 Welcome to INSIGHT, produced in partnership with Lakeland Public Television, serving North Central Minnesota. Today we are chatting with Laura Setter of Region 2 Arts Council. Laura has generously agreed to share some of her experience with us. I'd like to thank you, Laura, for joining us today. Thank you for inviting me. So let's talk about art. Let's talk about performance. Let's talk about the wonders of bringing creation to this region. Talk about the Region 2 Arts Council. Well what I can tell you is that we are part of 11 regional arts councils in the state. So we just make up a portion of the force that is helping to support artists and creative ideas here in Minnesota. Region 2 Arts Council, we're located in Bemidji at the Rail River Folk School. We are a staff of two and a half. We have a board of 10, but we also have an Anishinaabe Arts Initiative Advisory Council that helps us make decisions. Bemidji is comprised of, or not Bemidji, but Beltrami County, is comprised of 20 percent at least of Native American people. And so we find that it's really important for our arts council to encompass the voices and the creative ideas and the initiatives that come from our whole county. And particularly when art emerges from different peoples and different traditions, you have a number of different Native traditions here in this region and quite diverse. You also have a number of different European traditions. You have a new entrance into the region. Talk about how art attaches to people. That's a great question, because particularly with the Native artists that we serve and who we work with, there's contemporary and traditional art. And I think that that's really important. And that is also something that we support and we showcase and we try to bring from traditional spaces into non-traditional spaces, like our coffee shops, like our office space, and into other arts festivals that aren't particularly or only Indigenous arts festivals. So we find that it's our work to highlight and to bring art out of places where it might be hidden or not seen or only seen by a certain number of people. How is the arts fostered here in Minnesota? What are the funding streams? What kind of public support? What kind of private support do you experience in this region? Well, I want to for sure talk about the Legacy Amendment from 2008 when the arts and culture sector got together with conservationists and naturalists and put together a legislature that was then voted on by the people in Minnesota to take a three-eighths of a cent increase on our sales tax and that that would be divided so that we could preserve our natural spaces, our waterways, as well as our arts and cultural heritage. And how that impacted the Region 2 Arts Council was that the amount of money that we had was primarily from the McKnight Foundation and also from the state's general fund. But given the influx of funding dollars from the Legacy Amendment, that tripled the amount of money that we had to share. So for example, in fiscal year 2018, we have nearly half a million dollars to use to support the arts in our five-county region. Right now, I've only talked about Beltrami County, but we are also working with artists and organizations who want to bring art into the communities of Hubbard and Clearwater, Lake of the Woods and Minoman counties as well. So we've got a five-county reach. We have a total of about $440,000 to work with. And the Legacy appropriation really made that amount possible. But with that means that we have to be very innovative and we also have to work on inclusivity and we have to work on equity issues as well. And we're kind of on the cusp of that with our statewide Regional Arts Council system is that the McKnight Foundation has encouraged us to take a look at the funding that we receive and to ensure that we get further training so that racial equity and cultural equity and inclusivity becomes part of our system and part of what we do more than just reaching out and supporting artists. But how do we bring this cultural dynamic into our workplace and also into the way we help fund our arts projects and programs and artists as well? Why is art important to the economy of the region? It's important because, for one, people love innovation and artists are innovators. And innovation helps infuse the economy with ideas, with change. Change is important. It also brings people in. Art gathers people around it, around ideas, around beauty, around questions, around critical thought. And it creates a conversation that's different even than the one we're having here. It creates a conversation where it can be inspired not by what someone says but by what someone sees or what someone hears. And I think that's a beautiful thing. And that does make a difference. And I can also talk about the economic impact of the arts in our region. It's really exciting. It's exciting what full-time artists actually put in economically in terms of their own resources in order to generate their own art. It's exciting what part-time artists do as well, what audiences pay to see performances, and also what organizations put out to have these events happening. They say the Creative Minnesota Report, also a gem in the state of Minnesota is that we have a group that puts out a Creative Minnesota Report. And the most recent Creative Minnesota Report says that there's an $11 million impact by just the money that goes into our economy based on creative expression in the arts. So that's exciting. And it's a question of return on investment, right? Absolutely. You're making the community more enjoyable, more fun. You have a quality of life impact. And you see the economic impact. You see the multiplier effect for every dollar spent in the arts. I was just at Bridget's the other day, and I had walked around the town and as soon as music appeared there, as soon as we had a band performing their fantastic, fantastic music, the place went from being somewhat patronized to being totally jam-packed. Everybody wanted to hear and listen and talk, and you could actually see the change in, and people were spending money and they were at the bar and they were ordering food and so on and so forth. But you could also see the change in energy. The conversation level became much more animated as people were interacting. It was just a very, very wonderful, enjoyable experience, absent art. It would be like the neighboring restaurant, which had patrons, but it wasn't as full of energy and life and also spending, basically. And I think our communities were really lucky because our communities and places like Bridget's recognized the importance of flexibility. That particular music event was supposed to happen at the waterfront, and the weather wasn't great, and so it just, boom, went into Bridget's, was there, was able to be created, and it happened. It was spontaneous, and art brings about and I think encourages spontaneity, spontaneity of thought and just a change up in the energy. It's wonderful and welcoming, and that's what we want in our communities. And there's a tradition here in the community. I walked by the Paul Bunyan and Babe concrete statue, and those are art pieces. They're attractions. They were created in, I think it was 37. And they have a great place in the history of this area. When you look back at how art creates a sense of place and accomplishment and gathering, these kinds of effects have really been around for a long time. And I look at also the architecture of the area and the various facilities that are quite beautiful, and all of this attaches to the work that you do in Region 2. Absolutely. Absolutely. We want it to. And there are initiatives that are cropping up completely on their own without Region 2. But we're part of the puzzle, and that's what's exciting. I don't know if you walked a little bit down the pathway towards the Chief Bemidji statue, or the Sheinawishkang statue is what he's called, but that was a public art project that was a true convergence of cultures and really thoughtfully well done with family members of Chief Bemidji along and descendants, along with community members who had the awareness, the resources, and the desire to make a change and also to change the presence of Chief Bemidji in our community. So it's really, it is exciting. We are so happy to be able to help where we can and support artists and arts initiatives. But also we're very happy to stand by and just be in awe of the things that people are doing and what they're creating and just the manpower, the womanpower that goes into taking a creative idea and turning it into something as beautiful as the Chief Bemidji statue, for example, or something as wonderful as a production that the Bemidji community theater does, or the children's theater aspect of that, or just the ways people come together and the energy and care that they put into it. And having that balance of listening and sometimes standing up for projects, sometimes offering a helping hand for a project, but also sometimes standing aside when your help isn't necessary and just cheering on from the sidelines, each of those different contributions are very meaningful for different projects and for different artists. It has been so wonderful to hear about the work of Region 2. Laura Seder, thank you so much for explaining the work of the Region 2 Arts Council and thank you so much for your insights.