Photo by David Olsen

Roberto Bedoya, Arts Cheerleader

By Lee Allen

“I’m an intermediary, a broker, and a cheerleader,” says Roberto Bedoya, who took over the reins as Executive Director of Tucson Pima Arts Council (TPAC) in late 2005.  TPAC’s mission is to “foster artistic expression, education development, and the economic growth of this diverse community by supporting, promoting, and advocating for arts and culture.”
What the former California arts executive (who also spent five years as Director of the National Association of Artists’ Organizations in Washington, DC) finds appealing about Tucson is its potentiality.  “I enjoy the cultural politics here.  I’ve always worked in the practice of artist-centered culture, a refined world in itself like the museum world or the non-profit sector.  Now I work in a civic context, dealing with elected officials, business people, the artistic community and neighborhood groups.  It’s an interesting, confusing, and exciting mix of trying to serve not just the metropolitan region, but the rural area too in addition to strong Latino and Native American communities.  All of these dynamics make the area --- and my job --- pretty unique.  My charge is to listen to everybody’s aspirations, concerns, and frustrations and then move from self-interests to best interest.”

Bedoya is optimistic about where he wants to go and how he wants to get there, despite the obstacles.  “There’s plenty of passion in this town, plenty of will and imagination, but the support system is kind of weak and profoundly undercapitalized.”   In the recently-released 2008 Pima Cultural Plan (funded by $50,000 in grant monies from the National Endowment for the Arts), the arts and cultural climate here was portrayed as a major draw for tourism and economic development --- to the tune of an estimated $120 million impact on the community.

Bedoya would like more funding to work with under the assumption that more in will bring more back. “We get about $691,000 in flat funding from the city each year,” he says.  “We’ve had that funding for the last six years and in the current recommendation, we’ll hopefully sustain that level for at least another two years.  Out of that pool, $400,000 goes right back into the arts organizations --- we support about 80 of them along with a couple hundred artists each year through our grants program and our community arts program of artists-in-residency outside the city.”
The cash-in/cash-back return on investment is measurable, but public good, public value, public purposes, are harder to measure.  “Arts are essential to our well-being in many ways,” Bedoya says.  “Local government contribution to the arts is 94 cents per capita while the national average is six dollars.   So the role of government support for the arts is always a topic for conversation.  My feeling is that it’s part of government’s charge to serve and deal with quality of life issues and see the public purpose behind having a vibrant arts community.”

Relating TPAC to the downtown community is easy for the director as many in the artistic genre live, work, display and sell downtown.  “We’re mindful of the fact that the bulk of the organizations we support, from MOCA to Borderlands to Dinnerware and others, are either located or perform downtown.  Our participation in redevelopment discussions centers mainly around facility needs for the arts and culture community who all have problems finding, securing, and sustaining venues.  Working in concert with the Downtown Tucson Partnership and government agencies, we help find those solutions.”
Bedoya cites several successes in his short time as TPAC front man: “New grants and professional development opportunities for small and mid-sized arts organizations serving ethnic, minority, and other historically under-represented communities.  Co-hosting a regional arts training conference with the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture.  And an on-going  exploration of providing information and resources for independent creative professionals.”

Calling the Pima Cultural Plan, made public in November 2007, “a blueprint for action,” Bedoya says the document demonstrates that art and culture are vital assets to economic growth and regional identity of both the City of Tucson and Pima County and adherence to the suggestions contained therein will bode well for the area’s future.   “This is a living document that sets goals which will lead to collaborations and partnerships,” he says.  “We’ve been successful in not only realizing a plan that feeds off community input, but in triggering a community conversation about arts and culture.”
In creating the plan, TPAC and the Tucson Arts Musicians Healthcare Alliance generated a database of more than 500 supporters of the arts and Bedoya wants to use that as a basis to prepare a local cultural directory once funding is found. 

As to future plans --- “We’ve created a community of implementers that helps us do our job in trying to become the cultural hub of the Southwest and I’d like to keep that ball rolling,” he says.  “I have a strong vision as to what our arts community should be like here and that vision is tied into feeding the potentiality of all those in the arts community.  I want us to be a dynamic Southwestern center of culture where all participants have the kinds of facilities and resources they need to achieve their potential.  It’s not my job to tell you what that cultural hub should look like…my task is to feed the growth of our artistic community to make sure that development takes place.”

Re-printed with permission from the Downtown Tucsonan - June 2008