Copious Notes

LexArts has agreed to give Actors Guild of Lexington a $7,500 matching grant to hire an organizational consultant to help the theater navigate out of its financial troubles.

In June, the LexArts allocations committee decided not to give Actors Guild a general operating support grant from its 2009 Campaign for the Arts. The theater, which produces shows in the Downtown Arts Center on Main Street, has traditionally received funds from the campaign, which in part gives operational support to groups such as the Lexington Philharmonic and the Lexington Art League. Actors Guild’s allocation request for this year was $70,900, in line with previous requests.

In denying the request, and a subsequent appeal in July, LexArts said it was concerned about the theater’s financial management and troubles that dated back to 2005.

The matching grant came after a meeting between LexArts and Actors Guild leaders.

Granting the consultant funds, LexArts President and CEO Jim CLark said in a news release that, ”AGL now has an arts management professional leading the staff and board members focusing on financial progress as much as on AGL’s artistic and outreach mission.  Working with an independent consultant, AGL can confront a difficult challenge to emerge as a stronger organization with a larger community presence.”

AGL’s managing director Kimberly Shaw said, “In the last few years, AGL has expanded its public service programs and earned regional and national attention for its rising artistic excellence.  We are now on the road to having business practices of the same high professional quality.  AGL’s artists, audience members, donors, trustees and staff will all greatly appreciate that LexArts intends to join us on this journey.”

In the past, LexArts has helped groups such as the Lexington Children’s Theatre and Lexington Art League hire consultants when it had concerns about their business practices. Both groups still receive allocations from the campaign.

Earlier this month, Actors Guild did receive a $15,839 Arts Partnership Grant from the Kentucky Arts Council. Council executive director Lori Meadows said the state organization’s grants are independent of local groups — it also gave LexArts a $32,598 grant — with different criteria. She said the KAC review panel did not have the same concerns LexArts had about Actors Guild.

The past few weeks have brought about some interesting Lexington arts headlines.

Lexington Ballet hires executive director: The Lexington Ballet reached, ­almost literally, across the fourth-floor lobby of ArtsPlace to hire the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra’s education director, Joe Tackett, as chief business officer.

The ballet’s board president, Michael Potapov, said, “Over the past several years, the board has worked to position the organization to once again become a pillar of the cultural landscape in Lexington.”

The ballet begins auditioning for a new professional company this week.

LexArts cuts Actors Guild’s funding: After what LexArts says has been several years of trying to work through financial travails with Actors Guild of Lexington, the united arts fund’s allocations committee cut off funding for Lexington’s only semi-professional theater for adults.

AGL had requested a $70,900 allocation from this year’s Campaign for the Arts, a figure comparable to the theater’s allocations in recent years. Actors Guild has appealed the de-funding.

That Actors Guild and the Lexington Ballet almost simultaneously made arts news in Lexington is familiar.

In spring 1998, a six-figure financial meltdown devastated the Lexington Ballet, which until then had been one of Lexington’s leading cultural institutions. In 1997, it received more than $80,000 in the Campaign for the Arts from what was then the Lexington Arts and Cultural Council.

Less than two weeks later, revelation of a $20,000 financial shortfall prompted the Actors Guild board to fire all three members of its management team.

Both groups ended up initially shut out of funding from the Campaign for the Arts.

But from there, the paths diverged.

Shortly after its house-cleaning, Actors Guild hired Deb Shoss as its new producing director, and she quickly brought the troupe back into the council’s good graces. When Shoss retired in 2002, then-LACC director Dee Fizdale said, “The LACC got behind the organization because it came to us with a solid plan that it carried out.”

The Lexington Ballet? Not so much, as far as the LACC was concerned.

The ballet’s management chafed at moves to monitor its attempts to recover. Officials had a stormy relationship with a consultant hired with support from LACC, and they vehemently opposed suggestions to merge Lexington Ballet with Kentucky Ballet Theatre, which was formed by dancers and the assistant director who were fired from the Lexington Ballet.

Actors Guild and Lexington Ballet are both still in business, but the dance group has never resumed receiving allocations from the LACC, which is now LexArts.

