https://youtu.be/bn1VqaTtJTM 1 Nearly everyone has heard of the WPA and its employment of artists in the 1930s, but few have heard about CETA, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, of the 1970s. At least 10,000 artists — visual artists, actors, musicians, dancers and poets — were employed under this federal program. In addition, CETA provided funds for security guards, administrative positions and other support staff that benefited cultural institutions, performing venues and arts groups. 2 CETA was signed into law on December 23, 1973 by Richard Nixon. It was conceived of as a broad jobs program and it consolidated a number of already existing government programs. It was a bipartisan endeavor. Republicans were able to support the legislation because of its structure: block grants to states that redistributed the funds to regions and municipalities. Use of the funds was then decided primarily on the local level. CETA was designed to be a temporary response to a deep recession and high unemployment. Initially conceived as a training program for unskilled workers, it was amended to include new sections, called “titles,” for trained workers in professions suffering from chronic un-and-under-employment. Photo courtesy of National Archives 3 CETA was not designed with the employment of artists in mind. Unlike the WPA, there were no dedicated arts, theatre or music projects included in the legislation. But this man, John Kreidler, devised a way in which CETA funds could be used to employ artists. RIght after college, he spent five years working in various government positions in Washington, DC, and helped draft the original CETA legislation. He left the Capitol to study in UCLA’s graduate arts administration program. While interning at the San Francisco Arts Commission, he recognized that the Commission’s nascent Neighborhood Arts Program could fit within the community service component of two of the CETA titles. San Francisco became a model for the rest of California, and, ultimately, for the rest of the country. It was under CETA Titles II and VI that the vast majority of artists was employed. Photo still from film, Art Works; ©Ideas in Motions (formerly Optic Nerve); collection Pacific Film Archive 4 Kreidler was inspired by the WPA's employment of artists in service to the community. Unlike the NEA, which gave unrestricted grants to artists, and like the WPA, CETA artists had to work for the public good. CETA was administered by the Department of Labor’s Manpower program, which meant that it had to follow federal nondiscrimination guidelines. Many working-class and minority artists, who often didn’t have the professional connections to get private funding, especially benefited from CETA. At its peak in the mid-1970s, the Neighborhood Arts Program employed over 120 artists creating and presenting work city wide, and gave tens of thousands of San Franciscans access to arts classes and artist presentations in their neighborhoods. Similar programs soon followed. There were large ones like Chicago’s Artist-in- Residence, Washington’s Arts DC and New York City’s Cultural Council Foundation Artists Project. Many more artists were hired throughout the country, in smaller programs or as individuals. As well, hundreds of arts organizations were kickstarted and/or stabilized through CETA funding, ranging from large museums to artist-run galleries. Poster by Joe Ramos, San Francisco Arts 1975 5 At its peak, in 1980, CETA funding for arts employment funneled between $200 and $300 million (about a billion in in 2020 dollars) into the arts. In comparison, the National Endowment for the Arts budget that year was only $159 million. The impact that CETA had on the cultural sector was enormous, and like the WPA, it set the trajectory for contemporary art continuing to this day. Yet it has largely been forgotten. Why? 6 (1) CETA’s structure was decentralized Since the block grants to states were subsequently distributed to smaller and more localized entities – there is no central depository for records. For example, just in New York City, CETA records are widely separated. The City’s Municipal Archives has 55 boxes from the CCF project, but there are also records in MoMA’s library, NYU’s Tamiment Library, the NY Public Library, and the files of Borough President Offices, as well at individual nonprofits. In many cases, documents and photographs are archived or in collections with no reference to CETA. This is the case with a set of photographs held by the Museum of the City of New York; they are cataloged only under the individual photographer’s name. Multiply this scenario by 49 other states, the District of Columbia and the US territories of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands and it becomes apparent that a comprehensive record of CETA’s contributions would be virtually impossible to assemble. With more than 500 jurisdictions responsible for CETA’s operation, neither the artists nor their community sponsors were necessarily aware of their funding source. 