G-Sync - A Call For Entries (a plea for our future)

It has been more than a year since I was asked to join artists and arts leaders to jury a room full of 7 – 12 grade student entries for the 2009 Scholastic Art Awards for this region of Michigan. Those entries that took top honors locally then had a shot at statewide and potentially national competition.

And last year two students from the Grand Rapids Public School system would not only advance to the nationals, but one would win a coveted gold award, rising above names of renowned schools such as Cranbrook and Julliard.  

This well publicized event is, as one friend referred to it as "the National Spelling Bee of the high school art."

I'm proud to share that last year's entries were among some of the finest examples of art I have seen from grade school and high school students in a long time.  The proficiency of art techniques and choice of subject matter for the entries highlighted the fact that many of our students are getting a well-rounded arts education.   Frankly, it made me puff up with civic pride for West Michigan.

But this year as I looked over the list of awards that I will help hand out Sunday at St. Cecilia's Music Society, I'm distressed by one conspicuous absence.

There was not one award winning entry from the Grand Rapids Public School System.  Zero.

This is not because the work submitted was horrible,  but due to the fact that not one entry was submitted from any high school student attending GRPS.

While I pride myself at remaining upbeat during tough times, this does not set well with me at all.  Sure, the contest has an opt-out policy and participation is not required.  But not to have a single entry from GRPS -- the largest school system in metro Grand Rapids -- is a huge failure.

As a backdrop to this troubling development, the National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman popped in as a guest this week on the The Diane Rehm Show.

A Broadway producer of some wonderful work  including "Big River" and the Pulitzer Prize winning "Angels in America," Landesman navigated the choppy waters of funding for the arts and cited fresh perspectives on how important the arts are to a community's economic prosperity.  His vision was refreshing, and hopefully many are able to hear his ideas.

The cornerstone of the hour-long interview was his reference to a 10-year study of Baltimore and Philadelphia by the University of Pennsylvania's Mark Stern, Susan Seifert, and Jeremy Nowak, who discovered three conclusions about arts and community.

1. The arts are a force to create a strong cohesive community that fosters greater civic engagement;

2. The arts lower truancy rates among school children, and a community reaps the results of an better educated population; and

3. A vibrant arts community fights poverty by creating layers of opportunity for economic advancement for all the people of a city. Or as Landesman succinctly says: "Businesses follow the people."

While I am concerned about the economic prosperity of our region as showcased in G-Sync often  , I am reminded by a fellow artist, Brett Colley of Grand Valley State University, that the children of this region need to always be our focus.

He agrees that the University of Philadelphia study is relevant from an economic point of view, but says he believes the "gold standard" of all papers is "The Ten Lessons the Arts Teach"– from the 1985 Beyond Creating: The Place for Art in America's Schools," by Stanford University's Elliott Eisner.

So as I give out awards this Sunday at 2 p.m. to a number of deserving  students who hopefully will advance to the national stage, it will be bittersweet knowing there was a huge hole in this year's competition, a great void that must be filled next year. We must never let this happen again.

The Future Needs All of Us.

Tommy Allen, Lifestyle Editor

Email:  [email protected]
Twitter Guide: @TommyGSync



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Photo of artwork "Viewing Hockney" created by Tommy Allen for Tanglefoot Studio


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