“The arts and culture industry is both green and a key to sustainability – sustaining our culture and renewing our capacity for creativity when it is needed more than ever to drive innovation and entrepreneurship, and to imagine and design a green future. Creative communities are sustainable by definition. Our state and national prosperity depend on our ability to innovate.”
– Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton
The global shift to a knowledge-based creative economy demands new strategies for states to compete successfully. A state’s role in providing the infrastructure necessary for growth today goes beyond traditional definitions – roads, bridges, dams and air traffic control – to include healthy arts and cultural and creative industries that animate communities, foster regional economic development and create new family-supporting jobs.
In this creative economy, the emphasis shifts to the attraction, retention, and expansion of human talent and creativity. And educated and trained workers, bright innovators and entrepreneurs all look to live in communities with strong cultural centers, places where diverse populations are welcome. Lt. Governor Lawton works to position Wisconsin well in multiple ways.
Watch this space for updates as new proposals are introduced.
Wisconsin
Arts Board
As chair of the Wisconsin Arts Board (WAB), Lt. Governor Lawton led the agency’s realignment to take on an increasingly vital role in community and economic development.
The Wisconsin Arts Board is uniquely positioned to provide leadership to engage public, private and nonprofit sectors in a shared agenda to establish Wisconsin’s stronghold in the creative economy.
The Board leverages its unique position in state government to generate research; examine trends; educate policy makers; convene stakeholders; provide technical assistance, information, and grants; and partner with arts and community organizations as well as individual artists to provide programs and services for the citizens of Wisconsin. Visit the Wisconsin Arts Board website
National leadership in a time of crisis: on behalf of the Wisconsin Arts Board, Lt. Governor Lawton wrote to the Chair of President-Elect Obama’s Arts and Culture Transition Team, Bill Ivey, on Dec. 17, 2009, to advocate expansion of the definition of “infrastructure” in the economic stimulus package to include the arts and culture industry. She also put forward the Wisconsin Arts Board as a potential model for investment in state arts agencies activities to strengthen the cultural infrastructure by engaging the broader community in maximizing its cultural resources. Click here to read the letter Lt. Governor Lawton wrote.
The WAB received a $318,500 National Endowment for the Arts grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to help retain jobs in arts and culture organizations; funds will be distributed about July 1, 2009.
Click here to view a video on the presentation of the Arts Board's new logo and brand (labor donated by Arts Board Member Paul Meinke).
Building Wisconsin’s Creative Economy: Our New Film Office
Lt. Governor Lawton as Chair of the Wisconsin Arts Board led establishment of Film Wisconsin, the state’s film office, a unique public/private partnership designed to recruit productions to Wisconsin; provide information and resources to the film industry; and provide technical assistance for film, television, advertising, documentary, corporate video and still photography production in the state.
Visit the Film Wisconsin website by clicking here.
Filming Wisconsin: Creative Industries Mean Jobs for Wisconsin
Lt. Governor Lawton led the successful effort to pass legislation creating tax incentives for the film and video game industry in Wisconsin, designed to create Wisconsin jobs in an industry new to the state. Film industry jobs are family-supporting jobs at a time and in an economy where people in the skilled trades are being laid off or let go. According to a first-year report compiled by Film Wisconsin, 759 Wisconsin jobs were created in 2008 as a direct result of the film incentives in communities ranging from Milwaukee to La Crosse, from Madison to Green Bay and from Wisconsin Rapids to Manitowish Waters.
In 2008, the film incentives led to nine feature films and 16 television shows produced in whole or in part in our state, double the previous year’s television ad production here and impressive growth in video game production.
According to Film Wisconsin, our state had its biggest year ever in television ad production due to the film incentives. And millions of dollars have been invested in infrastructure from Middleton to Green Bay to Lake Geneva and Milwaukee.
Public Enemies with Johnny Depp launched 2008 with an infusion of an estimated $7.5 million in Wisconsin expenditures according to Universal Studios’ actual report. An additional $8 million in revenues is estimated from smaller independent film and television projects, as well as from two Wisconsin-produced video game titles.
Television projects that have been completed this year include Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Jeopardy, Real Housewives of Orange County, Sony’s The Watch, as well as programming for Comedy Central, MTV, VH1, Great American country, A&E and PBS.
Click here to learn more about the specifics of the tax incentives.
