Officials plan to stimulate art, economy
Officials say fostering arts, culture in Greater Lansing will foster tourism, create jobs
Lansing resident Anne Strife models for a live drawing class Monday while Okemos resident John Kroneman, left, East Lansing resident Joy Schroeder and Williamston resident Tom Bayerl draw her at Studio 1210, 1210 Turner St., in Lansing’s Old Town. The drawing class brings people of all different backgrounds together to draw every Monday night.
Tweet
Despite a crumbling national economy, a state budget crisis, rising employment rates and recession, East Lansing and Lansing officials said they have a plan for recovery. Officials from Lansing, East Lansing and MSU unveiled their hope Tuesday evening to create local jobs and revenue by converting Greater Lansing into a Midwest regional arts and culture epicenter.
“This will contribute positively to the economy, to our quality of life and to the sense of place that motivates investment in the region,” Lori Mullins, community and economic development administrator, wrote in an e-mail.
The plan will emphasise arts and culture as a means to create jobs and attract tourists to the area.
Milwaukee-based planning firm Creative Community Builders devised the plan after a series of meetings with residents, city officials and experts.
The plan emphasizes adding room for arts and culture to existing projects to improve Greater Lansing.
Photo: Okemos resident ...
Video: Art Classes in ...
One project mentioned was integrating ideas from the study into an existing plan to renovate the Michigan Avenue corridor or beginning smaller projects such as a community calendar or box office to centrally locate information about arts in Lansing, East Lansing and MSU.
“It does not go into great detail, ‘You will do this, you will do that,’” Creative Community Builders principal Tom Borrup said. “There are some starter, momentum builders, in the plan.”
Borrup said when he and his team of associates came to assess the area in May, he wasn’t sure whether Greater Lansing was a fertile place for creative development. But he found a place with resources and activity to foster cultural growth.
“It was pretty quick, we started to pick up on the fact that there were all of these things going on, but they needed to be stitched together in a better way,” Borrup said.
Borrups’ company suggested Lansing, East Lansing and MSU should work more closely as cultural entities to support artists and growth. Some of the suggestions included making a more artist friendly community and using the arts as a way to attract visitors to Greater Lansing.
Through focus groups, resident surveys, case studies and public meetings, he discovered a high volume of young professionals and an infrastructure that supported more arts.
Borrup and his company did research about trends locally and nationwide. He found that a younger crowd is moving into Greater Lansing and is looking for more opportunities to engage in cultural experiences. Borrup also found that more people were listing themselves as self-employed through the arts.
“While the economy has shrunk overall, there is a counter trend in the creative sector,” he said.
Funding for the improvements will come on a project to project basis, with each one being a part of the larger picture to stimulate artistic and cultural development.
Officials plan to partner with private entities and seek grants to fund the projects.
“Some of (the projects) are short term and can be done very quickly,” said Ginny Haas, MSU director of Community Relations. “Some of them are long term.”
Associate professor in the Department of Sociology and MSU Extension Toby Ten Eyck has done research in various parts of Lansing to see how an active art culture can affect a community.
Ten Eyck said it’s not necessarily about supporting artists by buying art, but often by attending art shows, being patrons of the community and engaging in new ways of thinking.
Adding art and culture to a community makes people more attracted to living and working there, Haas said.
“One of the things that people are talking about is developing areas that really have a sense of place,” she said. “They’re especially places that people really want to be in.”
Holt resident Heather Lydon, who participated Monday in a drawin class in Old Town’s Studio 1210, said art is inviting to visitors.
“Artists put murals on the walls because when they see art instead of an empty storefront, people don’t get scared and they keep shopping,” she said. “When they see an empty storefront, it sort of discourages them.”
Borrup said Lansing’s Old Town — formerly just another dilapidated section of
the city with 90 percent of storefronts empty — has made a name of itself as
a success story of how nurturing arts and culture can revitalize the local economy.
Since the rebuilding effort began, Old Town has come back to life and 95 percent of storefronts are filled.
Time will tell if the plan officials unveiled Tuesday will yield similar results for Greater Lansing.
“It will foster opportunities to make this place more than just the Capitol or Michigan State University Spartans,” Ten Eyck said. “We want to make people interested in new ways of thinking.”
Commentary
Add your $0.02, go to the comment form or follow the comment feed
student
(10/13/09 12:23am)Report
I am a firm supporter of city officials in their task of revitalization, but this announcement is not to my expectations. Either the journalist screwed up or nothing really happened.
