Cultural inventory to illuminate the arts as economic engine

ASHEVILLE – Calculating the monetary value of art has always been more of, well, an art rather than a science.

But assessing the value of the arts as an engine that drives economic development has become a tool that, though not yet universal, is one more and more communities are using across the country.

Doing so enables policymakers in cities, counties and states to make the case for more arts funding from public and foundation sources — and even to enact laws that better support artists.

Asheville and Buncombe County are poised to become part of that national movement to specify the arts as an industrial sector of the regional economy.

Local leaders have embarked on an effort to compile an inventory of the area's cultural assets. They hope the project will yield concrete and standard metrics that have been standard in the business world for decades: jobs generated, dollars spent and invested and companies created, to name a few examples.

"We understand the inherent aesthetic that arts and cultural activity brings to a region, that arts can revitalize and create vibrant hubs, that it is innovative and entrepreneurial," said Heidi Reiber, director of research for the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce. "We would expect a quantitative study to help us confirm or rule out assumptions and highlight dynamics, ultimately to enable better decision making."

Reiber will be among those collecting arts and cultural data for the inventory. She will collaborate with others to determine what metrics are most relevant.

With actual statistics in hand, policies that preserve affordable living and working spaces for local artists could become a reality, said Kitty Love, executive director of the Asheville Area Arts Council.

David Starkey's dreams exceed even that.

"I have a vision of us having an arts foundation," said Starkey, founder and artistic and general director of the Asheville Lyric Opera. "That is one of the benchmarks that represent the maturing of a community. An arts foundation ultimately is the fundamental capital reinvestment of its culture."

And once the economic data is collected on Asheville's and Buncombe County's arts scene, that will no longer be a pipe dream, Starkey said.

A proper accounting of the region's cultural economy would move the reputation of the region's art scene beyond the anecdotal, said Rob Pulleyn, a clay and ceramic artist who owns Marshall High Studios in Marshall.

Hard numbers will replace the emotional high of a cool vibe.

"Think about the celebration that goes on when there's an announcement a company is coming in and will offer 100 new jobs," he said. "That's what's going on. You have 100 individual artists in West Asheville, for example, all working for themselves."

That type of aggregation will demonstrate the clout arts and culture have in the local economy.

No longer will art in Asheville be viewed as "a pleasant little sideline," Pulleyn said. "It's a major industry here."

The figures will, Pulleyn hopes, manifest themselves in state legislation and local policies that support artists.

For example

One look at what advocates in Minnesota did after examining the economic impact of artists there and it becomes clear that Starkey's aspirations may not be out of reach.

A 2006 report conducted by Minnesota Citizens for the Arts in St. Paul found the economic impact of that state's nonprofit arts and culture organizations had a roughly $839 million total economic impact.

Minnesota Citizens' 2007 study determined the economic impact of the state's roughly 20,000 artists was $295 million. Total full-time equivalent artist jobs numbered more than 5,900. Those artists generated $24 million in state and local government revenue, researchers concluded.

Minnesota lawmakers responded to those two years' worth of data. During the next session, in 2008, the state legislature crafted a constitutional amendment to increase the sales tax by ³/₈ of 1 percent.

Voters approved the amendment — 56 percent to 44 percent — which provided four pennies of every $10 to land conservation, water conservation, parks and trails, and arts and history grant-making funds.

"It's a tiny fraction, but all those transactions add up," said Sheila Smith, executive director of Minnesota Citizens for the Arts since 1996.

Because of that law, "growth in (Minnesota's) arts sector has been phenomenal," she said.

A Minnesota Citizens for the Arts study released last month showed the economic impact of arts and culture organizations had grown about $400 million to $1.2 billion. The state's total number of artists more than doubled, to roughly 42,000.

"If you want to draw people to your town, whether to visit or live there, and spend money there, the arts can do that for you," Smith said.

POLL: Is Asheville's art scene an economic driver?

Looking for federal help

Federal government officials believe enough in arts as economic driver that they've set up a grant program to do exactly that.

Since 2011, the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C., has provided $21.3 million for 256 projects throughout the United States, said Victoria Hutter, an endowment spokeswoman.

Eligible proposals may "build knowledge about creative placemaking," as Love and partners intend, or encompass arts, cultural and design projects.

Love and others have founded the Buncombe Cultural Alliance — a group comprising city and county elected leaders, artists, economic development officials and others.

Alliance members are working on an application to the National Endowment for $75,000. To qualify for that, however, the alliance must show it has $75,000 in matching or in-kind contributions.

City of Asheville officials have pledged $25,000, said Brenda Mills, an Asheville economic-development specialist.

Alliance members plan to meet with other local governments to raise the rest, Love said.

Reiber, representing the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, also applied earlier this month for a new multimillion dollar grant program offered by ArtPlace America in New York.

That nonprofit advocates including arts and culture in planning and economic development.

Six U.S. winners will learn if they win $250,000 each by Aug. 1. Recipients will use those funds to conduct a cultural asset inventory and have access to a maximum of $3 million during a three-year period.

Looking at job growth

Applying for that grant is consistent with the chamber's identification of the region's arts and culture businesses as a "cluster" they want to cultivate and nurture.

Chamber officials chose the region's arts and culture "industry" due to its already high growth, its simultaneous high potential and its competitive advantages.

Obtaining funding to gauge an inventory and create a map of what arts and culture shops exist here will enable the region's decision-makers to do several things, Reiber said.

Those include evaluating employment trends and job growth, education requirements, demand and available programs and the demographic makeup of an industry, she said.

Chamber data estimate Buncombe County offers more than 2,100 jobs in the category of "arts, entertainment and recreation," Reiber said. That group includes some sports and recreational activities. The total number is 15 percent higher than the national average, Reiber said.

Jobs in that defined sector have increased by roughly 5 percent since 2010, but growth is slowing, Reiber said.

That category contributed $146 million to Buncombe County's estimated 2013 $11 billion gross regional product, Reiber said.

Though statistics like that reveal certain aspects of the area's economy, Love said, federal codes that account for industry sectors aren't specific enough for arts and culture, particularly because a majority of artists have more than one job to earn an income. And often the primary wage occupation is not art related.

"We don't have an accurate picture of what's going on," Love said. "So we can't maximize the sector's impact. We have to create codes to show what exists."

A 2013 report by the National Creativity Network based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, offered a set of new codes to assign to occupations and businesses engaged in "creative" endeavors.

Gar Ragland heads an alliance subcommittee tasked with two goals that a cultural asset inventory will boost.

The president and co-founder of Asheville's NewSong Music, an independent artist development company, said his group first seeks to pinpoint what in the community facilitates the arts as an economic development instrument and what hinders it.

"And we want to be a definitive voice in what policies (that help the arts) to support," Ragland said.

It's critical to Ragland and his cohorts that Asheville artists don't become victims of their own success — and become priced out of the growing scene they forged and shaped.

"The arts needs to be represented so we can be positioned to also benefit from that future growth."