As chair of the Wisconsin Arts Board, Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton addressed Madison's art community Tuesday night on the Board's plan to amp up artistic activity in the state and provide for a ""creative economy.""
The meeting at the Edgewood College campus was the second in a statewide tour by Lawton and WAB Executive Director George Tzougros to present their plan draft for 2012-2014 and receive input from artists and art enthusiasts around the state.
The plan entails four general goals: to engage the community through arts opportunities, promote lifelong imaginative learning, give creative industries the tools to engage in sustainable economic development, and insist on funds and policies to achieve these goals.
Tzougros said the development of the creative arts is essential in providing for what he called an ""expressive life"" for Wisconsinites.
The expressive life is not only in ""the fine arts, but the folk arts. It's not only non-profit arts, it's for profit creative industries. The picture of what we mean by expressive life also takes people from being simply and audience member to get active and to participate,"" Tzougros said.
Lawton said a major component of fostering the ""expressive life"" is to change the way schools handle arts education.
""We can no longer think of the arts and development of creative capacities as enrichment,"" she said. ""It has to be thought of as core curriculum.""
Lawton said that developing this kind of thinking is essential to support a resilient economy.
Director of the School of Music at UW-Madison John Schaffer, who was sitting in the crowd, said there is a sense that investment in the arts happens mainly in K-12 education, and that it needs to be encouraged at the university level, where it is lacking.
The plan as it stands is a draft and subject to change, according to Lawton.
