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 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 , 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 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 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 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 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; ,

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 . . .

16 . . . as well as to a second mural at the Hall of Science by Richard Nicksic, The Seven Disciplines of Science.

17 Cynthia Mailman’s mural, Commuter Landscape for the PATH entrance at the World Trade Center, was destroyed in the 1993 bombing.

Photo by Stanford Golub

18 Hunt Slonem’s Fan Dancing with Birds at the World Trade Center was destroyed on September 11, 2001. Two additional WTC murals were lost, one by Germaine Keller and one by James Biederman.

Photo by Marbeth

19 Neither do we know what happened to Virginia’s sculptural installation in the children’s section of the Haupt Conservatory of the New York Botanical Garden, although the contract stated that she would be notified if the work were removed.

Photo: Conceptual Garden; 1979; approximately 45” x 30”; relief heights vary; cast tinted concrete blocks

20 Blaise and I are most familiar with New York City’s projects because we were both participants.

We were two of approximately 500 accomplished but underemployed artists who were given positions in five programs, the largest of which (employing 325 artists and 32 administrators during its second year) was administered by the Cultural Council Foundation, an organization that provided services to arts nonprofits throughout the city.

21 The timeline for getting the CCF Project up and running was unbelievably short. NYC Mayor Abe Beame announced the program on October 21,1977. Articles and notices appeared in newspapers the following day. Artists had to go in person to pick up paper applications and return them by 5:00 pm on November 4. Thousands of artists submitted applications, with 3700 eventually being screened for the initial 500 jobs.

A personal anecdote: just two months earlier, we had returned home to Brooklyn from UC San Diego where we had attended graduate school. We were piecing together part-time jobs and were living with our parents. Virginia’s uncle Henry, while reading the NY Daily News, yelled across the living room: look there are jobs for artists!

The very next day we were at Brooklyn Borough Hall to pick up our applications.

22 After submitting an application, there were more hurdles to jump. The first was meeting financial eligibility; having been unemployed for at least 10 of the preceding 12 weeks; being currently un- or underemployed, and having an income less than or equal to the Bureau of Labor Statistics lower living standard.

The second hurdle was proving our professional eligibility. We had to provide resumes along with letters of recommendation from our professors and/or other artists or art professionals. We also had to make a theoretical proposal for a public artwork that would involve a local community.

23 The third hurdle was submitting a slide portfolio, and the fourth was an interview with three panelists, where we had to elaborate on the proposals we described in our initial applications. Virginia’s interview took place on November 30.

The selections were announced on December 29, with a story in the NY Times the following day.

Blaise began work on January 1. Virginia, as a short-list alternate, began work two weeks later.

24 We artists were matched with hundreds of community sponsors for whom we taught classes, led workshops, developed public artworks, gave musical and theatrical performances, and provided visual documentation. In exchange, we received a salary of $10,000 a year (more than $40,000 in 2020 dollars), Blue Cross health insurance, and the one day per week to work in our own studios or on independent creative projects.

We had to fill out and submit detailed time sheets. We received our paycheck at a biweekly assembly that brought together all of the project artists and administrators for informational and artistic programming. At times we were treated to poetry readings, dance performances or concerts.

25 The CETA money for the CCF Project was channeled through the Department of Cultural Affairs.

In 1976-77, then-Commissioner Claude Shostel and Assistant Commissioner Cheryl McClenney had worked with a group of arts professionals, including Ted Berger (who went on to direct the New York Foundation for the Arts), Sara Garretson (Executive Director of CCF) and Rochelle Slovin (who became Director of the Artists Project) to craft a proposal for CETA funding. Henry Geldzahler became Commissioner in 1978 and oversaw the CCF Artists Project until its demise in 1980.

Two hundred other artists in NYC were employed in four projects not affiliated with CCF: American Jewish Congress, Theater for the Forgotten, La Mama ETC and Hospital Audiences. And an undetermined number worked in assignments made directly by the Borough President offices.

Photo: Henry Geldzahler in his office

26 CCF itself directly oversaw most of the artists in its project, but others reported to one of seven subcontractors:

• Association of American Dance Companies • Jazzmobile • Brooklyn Philharmonia • Association of Hispanic Arts • Black Theatre Alliance • Foundation for Independent Video and Film • Foundation for the Community of Artists

Many of the CCF administrators, pictured here, were artists themselves — visual, literary and performing.

27 The Foundation for the Community of Artists, because of its journalistic orientation (it published the Artworkers News, later renamed Art & Artists) was charged with operating a seven-member documentation unit made up of photographers, writers and an archivist.

Because the CCF Project was the last major project in the country to be organized, its initial designers and the administrative teams were able to learn from the earlier projects in other cities.

