Photography by Matt Marcinkowski
Vanessa Cooksey
The night in Forest Park began with fumbled hugs and elbow bumps. For many audience members at the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival performance of King Lear, the reentry into the arts scene was a little awkward. For Vanessa Cooksey, the new president and CEO of the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis, that evening’s crowd was a reminder of the diverse audiences that make up the region.
Appointed to her post in November 2020, Cooksey envisions “a full and creative life” for every St. Louisan. She wants art to be accessible and engaging for all, regardless of age or neighborhood. But because the organization’s revenue mainly comes from hotel and motel taxes, it has been up against significant odds during the pandemic. Providing funds for programming and its grantees—local artists and organizations—has been difficult. General-operating grantees have had their payments reduced to 25 percent, and programs-support grantees are down to 40 percent. Cooksey has begun to rely on the Arthur Ashe quote, “Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can,” to remind her to focus on how the RAC can make the biggest difference now.
During the pandemic, the RAC set up its Artist Relief Fund with more than $500,000 to help 600-plus local artists with expenses—all while the organization lost 62 percent of its revenue due to the economic impact of COVID-19. Cooksey is now exploring different streams of funding, including federal grants, money from the National Endowment for the Arts, a potential allocation from the city and county’s American Rescue Plan Act funding, and individual donations. “We’re being very thoughtful about where we can get money that brings new resources to the table,” she says.
Although the organization took a sizable hit, it remains focused on helping. In addition to its Artist Relief Fund, the RAC has also worked with the Missouri Arts Safety Alliance and venues throughout the pandemic to adjust to the latest COVID-19 guidelines and requirements.
“All the different ways we have to pivot in our industry, to me, is the apex of creativity,” Cooksey says. “That’s when creativity really happens—in a crisis.”
BY THE NUMBERS
Sobering stats reveal the pandemic’s impact on the country’s arts organizations. Throughout the pandemic, the nonprofit Americans for the Arts has been surveying the country’s arts and cultural organizations, collecting data on how the pandemic has affected them. The results are displayed in an ever-changing dashboard of stats on finances, layoffs and furloughs, vacant positions, and virus mitigation efforts, among others. Here are some of the findings.
120,492
Number of nonprofit arts and cultural organizations in the United States
$15.2 billion
The estimated total economic impact of COVID-19 on the arts nationally
365
Number of nonprofit arts and cultural organizations in Missouri
$17,500
Median financial impact per organization in Missouri
