As a city, Columbus struggles with an identity beyond Ohio State football. Leaders both in and out of City Hall have tried all manner of campaigns to crack that particular buckeye, to little avail. While citizens argue about what that identity should be, politicians have basically given the keys to developers and big business to shape the cultural landscape as they see fit, meaning they slap in retail, distribution centers and mixed-use buildings as far as the eye can see until they stop making money.

So far, there shouldn’t be any arguments. This is basic City 101 stuff and people have been saying this on record for decades.

At this point, usually some enterprising type steps in and promises to deliver culture that the city can sprinkle on top of a project, like a hit of public art (usually in the form of another mural) or something representative of a burgeoning “creative industry.” They brand some “new” event they’re doing with a CBUS or a 614 in the name and then start updating their resume once it becomes clear that CBUS614FESTICON is not how anyone refers to it either outside of downtown or absent a smirk.

Now, someone might contest that part. But that’s because they’ve been seen, not because I’m wrong.

What does arts and culture have to do with identity? Pretty much everything. When you think of a city that’s fun or cool and worth travelling to, it’s usually because of whatever arts and culture it has managed to bring to the fore. Much of how this manifests in a given city is dictated by its government and business sector, meaning funds have been directed toward the organizations and people who provide those things, permits have been cut, and programming has been subsidized. The most blatant example of a city that does this is New Orleans, which by design is synonymous with music, architecture and out-loud, public square living. It’s why millions of people move to New York to pursue professional theater. (Again, by design.) It’s why Los Angeles is where you go to pursue film, and why the city organizes around that perception.

This is when some skeptical reader pipes in to tell me that Columbus isn’t those places, which is exactly my point. Columbus doesn’t have any of those things in the quantity or quality that would drive even a scalable level of tourism, engagement or funding. And look: Columbus shouldn’t have those things, but not for the reasons given by these critics. They say we shouldn’t have those things because we’re too small or too culturally disinterested or too historically disconnected. By contrast, I say we shouldn’t have those things because we should have our own version of those things, and at levels that generate the level of cultural engagement a city with almost a million people deserves. You shouldn’t be home to a million people and still struggle with city identity. Despite decades of here today, gone tomorrow arts administrators, austerity measures decimating cultural infrastructure, and false scarcity mindsets installed into every commercial corner, arts and culture is still the best path to answering the question of identity.

Yes, there must be conversations about what arts and culture look like here. Yes, there must be conversations about what identity looks like and how it should work here. But mostly, there must be a change in how we perceive the necessity of arts and culture in our lives – not as an art audience or as consumers or as artists, but as citizens. We must change how we prioritize culture at large. We must do so in a way that doesn’t attempt to convince people who don’t care about art that it is valuable (which doesn’t work). We must show its benefits beyond feel-good hits of ever-shrinking, ever degrading media, or how much it sells for. (And I don’t just mean art; art is culture but is not synonymous with culture, and we must be vigilant about that distinction all the way through).

And here is when the exasperated begin to shout out, “So what is the answer?” which is when I get to say, “You haven’t got your arms around the problem yet.” And then the conversation ends. 

But let’s say it didn’t end there. Let’s say we kept going and we had those discussions and drilled into the best definitions. We have studied the various histories of cultural and civic things and are left only with the question of how to best make the infusion of culture as a social need and not just a luxury of class and errant thought.  How do we prove we care about infusing it into the lives of citizens as a value?  

My friends, we double it.

Double everything. If it’s related to art, double it. Not “culture.” Not “creative industry.” Art, period. (Trust me, you’ll raise the culture bar by starting with art, which is easy to measure and already cheap.) Double the venues for art. Double the number of artists. Double every dollar dedicated to funding art. Double the funders. Double the museums. Double the sales of art, which means doubling the number of collectors. Double the symphony. Double CAPA and GCAC (their money, yes, but also create another version of them up the block). Double the press around art. Double the art schools and departments. Double the public art. Double the galleries. Double the arts districts. Double the book clubs and arts programming and workshops. And then double the access to them.

Double it all. Yes, even if there’s a disaster. We’ve already seen what the world looks like when you can’t access half of the art that exists, so double down especially during disasters.

The reasons for doubling the arts specifically are manifold. Art is the most efficient way to deliver values to a broad population. Compared to other delivery systems, it is cheap, which is not to cast shade on art as a vehicle. Quite the opposite: The ratio of cost to value is unmatched. (But should still be doubled!)

Art is a two-way street, with audiences able to not only take in art but to level assessment and apply what they derive from it. It is largely a public and communal function. It is how we have many – perhaps most – public conversations about intense and necessary subjects. Art is one of the ways in which we enrich our lives in very concrete ways. It is not the icing on a city’s lifestyle cake; it is a main ingredient of the cake.

Art is so integral to how we function as a society that we take it for granted. Commerce and political functionaries understand this; they just call it marketing. They employ art daily in attempts to attract customers, shore up brands, and sway support. Education uses art every day. Art is a language with which we communicate our ideas, dreams and values. It is both a luxury and a necessity. We just don’t see the art around us every day for what it is.

I am not saying double everything as it stands. There needs to be some culling of the herd. We want to double the things that work and that offer us social and public good. We do not want to double administrators and red tape. This is why you pick some things upfront – say, a dozen – and then proceed to deeper agendas and core values. There are some harsh conversations, aka criticisms, that would need to be conducted before anyone starts opening checkbooks. Some of the doubling could happen tomorrow through education. The average Columbus resident thinks there is only one art museum in the city. We can double that number simply by making it clear the Wexner Center for the Arts is, in fact, an art museum, and ensuring there is more buy-in from both the institution and the community. If the number of galleries in the city were centralized, we’d realize that there are at least twice as many as come up in press, funding, and conversation.

There, I gave you two of them for free. 

Is any of that practical? Well, this is where I would normally go on a rant about creative industries and capitalism and over-thinking and value systems, but we’ll save that for another column. For now, let’s just agree to see it as aspirational and not strictly real. It’s important to know your worth when talking about identity and art, and I think Columbus has what it needs to prove both of those things.

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of four The Other Columbus columns focused on the local arts scene and running every other week through February.