“New London, like small cities across Minnesota, has felt the influx of dollars from the Legacy Amendment, passed a decade ago,” writes Jenna Ross in Monday’s (5/21) Star Tribune (Minneapolis). “Since 2009, Legacy funding has provided more than $440 million to historical, artistic and cultural projects and events … across the state.… The state spends about $6 per person on the arts…. The impact is clearest … in outstate Minnesota, where grants have boosted artists’ projects and rooted fledgling organizations. ‘It’s been a huge boon to the rural economy,’ said Aaron Spangler, a nationally known sculptor who lives and works in Park Rapids, Minn. … ‘In the Twin Cities, there’s a pretty established arts infrastructure,’ said Sue Gens, executive director of the Minnesota State Arts Board. Now Legacy grants are helping build that in communities across the state, she said.… In New London, pop. 1,355, such grants have funded a summer music festival. A 10-foot-tall sculpture stands near the Middle Fork Crow River.… The National Endowment for the Arts found in a November survey that businesses in rural counties with two or more performing arts organizations were 50 percent more likely to be innovators than businesses elsewhere.”
Posted May 24, 2018
