 One of the major industries here in Massachusetts is tourism and one of the major elements that helps promote and support tourism is arts and culture and we have many venues from you know, symphony halls and theaters to places like old Deerfield and Sturbridge Village and Plymouth Plantation. We have places all over the Commonwealth in the cultural sector that contribute to the vitality of our own lives here in the Commonwealth but also our reasons for people to come and visit Massachusetts or to return to Massachusetts or to spend longer in Massachusetts when they come here for a conference or for business or any other reason that they might come into the state and so we in Massachusetts have a very distinct history. We were the first state in the country to form a state arts council, a state agency to support cultural development. We were the first and only state in the country to have an arts lottery. That arts lottery didn't go as well as we had hoped but nonetheless the lottery was started as a result of that and they've earmarked a certain amount of money every year from the regular lottery that we're all familiar with now to support a network of community arts councils where the only state in the country that has statute that has every city in town has the opportunity to form an arts council and receives a certain amount of money from the state to redistribute to artists and arts organizations in support of culture in their own communities. And so we've done a lot of very innovative things here in Massachusetts and one of the things that we've done recently a new initiative was that recognizing that the arts aren't just music and art and poetry and dance and those things. It also is part of a series of other industries, architecture, interior design, computer, various forms and and fields that in which you're using computers use a lot of graphics. So graphic design both on the computers and off the computers. So there's a series of professions that rely upon skilled people who are trained in the arts and who contribute elements to the success of those businesses, those industries, those jobs through the skills that they possess as artists. And so in Massachusetts, we've since broadened out our definition of the creative economy to go beyond just the jobs that are created by museums and theaters and and concert halls and orchestras and the like. We now include and bring together the professions that also incorporate arts. And as a result, we created a council, a creative industries council that has, meets periodically and has developed an agenda to advance various forms of new policy from tax credits to new forms of training and new opportunities to try to help stimulate those other businesses that support the arts and that arts support in turn. And another effort that we've recently undertaken is to see the redevelopment of neighborhoods and downtowns and certain communities, whole communities as being part of our arts and culture network by creating new legislation that allows communities to designate themselves as cultural districts by receiving approval from the State Arts Council, our Mass Cultural Council. And so there are communities now all over the Commonwealth that have begun to organize and conceptualize how the arts might play a role in rejuvenating a portion of their community, whether it be a neighborhood or a particular street or downtown, a whole downtown. All you have to do is to think about North Adams as a good example because Mass Mocha was developed there. They took some old mill buildings and turned it into probably the world's largest modern art museum. That has completely turned around and rejuvenated those mills and that downtown and places that were sitting empty for years unable to secure tenants are now filled with restaurants and galleries and other kinds of shops that have grown up as a result of there being a lot more foot traffic in North Adams, a lot more visitors from all across the country who are interested in visiting Mass Mocha. And so this is a good example of how a cultural designation as a cultural district can help communities reconceptualize and see new hope and new opportunity in a particular part of their community. And we're hoping that many, many communities across the Commonwealth will soon apply for and receive designation in our own area. A notable effort is going on right now up in Shelburne Falls where the folks up there are working, hoping to be one of the first, if not the very first, in the Commonwealth to receive a designation as a cultural district. So arts and culture are alive and well in Massachusetts. It's important for our own quality of life, but it's also important because arts and culture is an industry in and of itself creating jobs directly and creating spin-off jobs throughout the economy.