Nothing is black and white. Lexington Ballet did have successes in the ensuing years, and Actors Guild has had problems.

But the recent headlines show how much things can change over time.

The none-too-subtle subtext of ballet board president Potapov’s statement about the troupe’s latest move: We want to return to our former glory.

LexArts president and chief executive Jim Clark says the ballet has a way to go before it will be considered for allocations again, but that under the leadership of artistic director Luis Dominguez, the ballet has made strides in programming and presenting guest artists, including a collaboration with Dance Theatre of Harlem this spring.

The addition of a business leader and a professional company, reportedly comprising four dancers, could build on that.

Actors Guild also has shown ambition recently. It just wrapped up its season with one of its biggest hits: The world-premiere production of Kentucky author Silas House’s play Long Time Traveling. And the theater has moved its offices into the burgeoning Distillery District and announced plans to create a second stage series and a cabaret series and to enter into an agreement with ­Actors Equity, the stage actors union. All of these moves have been cited as revenue-generating initiatives.

But all that was before the LexArts allocations committee’s patience with Actors Guild’s financial travails seemed to come to an end.

Actors Guild is appealing the decision. And even if it does not get the LexArts funds, leaders say the theater can continue, although after losing $70,000, it’s hard to imagine that it would be the same type of organization.

And hiring new people in the front office and for the stage at the ballet is no guarantee of success.

But for now, 11 years after some of the most tumultuous days in Lexington arts, the toe shoes seem to be on different feet.

Click here for a PDF of LexArts original letter to Actors’ Guild.

We just received the letter that Actors Guild of Lexington’s board directors and artistic and managing directors have sent to LexArts, in response to the LexArts allocations committe cutting AGL’s funding from its annual Campaign for the Arts. We are working on a story for later today to get LexArts response, but here is the letter (if you are having trouble seeing the letter, click here for a PDF):

June 23, 2009

Patrick O’Donovan, Chair, Board of Directors

Barbara Edelman, Esq., Chair, Allocations Committee

James M. Clark, President & CEO

Cc:  LexArts Board of Directors

Dear Mr. O’Donovan, Ms. Edelman and Mr. Clark:

As the leaders of LexArts and Actors Guild of Lexington (AGL), we bear considerable responsibility for allowing misunderstandings to turn a long collaborative relationship into a climate of mutual distrust.

We write to clarify facts about AGL’s financial situation and about our satisfaction of the conditions set by LexArts for AGL’s receipt of the full $70,000 allocated for fiscal year 2009.  Further, we dispel LexArts board members’ misperceptions that have come to our attention in the days since we learned that LexArts chose not to fund AGL for fiscal year 2010.  Finally, we request a rehearing and reconsideration of LexArts’s denial of funding in accordance with appeal procedures.

AGL’S PAST AND CURRENT DEBT

We are open about AGL’s past problems, and regret that LexArts has not acknowledged the responsible and productive corrective actions that we have taken.

Your letter denying 2010 funding read in part: “Your current status of insolvency presents problems we are unable to disregard.”

By definition, this statement is correct: AGL’s financial liabilities exceed our tangible assets.   Nevertheless, we are concerned that LexArts has ignored the fact that over the past year we have reduced our debt, and have a plan to eliminate it entirely.

LexArts CEO Jim Clark told the Lexington Herald-Leader this weekend that AGL had in the relatively recent past a debt totaling more than $80,000, and he estimated a current debt of approximately $40,000.  After this month, AGL will have finished three of the last four fiscal years “in the black”.  We are willing to make public our financial audits from the last four years in support of this statement.  We have formulated a plan to eliminate our debt by June 30, 2012, which we believe to be a realistic time frame given the current economic recession.

It bears noting the source of our debt.  In 2002, AGL made what has proven to be an imprudent decision:  AGL spent $79,000 on physical improvements (bathroom, electricity, fixtures, etc.) to the fourth floor of the Downtown Arts Center, a government-owned building for which LexArts is the lessor.  For that expenditure, AGL depleted its reserve funds and took a bank loan, with a present balance of approximately $17,000.  We are current with this obligation.  In a sad irony, however, this fourth floor office space has been essentially unusable most of the last two years.  Though AGL has paid rent, LexArts has failed to provide heating or air conditioning for the last 22 months, despite repeated requests from AGL.  This is contrary to the clear terms of the lease agreement which obligates LexArts to repair and keep in good order the HVAC system.

Our current debt includes approximately $12,000 owed to the Internal Revenue Service.   AGL has been paying monthly installments set by the IRS.  This unfortunate matter was discussed at great length during last year’s LexArts allocation hearing.  Finalized in December 2008, AGL’s installment agreement with the IRS requires monthly payments toward payroll taxes owed for the quarters ended December 31, 2007, and March 31, 2008.  Not being able to satisfy these taxes was a regrettable occurrence and due in part to circumstances beyond AGL’s control.  AGL voluntarily contacted the IRS to make arrangements for monthly payments toward the prior taxes.  The installment agreement also requires that AGL remain current with the payment of payroll taxes.  Both of these conditions have been and continue to be met.  A copy of the finalized installment agreement was provided to Mr. Clark, as were printouts from the IRS website showing the history of payments.

Rumors that the IRS is suing AGL board members are false.  The IRS did send each Executive Committee member a letter dated October 31, 2008 “to discuss your duties and responsibilities as an officer/employee of Actors Guild of Lexington Inc and your potential personal liability for unpaid trust fund taxes due and owing” for two fiscal quarters.  Further, a condition of our IRS agreement states: “If you do not make timely payments and keep your federal tax deposits current, this agreement will default and a trust fund penalty will be assessed against each responsible officer immediately.”  This is not a threatened lawsuit.  AGL has fully complied with the IRS agreement and will continue to pay past and current payroll taxes as stipulated.  We have repeatedly documented our compliance to LexArts.

FULL SATISFACTION OF THE LEXARTS ALLOCATIONS COMMITTEE’S CONDITIONS

The LexArts 2010 allocation denial letter also asserted: “While we tried to give AGL every opportunity this year to become a more stable organization we have not seen acceptable progress.”

This declaration is the core of our misunderstanding.

In June 2008, LexArts set three firm conditions for AGL’s receipt of our 2009 allocation, specifically withholding $21,000 with the promise to release $7,000 each time we met a benchmark; the conditions were repeated in a LexArts letter dated September 2, 2008.  Each condition was a reasonable exercise of LexArts’s fiduciary responsibility.  We will address individually each condition, and its satisfaction.

Condition 1: ” A qualified general manager has been hired;”

In response to the significant loss that AGL incurred in fiscal year 2008, LexArts wisely urged that AGL hire a theatre management professional.  Beginning in June 2008, AGL conducted a national search for a Managing Director to function as an organizational equal to Artistic Director Rick St. Peter.  After interviewing multiple qualified candidates, we ultimately hired Kimberly Shaw, whose academic credentials (BA, Spelman College; MFA, Columbia University) and extensive professional experiences plainly qualify her.

Ms. Shaw began full-time work at AGL on October 1, 2008, and has remained so to this date.  On October 15, 2008, LexArts agreed to release in three monthly installments the $7,000 withheld until satisfaction of this condition.  LexArts paid us one third of the amount owed in October.  LexArts paid us the balance of $4,666.67 on January 10, 2009.

We have been informed through secondary sources that the LexArts Executive Committee believes we have deceived it about hiring a Managing Director.  Allegedly, “Kim” told one of your board members that she works for AGL only one day per week.  In fact, it is our new Development Director, not Kimberly Shaw, who has worked for AGL one day a week since December 2008.  It concerns us that the Allocations Committee failed to exercise minimal due diligence to clear up this significant factual misunderstanding.

Condition 2: “$110,000 in sponsorships has been secured;”

On January 19, 2009, AGL presented LexArts CEO Clark with documentation of having secured $111,000 in sponsorships.  In an e-mail message dated February 20, Mr. Clark requested that in-kind and cash gifts be clarified and said that he suspected we would not receive the $7,000 until we physically collected $110,000. On February 24, Mr. Clark received a new document showing that we had by then secured $126,600 and collected $102,983, with an additional $10,000 as an in-kind gift to be realized on May 9 for the Scene and Be Seen event.

On February 26, 2009, Mr. Clark responded that the information “looks good”, that he would be meeting with the Chair of the Allocations Committee that day, and he would get back to us shortly.

On April 10, 2009, AGL met with Mr. Clark with a copy of the Profit and Loss Statement to show the sponsorship income on our official financial documents.

Ultimately, LexArts paid AGL $7,000 for satisfying this condition on May 8, 2009.

Condition 3: “$30,000 is raised through special events.”

Since an event scheduled for November 2008 had to be cancelled because of superseding obligations on Tony award nominee Laura Bell Bundy, this was inevitably the last of the conditions we would fulfill.  As you know, LexArts beneficiaries are prohibited from fundraising during the active part of the LexArts annual campaign, extending this year into April.

Our first 2009 special event money, $10,000 allocated to AGL from proceeds of the 2009 Beaux Arts Ball, derived from extensive AGL staff and board work on the event, which netted more than $40,000.  AGL’s Managing Director and Vice President joined the Beaux Arts Ball planning committee in November 2008.  One or both of them attended every organizational session with the University of Kentucky College of Design students, and they collectively spent more than 40 hours helping to plan the Beaux Arts Ball and a prior fundraising reception at the home of Jim Gray (which was their idea).  Half a dozen AGL staff and volunteers worked for hours at the Beaux Arts Ball itself.  LexArts CEO Clark was kept apprised of these facts well in advance and gave our staff repeated assurances that the $10,000 would count toward this third condition.

Scene and Be Seen, AGL’s 2nd annual major fundraising event, took place on May 9, 2009, earning a total of $19,023 through event sponsorships (not including a $10,000 in-kind gift counted toward the $110,000 benchmark of Condition 2, above), ticket sales, raffle ticket purchases, and silent auction bids.

In April, a fundraising reception at a private home earned $400, and a small amount of money was raised at the Give into the Groove charity event.  In May, an AGL board member set up her birthday party as an elaborate AGL fundraiser, collecting $2,642 in donations; notably, LexArts received $1,400 in fees for this event, held in the Downtown Arts Center.

Notwithstanding his repeated assurances, Mr. Clark last week raised the concern that the check we received from Beaux Arts did not qualify as special event money.  Although Mr. Clark has now verbally assured us that this amount will be credited, LexArts has not yet agreed to release the $7,000 withheld pending satisfaction of this condition, which was fully satisfied earlier in the month.

AUDITOR’S “GOING CONCERN” FOOTNOTE

Given the significant loss incurred by Actors Guild in fiscal year 2008, a “going concern” footnote was included in the disclosures to the audited financial statements.  The going concern note summarizes the financial condition of AGL on one date in time, June 30, 2008.  The note explained that unless circumstances changed during the next year, AGL would not be able to withstand another year of losses such as the loss incurred in fiscal year 2008.

The note in the audited financial statements also explained the corrective measures that were being taken:  hiring a managing director, hiring a development professional, reduction of expenses and creation of additional revenue streams.  All of these measures were accomplished during the current fiscal year and AGL is projecting a profit for the year, assuming that LexArts releases the remainder of AGL’s 2009 allocation.

In the allocations hearing, Mr. St. Peter explained these corrective measures in response to the going concern note.  AGL Treasurer Tammy Farley, a CPA/CFP who regularly audits nonprofit organizations, explained a going concern note from an accountant’s perspective, including the manner in which that type of note may be presented and why the note was applicable to AGL.

ADDITIONAL FACTS ABOUT AGL FINANCES AND THE LEXARTS ALLOCATION PROCESS

In addition to satisfying all of the revenue targets set by LexArts, under the expertise and hard work of Managing Director Shaw, AGL has cut its operating and production expenses by approximately 30 percent.  Ms. Shaw initiated money-saving changes to the 2009 performance schedule, including: reduced runs of plays in February and March, and replacement of an extremely costly production.  She advocated fiscally responsible changes in all areas of AGL’s budget and introduced strategies to diversify AGL’s revenue stream, such as locating free rehearsal space and soliciting donations from ticket buyers at the point of purchase.  Through creative marketing as well as artistic excellence, the season’s final production became AGL’s best-selling show in five years.

One important change supported by the Managing Director was the hiring of a professional Development Director.  AGL hired Brenda Psotka, formerly a fundraiser for Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre and the Lexington Children’s Theatre.  Ms. Psotka started working for AGL one day a week because her salaried position was not in AGL’s fiscal year 2009 budget; she begins full-time work July 1, 2009.  Despite the abbreviated work schedule, the Development Director has already enhanced AGL’s fundraising success, and has exciting plans for increasing revenue in the coming months.

In late April, LexArts circulated a one-page outline titled “Criteria for assessment of funding for Partner Organizations (formerly Beneficiary Groups)”, and specifying the relative importance of each criterion.  We briefly address each, in the order presented by LexArts:

“Fulfillment of Mission Statement                                                                         40%”

All AGL programming, from main stage to education, is mission-driven, a fact not challenged by LexArts.  At the same time that AGL has exercised greater fiscal controls, the theatre has succeeded in expanding audience diversity, media recognition and national support.  AGL would be thrilled to discuss this at length.

“Effective and Responsible Fiscal Management and Governance             30%”

Above, we dispelled numerous factual misunderstandings in this area.  AGL has also informed LexArts that we do not satisfy two of ten items in the list: “Directors and Officers insurance” and “Board approved conflict of interest statement”.   We have made progress toward correcting both deficiencies.  We take our financial condition very seriously; however, it should be noted that solvency and lack of debt are not listed among the LexArts funding criteria.

“Community Outreach and Public Service                                                           20%”

AGL has several programs to provide free and reduced cost tickets to underserved audiences.  Our Education Director, who is both a theatre professional and a licensed clinical psychologist, has led Page to Stage and Journal to Stage programs focused on at-risk youth.  AGL has partnered in the last several years with: the Lexington Public Library, Hospice of the Bluegrass, Fayette County Public Schools, and the Florence Crittenton Home.  We have also taken the Apprentice Players under our banner and have active youth and college internship programs.

“Participation in Campaign                                                                                           5%”

Each employee and all but two AGL board members contributed to the just-concluded LexArts fundraising campaign.  AGL has duly promoted LexArts in all of its public materials, including four pages listing LexArts donors in each playbill.

Presentation of Allocations Request                                                                        5%

We will not quarrel with the Allocation Committee’s opinion of the presentation quality of AGL’s written application and oral hearing.  We note only that LexArts valued this criterion at 5% relative importance in the allocation assessment.

MOVING FORWARD

Without doubt, many of your donors contributed money to you with the understanding that LexArts funds theatre for adults - and AGL specifically.  At the same time, LexArts prohibited AGL from raising funds independently.  Regardless of whether the LexArts board chooses to reverse its allocation decision based on the facts we have laid out in this letter, AGL deserves a substantial portion of funds LexArts purported to raise on our behalf during the 2009 campaign.

On a personal level, we wish to express our disappointment in how LexArts has chosen to handle what should have been a respectful severance of a financial relationship that has been in existence for nearly two decades.  LexArts notified AGL after sending out a press release - in a letter that was dated June 15 yet went through the LexArts postage meter on June 19.  We learned about the allocation denial from a June 19 Business Lexington e-mail blast, and have since read in the media unnecessarily derogatory quotations from LexArts representatives.  Still, we believe it is possible to have an amicable relationship in the future regardless of the decision your Board of Directors may make in response to this letter.

In these difficult economic and social times, there is no place for antagonism among arts groups, or individuals within them.  We share similar missions to educate, inspire, entertain and challenge ever-wider audiences in Central Kentucky.  We all increasingly partner with schools, social service charities, health care providers and other arts organizations, in the common pursuit of enriching citizens’ lives through exploration and enjoyment of visual and performing arts.

AGL supports your mission:  ”LexArts promotes high quality arts experiences for the benefit of the people of central Kentucky through funding, advocacy, technical assistance, communication and programming initiatives.”  We applaud your well-publicized innovations, we express gratitude for the support you have given AGL and other local nonprofits, and we support your leadership.  We hope, however, that you can understand the frustration of facing an injurious decision by your board which we believe was based on inaccurate allegations - and of being forced to respond in such a public manner.