Building Wisconsin’s 21st Century Workforce:
The Arts and Creativity in Education
Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Elizabeth Burmaster launched their Wisconsin Task Force on Arts and Creativity in Education in March of 2008; work concluded in January of 2009.
Lawton’s work with the Wisconsin Arts Board and Sundance policy roundtable led her to focus on how to build the creative workforce and entrepreneurial talent necessary for Wisconsin to compete successfully in a 21st century global economy.
Creativity drives innovations in science, business, technology and even service industries; entrepreneurs are problem-solvers, innovators by definition, visionaries when at their best. Developing the arts and creativity in education is both a deliberate workforce development strategy and one that will stimulate innovation/creativity and enable entrepreneurship.
The new Wisconsin brand platform, developed by the Wisconsin Department of Tourism, points to our state's historic identity as fostering a culture of original thinkers across economic sectors. Wisconsin's future prosperity depends on our success in establishing our leadership in innovation and ideas to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
The 36-member task force was charged with examining state-level policies and local practices to determine their impact on the scope and access to quality arts education opportunities in Wisconsin and to develop recommendations to integrate development of creative capacities across the curriculum. Lt. Governor Lawton led seven public forums across the state, including one on public radio, to gather data. A systematic review of the status of arts education in every Wisconsin school district was also provided to the task force with other pertinent research.
“Every child has tremendous creative capacity; it is our responsibility to develop and harvest it,” Lawton said. “Wisconsin’s competitive edge in this global economy will be a workforce well-prepared to think boldly and work innovatively, with that risk-taking confidence of an entrepreneur.”
In a traditional conversation about the knowledge economy there is great support for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). Lt. Governor Lawton has advocated for adding the Arts into this mix changing STEM to STEAM in an effort to advocate for creativity in all its forms.
Task force recommendations are already being implemented, and six communities have convened groups representing all sectors to develop models to build a rich curriculum of arts education and development of creative capacities, both in the classroom and in partnership with organizations and the private sector in the community.
Download a full copy of the Task Force on Arts and Creativity in Wisconsin Action Plan by clicking this link.
Wisconsin in line to be one of the Creative States of AmericaRepresentatives from Wisconsin participated in the Creative States Conversation: Creativity, Education and the Economy, June 3-4, 2009, in Oklahoma City. Education officials, government officials and leaders of nonprofit organizations gathered to determine if a national network of states might be created to support this transformation – for schools, workplaces and communities. Wisconsin was only the second state invited to participate, due to the work of the Wisconsin Task Force on Arts and Creativity in Education, co-chaired by Lt. Governor Lawton and State Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster
During the Creative States Conversation, Wisconsin was mentioned often for its participation in the inaugural class of the National Endowment for the Arts’ Education Leaders Institute, the work of the Task Force and the ongoing work of the Creative Wisconsin Local Teams. The DPI, along with the Office of the Lieutenant Governor and the Wisconsin Arts Board, will continue to participate in this national effort on behalf of Wisconsin.
National Leadership
Robert Redford and Americans for the Arts (AFTA) honored Lt. Governor Lawton with an invitation to three AFTA national policy roundtables at the Sundance Preserve:
§ 2007 Thinking Creatively and Competing Globally: The Role of the Arts in Building the 21st American Workforce
§ 2008 The Arts and Civic Engagement: Strengthening the 21st Century Community
§ 2009 The Role of the Arts in Strengthening and Inspiring the 21st Century Global Community.
Lt. Governor Lawton was one of twenty high level leaders in the arts and culture, corporate, philanthropic and government worlds invited to participate in a national public policy development event at the Aspen Institute in Aspen, Colo., in a collaboration of AFTA and the Harman-Eisner Program for the Arts. The topic explored was what the arts and arts support will need over the next decade – and what potential messages the new federal administration will need to hear in order to encourage a stronger and more vibrant cultural policy environment for the arts in the future.
Lt. Governor Lawton presented Wisconsin’s developing model for integrating arts and creativity education across the curriculum at the National Forum for the Arts Education Partnership.
She co-sponsored a National Lieutenant Governors Association (NLGA) Resolution to promote Arts education. She received the 2008 National Award for State Arts Leadership from the Americans for the Arts and the National Lieutenant Governors Association.
Lt. Governor Lawton’s input and counsel was also sought for the Arts Education Partnership’s Building Strong Communities Through Arts and Education Partnerships national forum. Lawton’s advice and council is often sought by national leaders because of her work on the creative economy, arts in education and cultural diplomacy.
