May 15, 1988-San Antonio Express-News

Much talking, little listening

The "arts- mean more to some people than just palatable entertainment that is meant to be pleasing. There is that area of art that directly speaks to artists and poets.

As a writer and poet who lives within an arts world, I feel strongly about programs that purport to serve the makers of art and other cultural works.

I am not a hobbyist or a dabbler, I do not mean to sound elitist and I fully accept the fact that most people who would like to be artists can do so only when time and resources permit. Writing is my livelihood.

Many persons have determined that their livelihoods are to be grounded in that world of art, and the making of art is their "real" world of work.

Making a living from one's creativity is not a venture undergirded by pension plans, life and health care and the many other fringe benefits others take for granted.

No complaints

Although I and countless others have opted for this way of life, there is no complaint about having to take one's chances in order to express oneself artistically. Musicians, painters, muralists, dancers, filmmakers, actors, writers and poets take their chances while striving for the gold ring.

I welcome a strong and resonant arts community, a social setting where cultural works are respected. Part of the dream is to arrive at financial independence through one's work, and it is a lovely though often painful journey.

The vitality and excitement of art feed our minds and spirits, and the dream of creating a masterwork keeps most of us willfully struggling.

My dreams and visions brought me to San Antonio in search of that aesthetic quivira. I had heard the siren songs of a new progressive city government and a committed and responsive arts community.

It appeared to be a time of magic and artistic realization, especially for Chicanos and Hispanics who had long yearned to share their visions with all of society.

The surface hopes of those dreams and visions soon gave way to new insights. The infighting within funding circles took on the trappings of a poorly choreograhped circus.

Basic question

Instead of art, the bottom-line question appears to be the funding of entertainment programs that could be better produced by professional entrepreneurs.

The creation of committees to study the arts and determine funding patterns has been a scene from a theater of the absurd. Suave and non-contentious meetings by the latest artsy committee somehow fail to speak to artists.

That is so, even when "professional arts expertise" is imported from Florida, and the expert can speak only to strategies that appear to be the province of chamber of commerce tourist pap.

Ken Kahn, executive director of the Metropolitan Dade County Cultural Affairs Council gave the Mayor's Blue Ribbon Committee a tour of Miami arts, stressing the need to do away with "hysterical" displays.

The quasi-Eden of Florida arts was geared to assuage and not engage artists in either dialouge or experimentation.

It fitted in well with the comments of Blue Ribbon Committee Chairperson Aaronetta Pierce, for there were questions raised about the role of funding in the arts, the need to undergird individual artists and writers, and the chair artfully evaded questions while seeking a positive note sans dissension from such as Jim Valdez and me.

Not the place

I was there as a poet who lives with and through the arts, both as writer and performer.

Pierce explained that that particular meeting was not the place to discuss literature or funding for writers. I explained that I was not there to seek funding, for it is my belief that public funding is fraught with political infighting, as well as limitations that historically have wound up muzzling poets and artists.

Pierce asked me to get "my poets together" for a meeting May 5 that would cover literary arts. Not having any poets or writers of my own - other than myself - I tried to tell her and the pitifully small group of committee members and arts program directors that it was her responsibility to organize the artists and writers.

If not the Mayor's Blue Ribbon Committee's responsibility, then it must surely be the bailiwick of literature program directors, who are publicly subsidized to contact the artists and writers.

After all most artists and poets seldom get any "real" direct help from the programs, and the millions already spent on the arts should have at least created a sizable mailing list of area writers, poets and artists.

Why the problems?

The chair was not into any of that, telling me a few times to go out and contact those writers and poets, as if that were my job.

Seldom has it been difficult to organize a poetry reading or to get a good-sized audience for the Poets of Tejas, so why are these well-funded programs having problems attracting poets, writers and artists to their committee meetings?

Maybe the mayor should rethink his committee, or at least get some artists with real community following to sit in those august positions.

Struggling artists who retain a strong community sensibility as well as credibility might just be able to help San Antonio realize the dreams that once sang resonantly to creativity and community participation.

Most committed artists and poets want to participate, but only if we are talking about aesthetics, meaning and the excellence that comes from daring to experiment and reach new horizons.

Tourism is important, but our local talent needs truly open spaces and forums in order to develop and mature.

All it takes is trust and an open mind in order to create a viable and workable dialogue. So far, the poets and artists have listened; now it's time that the public and city speak with the artists and writers, and listen.