Arts council sorely needed in Mat-Su

August 7, 2005

Spectrum\Genie Siedler

Late last month, $400,000 was awarded to 48 arts organizations throughout Alaska from the Alaska State Council of the Arts (AkSCA), but how did the Mat-Su Valley do?

The Mat-Su Valley is currently a larger borough than Fairbanks, and second only to Anchorage. Despite it's size, except for a few Artists in Schools Grants, Mat-su received no grants toward the arts.

There is a good reason for this: year after year, we generally don't apply for any. Is it that there are no arts groups in the Valley? Anyone who thinks that just isn't listening to concerts in churches and gymnasiums, they aren't listening to the music and talent in coffee houses and they aren't listening to the outstanding performances on the stage at Machetanz Theatre.

We have orchestras, jazz bands, choirs, acting groups, painters and dancers. The Valley abounds with talent, and the growing population is eager to see these groups perform. So why aren't we getting the support from the state for these groups that other, smaller communities are tapping into?

This year, there were signs of improvement during the recent AkSCA annual meetings. The Mat-Su teachers submitted and received three Artists in Schools grants this year, up from zero years ago.

Students and teachers in these schools will benefit from their participation with a professional artist during a two-week residency. In the arts groups category, Valley Performing Arts did submit a grant proposal for operations, but failed to receive funding on its first try.

These are flickers of hope, but we still question why are there not more arts organizations applying for and receiving funding from the state. The simple answer is that they do not know how the system works or even that it exists.

The increase in funding for Artists in Schools follows an effort last year by AkSCA to reach out and improve applications from the Valley. AkSCA sponsored a fall in-service for teachers and it worked.

AkSCA needs to reach the arts groups too, but they are so many and so small that finding someone to work on a grant is a difficult proposition.

There is no local arts council in our community. No unifying umbrella organization that can work for small groups and large groups, that can help advertise and promote the arts movement here. No arts council that can provide resources and information on funding. No arts council that help artists network with each other.

Anchorage, of course, has a city-funded arts council. Fairbanks has its nonprofit Fairbanks Arts Association; Juneau has the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council.

Smaller communities also have well established organizations, which include the Ketchikan Area Arts and Humanities Council, Alaska Arts Southeast, Kodiak Arts Council, Nome Arts Council, and even up the highway is the Denali Arts Council. The list goes on.

A Mat-Su Valley Arts Council could provide newsletters that would help inform the public and other groups of performances. It could help produce special one-time events, such as the Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre tour, that recently performed at Sherrod Elementary. It could possibly present its own concerts by tapping into the plethora of touring groups that visit Anchorage and the rest of the state and provide local performances here in the Valley.

And here's the real benefit to the community: an arts organization could begin the groundwork for unifying arts groups to work toward building a performance center that could serve our musical community, our drama community, our dance community and even our visual arts community. Valley Performing Arts has carved a successful theatre out of Mat-Su. But there is no place for smaller groups to perform.

Our growing community has outgrown our churches and gymnasiums. We need a community arts center. And we need a community arts council to help us toward that goal.

Genie Siedler is a teacher at Ron Larson Elementary. She has a bachelor's degree in arts from California State University, and she is a past board member of the Alaska State Council on the Arts and has served as president of Valley Performing Arts.