“I looked around on Monday, two weeks ago, and half my friends were unemployed,” said elizabet elliott.

It’s not an entirely uncommon sensation these days, with the coronavirus shutdown driving layoffs, furloughs and general uncertainty. But elliott is the executive director of the Alabama Contemporary Art Center in Mobile. The friends she’s talking about are creators.

As she has touched base with her professional counterparts, the leaders of other museums, she has seen the same shock waves rattling their seemingly solid institutions: The sudden need to shut themselves off from the visiting patrons who are their lifeblood; the worry for the artists whose work they showcase and for the employees they want to protect; the pressure for them to ramp up their online offerings; and the anxiety-raising uncertainly about how long the shutdown will last and how long the aftereffects will be felt.

With the spotlight on public officials making life-or-death decisions on public health, on the numbers counting up a crisis, on the medical professionals fighting it and on the dead, the impact off all this on the arts hasn’t been getting a lot of attention. But within that sector of American life and American culture, people are fighting for the lives of their institutions.

“To a large part it’s an existential crisis,” said elliott.

Graham Boettcher, the R. Hugh Daniel director of the Birmingham Museum of Art, said arts institutions are working furiously to chart a course through the crisis. They’re mindful of lessons learned in economic slumps and other past tribulations, but none of them provide a quick and easy map of the path forward.

“This is just a very different storm,” Boettcher said.

FEARS AND FOREBEARANCE

The crisis quickly became personal at the Mobile Museum of Art: The first death in Baldwin County attributed to COVID-19 was Tim Gaston, a man whom Deborah Velders, the museum’s director, described as “one of our most beloved board members.”

So Velders was not speaking in the abstract when she said the pandemic challenge “is difficult, but it forces us to rise to the occasion to handle fear, adapt and innovate, and deal with heartache.”

Deborah Velders, the executive director of the Mobile Museum of Art, said the challenges for institutions grappling with the COVID-19 epidemic include grief. (Sharon Steinmann/ssteinmann@al.com)MO

Velders said her museum had gone through the same responses to the epidemic as virtually all such institutions -- cancelling programs, meetings, classes and all commitments involving public attendance. “We went into hyperdrive over two weeks ago to put in place projects, training and tasks that could enable teleworking while rotating staff to maintain critical operations,” she said.

But that was just the start of a struggle to return to normalcy that could last years. Asked how long he thought it might take, Elliot Knight, director of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, said, “The short answer is, I’m not really sure yet.”

Even trying to tally up the damage done so far is a daunting task. Knight cited a survey being conducted by the group Americans for the Arts. Among other things, it allows arts organizations to report the economic harm that they’ve sustained. By April 3 that had hit $3.7 billion.

The results can be broken out by state. By April 3 it had gotten 118 responses from Alabama, adding up to more than $900,000. That’s just for the first few weeks of a shutdown that appears likely to last through April, if not longer. “We’re still encouraging people to fill that out,” Knight said.

The numbers from Alabama point toward a shaky future, with 67% of respondents saying they expected the overall impact to be severe or extremely severe. While 27% said they didn’t foresee staff layoffs, the same percentage said they found it extremely likely.

Donna Russell, executive director of the Alabama Arts Alliance, said the 118 respondents might represent 40% of the arts organizations in the state, so literally the damage might not be the half of it.

Knight said the CARES Act, the $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump, contains some significant help starting with $75 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. Of that, 40 percent is to go straight to state and regional organizations such as the Alabama State Council on the Arts; Knight said he expects his organization to serve as a conduit for between $300,000 and $400,000. The rest will be distributed by the NEA.

Other allocations in the CARES Act, such as $75 million to the National Endowment for the Humanities, also could help arts institutions, Knight said. And he said it appeared the NEA was relaxing some requirements, such as the need for matching grants and limits on how much grant money can be spent on operating expenses.

This early in the situation, everybody knows it might spell the end for some arts institutions. But nobody knows who that might be, or what patterns will emerge. Knight cited a March 19 Washington Post interview with Michael Kaiser, the former president of the Kennedy Center and the chair of the DeVos Institute for Arts Management at the University of Maryland. In the article, Kaiser suggests that midsize organizations, those with budgets between $2 million and $10 million, might be most at risk, because they lack the deep backing common to bigger institutions and the responsiveness often shown by smaller ones.

