Shovels? Try Stencil-ready: Arts as overlooked Stimulus

The Atlantic - Business Channel

The money for artistic projects is almost by definition ready to be injected into the economy. It may take years to draw up a plan for a highway, obtain the right of way and fend off legal challenges before the bulldozers start rolling. But to buy a canvass and some paintbrushes, or even some metal for a public sculpture, is comparatively straightforward. That puts quick money into the pockets of the companies that build, sell and ship those artistic materials as well.

"The money goes straight into the economy," says Janet Echelman, a sculptor whose giant metallic nets have revitalized public parks and downtowns from Texas to Portugal. "I pay two full-time assistants in my studio, plus consultants who are architects, engineers, and landscape architects, as well as lighting designers. A very large portion goes into fabrication, which is funding workers at a steel factory." Echelman currently has a commission from Phoenix to build a centerpiece for a new downtown park that may face funding shortfalls. There are "shovel-ready" arts projects like hers throughout the country.

The piece goes on to point out that public art, taken seriously at street-level and viewed as street-scape enhancing, goes a long way to increasing real estate values, encouraging foot traffic and sense of neighborood/community pride. For those who view things through a more law and order prism, well-considered and -executed public art initiatives (ongoing programs, not install and forget) are great at establishing a 'barrier' to the vices that unattended and disregarded public spaces devolve to. Bottom line, if you don't own and claim spaces with your icons and messages, you won't like the messages of those who take advantage of your disinterest.