Even as traditional employers search out creative ways to rekindle cash flow, economic policymakers hope to do the same from what they say is a poorly tapped resource ”“ Connecticut”™s “creative economy” of artists, designers and the institutions that showcase their talents.
The legislative Committee on Higher Education and Employment Advancement is currently considering a bill that would study ways to best develop the creative arts sector, both from the vantage of improving Connecticut”™s quality of living and by furnishing employers with a wellspring of creative workers.
Count Western Connecticut State University President James Schmotter as a supporter of the bill ”“ both from his position of leading the only school of visual and performing arts in the CSU system as well as having been a dean of a business school and who worked on economic development in three states.
“Connecticut’s location near New York City, one of the worlds’ great creative hubs, cannot be duplicated by other states,” Schmotter said, while testifying in support of the bill last month. “We are also close to similar resources and outlooks in the Boston and Providence regions. This location would make it possible to create here a creative corridor to attract both individuals and enterprises focused on the arts and creativity.
“Economic development theory stresses the importance of such corridors and this is a unique strength that we have,” Schmotter added. “No matter how hard you tried, you could not accomplish this in Kansas or in Michigan where in fact, I was involved in an effort to do just this.”
Schmotter said the state already enjoys a significant population of artists, designers, writers and others in Fairfield, Litchfield and New Haven counties, and schools like Yale University provide a new stream of talent annually.
Fred Carstensen, director of the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis at the University of Connecticut, said a strong reputation for creative arts can help companies attract youthful talent that might otherwise end up elsewhere.
“When you bring people in (while recruiting), you don”™t want to show them just the company,” Carstensen said. “You ”¦ want to show them, you know, Blue Back Square if you”™re in the Hartford area; or the New Haven Green, and all of the kinds of things that are going on down there; or the dynamism that has now come into downtown Stamford.”
Susan Talbott, director of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, said the researcher and author Richard Florida has crunched convincing statistics on quality-of-life features that best attract recruits to high-level corporations.
“It turns out that they”™re not attracted so much to places where there are great restaurants, where there are great sports arenas,” Talbott said. “They’re attracted to areas where there are great cultural experiences.”
And companies, of course, are attracted to financial incentives. The past few years, Connecticut tax cuts for film and digital media production have helped Fairfield County attract several new ventures, including the Connecticut Film Center in Stamford and Blue Sky Studios in Greenwich.
Talbott recalled a trip she took a few years ago to visit Blue Sky”™s West Coast rival Pixar Studios.
“It was like a whole city of creative people working ”“ of artists and designers working around the clock,” Talbott recalled. “If we could create something like that in Connecticut, and train people and give kids ”“ very, very, very early on ”“ an understanding of what it is to be an artist, an understanding of how, really, art contributes to their lives and help them go into the field ”¦ I think that the idea of the starving artist is a thing of the past; that there are tremendous, tremendous career opportunities for artists and designers right now with the whole computer industry.”
