NEA, Chairman Win Support on Hill

WASHINGTON (AP) â€” A folklorist with a background in country music, soft-spoken Bill Ivey has helped changed the way Capitol Hill regards the National Endowment for the Arts. <br><br>Lawmakers believe

Monday, November 27th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) â€” A folklorist with a background in country music, soft-spoken Bill Ivey has helped changed the way Capitol Hill regards the National Endowment for the Arts.

Lawmakers believe Ivey has brought a more populist approach to the 35-year-old endowment, said Sen. Jim Jeffords, R-Vt.

``The big difference was a shift in emphasis from the Metropolitan Opera to the people in real life â€” to folk singing and things like that,'' said Jeffords, a longtime NEA advocate.

Ivey became chairman in 1998 after running the Country Music Foundation in Nashville, Tenn., for 27 years.

He succeeded actress Jane Alexander, whose led the agency from 1993 to 1997. Her tenure followed a period during which conservatives in Congress sought unsuccessfully to kill the agency because it financed projects some lawmakers said were obscene and blasphemous. Most notable were Robert Mapplethorpe's homoerotic art and Andres Serrano's photograph of a crucifix immersed in urine.

Congress did increase its oversight and cut the NEA budget from a high of nearly $176 million in 1992 to under $100 million in 1996.

The budget remained flat until Congress increased it by $7 million â€” or 7 percent â€” for 2001.

``We've had an administrator that has made every effort to use its money wisely and also to shape the money in a way that's generally more acceptable to taxpayers,'' said Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., who pushed for the budget increase as chairman of the subcommittee that funds the agency.

Ivey secured the extra money by pledging to spread NEA dollars around the country and agreeing to increase access to the arts in rural states.

``If we can do something for rural kids and smaller-state kids, get more resources for art forms outside of New York and California, that's a good thing,'' said Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., a former movie actor who opposed money for the NEA in the past.

Arts advocates say Ivey has done a good job balancing concerns of the arts community and lawmakers.

``He has listened very much to Congress and the kinds of changes they wanted to see implemented ... without ever giving away too much,'' said Robert L. Lynch, president and chief executive officer of Americans for the Arts.

Ivey, 56, grew up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. He was educated at the University of Michigan and at Indiana University and holds degrees in history, folklore, and ethnomusicology.

He taught at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music and from 1971 to 1998 was director of the Country Music Foundation, a nonprofit education and research center.

At the NEA, Ivey has shifted the agency toward awarding grants for general arts themes rather than specific disciplines. For example, the NEA now is more likely to offer money for music creation, presentation or heritage rather than just for jazz. Ivey says that has led to greater diversity among grant recipients.

He hopes to convince Congress to further increase the agency's budget so the NEA can provide larger grants to institutions that foster the arts, particularly through education programs.

``You've gotta make sure the arts organizations around the country are strong and stable and healthy enough to deliver those services you're talking about,'' he says.

Ivey also wants the agency to win back the authority to directly fund individual artists, something Congress banned during Alexander's tenure.

``We know we have to work effectively with Congress to make it a reality again,'' Ivey said.

He says it is important to nurture artists by funding their work, but even longtime NEA advocates on the Hill seem reluctant to go back to paying individuals to create art.

``Right now they've done such a remarkable job of getting popular support, they ought to continue on the course that they're on,'' Jeffords said.

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On the Net:

National Endowment for the Arts: http://arts.endow.gov

American Association of Museums: http://www.aam-us.org/index.htm

Americans for the Arts: http://www.artsusa.org