As part of my Buy Local RI initiative, this week I kicked off a month-long, statewide tour of small businesses focused on arts and culture—businesses that create entrepreneurial growth and jobs as well as boost the quality of our lives here in Rhode Island.
From small jewelry manufacturers, to on-stage performers, to high-end graphic designers and so many more, the small businesses of the arts and culture sector are a key component of the state’s economy.
I launched the tour at an advocacy training session, organized by Rhode Island Citizens for the Arts, where members of the arts community received advocacy training to lobby to restore arts funding that has been slashed from the governor’s proposed 2011 budget.
I support the efforts to restore funding to arts-related small businesses, and hope my Arts and Culture tour will help focus attention on stopping these cuts.
As we work to support our locally grown small businesses throughout the state, we cannot leave the arts and cultural economy behind. The $700,000 cut to the arts may not seem dramatic in the overall budget picture, but it’s a vital lifeline for so many artists and arts-based businesses, especially in these difficult economic times.
My tour itinerary will take me everywhere from a Comic Book Week event at the New Urban Arts in Providence this past Tuesday to a performance of the RI Philharmonic and Providence Singers’ performance of Mozart’s “Requiem” on March 6. For a full list of Arts and Culture Tour events, click here.
If you’re free, stop by an event and experience what a vibrant arts scene we’re lucky to have—and want to keep—here in Rhode Island.