Tag: national endowment for the arts
Nation’s New Arts Promoter-In-Chief Knows The Landscape

Nation’s New Arts Promoter-In-Chief Knows The Landscape

By Maria Recio, McClatchy Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The new offices of the National Endowment for the Arts are ultra-modern: A glass-enclosed, transparent, updated look that is exactly what the new chairman wants the once-controversial agency to be.

R. Jane Chu, well-regarded in arts circles though barely known by the general public, since June has been the top cultural official of the U.S. government, overseeing nearly $150 million in grants, encouraging artists and artistic activity, and promoting arts in a more welcoming climate than during the culture wars of the 1980s and ’90s.

She does not preside from the classic “corner office,” but rather from a sparse glass office, off a conference room, decorated with a single white orchid. But the conference room showcases something telling about the new chairman: one of her paintings, a colorful closeup of a rumpled quilt with an Amish double wedding band pattern.

It is a modern interpretation of a classic, which is very much what Chu is bringing to the job.

“There’s something symbolic about it,” she said of her painting.

Chu, whose first name is Rose but she goes by Jane, is a cultural powerhouse of her own. Slender, elegantly turned out in a subdued gray suit, the new face of American arts rocks a short, spiky salt-and-pepper hairstyle that at 56 she effortlessly pulls off.

Chu made her professional name in Kansas City, Missouri, where she was involved in the arts for 20 years. From 2006 until being confirmed by the Senate as the NEA chief in June, she was the president and chief executive of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.

Her resume covers the breadth of the arts. She is an artist, a pianist, and an educator with multiple degrees, including an associate of arts degree, two bachelor degrees, two master’s — one in business — and a doctorate in philanthropic studies.

Chu, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, was born in Oklahoma and raised in Arkansas with parents who spoke Mandarin. “I grew up navigating cultures,” said Chu, who speaks with a faint Southern accent.

And for the high-achieving Chu, it was the arts that were her “beautiful channel.” She loved drawing and painting — she still draws constantly — as well as playing the piano.

The NEA has needed diplomatic skills in the past, when it drew conservative fire for supporting controversial exhibits, such as one showcasing Robert Mapplethorpe, whose homoerotic photographs sparked cries to eliminate federal arts funding altogether.

After a period of relative calm in the 2000s, the NEA has had stable funding for a number of years, now at $146 million for fiscal 2014. The high point in the past 10 years was $167.5 million in fiscal 2010.

Chu is determined to debunk the persistent impression that the NEA promotes cultural elitism. The charge, and an alleged bias toward New York City, has dogged the agency. The NEA has a variety of programs, including a rural initiative and “Our Town” grants that are arts projects connected to community development.

In August, Chu toured Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where a $75,000 NEA grant will fund public art to decorate unsightly highway overpasses.

Some critics still maintain the federal government should not be in the arts business at all.

“Even Kickstarter raises more money for the arts than is available from NEA’s budget,” said Romina Boccia, a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution, referring to the crowd-funding site. “Federal funding for the arts is neither necessary nor within the proper scope of the federal government. … The NEA should be eliminated.”

Photo: Abaca Press/MCT/Olivier Douliery

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Nominee To Lead Federal Arts Agency Draws Bipartisan Support

Nominee To Lead Federal Arts Agency Draws Bipartisan Support

By Maria Reciom, McClatchy Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The National Endowment for the Arts is so non-controversial these days that the Senate committee that oversees the federal agency approved its new chairman Wednesday on a voice vote with almost no discussion as senators raced off to other meetings.

Jane Chu, president and CEO of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, Missouri, almost certainly will be the new NEA chairman when the full Senate votes on her nomination.

“There’s no controversy,” Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told McClatchy after the vote. “NEA has only been controversial among a certain subset; read: tea party. That’s a small slice of the Congress.”

That doesn’t mean the committee doesn’t display a partisan divide. The affirmative vote on Chu followed a divisive debate on an education bill for preschoolers that passed on party lines.

The arts agency, which has periodically raised conservative hackles for supporting controversial projects, is still at risk of being on the chopping block. While that has largely meant having its funding cut, the NEA has been operating at a stable $146 million budget.

Chu, 56, was not present at the committee and is not commenting until she is confirmed, said a Kauffman official. But the nominee, whose resume spans arts management, philanthropy and the performing arts, has drawn strong support among Senate Republicans.

“She’s an accomplished leader in Kansas City and we are fortunate to have her nomination,” Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the panel’s ranking Republican, said before the vote.

Her home-state senator, Roy Blunt (R-MO), issued a letter as part of the committee record praising Chu for being “uniquely qualified” to lead the agency.

After the hearing, NEA supporters sounded relieved.

“All I can say, happily, is that there seems to be bipartisan support and no controversies on the nomination process,” said Robert Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts, an arts advocacy group.

Chu has undergraduate degrees in visual arts from Nebraska Wesleyan University and in piano and music education from Ouachita Baptist University. She holds a master’s in piano instruction from Southern Methodist University, as well as a master’s in business administration from Rockhurst University and a doctorate in philanthropic studies from Indiana University.

The annual salary for the NEA chairman is $167,000, according to the agency’s office of public affairs. Chu’s salary from the Kauffman Center is $225,703, according to an IRS filing for the nonprofit.

The NEA has been without a chairman for more than a year, and stakeholders are anxious to have a new leader in place. While Chu will have support from Capitol Hill, the agency has tried to avoid pitfalls by distributing funds to all the states through targeted programs supported by grass-roots organizations.

“They did a better job of serving the whole country,” said Lynch.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons