The man with the arts portfolio (continued)

Q: Buddy Cianci was regarded as a pretty strong supporter of the arts in Providence. How would you describe the main differences between the Cianci and Cicilline administrations, in philosophy and practice, when it comes to arts and culture?

A: Clearly, the last mayor was a very good spokesman for the city, and arts and culture was part of that. This mayor is taking that a step further and really institutionalizing, codifying the importance of arts and culture in our government, in our community, in our economic development structure — really elevating it. In terms of how we run the government on a regular basis, it is in there, everywhere. Like, I work with the police chief with issues, how arts and culture impact, how arts and culture and community policing overlap. I work with the planning director institutionally. I report to the mayor institutionally about where these things fit. We have specifically identified arts and culture as the lever for our city’s tourism economy, really elevating that in a way that is permanent and integrated.

Q: What were your top goals when you started in this job?

A: The department’s goals were to continue some of the old things that were happening — programming is a responsibility. Also, and this was a main goal of creating the office, the mayor, when he ran, was recognizing and responding to the importance of arts and culture in Providence. You know, it’s not just something that’s nice that we have. It’s actually a fundamental part of our identity, it’s a fundamental part of our economic structure and our community structure. So recognizing the importance of that, the department took all these disparate arts and culture responsibilities, added some new ones, and centralized them into this department.

It’s a cabinet position. What does that mean? It means that it has been elevated to the same value as other department heads, and I’m part of the economic development team, so I meet monthly with the mayor, the chief of staff, the planning director, the economic development director [on] how arts and culture is integrated into that. It’s also an adjunct to the policy department. When we talk about nightlife in Providence, issues of licensing, issues of crime — all that stuff — this department is responsible for being part of that conversation and implementing some of those mandates after they come out. We do the programming. We need to continue that, both in terms of stuff that we’ve already done that people are used to. We’ve also expanded that. One of the mayor’s motifs throughout the whole administration is integrating stuff into the neighborhoods, so we created a bunch of new neighborhood programming initiatives. Programming not just downtown like we used to — we expanded that — but we also moved into the neighborhoods’ public spaces.

Being a point of contact for arts organizations, for developers, for individual artists, people coming to the city as tourists, people who are working here. If you’re building loft spaces or you’re doing studio spaces, you’re having problems with the building department, you need to be navigated through the process, people come here. You want to move here, you’re an artist. You want to get tapped in. People have a point of contact here. So we’re a clearinghouse of information.

Going back to the economic development case for arts and culture in Providence, it being a dominant part of our state’s economy, therefore a dominant part of the capital’s economy. It’s clear this is the cultural capital, as well as the political capital. We need to take advantage of that for making Providence marketed specifically as a cultural destination, so we’re partners with the tourism community to brand and market Providence specifically as an A-list cultural destination. So part of that goes two ways — selling the city because of its arts, but you have to support your arts community because that’s what you’re banking on and that’s what we’ve adopted as an important component of our identity. It serves as a bridge between that community and the tourism community. We also do funding, we also do fund-raising, we produce that Destination Providence magazine. So, basically, it’s like all things arts and culture. We are there — we are the point.

Q: There’s been some debate in recent years about nightlife and related quality of life issues. How do you see the city going forward with reconciling these competing interests?

A: That’s something that we’re working on, and it’s a balance that we have to strike. We have to understand it in terms of the intersect. Depending on where you live in town, there’s different sets of expectations for what goes on there. Living in different parts of the city would sort of dictate what those expectations should be. There are some basic civility, some sort of basic rules that people need to adhere to wherever they live — you know, respecting each other’s property, issues of safety, issues of cleanliness. Those are things that should be constant throughout the city. And then part of being a city is offering different things to different people. They can choose what lifestyle they want to lead, and match that with where they live. And that’s the balance that we’re working on, that we’re trying to strike.

Q: Federal funding of the arts has been a favorite bugaboo of political conservatives, as seen by efforts to dismantle the National Endowment for the Arts after controversies involving Robert Mapplethorpe and other artists. What’s your view of the role that government should play in connection with arts and culture?

A: It’s my philosophy that art for art’s sake is an exceptionally meritorious endeavor of government at any level. I don’t even have to qualify that. Period. In the case of other things that it brings — job creation, economic development, opportunities for citizenry to sort of be part of the community, and all that — those are things that are more tangibly traceable, and that also merit support from government at any level. So I think that we do well not just sort of morally, but we do well economically, we do well socially by supporting the arts. And I’m lucky enough to have this job in a city where local government recognizes that.

Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis[a]phx.com.