The collapse of stocks, banks and mortgages has dominated front-page in recent months, but the economic turmoil that affects the daily lives of many Americans has been relegated to below-the-fold stories: media and the arts have suffered horribly at the hands of this struggling economy.
The effects are obvious if you look as close as next door: The Baltimore Museum of Art has managed to avoid cutting positions so far, but they did decide to charge for the newly opened exhibit A Circus Family. The Walter Arts Museum in Mount Vernon also made cutbacks, slashing 16 positions last month, though only seven were filled at the time - a blessing of sorts.
For the Baltimore Opera Company, our nation's sad state meant more drastic measures: The group filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy recently.
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, local theaters and newspapers have all been forced to make substantial, devastating cutbacks as well.
But perhaps the most palpable arts-related casualty of the economy in Baltimore is the imminent demise of the longstanding Senator Theatre. Two weeks ago, Senator owner Tom Kiefaber announced that, despite fundraising efforts that continued up until last month, the theater's famous marquee will soon go dim forever.
Earlier this week it was announced that a public auction of the property will occur on April 20. For years, the Senator's fate has been in question despite its solid presence in this city since its opening 70 years ago. Each time it seemed in danger of going under, the city managed to rally to pull the historic institution back up, but it appears that the dreadful overall state of the current economy was finally too much for the Senator.
To add to the already tough blows, Governor Martin O'Malley announced recently that the budget for the Maryland Arts Council will be cut by $6 million this year.
With the big hitters in the city's arts community already suffering, will they be able to survive even more obstacles being thrown in their paths? And what of Baltimore's wealth of tiny, independent galleries, theaters and music venues?
Maybe it's hard to feel like the loss of art is something worth worrying about for the people whose investments are crashing and whose homes are being foreclosed on. But if we let the arts fall by the wayside now, there's little hope of getting them back once the economy is back on its feet.
Sure, OK, it's hard to imagine things being set right any time soon when the news these days tells us not about the latest lost lives in Iraq but about the casualties of the economy, but there are more immediate implications to consider. During the hardest of times, people have always turned to entertainment.
The boost the movie box office gets every time we fall into a recession is a simple proof of this, and that hasn't changed this time around. Television ratings have been up as well. The most obvious of reasons for the trend is that people need an escape when life blows.
And as much as watching pseudo-celebrities battle their addictions or seeing Kevin James's wacky antics as a security guard (He's a fat, stupid loser! Ha! Classic comedy!) allow us to forget our troubles for a short time, the affairs of the nation are often reflected in the arts of the time.
Writers and artists write what they know, what they have feelings about, and historically, the themes of books, films and paintings are pulled right from the day's news. Some of the best art is created this way. During the Great Depression, for one famous example, Steinbeck wrote his woes into The Grapes of Wrath. Certainly it wouldn't be beyond reason to see works emerge today that reflect similar themes of hardship.
Not only is it cathartic for average folk to see their plights represented in books or on the big screen, the artistic endeavors of a period help to create a historic record. So much more can be gleaned about life in a given time period from the words of poets than from what historians have to say.
No matter what changes occur in our society and changes our country's infrastructure undergoes, the arts and the entertainment industry are constants, and they are not expendable. They are part of what defines culture. Franklin Roosevelt knew this, too: As part of the New Deal, he formed the Public Works of Art project in 1934, a program that resulted in the employment of thousands.
Yes, it is easy to leave the arts to fend for themselves in our current economic hurricane, but once the storm eventually passes, they may be unable to rebuild in the debris left in its wake.