We are confident that LexArts will pay AGL the $11,083.34 currently due to us: $4,083.34 for the June 2009 monthly allocation, and $7,000 recognizing satisfaction of the special event fundraising condition.  We are hopeful that, based on the facts in this letter, LexArts will reconsider its vote to eliminate funding to AGL.  And we respectfully entreat you and your fellow board members to cease further public indictments of our worthy organization and its leaders.

Thank you for taking the time to review this information thoughtfully.

Sincerely,

James Dickinson, Esq.                                    Tammy D. Farley, CPA, CFP

President, Board of Trustees                      Treasurer, Board of Trustees

Kimberly M. Shaw                                           Richard St. Peter

Managing Director                                          Artistic Director

UPDATED 9 p.m. June 20.

LexArts released the list of allocations from its 2009-10 Campaign for the Arts late Friday and left out one of Lexington’s top theaters.

Actors Guild of Lexington, which last year received $72,500 from the campaign, received nothing in this year’s allocations.

“While no arts group is prepared to be cut from a major funding source, it is not as if this came from out of the blue,” said Jim Clark, president and CEO of LexArts. “There have been ongoing conversations, and this is not a knee-jerk reaction. This is a cumulative result of the last four years and was not taken lightly.”

Clark said the past four years, LexArts, Lexington’s united arts fund, has worked with Actors Guild to address an accumulated deficit of $83,000 and a current debt of “approximately $40,000,” Clark said.

Actors Guild’s board president, Jim Dickinson, said he and other AGL leaders were taken by surprise, though, when they learned of the de-funding late Friday.

The executive committee of Actors Guild’s board met Saturday afternoon to discuss the de-funding and drafted a statement:

“The Actors Guild of Lexington Executive Committee will submit a comprehensive letter to LexArts addressing the decision to discontinue funding AGL, as well as the inaccurate statements made to board members and the media. We will make our letter public after LexArts board members have had an opportunity to read it.”

Dickinson said Actors Guild will appeal LexArts’ decision.

LexArts’ funding accounts for about 15 percent of Actors’ Guild’s annual budget, Dickinson said.

This move comes shortly after the 26-year-old Actors Guild, one of two professional theater groups in Lexington (Lexington Children’s Theatre is the other), announced plans to move its offices from the Downtown Arts Center to a building in the Distillery District, on Manchester Street; move forward with a contract with Actors Equity, the stage actors union; and expand its programming to include a second stage series in the Distillery District and a cabaret series at Central Kentucky restaurants.

At the time, Clark, of Lexarts, called the move a “calculated risk” for the theater.

The de-funding also came after an up-and-down season for Actors Guild. In December, Actors Guild’s artistic director, Richard St. Peter, said he was concerned about the theater’s survival in the economic downturn and after a few shows did not perform as well as expected at the box office. The theater modified its schedule for the last three shows of the 2008-09 season, reducing the runs for two shows and completely changing one to save money on cast and crew.

But Actors Guild ended the season with two bona fide hits: the one-woman show Bad Dates, which it revived this month, and the April world premiere of Kentucky writer Silas House’s Long Time Traveling.

Ultimately, Clark said Saturday afternoon that although Actors Guild was trying to attract new audiences and generate more income, the plan the theater presented to the allocations committee was insufficient to address the ongoing deficits.

Asked if the theater could survive the $72,500 funding cut, Clark said that was “doubtful.”

But Dickinson, the Actors Guild board president, said, “We can survive without it.”

Arts organizations that did receive allocations from LexArts’ 2009-10 Campaign for the Arts and the amounts they received are:

Lexington Philharmonic, $165,000.

Lexington Children’s Theatre, $120,000.

Living Arts and Science Center, $101,250.

Lexington Art League, $62,000.

Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras, $20,000.

A dark SUV with a trailer rolled up next to ArtsPlace Friday morning carrying some familiar figures: Horsemania horses.

The four fiberglass colts on Patrick Keough’s trailer were the first tangible sign that the popular 2000 public art exhibit will be returning to Lexington in 2010 for the World Equestrian Games.