But in the Post article Kaiser also throws out a really alarming caveat for arts institutions of all sizes: “If this goes on for six months, then all bets are off,” he says. “Then I think we’re really starting the arts ecology over.”

Amid the gloom there’s been some counterbalancing grace. Most museum directors contacted for this story said they’d seen philanthropic foundations and similar entities taking a supportive stance on existing grants. In some cases this has meant allowing grant recipients to shift money around so that they can keep paying staff.

“I think there’s been pretty broad recognition of the need for that with funders,” Knight said.

Jackie Clay, executive director and curator at the Coleman Center for the Arts in the tiny Black Belt city of York, Ala., singled out the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts as one entity taking this approach.

“They reached out to us before there was even an inkling of this being nationwide,” said Clay.

“I have seen this from national foundations,” said Dana-Marie Lemmer, director and curator of the Wiregrass Museum of Art in Dothan. “They are really out in front of this, and are promoting a model of trust based philanthropy. Some foundations have been incredibly supportive and flexible of the change in circumstances many nonprofits are experiencing. In Alabama we have experienced this with the Daniel Foundation of Alabama, who has doubled down on their support of WMA, and it is allowing us some breathing room to respond rather than wait.”

“A lot of us are really having to reinvent how we do what we do,” Mobile’s elliott said. She’s heard museum directors and board members worried that between the shutdown itself and the recession that might follow, some of their budgets could shrink by 30% to 40%. “It’s a very real and present concern for every institution I’m aware of,” she said.

Velders said that at the Mobile Museum of Art the immediate focus was on “practical issues,” such as maintaining operational functions, and prioritizing the safety of people, art work and facility. “We have no idea of the potential loss of revenue, but we are already losing daily revenue of course,” she said. “It all depends upon the duration of all this.”

Graham Boettcher, head of the Birmingham Museum of Art, said keeping his staff employed is a top priority in dealing with the coronavirus shutdown. (File)File photo

Velders didn’t cite a specific example for philanthropic forbearance, but said she’d heard a lot about it from colleagues around the country. “We are encouraged by a solidarity of support for our field from many directions, and by every level of involvement -- funding sources, artists, galleries, collectors, etc.,” she said. “What we see is a shared will to save the arts, our people and all that our culture signifies about us. I can say we have heard nothing but positive support and encouragement from within, and outside of, our community.”

Said Lemmer: “It’s important now more than ever to trust nonprofit organizations to know what’s best for the communities they serve. We are all adapting the best we can, within the restrictions we’ve been given, but unrestricted, operational support is what allows organizations to be flexible and to respond to community needs in real time.”

LESSONS FROM 2008

As veterans look back to the last time they went through anything like this, they’re remembering the bruises and lessons of the economic slump that started in 2008. And one of the biggest of those lessons is that it might take a while even to get to the bottom.

“I was in grad school in 2008,” said Clay. “So I was in grad school when the market crashed. I actually got laid off.”

That was the immediate hit. But the full impact took two years to unfold, she said. By 2010, even the biggest foundations were feeling the damage to the investment portfolios that power their giving.

“The board and I are already thinking nine months from now, 18 months from now,” Clay said.

The future of philanthropic funding “is really one of the great unknowns right now,” concurred Boettcher, who by contrast heads the largest arts museum in the state and one of the largest in the region. “Individual giving is largely guided by the health of the stock market,” he said.

Boettcher has his own memories of the post-2008 recession. Then as now, foundation support was critical. He’d come to the museum in 2006 as the Henry Luce Foundation Curatorial Fellow in Art. In 2008 he was hired to fill the new job of curator of American art. As that recession deepened, the Henry Luce Foundation created a relief program, providing “bridge support” that sustained the position.

Boettcher said other local large foundations suspended applications and pivoted to emergency relief. Even so, he said, the Birmingham Museum of Art weathered its share of furloughs and layoffs.

