Aspen arts leaders brace for cuts to National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities

Leaders of local cultural institutions are anxiously awaiting a decision on cuts to federal arts funding as reports claim the Trump administration is considering defunding or eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for Humanities.

Federal funding supports a diverse swath of local arts programs, from Aspen Film’s Shortsfest to Aspen Santa Fe Ballet’s tours, from artist residencies at the Aspen Art Museum and Anderson Ranch Arts Center to high-profile events at the Aspen Music Festival and School and military veterans’ wilderness therapy excursions through the nonprofit Huts for Vets.

Grants from the feds help arts organizations educate, create and share art with the community and the world. But the money, leaders said, is less important than the statement that America values the arts and humanities.

“It impacts every community in some way, even if it’s a little, and the symbolism that our leaders have their finger on the pulse of the arts nationally is hugely important,” said Aspen Music Festival and School President and CEO Alan Fletcher. “And thus, the symbolism of saying ‘We don’t care about it’ is hugely important. It should be maintained.”

Over the past two years, National Endowment for the Arts grants for Colorado have totaled $790,000, and $160,000 of those direct grants went to Aspen and Roaring Fork Valley programs. Among the regular recipients of direct grants from the National Endowment for the Arts are Aspen Film, which has gotten between $10,000 and $25,000 to produce Aspen Shortsfest annually for the past 15 years. Aspen Santa Fe Ballet’s tours are dependent on grants, as is Anderson Ranch’s artist-in-residence program, which brings 28 artists to Snowmass Village annually for 10-week residencies.

Some of the most memorable events at the Aspen Music Festival last summer were produced with federal funding. A $45,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant helped fund the Music Fest’s National Take a Stand Festival, which brought hundreds of youngsters from across the West here for a five-day classical music camp, along with composer Kaija Saariaho’s residency and the performance of John Luther Adams’ “Inuksuit,” which brought 60-plus percussionists to play Adams’ experimental and experiential piece of music on the campus in an outdoor performance that drew hundreds of locals and tourists.

Fletcher noted that losing $45,000 to $50,000 from the feds wouldn’t much affect the organization’s $17 million annual budget. But the value of the nation honoring the arts, he believes, is priceless.

The Aspen Art Museum received its first National Endowment for the Arts grant in 2015 for a local residency by artist Mickalene Thomas. This spring, the museum is applied for another grant to support a similar program with artist Cheryl Donegan, which museum director Heidi Zuckerman said is part of the museum’s hope to revive works by female artists who have fallen out of the spotlight.

“It’s less about the dollar amount and more about the acknowledgement of the importance of the work that we do,” Zuckerman said. “We value the contributions we get from the city of Aspen and at the state and on the national level. But it’s less about the percentage of the budget and more about the philosophical stance that that city, state and federal government values art.”

Huts for Vets founder Paul Andersen, who also is an Aspen Times columnist, won a $30,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant last year for his innovative program that brings recent war veterans to local backcountry huts for wilderness therapy. Through Colorado Humanities — the state council of the federal organization — elements of Andersen’s local program have been scaled on a statewide level and are currently being implemented into federal programs for veterans.

“When I found Huts for Vets, I found what I believed to be the key program design and asset (for veterans),” Colorado Humanities director of programs Josephine Jones said during a visit to Aspen in early March.

Funding for these programs is in the crosshairs of the Trump administration and the U.S. Congress. Administration officials are considering a federal budget that would eliminate both the National Endowment for Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, The Hill reported in January. Both entities were created by an act of Congress in 1965. Each received about $148 million in federal funding last year, totaling less than one-tenth of one percent of the federal budget. Grants from the organizations go to every congressional district in the U.S., chosen through a rigorous grant review process.

The spending is miniscule in terms of the national budget. But government estimates say that every $1 of federal funding creates $9 in local donations. That support, and the ability to leverage it, is of vital importance, several local arts administrators said.

“If you have funding from the National Endowment of the Arts, it shows that you dot you I’s and cross your T’s, that you’re responsible, that your programs are smart and that you make a difference,” said Anderson Ranch executive director Nancy Wilhelms. “The (National Endowment of teh Arts) logo on your brochures or your website is a stamp of approval.”

Anderson Ranch has been receiving endowment grants since 1999, totaling $200,000 over the past 18 years to fund the Ranch’s artist-in-residence program. Fourteen residents are currently on the Snowmass Village campus, which will welcome 14 more in the fall.

“Without that funding, I don’t know if it would be where it is today,” Wilhelms said.

Announcing a $10,000 grant for Anderson Ranch last month, National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Jane Chu said, “The arts are for all of us, and by supporting organizations such as Anderson Ranch Arts center, the National Endowment for the Arts is providing more opportunities for he public to engage with the arts. Whether in a theater, a town square, a museum, or a hospital, the arts are everywhere and make our lives richer.”

Aspen Film has received federal funding for Aspen Shortsfest — its annual springtime short film festival — for the past 15 years, with grants ranging between $10,000 and $25,000 each year.

“It’s very important, not only in the sense that it provides critical funding for Shortsfest, but it also signals to other funders that Aspen Film and Aspen Shortsfest is an organization and event that are worthy of their funding,” said Aspen Film executive director John Thew.

If that funding were to go away, it wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of Shortsfest, Thew said, but the funding shortfall would go to moviegoers and filmmakers.

“It would put more pressure on the local community, whether it be in the price of a ticket or individual memberships,” Thew said.

Aspen Santa Fe Ballet has received an annual $20,000 annual grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in recent years to support its national tours. Combined with state funds the organization receives from Colorado and New Mexico, executive director Jean-Philippe Malaty estimated the loss of grant funding would be about $40,000 annually.

Losing that stream of funding, Malaty said, would inhibit the company’s ability to travel, especially to smaller communities where venues are smaller and ticket prices are lower. The company currently is on a national tour that includes major cities like New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, but also includes a string of smaller towns in California. A loss in federal funding would sap the ability of Aspen Santa Fe — and companies like it — to travel to such places, while also cutting such towns’ ability to fund touring company stops.

Direct grants aren’t the only way that federal support for the arts and humanities comes to the Roaring Fork Valley. Federally funded regional and state councils also have a hand locally. The Western Stats Arts Federation, for example, supports Aspen Words’ poets-in-schools program. And Colorado Humanities frequently sponsors and partners with the Aspen Historical Society, including training the nonprofit’s historical re-enactors to perform and teach as local historical figures. It also partnered for the Historical Society’s Chautauqua events from 2013 through 2015.

An end to the National Endowment for Humanities would mean the end of Colorado Humanities.

“It would be devastating for us,” executive director Maggie Coval said after a recent focus group in Aspen assessing local needs, “and it would be a great loss for the state.”

Like most interviewed for this story, Coval said her organization leverages relatively modest federal funding exponentially. Colorado Humanities gets about $700,000 from the National Endowment for Humanities, which they use to attract about another $700,000 in cash donations plus some $500,000 annually in in-kind donations.

“We’re the catalyst,” Coval said. “That money is not just money. It’s leveraging all kinds of participation in this state.”

The best argument for preserving federal funding for the arts and humanities, in Coval’s view, is in the law that established it 52 years ago.

“It’s right there in the legislation: ‘Democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens,’” she quoted.

The law goes on to read, “It must therefore foster and support a form of education, and access to the arts and the humanities, designed to make people of all backgrounds and wherever located masters of their technology and not its unthinking servants.”

atravers@aspentimes.com