Arts awards give Guinn his audience

Gov. Kenny Guinn might have found a more receptive audience somewhere Wednesday night for his message, but I doubt it.

On the stage at the Brewery Arts Center's Performance Hall in Carson City, Guinn handed out a half-dozen Governor's Arts Awards and made a brief but indelible point with each of them.

Before him sat more than 200 of the leaders of the state's artistic community, brought together by the Nevada Arts Council's Oasis 2003 Conference.

They filled the pews of the historic Catholic church that has since been converted into a concert hall. Guinn's message wasn't religious, but it did have a great deal to do with the soul of Nevada. From the walls behind him, angels looked down.

Guinn, as you must know by now, is trying to persuade the Nevada Legislature to lift the state from its reputation of being unable to care for its children, seniors, poor and ill.

Since his State of the State speech in January, most of the discussion has been about taxes, taxes, taxes. Because his plan calls for $1 billion more in revenue, the focus has been on what legislators can cut and what they can't.

On Wednesday night, though, Guinn got a chance to go back to some of the "seize the moment" vision of his State of the State speech. It was an opportunity to talk about what Nevada might become, rather than how many nickels can be pinched.

"We're fighting for all these issues to make Nevada the place we want it to be," he told the arts crowd. "I ask you for your help."

Although I don't recall any talk of the arts in his January speech, the governor made a clear connection Wednesday between arts and education.

When seven students from the Las Vegas Academy of International Studies, Performing and Visual Arts took the stage, Guinn said he wished he had had an opportunity to attend a school that spurred creativity as much as football.

Then he asked how many were Millennium Scholars, the program started by Guinn to pay tuition so students will attend Nevada universities and colleges. All seven raised their hands. "That's $70,000," he noted.

The principal of the school, which won this year's award for arts and education, took the microphone and turned to Guinn. "If we didn't have you," the principal said, "we would be in deep, deep, deep, deep trouble."

Actually, I lost count. He might have said "deep" five times.

The person who perhaps embodied Guinn's message best was Edd Miller, former president of the University of Nevada, Reno, who was given two awards -- distinguished service in the arts and the Nevada Arts and Humanities Awards for Public Service.

In addition to encouraging the growth of arts and humanities at UNR while there, he has been instrumental in a number of Reno arts initiatives, including the drive that raised $2.4 million to turn the Church of Christ, Scientist into the Lear Theater.

That Miller was receiving his awards on the stage of a former church, for which the Brewery Arts Center is raising money to transform into a performance hall, wasn't the only irony of the evening. But it was a sharp reminder of how personal commitment is usually the key to getting a job done. Miller called it "an experience of a lifetime."

Governments don't create artists. But there has to be a foundation of support -- starting in schools, continuing through universities and extending into organizations like the Nevada Arts Council -- that encourages artists, musicians and writers.

These days, it's often necessary for arts organizations to build a case for how much their endeavors contribute to the local economy. They bring in tourists, they fill bars and restaurants, they create a kind of arts industry.

A strong argument can be made, and there's nothing wrong with somebody actually taking a business approach to the whole issue. In fact, the difference between fine art and popular entertainment is usually whether it makes money or not.

But I think we all cringe a little at the thought of artists studying spreadsheets instead of musical scores. It takes the life out of it. I want to listen to music so I don't have to think about taxes.

Somebody has to think about both, though. Somebody has to think about whether this state is a cultural wasteland or, as Nevada Arts Council chairwoman Candy Schneider put it in praising the awards recipients, full of "Nevada treasures."

The answer among the arts crowd Wednesday night was pretty clear.

As I sat in the old church, I remembered the night more than a year ago when it was transformed from a religious sanctuary to an artistic one.

"Without a vision," the priest had said, "the people perish."

Barry Smith is editor of the Nevada Appeal.