7 Graphic: Kaiser Health News, no attribution 7 (2) CETA was a jobs program, not an artist program Although museums, artist-run galleries, libraries, schools, and a range of nonprofits employed CETA artists, their contributions took the form of service. While documentation exists buried deep in organizational files, institutional memory has faded. So, for example, while the website of the Richmond Hill Historical Society credits Blaise for a set of photographs he made while on assignment to them, CETA is never mentioned . probably because by the time the website was designed no one could remember all the way back to 1979! 8 Another example is the Brooklyn Arts and Culture Association (BACA). In 1978, a group of 10 CCF CETA artists were assigned to the former St. Boniface’s School on Willoughby Street in Brooklyn to work under the direction of BACA’s founder, Charlene Victor. Our mission: to convert the school and its courtyard into a performance and art space. This photo is by Blaise Tobia, as are all photographs of the CCF Project, unless credited otherwise. 9 The school had been closed for quite a while. It was structurally and functionally sound, but its interior was a mess. The main downstairs space was being used as a second-hand clothing shop. We cleared out trash, painted walls, created murals and built a stage. Photo: Richard Nicksic and Virginia looking at architectural drawings of the old school 10 In a few months, the Downtown Cultural Center was ready. It went on to become known as BACA Downtown, and became established as a premier arts center. Performers like Spike Lee, Danny DeVito, and playwright Suzan- Lori Parks got their starts there. 11 Nonetheless, if you search the Web for “BACA Downtown” together with “CETA” and you will receive the message “It looks like there aren't any great matches for your search.” Like BACA downtown, nonprofit and artist-run spaces across the country — like Hallwalls in Buffalo, Real Art Ways in Hartford, the Painted Bride in Philadelphia, the Women’s Building in L.A — got their starts with CETA funds. Photo: Virginia standing in front of her mural in BACA Downtown’s courtyard 12 (3) CETA artists didn’t deposit their artworks into a central archive Although under the WPA many artists worked in community service, the Federal Art Project put a great emphasis on the production of artworks. From the start, these works were considered the property of the Federal Government. Two-dimensional works were stamped on the back; three-dimensional works also had attributions. The artworks themselves — those that were not publicly sited (like murals or large sculptures) — were supposed to have been deposited into a federal archive. (We now know that, in reality, many wound up in storage at private institutions and a large number have gone missing.) Still, centralized records were kept and there is a large set of extant artworks that can be identified as having been produced under the WPA. 13 Artworks were also produced under CETA — a good part of them murals and public sculptures — although much emphasis was on community service. In the CCF Project, visual artists were required to work one day per week in the studio and their production was observed by their supervisors. The backs of two-dimensional pieces were stamped with this statement. Depending upon the jurisdiction, ownership retention and copyright varied. Sometimes the community sponsor retained ownership; sometimes it was the municipality; sometimes it was the artists. The City of Portland has declared that all CETA artworks owned by the city may be deaccessioned. Meanwhile, the past and present directors of the Erie Art Museum are locked in a deaccessioning battle regarding the sale of CETA works. Under the CCF Project, unless there was a separate agreement to the contrary, artists retained individual ownership and joint copyright on the works we produced. In any case, there is no central archive documenting the works produced, whether they are owned by a state, city or borough, or by an individual artist. 14 There were (and may still be) attributions on the public works that have survived, such as the Clark Street Subway Station tiles in Brooklyn. 15 The quality and the scope of the public works produced by CETA artists stand on a par with those produced by WPA artists. LEFT: Marion Greenwood, Blueprint for Living, 1940, Red Hook Houses, Brooklyn, NY; WPA, Federal Art Project; Shalat, photographer; Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution RIGHT: Alan Samalin, Earth Science, 1978, Hall of Science, Flushing Meadow, Queens, NY; CETA, Cultural Council Foundation Artists Project Unfortunately, many have been removed and even destroyed as happened to Samalin’s mural .