Both because of DOL regulations and because of a commitment to assemble a diverse group of artists, the CCF project included a remarkable community of artists wide-ranging in race, ethnicity, gender, class and age.

28 As we said CETA employed artists in all fields. Some of them like NY composer Julius Eastman, Minnesota playwright August Wilson, and California actors Bill Irwin and Peter Coyote have gone on to considerable acclaim. But for the purposes of this talk, we will concentrate on the visual artists.

29 Painter Herman Cherry was one two artists in the CCF Project who had worked for the Federal Art Project.

Photo by George Malave

30 The other was Joe Delaney.

Photo by George Malave

31 Ursula von Rydingsvard, one of the most recognized and awarded contemporary sculptors, credits the CETA salary she received as allowing her “to work and work and work” on her art.

She is currently represented by Gallery Lelong, NYC

Exhibitions and collections: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Venice Biennale, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Art Institute of Chicago, Sculpture Center (NYC)

Grants and Awards: National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, International Sculpture Center, Lifetime Achievement Award, Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture, Joan Mitchell Foundation fellowship

Photo: von Rydingsvard working in her Spring Street Studio in 1978

32 The CCF project administrators worked hard to create exhibition opportunities for its artists, such as this installation project in Pelham Bay Park that teamed Ursula up with two other CETA artists, Marjorie Portnow and Germaine Keller.

33 This is the artist now — in her Bushwick studio — standing in front of her sculpture Dumna.

Photo by Daniel Traub

34 Ellsworth Ausby — painter, mixed-media and peforrmance artist — in his studio, 1978.

Exhibitions and Collections: MoMa, , Menil Collection

Ausby taught at both SVA and Pratt; he died on March 6, 2011

35 In 2004, Ausby was commissioned by the Metropolitan Transit Authority to create a public artwork for the Marcy Avenue subway station in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Called A Space Odyssey the installation is a series of eight faceted glass triptychs.

36 ’s photograph of McKinley the Shoemaker was shot as part of his CETA residency at the Studio Museum of Harlem. Bey credits his CETA residency and subsequent exhibition at the Studio Museum as having had a “profound effect” on him.

He is represented by Mary Boone and Sean Kelly galleries.

Exhibitions include the National Gallery, Tate Modern, Queens Museum, ICP

Grants and Awards: MacArthur Genius Award, National Endowment for the Arts and Guggenheim fellowships

37 A paired image from Bey’s recent show at the National Gallery in Washington DC:

• The Birmingham Project: Don Sledge and Moses Austin, 2012, printed 2014, 2 inkjet prints

• Purchased as the Gift of Peter Edwards and Rose Gutfeld and the Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund for the National Gallery

Bey now lives in Chicago.

38 We’ve already shown you Hunt Slonem’s 80-foot long mural that was destroyed on 9/11.

This is an example of his current work (no title for this piece on his website!)

Exhibitions and Collections: Fischbach and Marlborough galleries, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, the Miro Foundation

Grants and Awards: Greenshields Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts fellowship

Slonem still lives in New York.

39 Willie Birch with his mural Shapes, Forms and Symbols, done on assignment at the Tremont-Cortona Day Care Center, Bronx

He is represented by Louise Ross and Bernice Steinbaum galleries.

Exhibition and collections: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney, New Orleans Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; shows Exit Art, Museum of Art and Design (NYC), Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, Smithsonian

Grants: US Artists, Pollock Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Arts fellowship

Photo by Anne Marie Rousseau

40 Willie Birch, Cribs, 2010 (60 x 63”; charcoal and acrylic on paper)

Birch now lives in New Orleans.

41 R.M. Fischer, Birdbath, part of a sculptural series made during a CETA assignment at High Rock Park, Staten Island. He credits the CETA program for giving him the first opportunity to explore the creation of sculpture outside the confines of the art gallery and museum.

Exhibitions and collections: , Whitney, Brooklyn Museum, Carnegie and Nelson-Atkins museums

42 R. M. Fischer, Triptych, 2015; 76” x 93” x 15”; vinyl, fabric, thread, polyester fiberfill, steel, rubber, brass;

Photo: courtesy of Southard Reid Gallery, London

Fischer still lives in New York.

43 A work by Christy Rupp, done during CETA: Rat Patrol, 1979

She was able to use her CETA experiences in creating Rat Patrol to get a subsequent job at the Museum of Natural History, which set the course of her career as an environmentally concerned artist.

She was represented by Frederieke Taylor Gallery, NYC (gallery recently closed).

Exhibitions and collections: Museum of Arts and Design, Hirshhorn, Whitney, The Barnes, Dieu Donne

Grants: NYSCA, National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, Art Matters Inc., Anonymous Was a Woman, and Joan Mitchell Foundation; Archive of American Art (Smithsonian)

Photo by Christy Rupp.

