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Where arts thou?

Clay County needs to ‘get popping’

Jesse Hollett
Posted 12/7/16

GREEN COVE SPRINGS – Cortnie Frasier’s career as a blues singer earns her enough income to live comfortably in Green Cove Springs. Ask her about her commute to shows, however, and 10 times out of …

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Where arts thou?

Clay County needs to ‘get popping’


Posted

GREEN COVE SPRINGS – Cortnie Frasier’s career as a blues singer earns her enough income to live comfortably in Green Cove Springs. Ask her about her commute to shows, however, and 10 times out of nine, she will sigh and say out of the county.

Among the skilled workers and laborers who migrate out of Clay County daily are native artists who – if the opportunities were available here – would just as quickly stay here to perform instead of driving to Jacksonville or St. Augustine.

However, it doesn’t look like the hemorrhaging is going to stop anytime soon.

“Duval County’s opportunities for art in all aspects is far more immense than in Clay County by a landslide,” Frasier said. “There’s museums around there, all kinds of stuff. Clay County – I feel like they just forget about art.”

Clay County has a smaller population in comparison to the densely packed urban core of Jacksonville, so Frasier said she understands the disparity of artistic opportunities. However, the opportunities and funding for the arts available in Clay County leaves many artists burned, forced to seek higher opportunities out of the county. Clay artists take their spending dollars and ideas into Duval where cooperative funding on the county and corporate level help artists thrive.

Likewise, when artists live and work where they live, communities thrive. In an astonishing report by the advocacy and research foundation Americans for the Arts, the group found funds generated on local, state, and federal level totaled $22.3 billion in yearly revenue. This far exceeded the $4 billion appropriated to arts programs throughout the country.

Nationally, the industry generates roughly $135.2 billion of economic activity, over four million full-time jobs and generates $86.68 billion in resident household income, according to the 2011 report.

“I don’t see a lot of funding for the arts [in Clay County,”] said Oakleaf-based visual artist Kyle Willis. “What little funding I do see, I see entities like the Art Guild of Orange Park keeping that from getting in the hands of artists.”

Willis said the way the art collective applies for county and state grants allows surplus funding after materials are purchased to go into the art collective’s bank account instead and never into the “hands of artists, ever.”

Aside from grants, one way the county funds its arts community is through capital generated from the sale of Florida art license plates. The Department of Highway, Safety and Motor Vehicles doles the funds out to the county where the plates were purchased, but each county must designate a recipient arts organization within the county.

In the 2016-17 budget, the county received $2,125 in revenue from the plates. In Duval, a percentage of the construction costs from any vertical construction project is transferred to the Art in Public Places Trust Fund. The fund helps implement citywide plans for the creation and placement of artworks in the county.

Often, even one building project will bring huge sums of money into the fund.

When specific funds for arts in any community dry up, however, there are grants artists can apply for from various entities.

However, Willis said, many artists don’t know how to write grants or know what grants are available. Since he began to learn about this process, among others involved in making money as a full-time artist, he’s shared his knowledge with other struggling artists in and out of the county. He founded the art collective Local Artists Coming Together for community after he received cold, canned responses from existing art guilds and collectives in Jacksonville.

Willis will host an event on Dec. 18 at his home to help teach artists how to apply for grants.

Sometimes, however, the trouble in making money from art comes from themselves and not the area they work in. Willis said a generation of part-time artists selling their artwork for less than what it’s worth has also contributed to a hallowing out of the consumer and artist mindset. He said when an artist undercuts their process they’re doing a disservice to themselves and the consumer, who is lead to believe original artwork is only worth pocket change.

“I would say in the 16 years that I’ve been in Clay County, it has steadily grown to more of an awareness of the arts to a place where artists – both visual artists musicians and even actors – can practice actually practice their crafts in the county,” said Tony Walsh, a playwright and founding executive director of the Thrasher-Horne Center for the Arts at St. Johns River State College. “Now there’s a difference between practicing your craft and making a living. There aren’t that many opportunities currently for both musicians or actors to make a living [in Clay County].”

Walsh points to Green Cove Springs’ annual CalaVida Arts Festival as an example of how the community is slowly adding more to Clay County’s artistic central nervous system.

Fraiser said events like CalaVida help bring a bigger sense of community to the county and help artists, but said she would like to see more events like these.

Like Duval, Clay County artists tend to collaborate with local businesses to bring projects to life. Brewer’s Pizza on Blanding Boulevard is home to Pinglehead Brewing Company, which has collaborated with local visual artists to make many of their drink labels as well as a platform to advertise and promote local musicians.

The Urban Bean Coffeehouse Café at the corner of Park and Kingsley avenues hosts “Art Buzz” as a free resource for visual artists and artisans alike to set up shop and sell their wares at no cost to them. Likewise, the Rogue Gallery Comic Book Shop hosts “Rogue’s Night Out” monthly to give artists a larger platform to sell their wares in an environment similar to Jacksonville’s monthly art “Art Walk.”

As Clay County brings in new businesses with a focus and appreciation for the arts, in turn, the demand and supply for arts will grow, according to Willis. However, until that time, Frasier will continue to leave the county to perform her blues songs.

“[Clay County] just isn’t popping,” she said on her way to a gig in Duval. “It needs to be popping.”