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WHETHER it be Shakespeare or Arthur Miller, Rembrandt, Michaelangelo or Mozart, the artist has always sought and needed patronage. Somehow the supply of art and artistic talent in any century has exceeded the public demand, at least in terms of what the public has been able or willing to pay for. Private support helps
arts thrive in HawaiiSo how do we keep the "commodity" labeled art on the market, and who is in a position to support it or buy it? Is it the state, the public (through taxes), private individuals, or institutions?
The dilemma facing artists through the centuries has been the need to accept patronage and financial support to survive while preserving artistic integrity in their work.
Generally when economic times are good, the arts benefit from support of both the state and the business community. In Hawaii today, we are seeing a struggle to maintain existing cultural resources, with business taking the lead in keeping the Honolulu Symphony alive. For this we should congratulate business for enlightened self interest...a community without quality cultural resources is sterile and unappealing to visitors, new residents and, to some degree, investors.
Singapore, for example, has achieved enviable economic prosperity and stability while completely ignoring the arts. Only in recent years has it come to the attention of the country's political leaders that something vital is missing in people's lives. Life is secure, but boring! There has been a move of late to form commissions to introduce and foster the arts.
At the other end of the spectrum is the world I'm familiar with. The best part of my life has been spent in the performing and producing arts.
As a dancer, my early years were taken up with diverse dance jobs provided by the Hollywood film industry and the New York stage. My fellow dancers and I were constantly on the alert for auditions. Any hint of a casting call was cause for a hopeful rush to the nearest studio. When we worked, we ate well. When we were without work, we "dieted."
Then I married a musician and moved to Europe. My husband, Herb Ward, was a bass student at the Royal Danish Conservatory and the Vienna Academy of Music.
We lived on his G.I. Bill money, had produced two sons, and I was busy being a "hausfrau." While living in Denmark and Austria, I observed what seemed to be a happy balance between state-supported cultural institutions (symphony, ballet, opera) and many exciting privately supported arts activities.
These years in post-World War II Europe still remain for me the shining example of the happy marriage between state-supported and private sponsorship and entrepreneurial cultural activity.
BUT then we moved to Czechoslovakia, where Herb was hired by the Prague Symphony. And here I came in contact with the other extreme of the spectrum -- both the upside and downside of full state support of culture and the arts.
The Czechs were crazy about jazz and I was able to mount a big musical production on the history of jazz. However, the minister of the interior imposed a restriction that we utilize no music written any later than the 1920s, as anything produced after that time was associated with "degenerate bourgeois culture."
For the next nine years, throughout dance and pantomime and radio journalism activity with Radio Prague, I fought a constant evasive battle with censorship and "artistic control."
On the upside, the artists, whether performing, visual or literary, were paid by the state to undergo schooling and training, and guaranteed jobs (though perhaps not always where they wanted) and lifetime security. However, they lived under constant scrutiny and censorship and with the troubling sense of prostituting their artistic integrity. If one's political background were "questionable," the artist would have to go "underground" and make his living in some menial job.
My family moved to Hawaii in 1966 when Herb was hired by the Honolulu Symphony as principal bass. At that time, state support for the arts was gaining momentum in Hawaii. It already had the Royal Hawaiian Band, a unique government entity, and the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts had just come into existence under the leadership of Austrian-born architect Alfred Preis.
I found myself involved with the newly founded State Theater Council and the State Dance Council. And I didn't have to get official permission to start a Pantomime Company, "Theater Without Words."
In fact, we were immediately engaged by the Artists in the Schools program to tour the islands. Then came one production after another, the Art Park in Thomas Square (with private sponsorship), the first Honolulu Zoo Festival, several Great Hawaiian Jubilees (all while employed by the City Department of Parks and Recreation), a string of light opera productions, the launching of the Hawaii Chamber Orchestra Society (with its 30 years of full seasons of concerts), a series of mime programs for the Honolulu Symphony, the formation of the first Public Radio station here in Hawaii, KHPR, the Karadeniz Folk Dance Ensemble.
I had a ball! And easily about half of the costs of this activity was covered by state funding, the rest from private sources, individuals, corporations and foundations.
This was a happy time for the many participating artists as well as for the community in terms of the enrichment of the entertainment scene and business and commerce these activities generated.
In today's Hawaii with its economic downturn, we still have state or other government support. But as that support dwindles, we find that the private sector has been picking up the slack and perhaps a healthier balance is beginning to emerge. The Honolulu Symphony, after going through some mighty convulsions, has come out stronger than ever, with increasing help from the private sector.
The Hawaii Chamber Orchestra Society has continued to produce musical events with a great deal of help from the Hawaii Community Foundation and the Bishop Trust Foundations.
This growing private presence is not the result merely of altruistic idealists and do-gooders or of sought-after tax write-offs, but the hard-headed, realistic and pragmatic visions of a business and corporate community that sees the living presence of arts and culture within the community as a necessary component to an economically healthy society...a society that provides spiritual and aesthetic sustenance to its members as well as material well-being.
Jackie Ward was the producer of last month's 4th Annual Great Hawaiian Jazz Blow-Out at Mid-Pacific Institute with grant support from the Atherton Family Foundation and the McInerny Foundation.