been directed to sort of special projects.

So the National Garden of American Heroes, America's 250, right?

And so that puts into jeopardy some of the direct support that's required to go to organizations, sort of directly.

So I think it's important that we continue to sort of monitor this.

- And do you think it will have a chilling effect on those artists and arts organizations that are seeking public funding for their work?

- I think we, again, have to sort of continue to sort of monitor it.

And I think, you know, the hard part about it is that I think in this moment, you know, organizations are considering whether or not to take public funding because of that, you know, what they fear might be sort of restrictions into the types of programs that sort of public funding can support.

But I think we maintain that this is a, you know, big, diverse country, right?

And the public funding that is going out should reflect that diversity as well.

- So, Erin, if you're listening or watching this conversation and (coughs) excuse me, you want to help, what can you do?

What advice do you have for people who care?

And that's a lot of people.

- Yeah.

Well, you know, the stories are really, really important.

I think what we've heard from, you know, legislators is that, you know, personal stories go sort of a long way.

And so more than anything, I think we're asking, you know, folks to continue to connect with their elected officials and let them know that the arts are personally important to them and the value that they bring to their communities.

And I think a really small thing, a small big thing that you can do, right, is just to support your local arts agencies.

So make sure that you're attending museums, you're attending plays, you're attending theaters, right?

And that we're working to make sure that these organizations are deeply supported in the communities by the people that they serve.

- You know, so, before you started running this national arts organization, you've got a lot of experience working with community organizations and at the community level.

- Yeah.

- You know, what do the arts give us in our communities at that most fundamental level?

- Well, at the most fundamental level, they're community centers.

They're anchors for the community.

You know, they're economic engines.

We talk about the arts as a sort of multiplier, right?

So investment in the arts magnifies investments in local businesses.

You know, the restaurant that's located next to the theater benefits from, you know, activities that are happening in the theater.

So there's, of course, the economic impact, but there's also the social impacts that, you know, the arts bring in terms of, you know, providing opportunities for folks to come together and celebrate and reflect and all of those things.

So they're incredibly important.

And I would say sort of indispensable in terms of, you know, how communities function.

They make, you know, communities I think feel like home, - So does that perspective that you've worked on the ground, as it were, inform?

It would have to, I suppose.

But how does it inform your leadership now for Americans for the Arts?

- Yeah.

Well, I mean, I think that's why we're all doing it.

I think, you know, sometimes folks, you know, tend to focus on the sort of the big guys when we talk about the arts.

So the large institutions, the, you know, big, you know, theaters that are producing and sort of promoting the arts.

But really, it happens, you know, in local communities every day.

And it happens in places that are unexpected.

Not every community in this country, you know, has access to a museum or a gallery, right?

And so artists are working in, you know, really interesting ways in, you know, connection with health services, in connection with, you know, public services, right?

To really sort of stitch together what makes community community.

And you know, I think that as we look at sort of public investment for the arts, so there is public investment at the federal level, but there's also public investment at the state level and the local level.

And as equitable as public funding is at the federal level, it gets even more equitable as you get to sort of local arts agencies, which are the public funding sort of arms of, you know, municipalities.

And so that work can be really impactful.

'Cause it can be really, really targeted in terms of getting those resources directly in the hands of communities and artists to, you know, do creative work that's going to be, you know, inspirational and catalytic for overall community objectives.

- So obviously, we've not been privy to conversations in the White House and elsewhere regarding the arts, but do you have a guess or a theory as to why the arts would even be attacked in the first place?

I mean, you have built, and we totally agree, such a great case for the importance of the arts for pretty much everyone.

Any theory?

Any guess?

I mean, you must have thought about this.

- Yeah.

I mean, I hate to guess about these things.

I will just say this: that the arts are important.

And I think, you know, the reason that, you know, they feel, you know, somewhat under threat is because they are an incredibly important way that provides opportunities for us to create bridges, to bridge divides, to strengthen communities, to communicate, right?

And if we're, you know, talking about anything, you know, that's, you know, seeking to disrupt any of that, then of course the arts are gonna be under attack.

So I would just say that the arts are important, and that's, you know, I think, why they're getting a lot of attention in this movement.

- You know, Erin, I think we could talk about this topic for another week, but we've got just about two minutes left here, and I do wanna get your thought on one other unrelated issue.

We've spent a lot of time on this show talking about the rise of artificial intelligence and generative AI, in particular.

What does generative AI, in particular, mean for the future of the arts community?

- Well, you know, I think AI is something that we're gonna need to deeply, deeply understand and plan for, adapt, and sort of plan for.

And I think there's already, you know, considerable movement happening, particularly in the entertainment industry, right?

Where we're talking about, you know, authorship and sort of changing dynamics of jobs.

And I think it's important that we sort of try to get ahead of this if we can, right?

By really understanding what the impact of this is going to be on the sector.

And the federal government, I think, has a role to play in helping to sort of, I think, try to mitigate what I see here, you know, some potential, I think, real disruptions to the way that creative work happens in this country.

- Are you hearing from artists concerned about... You know, whether it's visual arts or even literature, are you hearing from artists concerned about either the misappropriation of their previous works?

- Sure.

- Or that it's just gonna be so easy to produce new stuff that it devalues the human-created art?

- I think, you know, there certainly is a concern about sort of copyright and authorship, I think, that we definitely need to, I think, get ahead of.

But I will also say, you know, there have been some recent, you know, things sort of circulating on social media, but there's also, you know, something that I believe that AI will never be able to duplicate about the art.

The art is a human experience.

And so there are things that I think, you know, in the, you know, the improv that happens between, you know, two theater actors, right, that, you know, won't be able to duplicate.

And the sort of authenticity of a sort of a artist painting on a canvas and the sort of natural human evolution of a painting, right?

That, you know, won't be able to duplicate.

And I think the arts are a good sort of indication of, you know, why I think human creativity is always gonna be important.

- Erin Harkey, Americans for the Arts, thank you for spending some time with us today.

That is all the time we have this week.

If you wanna know more about "Story in the Public Square," you can find us on social media or visit salve.edu/pellcenter, where you can always catch up on previous episodes.

For Wayne, I'm Jim asking you to join us again next time for more "Story in the Public Square."

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