Executive Director's Letter
March 15, 2016

As candidates jockey for position in the upcoming elections, arts voters in Baltimore are organizing. Last week’s historic, first-time mayoral forum on arts and culture with its standing room only crowd, was a demonstration of the strength of voters who care about the arts and humanities. For a summary of the evening's discussion check out news coverage from City Paper and Baltimore Fish Bowl.

Now is the time to keep up the momentum. Citizen Artist Baltimore’s (CAB) primary goal for the forum was to demonstrate the power of the creative community, while allowing candidates to present their plans to address their platforms and policies. The primary election is just around the corner, so it is essential that the creative community continue to make its influence felt.

If you have not done so already, click below to take the Citizen Artist Pledge and to stay updated on the campaign: http://citizenartist.vote/. And if you have pledged, share this with a friend!

Why is taking the pledge so important? Historically, the Baltimore mayoral election has been decided by just a few thousand votes. The pledge helps CAB quantify our numbers. Our numbers will influence the candidates. If we influence the candidates, they will pay more attention to their arts and culture platforms.

So pledge now, and if you are looking for more in depth policy information you can check out the candidates’ written questionnaire responses at http://citizenartist.vote/candidates/. You can also get active. The website is full of downloadable materials including the pledge.

And we can be inspired by cities, Boston to name one. To quote E. San San Wong, Senior Program Officer, Arts & Creativity at the city’s Barr Foundation, “Over the course of the Boston Mayoral campaign, the arts, culture, and creative community engaged with candidates in a vigorous public dialogue about how to make Boston a municipal arts leader. Mayor Marty Walsh was a leader in that discussion.” Partners like Arts Boston and Mass Creative through their Create the Vote initiative made the kind of impact we are looking for in Baltimore. Once elected, Walsh appointed a new cabinet level position and launched Boston Creates to develop a strategic approach to the sector. “Boston’s cultural planning process…based on the idea that creativity of residents and creative culture of the city are important, intangible assets, creating a culturally vibrant and inclusive community…We want to understand the creative capital of Boston and create a plan that will prioritize, coordinate, and align public and private resources to strengthen this creative capital over the long term.” (Boston Creates)

We will be watching as Boston unveils its cultural plan in a few months, but also draw hope and inspiration from other communities like Detroit and Atlanta where such work is engaging regional strategies and cooperation.

Enjoy your spring break,

Jeannie