This time around, he said, “I hope that money that’s available to provide relief to cultural organizations is made available quickly enough to have an impact.” Boettcher said that since coming to Alabama he’s been impressed by donors’ commitment to “extreme philanthropy” and their determination to live up to promises made in better times.

Directors contacted for this story said maintaining employment to the greatest extent possible was a priority.

“We’re pretty small. The upside to that in this moment is that a little money goes a long way, if you’re nimble,” said Clay. “Keeping those folks paid feels like really important mission work.”

“Our No. 1 goal is keeping our staff employed,” said Boettcher.

“One of the things I think has worried me the most is that Alabama has the fourth lowest unemployment benefits in the nation,” he said. (It’s tied for fourth-worst, with a maximum payout of $275 a week and a duration shortened just last year.)

“It’s just very frightening and sobering to think about what unemployment could mean for the unemployed so I don’t want to put staff through that,” said Boettcher.

As the CARES Act was being developed, arts institutions began an ongoing campaign to remind policymakers and the public that arts play a notable role in the economy.

“The arts are a huge business in Alabama” said Russell. “We’re really trying to get the message out about how this affects jobs and the economy.”

Aside from a few scattered cars belonging to staff or to people using the adjacent Langan Municipal Park, the parking lot of the Mobile Museum of Art sits mostly empty on Tuesday, April 7, 2020. (Lawrence Specker | LSpecker@AL.com)Lawrence Specker | LSpecker@AL.com

In February, the Americans for the Arts Action Fund put out a fact sheet reporting that the arts & culture sector represents 4.3% of the nation’s gross domestic product and 5 million jobs. In Alabama, the group said, it accounts for $4.6 billion -- 2.3% of the GDP -- and more than 46,000 jobs.

Velders, in Mobile, cited the same group. “Nationally, the industry generated $135.2 billion of economic activity -- $61.1 billion by the nation's nonprofit arts and culture organizations in addition to $74.1 billion in event-related expenditures by their audiences,” she said via email. “This economic activity supports 4.13 million full-time jobs and generates $86.68 billion in resident household income. Our industry also generates $22.3 billion in revenue to local, state, and federal governments every year — a yield well beyond their collective $4 billion in arts allocations.

“So in addition to being economic engines for tourism and business, the arts generate jobs, and multiply revenue to other industries. This is the message we, and our supporters, conveyed to legislators as they pondered the latest stimulus bill,” Velders said.

There’s a flip side to that. There are provisions in the CARES Act designed to help small businesses, and changes that may make it easier for arts institutions to apply. But that means they have to think of themselves as businesses, not as something outside the world of commerce.

“That’s pretty much what I’ve been working on all week,” said Russell. The Alabama Arts Alliance can’t give financial advice, she said, but it’s encouraging arts institutions to be proactive in getting some.

As museums consider the Payroll Protection Program that the CARES Act put under the Small Business Association, they’re having to reconsider, and assert, their place as commercial operations. For some, coronavirus may be driving a real shift in perspective on their own identity.

“I think it is. I really think it is,” said Russell. “Often nonprofits put themselves in a different category.”

VIRTUAL HOPES, REAL LIMITS

To say the coronavirus shutdown placed an immediate premium on museums’ online offerings is putting it mildly.

Boettcher felt like the Birmingham Museum of Art already was doing a lot, in terms of online engagement. Even so, “Never did we imagine that every parent of a school-age child in Alabama would end up being a homeschool teacher for the remainder of the year,” he said.

The museum has doubled down, Boettcher said. It had an upcoming exhibition of Asian art with a major online component. Now that’s going to hit the Internet much sooner than planned. It’ll come complete with lesson plans useful to schools and parents. “It’s really, really rich,” he said.

The Birmingham museum has piled all its online offerings onto its homepage at https://www.artsbma.org/, making it easier to find what everyone’s looking for during the shutdown. Boettcher appears in his own “Director’s Cut” video series, while other offerings include mini digital exhibitions, a blog, “Art Escapes” showcasing favorite exhibits, “Studio to Go” activities and classes and even puzzles and games.

