On its blog, the Massachusetts Cultural Council recently described its reconsideration of its paused Artist Fellowship Program in light of new political priorities.
One likely change is a move away from the Artist Fellowships’ sole focus on strength of work or artistic excellence. We recognize that words like “excellence” and “merit” can be weighted – and sometimes unconsciously tied to Western European aesthetic traditions or biases. We envision a program that reflects the rich diversity of creative expression throughout the Commonwealth.
Many details are still under review, but here is our current thinking about the new program’s mission: to equitably advance creative expression throughout the Commonwealth with unrestricted grants to individuals who demonstrate creative vision and commitment to their artistic/cultural practice.
The comment section is open. I replied:
Excellence and merit are simply the recognition that a given pursuit can be accomplished in a better or worse manner. Every culture harbors that recognition. The possibility that those words are “weighted – and sometimes unconsciously tied to Western European aesthetic traditions or biases” is not relieved by a proposed switch to “creative vision and commitment to their artistic/cultural practice.” Said vision and commitment are going to have to be evaluated as better or worse. That too will be subject to biases, and it's clear from your description that they will be the biases of so-called equity. The suggestion that you're going to un-bias your application process by “integrating an applicant’s identity and narrative” into it is absurd on its face.
I remind the MCC that civil rights laws apply equally to all citizens of the state of Massachusetts and note that courts usually deem the allocation of public funds by race as illegal. It would be a shame if artists wronged by your new process had no remedy except to sue the MCC, but that’s where circumstances are headed as organizations like yours embrace the noxious idea of remedial discrimination.
To the MCC’s credit they deemed the comment worthy of publication.
It’s important not to let such remarks sprawl, but to my thinking this part of the MCC reconsideration is at least as troublesome:
We will continue to welcome artists in disciplines previously funded by Artist Fellowships. We also wish to extend that welcome to artists and creatives in all disciplines, categories, and types of work. That includes performers, designers, DJs, drag artists, and many more. We want everyone who resides in Massachusetts and practices as an artist, creative, or culture bearer to see themselves in our program.
As hard as it is for fine artists to garner support, the revised individual grants at the MCC would pit them against a wide swath of applied artists and entertainers who can, unlike the fine artists, gig in their vocation. Philanthropically this makes no sense.
Personally, I solved the problem of ideological capture and poor leadership in Massachusetts arts institutions by leaving for a state in which I can afford to have an art studio. That wasn’t the only reason, but it was one of them. It turns out that I was one of 20,000 people who came to New Hampshire from Massachusetts last year and one of a jaw-dropping 57,000 people who left the state in total in 2022. With an average state and local tax burden of $6,500 per person, that’s more than $370 million exiting the state per annum; probably more, since the taxpayers leaving are the ones who can afford to leave. To compare, the 2024 budget for the MCC is $25 million. Massachusetts lost a congressional seat in 2010 and is expected at this rate to lose another in 2030.
I am the descendant of immigrants who came to America in hope of finding fair treatment in spite of their identity. Most Americans are. That promise is cratering, led by politicians and bureaucrats of the sort you find at the MCC. Good people who love fairness feel the betrayal of that promise in their viscera. No wonder people leave Massachusetts. The equity agenda smells like collapse.
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One is struck by the weakness of mind and perversion of purpose unabashedly on display here, put forth as if it were not only reasonable but virtuous. The absence of any sense of impropriety or related embarrassment, let alone shame, is astonishing, to put it kindly. The word lobotomized comes to mind.
I too was appalled by the restructuring of the Individual Grant program. And I stated so although far less articulately than you in the comment section of the questionnaire. It is no less than “ a trophy for all participants” mentality that ignores the art for the sake of the artists identity. It further disrespects the intelligence of artists and curators in general, as if we are unable to think outside the western canons of art. After all Lucy R. Lippard’s brilliant and groundbreaking book Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America came out 23 years ago! Artists have not been ignorant of cultural and genre diversity, its just the institutions that has found profits in the exhibition and sale of white (mostly male) artists, who have continued the bias - that is until they have been finally and recently been called out. And now it seems the pendulum has swung in the extreme. But I am an “old”, white, CIS gender female who sees my chances of ever finally getting a grant disappear. I struggled for decades to find a MCC category that included my ever changing mixed media approach, and now I find identity politics has put me on the sidelines again. If after more than 40 years of exhibiting this sounds like sour grapes, it is.