“That’s the most frequent question I get, ‘When are the horses coming back?’” LexArts president and CEO Jim Clark said.

The 2000 exhibit of fiberglass horses decorated by local artists was displayed all over the streets of downtown Lexington and beyond. It was wildly popular, sending people on walking tours throughout the summer. Some of those horses can still be seen around the area at local businesses that bought them at a Keeneland auction late that fall.

Clark said 10 years was a good interval to wait for the next exhibit.

“If you do it too often, it may start to lose its charm,” Clark said.

Horsemania 2010 will work much like it did a decade ago, with around 80 horses being decorated by local artists. A notable exception will be the involvement of Lexington’s sister cities – Deauville, France; County Kildare, Ireland; Shinhidaka, Japan; and Newmarket, England. Each town will select an artist to decorate a horse, which will be part of the display.

The calendar will also unfold much like the original Horsemania. LexArts is currently soliciting sponsorships of horses at $5,000 each for the 79 local horses and $7,500 each for the four sister city horses. The call for artists will be in the winter of 2010, selection will be in the spring with the horses hitting the streets in July and the auction in December 2010.

Horsemania was at the beginning of a public art craze that started with decorated cows in Chicago and went on to include guitars in Cleveland and pigs in Cincinnati.

Keough, owner of Shelton, Neb.-based America’s Fiberglass Animals, which made the original Horsemania figures, said horses have been one of the popular figures he has done, with cities like Louisville and Ocala, Fla., staging horse projects.

“But we were the first,” Clark interjected.

Keough responded, “That’s right. It was you all that made the phone ring.”

It’s been a good season for Studio Players.

The first three shows at the Carriage House ­Theatre on Bell Court - Don’t Dress for Dinner, A Tuna ­Christmas and The Last of Mrs. Lincoln - were hits for the community ­theater troupe, selling out most performances. Bob Singleton, president of the company’s board of directors, says that if about 80 percent of the seats for a production are sold, the costs have been covered. And so far, Studio Players has not seen a decline in donations.

If only every arts group could tell that tale.

As the nation plunges deeper into a recession, good news in the arts has been hard to find. Just last week, word came of layoffs at the Philadelphia Orchestra and Merce Cunningham Dance Company, the latest in a steady stream of bad news for arts groups that also must deal with the economic downturn’s effect on ticket sales and fund-raising.

But community arts ­organizations generally don’t have the overhead costs of a staff or space to maintain, and sometimes are able to thrive in challenging times.

“This is a season ­everyone wants to write down in red letters in their diaries,” Lexington Singers board president, Nick Nickl, says.

Last fall’s the Singers’ 50th ­anniversary concert far ­exceeded box-office ­expectations, and the chorus had the ego boost of traveling to ­Washington to sing at the ­Kennedy Center for the ­Performing Arts in the production of Our Lincoln.

The only ­disappointment of the season, Nickl says, has been ­raising money for its annual Festival of Choirs.
“Usually people are eager to contribute to that,” Nickl says of the event, which brings the Singers together with choirs from ­traditionally black churches. “But we had to give it a little extra push this year.”

That said, “if you look at the list of organizations close to the edge, we’re not one of them,” Nickl says.
Neither is the Lexington ­Community ­Orchestra.

“We have been able to continue with a minimum of difficulty or ­challenge,” says violinist Pam ­Hammonds, ­president of the community orchestra board. Read the rest of this entry »

Note: This is an extended version of the story that appears in the Feb. 18 Lexington Herald-Leader. It includes comments from last night’s kickoff, and those comments are in blue.

LexArts kicked off its 2009 Campaign for the Arts yesterday with a modified goal due to the ailing economy.

Last year, the Campaign took in $1,153,522, exceeding the goal of $1,125,000. Usually, that kind of success prompts the arts umbrella organization to ramp up its expectations the next year.

“We set the goal in the midst of a lot of the bad economic news breaking,” said LexArts president and CEO Jim Clark, a few hours before last night’s kick-off party at Spindletop Hall. “We were not going to be limited by national conditions, but we did think it was realistic to set our goal a little lower.”

Despite the challenges of raising money in uncertain financial times, campaign organizers said supporting the arts is still important, particularly with the FEI World Equestrian Games coming in 2010.