“People are loving the jigsaw puzzles,” said Boettcher.

Other museums in the state might not have quite the level of resources the Birmingham flagship can deploy, but they’re answering the call. Lemmer said that in Dothan, the Wiregrass Museum of Art “has been building its I.T. and technology infrastructure for the past several years, and in January even launched our own, free, museum app.” That laid the foundation to do more after closing the museum’s doors on March 17.

Like other directors, including Velders at the Mobile Museum of Art, Lemmer said that Wiregrass is rapidly ramping up is efforts, particularly when it comes to online educational resources. “The museum has a series of lesson plans that can be accessed online; all lesson plans are cross curricular and can be searched by subject matter or grade level,” she said. “We have an educator’s blog that is updated every Monday, and a new series of daily art breaks, including longer format video lessons and lunch and learns, that are inspired by works of art in the museum’s permanent collection and temporary exhibitions.”

But going online isn’t a magical cure-all. Particularly when it comes to education, the uneven availability of broadband creates a problem of inequity. Even in Birmingham, Boettcher said it’s a concern, though he said he’s pleased to see schools taking it seriously as they shift to online learning for the remainder of the academic year.

It’s somewhat more of an issue in places like the Wiregrass region. “As an organization that cares deeply about access and equity, the idea that these tools will not reach everyone that needs them is troubling,” Lemmer said. “To address some of this concern, WMA is in contact with local school systems in the hope that we will be able to provide take home art supply kits to add to school lunches being distributed across our district.”

In a rural, lightly populated region like the patch of west Alabama where the Coleman Center operates -- west of Demopolis, north of Butler, southwest from Tuscaloosa, closer to Meridian, Miss., than to any major population center in Alabama -- the gap isn’t theoretical. It’s the reality where the conversation starts. Clay said it’s not unusual to find she has no cell service while in Sumter County and adjacent counties. Those who do have Internet access often depend on relatively slow and expensive satellite connections.

Clay said the CARES Act might fund increased broadband access, though it won’t come quickly. In the meantime it may not make much sense to sink scarce resources into beefing up the Coleman Center’s online presence, knowing that surrounding patrons will have little access. She’s hoping to find ways to capitalize on social media.

“I feel urgency in general,” she said. “I can’t imagine what parents are doing right now.”

Russell said that “one of the biggest lessons we’re learning is that we do need to have more virtual-type offerings,” but she sees another lurking issue. Some of the best online lessons guide viewers through a hands-on component, giving them something more to do that simply sit and watch. But even those can’t replace the tactile experiences of being taught hands-on lessons in a science lab or an arts studio.

There’s also the problem that slapping stuff online, in some cases, might not do justice to the art, the artist or the onlooker.

At Alabama Contemporary, elliott hasn’t been dragging her feet. The museum’s “Postcards from Quarantine” project, featuring a virtual gallery of entries, is among the very first exhibitions in the state created in direct response to the COVID-19 epidemic. She’s looking at more ways to put exhibits online.

But she’s also keenly aware that presenting the art involves curating the space around it. Strip that away, and everybody loses. Something to experience becomes just one more thing to look at.

“The immediate suggesting everybody’s got is, do a video tour,” she said. “But there’s a reason we weren’t already doing video tours.”

“In my career, the thing I’m best at is creating social spaces,” she said. “And I can’t do that right now.”

INDIVIDUAL STRUGGLES

There’s more than art museums to the arts, and the shutdown has hit individual artists harder, if anything.

Just as Americans for the Arts has begun a national survey of the institutions, the Alabama Council on the Arts has begun a survey of individual artists. With about 250 artists responding, nearly 90 percent said they already had lost income.

“Spring is a hot time for visual artists and craft artists who do the outdoor circuit,” Knight said. Christmas is big, then there’s a lull, then the arts and crafts festivals provide a rebound. This year they’ve all been canceled. In some cases artists have lost booth fees that aren’t being refunded, and they’ve also missed out on the opportunity to meet new patrons and log new commissions.

“It’s having a pretty dire effect,” said Knight.

