Over the last four years, Durham’s creative community has banded together to chart a vision for growing and sustaining the arts in the Bull City.
At Thursday night’s city council meeting, that community got a foundation to build on. The Durham City Council voted unanimously to adopt a new cultural road map, which aims to coordinate arts initiatives between the city and county with the goal of growing the creative economy through funding and leadership development.
The road map, which the Durham County Board of Commissioners approved on Monday, has 10 recommendations organized into four goals: “Balance assets, inspire evolution, cultivate leadership, and foster collaboration.” The plan also calls for dedicated staff to lead a cultural sector that generates $233 million in economic activity and supports 3,246 jobs, according to city staff, but has operated for years without unified leadership.
The unanimous vote caps a laborious planning process that involved gathering feedback from over 3,800 residents who voiced their concerns, hopes, and dreams for Durham’s creative class. Participants cited a need for more grassroots funding for smaller and early-stage artists, as well as affordable studio and performance spaces for artists to develop and showcase their work.
In the first year, no additional funding will be allocated to the arts through the road map, according to consultant Margie Reese, who presented the plan, along with members of the Durham Cultural Advisory Board (DCAB), at the September 10 city council work session. The plan recommends reorganizing existing staff and resources; currently, the city has three full-time and two temporary staff, and the county employs a full-time public-art coordinator.
In year two, the road map proposes adding $1.5 million from the city and county in next year’s budget cycle to provide grants, funding for neighborhood arts projects, and increased staff capacity, with additional funding in the third year for expanding grants and programs, as well as launching incubators for artist development.
“It’s good to put a close to this chapter as we look forward to the next,” said Tim Walter, owner of The Fruit, who spoke at Thursday’s meeting.
Mixed Reactions
Other artists and advocates at the meeting spoke in support of the road map, but their enthusiasm came with caveats. Speakers praised the plan as an important step in the right direction, but some still held reservations about the money being allocated to the road map, and how those funds would reach the artists most in need.
“Get ready for one heck of an analysis battle that’s coming forward because the arts plan doesn’t include an asset map yet … or a discussion of what is a healthy arts ecosystem,” Walter said. “It seems to imagine just a very small sector of what the arts-and-culture sector is.”
Local artist Matt Tantera urged the council to adopt a participatory-budgeting model that would give artists a direct hand in deciding how any future funds get distributed, warning that without it, “large scale projects will be privileged” and money could flow toward nonprofits in ways that he said echo gentrification patterns he’s witnessed in other cities.
R. Scott Frawley, a DCAB member speaking in a personal capacity, was more blunt, warning that without clearer funding guidelines, the road map risks becoming another plan that serves “moneyed interests” rather than artists.
The city budget faced a significant shortfall this past summer. Adding additional funding for arts programming will take “sustained advocacy,” Councilmember Matt Kopac said at the September 10 work session. Members of the road map planning group said the arts are an economic driver and should be integrated into other city priorities.
“[The arts] are not only integral to what makes Durham feel like Durham,” said DCAB member Laura Ritchie, a longtime arts curator in Durham who recently opened a new exhibit space called Boardinghouse Arts with her wife, Shirlette Ammons. “They also create jobs, support small businesses, strengthen neighborhoods, and attract visitors.”
Ownership of the road map’s outcomes also remains unclear, for now. Councilmember Chelsea Cook asked about accountability given the numerous stakeholders—the city, the county, the Durham Arts Council, Durham Next, DCAB, Downtown Durham Inc., and others—that play a role in supporting cultural programming, and each has its own plans. DCAB chair Margaret McNab shared similar concerns leading up to Thursday’s meeting.
“There is a lot of confusion about who does what—the roles and responsibilities and missions,” McNab told the INDY.
The Cultural Road Map Planning Group, cochaired by former mayor Steve Schewel and architect Zena Howard, led the development of the plan with support from city and county leadership, government staff, members of the Public Art Committee and DCAB, and dozens of nonprofits and arts organizations.
The road map will collate various plans and initiatives, but some residents say they’d still like more clarity around who will take ownership of overseeing the road map .
Earlier versions of the plan called for a fully formed “office of the arts” that would facilitate much of this work. José Manuel Cruz, a longtime Durham art educator and Durham Arts Council board member, called on the city council to reconsider the idea.
“I just hope that you guys adopt it, and invest in an office so that we can manage everything there,” Cruz said.
Thursday’s meeting began with somber reflections on recent gun and traffic violence in the city, but the end offered a glimpse into the power of art as a salve for community ailments. Aya Shabu, leader of Whistle Stop Tours in downtown Durham, orated an evocative poem in homage to the history of Hayti.
Following her performance, two members of the Tuscarora Nation—He Reaches Across the Sky, and He Is on the Path—offered an “acknowledgement of those lives that have been lost by exhibiting our art through song,” drumming and singing a beautiful harmonization of their own before doing the same for Kayla, a member of the Waccamaw Siouan Tribe, who wore a bright red dress and performed a traditional dance in front of the council to mark the occasion.
The room seemed captivated by the performances. The council voted for the road map unanimously without discussion.
“I’ve had many interesting meetings over the years,” said Mayor Pro Tempore Javiera Caballero. “I’ll take dancing and singing over being yelled at any day of the week.”
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