psa coverage
Campaign to 'Ask for More' Arts Getting Local Push
Steve HinnefeldHoosier Times
February
10,
2002
If they knew about him.
But if the nation doesn't do a better job of funding arts and arts education, the group says, kids will likely mistake Caravaggio for "a guy on The Sopranos."
The take on the Italian artist is part of a new series of public service announcements produced by Americans for the Arts, an advocacy organization, and the Ad Council. It's titled "Art. Ask for More."
"It's a basic message: The less art kids get, the more it shows," said Sally Gaskill, executive director of the Bloomington Area Arts Council, one of 291 arts organizations supporting the campaign.
The council, which channels federal and state arts grants to Monroe, Lawrence, Brown, Owen and Greene counties, will seek to place the public service announcements in local newspapers and on radio and cable TV. One print ad suggests kids may confuse jazz innovator Louis Armstrong with the first man who walked on the moon - that would be Neil Armstrong. Another says they might think dancer Martha Graham is a snack cracker.
The broadcast ads, narrated by actor Alec Baldwin, similarly use humor and exaggeration to make the point. A radio spot has a parent calling an "art deprivation hot line," frantic about what a lack of art is doing to her child.
"They're entertaining, but we also hope they get the message across," Gaskill said.
Americans for the Arts president and CEO Robert L. Lynch said there's widespread public support for arts education, but schools offer "few and uneven opportunities to learn dance, music, theater and the visual arts."
Gaskill said local schools do a good job with the arts, but it's still important to promote the idea.
"It's to reinforce the notion that arts are important for kids," she said of the campaign. "They're important for learning. They're important for having fun. They're just important."
