Benefits of public art programs

Public art projects are most often site-specific works triggered by public construction and development projects. The most common funding mechanism for municipal public art are percent-for-art ordinances, dedicating a small percentage of capital improvement building or infrastructure budgets to fund public art associated with the project. State and local budget appropriations, public and private foundation grants, corporate sponsorships and individual donations are also sources of support.

Public art processes are managed by a wide variety of entities responsible for public space, including cultural offices, parks and recreation departments, economic development entities, educational institutions, transit authorities, nonprofit organizations and even private developers. Public art selection processes include direct commissions and selection through a competitive request for proposals or qualifications.

Review and selection may be conducted by staff or an appointed selection panel, typically comprising both community members and arts professionals, with final approval from a public art commission or department.

What Makes Public Art Participatory? The role of the public in the public art process described above is limited, primarily as passive consumers of the finished public artwork. More public art agencies are turning to participatory approaches that increase involvement and make public art more reflective of the communities in which it is located.

Public art allows for varied participation, including public engagement in planning, selection, creation, installation, maintenance and collective appreciation. Participatory public art better reflects neighborhood identity, culture and history. The shared experience of creation and interaction with public art builds community cohesion. Participation amplifies the sense of ownership, discouraging graffiti and vandalism while supporting beautification, safety and economic development.

At a time when public budgets are stretched thin, there is also a recognition that greater public participation increases voter support for public art programs and investments. Participatory Planning Municipal and regional planning for public art is the first opportunity for public participation. Plans are typically driven by staff, but public input helps ensure public art programs align with community priorities and values and can help improve public art access and impact.

One challenge of public art planning is the popular percent-for-art funding mechanism, which links new artworks to the physical location of capital improvement projects.

This approach may concentrate public art in downtown areas and new developments, leaving established residential and low-income areas as public art deserts.

A good opportunity for public participation in planning is to help identify and address inequities in public art across the program geography and constituents.

Consider changes to policies which limit use of all percent-for-art funding narrowly to the physical location of capital projects, creation of an alternative public art funding mechanism for areas with little new construction or creation of mobile collections and loan programs that can help get public artworks into under-served locations.

Another valuable impact of participatory planning is to challenge the traditional Eurocentric orientation of many public art collections. Public art programs should monitor the diversity of both their art collections and selected artists to assess whether they are inclusive and representative. Public artworks have also become more diverse in discipline, for example, including more textiles, digital media and performance works.

Public participation can play a valuable role in assessing and planning that increases diversity and cultural pluralism reflected in public art. A final participatory art planning opportunity is presented by public budgeting. As with other areas of public budgeting, public art is an area in which the public can be invited to direct neighborhood investments and improvements. Chicago residents have several opportunities to direct the investment of public art funding.

The Rogers Park Business Alliance highlights local public art projects developed through participatory budgeting. Participatory Selection Current public art models most often include community participation in the selection process. While formal arts expertise is important, most public entities have opted for a balanced approach, ensuring artistic skills and experience while also including locals on site-specific selection committees. The City of Tampa, Florida includes both community and arts knowledge in criteria for participation in public art selection panels.

When we take a look at the pros and cons of cutting art programs in schools, it is clear to see that this action deepens the pre-existing inequalities that already divide urban and rural districts. It also widens the gap between the wealthy institutions and the poor ones.

It reduces the staffing needs that rural districts have for the arts. The drop in art education affects some school districts more than others. Most states, including Oklahoma, find that it is the rural locations and low-income facilities that are impacted the most by budget cuts to this subject.

Although a shrinking budget is an oft-cited factor for this action, there is also the problem of recruiting certified teachers for the subject. That means it can be challenging to find someone who can run a program. It can improve the budget for the school district. There is a real money factor to consider when looking at an arts program and the benefits that happen by cutting it. If you take the average cost of a program per school and apply it to a somewhat small district like Monroe, WI, there are a total of five programs that would require oversight from teachers.

Athletics can bring in money, sponsorships, and more. Arts — and music — typically bring funds when the school charges activity fees to parents. The economics of art classes is that the cost of supplies is significantly higher than it is for what students need to have to learn mathematics. When you include the push for more STEM services, the choice often becomes keeping art or paying for the new science, technology, and engineering structures — so the latter often wins.

Cutting arts programs equalizes the playing field. When rich and poor school districts are all cutting arts programs, then it creates more of an equal opportunity for students. This advantage is not always looked at in positive ways, but it does stop the problem of having larger districts providing more opportunities to students than the smaller ones.

Librarian Brenda Roberts in Wanette said that there used to be grant money for taking the entire high school to the art museum in Oklahoma City.

Then they took them to museums in smaller Norman. All of those funds dried up. Without this structure, kids from rural or poor schools would struggle to find employment opportunities in cultural or creative positions because there is no way to compete with those who actually received an education. Art is not a required course to take. Unless a student plans to pursue an undergraduate degree or higher in an artistic field, taking classes in this creative subject at the high school level or below is not mandatory.

Even when a class is present, fewer students often take it. That creates a better student-teacher ratio, but it can also create the appearance of paying a teacher an unequal amount of money since there are fewer contacts to manage throughout the day. Arts programs contribute to higher levels of economic growth. The arts and culture industry of the United States supports almost 5 million jobs each year. Cutting the money to art programs in schools might seem like it can help to balance a budget, but it only creates short-term benefits.

When children are not given the opportunity to express their creative intelligence, then there are fewer success stories that come out of school.

Therefore a motivated and informed workforce, with improved morale could be a benefit of CPD. An increase in motivation and self- confidence in turn helps encourage patient trust in professional practice Mulvey Alsop comments that committing to lifelong learning and CPD could help a health professional to counteract changes in their professions and equip them for new roles within their career or elsewhere.

So increased employability is another benefit of CPD. CPD can also improve personal standards of efficiency and performance as there is a professional responsibility to learn and improve services. Cultural competence in a hospital or care system produces numerous benefits for the organization, patients and community. Organizations that are culturally competent have improved health outcomes, increased respect and mutual understanding from patients, and increased participation from the local community.

Additionally, organizations that are culturally competent may have lower costs and fewer care disparities. Things like increased respect between cultures and boundaries, it promotes the inclusion of everyone which will in turn encourage more people to seek out help from clinicians if needed. It would also increases cost savings from a reduction in medical errors, number of treatments and legal costs and lower the amount of missed appointments.

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