44 Christy Rupp, Ivory Billed Woodpecker from the series “Extinct Birds Previously Consumed By Humans”; 2008; sizes vary; reconstructed chicken bones; Frederieke Taylor Gallery

Rupp still lives in New York.

45 Even artists who weren’t directly employed by CETA benefited. Mierle Laderman Ukleles was assigned CCF CETA photographer Marcia Bricker to document "Touch Sanitation,” which would become Ukeles’ most famous performance work, defining her career.

Photo by Marcia Bricker

Bricker still lives in New York. A book of her photographs documenting “vanished cafeterias” (such as Dubrow’s), many taken during her CETA years, is scheduled for publication in the fall of 2022.

46 It wasn’t just New York artists who found success after their CETA experiences.

In Los Angeles, CETA enabled Judy Baca to create the Great Wall of Los Angeles, the half-mile long mural along the Tujunga Wash.

She, along with nine other artists and five historians, were supported with CETA funds to work with eighty teenagers recommended through the criminal justice department on what is considered a masterpiece of mural art.

Baca went on to found the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC), which has grown into a vibrant community arts center.

47 The late Ruth Asawa, whose sculptures have just been featured in a 2020 USPS postage stamp, also got her start through CETA.

She worked closely with the SF Art Commission and John Kreidler on securing CETA funding to employ artists in school settings. CETA greatly impacted her own work as well as having left a lasting legacy of community involvement.

48 In 1978, the CETA artist-in-residence program run by the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art gave support to many area artists. Among those who participated were Peter Alexander, Allen Ruppersberg and Vija Celmins.

CETA also gave support to Brockman Gallery, which launched the careers of David Hammons and Senga Nengudi.

This is an image from Celmins’ recent show at the Met Breuer in Manhattan.

Untitled (Big Sea #1), 1969; 34 1/8 x 45 ¼”; graphite on acrylic ground on paper ©Vija Celmins; photo ©McKee Gallery, NY

49 It is not well known that social practice artist Suzanne Lacy’s experience as a CETA artist in the Guy Miller Homes, a housing project for the elderly in Watts, paved the way for her community-engaged art, in particular, The Crystal Quilt.

Photo courtesy of https://www.suzannelacy.com/

50 Researching CETA and the arts is difficult but not impossible.

While a comprehensive book has yet to be written, resources do exist.

The CCF Project produced its own documentary book. Unfortunately few copies are in circulation but they are catalogued in some libraries. In the NYC area, copies can be found at the Department of Cultural Affairs, the NY Historical Society Library, MoMA’s library and Bard College.

51 The CCF Project also produced a monthly Journal that included coverage of exhibitions, performances and poetry.

Partial sets of the Journal are held in some libraries including MoMA’s. Rochelle Slovin, the CCF Project’s director, holds what may be the only complete set and is seeking an institution that will archive them.

52 Some of the photo documentation of the CCF Project has been lost. A fine-art quality portfolio of photographic prints, assembled at the end of the project, cannot be located.

Some of the photographers like Marbeth and Sarah Wells have died, and the whereabouts of their negatives are unknown.

However, other CETA photographers are still alive. Blaise along with George Malave from the Documentation Unit, and Larry Racioppo, Marcia Bricker, Nina Kuo and Anne Marie Rousseau, from the artists pool, all have their archives intact.

This was the brochure for an exhibition of work by the Documentation Unit photographers, at Phoenix Gallery, then at 30 W. 57th Street.

53 Just as the Federal Art Project documentary photographs were stamped on the reverse . . .

54 . . . so were photos by the CETA Documentation Unit.

55 CCF CETA exhibitions took place in institutions throughout all five boroughs. Posters and catalogues were produced, but those that still exist are not in a central archive.

This photo shows Ellin Burke, archivist for the FCA/CCF documentation team, taking inventory of work in the “Artists by the Sea” exhibition at Newhouse Gallery, Snug Harbor, SI in 1979.

56 All of CCF’s exhibition posters and catalogues were produced by the graphic artists on the Project.

Photo: Wendy Tiefenbacher screening posters for “Artists by the Sea”

57 This is one that was made for a show at the World Trade Center and Foley Square.

58 This is a poster for an exhibition at Federal Plaza.

59 This was done for an exhibition at the Pratt Institute Gallery.

Graphic panels from this show were donated to the Museum of the City of New York as was a portfolio of 32 various CCF CETA exhibition posters.

60 CETA LEGACY PROJECT:

A broad coalition of artists, administrators, museum professionals and retired government officials who were involved with CETA and/or who are champions of CETA, have come together to work on preserving its legacy.

In particular, Virginia and Blaise have produced two Wikipedia articles — one about the CCF Project and one about CETA Arts nationwide — and have set up a website that highlights the CCF Project and links to the broader history.