“Although I am from Lexington, Ky., I lived in New Orleans for six years,” campaign chair Larry Bell, general manager of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, said at last night’s kickoff. “And New Orleans would not be the tourist attraction it is, it would not be the convention city it is, without something to do in the evenings . . . It is a thriving community for artists, for musicians and for the culinary arts. Now is that only reflected in the quality of life in New Orleans? No, it is also reflected in the tourism, and tourism is the only industry in New Orleans. So, my experience with the arts is that it is a driver of economic activity.

“That lesson is transferable, particularly to us, because we’ll be hosting the world next year, and part of the experience they will have is our arts and our entertainment options.”

Honorary campaign chair and retiring Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra music director George Zack invoked New Orleans, and the New Orleans Symphony in particular, in his remarks. He noted the losses the orchestra suffered during Hurricane Katrina, including the losses of instruments and its concert hall, and how the orchestra regrouped and went on tour.

“Nothing galvanizes a community better than the arts,” Zack said. “When you look to the past, you look at the past through its art treasures.”

Funds raised by the campaign go to support local arts groups both through allocations to major area arts organizations and grants to groups and individual artists.

Clark said that with the games coming up, “funds are particularly important for groups that are putting together special exhibits and performances for the games. It’s hard to plan when you’re struggling to get by.”

Since the economy went south, Clark says he and his staff have had to work a little harder to make sure people are fulfilling their pledges to the 2008 campaign, but those contributions are still coming in.

The campaign is starting with $300,000 already raised, a little bit less than the fund raiser normally has when it launches. LexArts also will have to wait until April to see what kind of contribution it will get from the Lexington Fayette Urban-County Government, which has kicked in $350,000, plus $150,000 in challenge grants the last couple of years.

Mayor Jim Newberry appeared at the Spindletop kickoff and encouraged people in the audience to, “visit with your council members to encourage their support for the arts, because this is going to be a difficult time, financially, for Urban-County government, and the more they understand the depth and breadth of the support for the arts in the community, the more likely we are to find ourselves in a good position as we go through the budget process.”

Newberry also cited the Destination 2040 campaign, “an effort to develop a longer term vision for our community.”

The mayor said in a citywide survey, there was widespread support for, “funding for the arts so, ‘our arts community can become nationally competitive.’ I like that recommendation a lot. I’ve got a little bit of an issue with it though, and that is the part that says, ’so we can become nationally competitive.’” Then, citing the recent Our Lincoln performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., he said, “If you were there, and you had any doubt about the national competitiveness of the arts in Lexington, Ky., it should have been totally removed that night.”

Folks with a keen ear toward Washington have probably heard the National Endowment for the Arts and the arts in general mentioned in discussions of the stimulus plan currently being debated by the Senate. The initial bill, passed last week by the House, included a controversial $50 million for the NEA. Opponents of arts funding in the stimulus contend it’s pork barrel spending that could be better used for additional spending on roads and other construction projects, while proponents say arts funding creates jobs, just like other projects.

LexArts President and CEO Jim Clark has weighed in on the issue with an open letter to the Lexington Arts Community on the arts umbrella group’s Facebook page urging people to lobby city, state and national lawmakers to favor arts funding. Clark writes:

“We all must participate in dispelling the idea that the arts are a luxury . . .

“The NEA puts it simply by saying ‘The arts and culture industry is a sector of the economy just like any other with workers who pay taxes, mortgages, rent and contribute in other ways to the economy.’ Many major arts service agencies, including Americans for the Arts (AFTA), the NEA and Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) have stressed the importance of focusing on the passage of the Stimulus package prior to this amendment. It is our responsibility as citizens to inform our representatives in Washington, Frankfort and here in Lexington exactly how important the arts are to the social and economic welfare of our community.”

Clark goes on to detail several arts oriented projects contained in a proposal Mayor Jim Newberry’s office submitted to President Barack Obama’s transition team, including renovations to facilities such as ArtsPlace, the Expolorium and the Kentucky Theatre.

Click “read the rest of this entry,” below, or, if you’re a Facebook member, the link above to read Clark’s note in its entirety.

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