FELLOW TRAVELER
(10/13/09 8:40am)Report
I am a huge supporter of the Arts and think they are a vital part of a community. However, I am also a hard headed economic realist, and the Arts are not going to provide economic revitalization to East Lansing, Lansing, or Michigan. Once again, a consultant has been hired at tax payer expense when the city is cutting services to come up with some piece of silliness for an idealized future. As with building condos for young singles, attracting young singles to the area with art is a fantasy. The reason people in their 20s and 30s leave is the lack of jobs not the lack of Art or the lack of condos or the lack of fun. Horse before cart, folks, horse before cart.
The people running East Lansing government keep pushing visions for the future to keep the public from focusing on what a bad job they are doing solving current problems and getting the most bang for the buck. We have plenty of art in the community now that almost no one attends (except the Art Fair in May, which sells little art). We have music. God knows we have plenty of empty houses selling for a song. City government needs to focus on the here and now. But people like City Manager Ted Staton, who couldn’t manage his way out of a paper bag, and Mayor Vic Loomis aren’t interested in the here and now, because they look bad. So it’s always some new project for the distant future or development project with a fantasy for a business plan and dreams of finding some sugar daddy to foot the bills (what are they going to do when the Feds stop offering stimulus money?).
I went to Kresge and the Wharton opening on Sunday. Nice Korean exhibition, with no one else in the museum. The new Wharton looks nice, but it won’t increase my budget for attending events, which is the limiting step not a lack of things to do.
“If you build it they will come” is the belief of moronic optimists. East Lansing is run by moronic optimists.
Benjamin Campbell
(10/13/09 10:19am)Report
Excellent post FELLOW TRAVELER. Very rarely is there a post worth reading.
tedman
(10/13/09 12:58pm)Report
You think they could have found a hot girl to model. I mean this is a college town right?
D
(10/13/09 1:35pm)Report
I agree with the others, that is one of the few posts I have seen on here worth reading. And you are completely right. This city is the epitome of a bureaucracy. Everything about the city and its functions is about making money, and blinding the people to it. Students are the biggest victims to this capitalistic scheme.
JJ
(10/13/09 2:05pm)Report
The model volunteers her time (well, probably paid very little) to help the local art scene but rather than celebrating that, some guys actually go out of their way to post really cruel comments about her. That’s pretty sad, and it says a lot about the maturity level of some of the readers.
MaximumBob
(10/13/09 4:33pm)Report
Fellow Traveller is SPOT ON.
This is just another attempt to grab state and federal dollars for somebody’s pet project. In a few years, they’ll get their name on a plaque (or a building) and nothing will EVER be said about the jobs that were never created.
PS. I usually like my nude models with a few less bandaids.
Just sayin’.
E
(10/13/09 4:53pm)Report
To those who made rude comments about the model: Art doesn’t boil down to “hot girls” posing nude and worrying about whether the observer finds the art sexy or can get off by looking at it. That’s called porn. Last I checked, MSU doesn’t offer porn/stripper classes. Get over your precious little selves who live in your sheltered, airbrushed worlds away from reality. This is a real person who will probably read your hurtful comments. It takes guts to pose nude in front of a classroom of people. I think she deserves credit and her dignity. A body is a body. Quit stereotyping her and assuming things you don’t know.
overweight male model
(10/13/09 6:09pm)Report
To the rude commenters:
If you are MSU students, you can obtain a refund on the State News tax by stopping by their office on Grand River Avenue. Perhaps you can put the money to a publication more suited to your tastes, such as “Playboy” or “Hannah Montana Activity Magazine.”
The purpose of journalism is to present the world as it is. In reality, not many art models would be asked to grace the covers of Maxim or Cosmo. In publishing this photo, the State News gave an accurate depiction of life-drawing sessions.
If you want to read stuff that is designed to titillate or at least provide aesthetic pleasure, stay away from the newspapers. Let them publish more realistic stories for those of us who are interested in what is going on in the world.
Ms. Strife, if you have been reading these comments, please do not quit on account of the ignorant posters above. As I understand it, artists and art instructors have a hard time finding female models, and I would hate to see them lose such a fine specimen on account of a few hairy-palmed rednecks. Thank you for having the courage to appear in the photo on the State news and in the accompanying video on this website.
Turk
(10/13/09 10:42pm)Report
Some people seem to have short memories as usual. Nobody in their right mind would have wanted to live in downtown Lansing before the revitalization of Old Town and Michigan Ave. As far as I’m concerned, this is just an extension of that.
I’m glad that we have people like the model on the cover to bring culture to our town.