- June 15, 2025
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Arts organizations that depend on government grants for funding are typically reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them. Witness the muted response to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' unprecedented veto in June 2024 of $32 million in Florida arts grants for the fiscal 2025 year. It wasn't much of a surprise, especially in a "nice" town like Sarasota.
But proposed cuts in federal government funding for the arts and the proposed elimination of hollowed institutions such as the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities by the Trump administration have galvanized cultural leaders across the country. Sarasota, which has trademarked the name “Florida’s Cultural Coast,” is no exception.
An Arts Summit organized by the Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota convened June 21 at the Sarasota Opera House with a mixture of optimism, defiance and facts and figures. The Alliance administers the distribution of $2.1 million from the county’s tourist development tax to local arts groups. It faces uncertainty itself as county commissioners periodically spitball ideas about its future.
Anyone who expected anything less than a class act from the Arts Summit's keynote speaker, Deborah Rutter, the former head of the Kennedy Center, was sorely disappointed. In the run-up to Rutter's Sarasota appearance, President Trump took to social media to discredit her record during her 11-year tenure.
Rutter, a former musician and veteran arts administrator, noted that when she was fired by Trump in February, who has become the Kennedy Center's new chairman, she left the national arts center in fiscally sound condition and in the best position in its history, which opened in 1971.
She ended her talk with a quote from a speech President John F. Kennedy made at Amherst College shortly before his 1963 assassination: "If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth."
On a local level, the arts leaders and administrators speaking at the Arts Summit expressed hope that DeSantis will restore the arts grants he eliminated last year and pointed to anecdotal evidence that they are moving through the budgetary process in Tallahassee.
Angelica Hull, director of grants and advocacy at the Arts Alliance, noted the perception in the Florida state legislature is that "both sides of the aisle want arts grants back."
"We're making the strongest case possible. Arts funding isn't a partisan issue," she said, particularly in Florida, where it helps drive tourism and economic growth.
In the face of uncertainty about government support for the arts, Hull and her boss, Arts Alliance CEO Brian Hersh, emphasized Sarasota's position due to well-heeled arts patrons who are moving here and bringing their wealth with them as well as the strength of local community foundations.
But what can the little guy do? According to a Powerpoint slide, it boils down to five bullet points:
During her speech and afterward in a "fireside chat" with Hersh, Rutter praised Sarasota's vibrant arts institutions. "It's breathtaking what you have created here," she said. Like many others, she gave John Ringling credit for kicking off the cultural party by making Sarasota the winter home of his circus back in 1927.
But today, "in the land of Ringling, resilience is what we need," she said.
Interspersed between the speeches during the three-hour symposium were performances by members of Sarasota Contemporary Dance Theatre, music and interactive rapping by artist and educator Karim Manning, who spun upbeat tunes on his turntable, and a performance by a chamber music group called Upward Notes.
Led by Natalie Helm, Sarasota Orchestra principal cello, Upward Notes performs for prisoners, homeless shelters, dementia patients and assisted living facilities throughout the U.S.
By delivering the message that arts enhances community and quality of life, speakers at the Arts Summit were essentially preaching to the choir. Among the event's attendees were some of the Arts Alliance's newly elected board members and representatives of such important Sarasota institutions as Ringling College of Art and Design, the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe, Architecture Sarasota and The John and Mable Ringling Art Museum, just to name a few.
Everyone left feeling validated by Rutter's resolve to stand up for the arts and her words of praise for Sarasota.
Nevertheless, Rutter warned the audience that it's a mistake for artists and arts advocates to get an inflated view of their role in society. "We never want to risk being regarded as elite, niche or 'over there,'" she said.