Their efforts helped to get the CCF CETA Artists Project included as a case study in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s cultural plan for NYC.

One of the website links is to Steven Durland & Linda Frye Burnham’s 2-volume Kindle book, analyzing the results of this extraordinary program; another is to a digital archive (constantly updated) that is accessible through Google Drive.

61 The legacy project has connected with City Lore Gallery in Manhattan, which is now serving as its “information central.” The Director of City Lore’s Place Matters program, Molly Garfinkel, is assisting us in compiling oral histories, maintaining a Facebook page, grant writing and securing exhibitions.

Molly has also set up an interactive Google map (still in progress), which will ultimately track the locations where the NYC artists served.

62 Besides artists and administrators from the CCF Project, the legacy coalition includes Sally Tallant (Director, Queens Museum), Margaret Winslow (Curator, Delaware Museum), George Koch (who ran the CETA artist program in DC), Deborah Cullinan (CEO, Yerba Buena Center, SF) and Rachel Chanoff (Director of The Office, who is piloting an artist employment program in Massachusetts).

In February 2019, as part of the College Art Association conference in NYC, Virginia and Blaise organized two important panels commemorating the 40th anniversary of CETA and the arts: “The Forgotten Federal Artists: CETA and the Cultural Council Foundation's Artists Project 1977-1980” and “Artists, Institutions, and Public Funding for the Arts: The Legacy of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act.” Among the participants was Tom Finkelpearl, then NYC Commissioner of Cultural Affairs.

Recently, we worked with Maggie Carrigan from The Art Newspaper to produce both an article and a podcast about CETA and the arts.

Photo: CETA panel, College Art Association, 2019; by Virginia Maksymowicz

63 Shortly after the Reagan administration ended CETA, the Committee on Government Operations submitted a report to Congress advising that immediate steps be taken to conduct a national inventory of all artistic and cultural products resulting from CETA funding, similar to the WPA national registry. It included recommendations on how to proceed with that process, but, unfortunately, it never happened.

It is not too late, however, for an institution like the Smithsonian or the National Archives to step forward and act as a central depository for the remaining documentation.

This photo shows Virginia and Blaise, along with three other members of the legacy project going through the 55 archive boxes of the CCF Project at the NYC Municipal Archives. The archives are strong on the “nuts and bolts” of the project’s operation but are weak on photographs and other visuals.

Photo by Meryl Meisler

64 .

65 (1) For a better understanding of the context in which the artists made their art.

Just as the WPA artists responded to their life and times . . .

66 so did the CETA artists.

Being able to be employed, and having galleries in which to show their work, enabled two separate generations of artists to develop and prosper.

67 (2) For understanding how artists’ CETA experiences shaped their careers

This includes not only their personal experiences (like Suzanne Lacy and Christy Rupp) but where they were able to exhibit their work, such as CETA-supported artist-run galleries and performance spaces.

It also includes CETA’s support of African-American, LatinX, Asian and women artists.

For example, the Brandywine Workshop’s Visual Artists in Public Service — an ethnically diverse program in Philadelphia — initially hired 18 CETA artists, with the number growing to 38 per year by the end of the three-year grant.

Photo: Allan Edmunds, founder of Brandywine Workshop; by Sharon Gekoski-Kimmel

68 (3) For understanding how CETA stabilized art institutions that continue to this day

It might be impossible to determine exactly how many museums employed CETA staff. It wasn’t easy, but we tracked down some numbers:

• “Create NYC,” Mayor de Blasio’s cultural plan, estimates that there were 300 CETA employees in maintenance, security, and other positions at NYC institutions • The Los Angeles County Museum of Art had 40 CETA lines • The Philadelphia Museum received employed at least 38 staffers through CETA • The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which includes the DeYoung and the Legion of Honor, had at least 22 CETA employees • The Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT had 12 CETA employees • Even the tiny Sheldon Museum of Art in Middlebury, VT had two CETA employees!

Photo: Philadelphia Museum; by Meihe Chen

69 (4) Knowing what to look for when assessing artworks made during the years 1974- 81

• Stamps, accompanying documentation, inscriptions . . . even with public work. It might not be easy, but it is important to know what questions to ask! Even some of the WPA’s artworks are “hidden in plain sight.”

LEFT: Domenico Mortellito, 1935, Washington Street Station, Newark City Subway; (photographer unknown-contemporary); WPA, Federal Art Project

RIGHT: Joe Stallone, Alan Samalin, Johan Sellenraad, 1979, Clark Street IRT Subway Station, Brooklyn, NY; (photographer unknown-contemporary); CETA, Cultural Council Foundation Artists Project

70 Photo by Larry Racioppo

71