Boettcher said that many artists have day jobs, but they’ve provided uneven relief. Those who work as educators or who have positions at large institutions like his have fared better. But those who work in the service industry have, in many cases, seen those jobs dry up too. “People are suffering,” he said.

As of April 3, the state council’s survey had garnered 266 responses. More than a third reported being unable to create artwork or engage in their artistic practice. For nearly a quarter, the loss was more than half their income. A promising but small fraction, 14%, said they’d found new ways to generate income through digital platforms.

There’s some hope that the number of artists finding successful outlets online will grow, but the reality is that the disparities will continue to be harsh. But if anything is a pillar of the arts, it’s hope.

“I recall in the height of the economic crash of 2008 an artist saying to me that he was fine,” said Velders. “Because he had no money in the stock market (he never had enough anyway) — no investments to decline; no nest egg to lose; no benefits to worry about losing. That situation for many of our creatives is unacceptable — but I understood his point. No one decides to be an artist because of its economic benefits or future security.

“But we at the museum do whatever we can to support our living artists,” she said. “Last year, we converted our museum store to a gallery featuring arts and crafts by Southern artists (mostly Alabamians). we take as little commission as we can to sustain it -- the idea is to encourage people to collect the art of our time and our place. To support our artists!”

“Artists are resilient and persistent individuals,” said Boettcher. “They keep creating.”

IMAGINING THE FUTURE

“We’re making it up as we go along,” said elliott.

“Each of these organizations has a drastically different community they’re serving, and drastically different budget and structure,” she said. “We’re all in the midst of imagining what our new future is going to look like.”

A notice on the door of the Alabama Contemporary Art Center in Mobile shares some thoughts, and attitude, on surviving the COVID-19 epidemic. Since it was posted, the related shutdown has been extended. (Lawrence Specker | LSpecker@AL.com)Lawrence Specker | LSpecker@AL.com

To get to the future you have to get through the present, and every little bit helps. The idea that patrons can support restaurants by ordering takeout and other local businesses by buying gift cards carries over to the arts.

“I’ve renewed my membership at a bunch of places and it feels good,” said Clay. “There are lots of ways to support folks.”

“I renewed my membership at the Capri Theatre Last week, even though I can’t go right now,” said Knight. Among other things, it’s a way to maintain relationships with organizations you’ve always supported.

Helping can mean buying art through artists’ new online endeavors, or even just sharing those online efforts so that they get more attention. Knight said it can also mean declining a refund for the ticket price of a canceled event, making it a donation or accepting a credit instead.

Russell said parents may have another way of supporting arts educators. If they think art is being left out of their schools’ online offerings, they can advocate for its inclusion.

“I think this whole experience is forcing us to think about music and other cultural institutions in a different way,” said Boettcher.

“We have canceled or postponed all events and programs through mid-May, and I do anticipate that may be extended,” said Lemmer. “Some exhibitions have been postponed, others have been extended, and new projects are being brainstormed to best support our artist community. Artists are central to the work we do at WMA and we are exploring new ways to connect artists with our community via digital dialogues, social media takeovers, and artist residencies to commission new work and support artists in a time of need.

“We’re in a transformative moment,” said Clay.

“I rather hope it (this crisis) might become humanity’s opportunity to rise up and show who and what we are -- what we really cherish, and what we can do individually and collectively to innovate, invent, solve problems, celebrate and grieve together (not apart nor in isolation),” said Velders. “The arts are a function and reflection of society — and the values of our shared humanity find their highest, most inspired expression in the arts and humanities. People have always expressed themselves — through wars, epidemics, tragedies — and likely that will not change because of this pandemic. Our job is to make sure that art -- and our culture -- survives and communicates that beauty and human spirit for generations to come.”

“There are days when I feel more connected to folks than I did before,” said Lemmer. “I’m in constant awe of artists and creative professionals. I think many, who rely on the support of now-struggling organizations or commissions, find themselves ‘unemployed’ now. Yet, I still see them stepping up to make masks for healthcare workers, they’re offering online classes and concerts, and they’re creating new work in response to the times we find ourselves in.

“We’ll look back on this period, and it will be artists who tell the story.”