The half hour program, first seen in Milwaukee Monday night at 8:00 on
MPTV, called Arts Digest, which covered the visual arts, music and dance,
seemed to be an important step forward to showcase the arts of SE
Wisconsin...and hopefully drawing in persons who might otherwise not pay much
attention
to the vital arts of our region. The production values were high and the
subjects were informative and entertaining. Touched upon were the innovative
artist in residency program at the Pfister Hotel, the successful dance
program in schools offered by Danceworks Mad Hot Ballroom, an interview with a
New Berlin native music composer with a national reputation, and a look
behind the scenes at the Milwaukee Public Museum.

To expand interest in the generally inattentive public, to enhance support
by those who are already attuned to the art forms important to our area, to
encourage arts education and its role in improving student growth, we
simply MUST see more exposure similar to this in the various media. There is
so much more that Arts Digest and Milwaukee media can do in time to enrich
our appreciation about our society.

If I am correct it appears that Arts Digest will be a monthly
presentation. Let us hope that more quality media presentations like this will
be
created to inform the latent public and already existing supporters about what
often goes on without a lot of public attention. We do have a feed back
cycle here. The arts can gain positive results with more exposure and the
media outlets may gain more attentive viewers with programs about the arts.
Gradual improvements can be made in education, the economy and the quality
of life.

Our whole regional culture can gain by improved understanding and
utilization of the arts to enhance our opinion of ourselves, our citizen's self
esteem, our social understandings, as well as our educational system and our
local economies. Public exposure can also elevate the reputation of our
region to a national audience.

Those cities seen across the nation which have attentive regional media,
paying notice of their regional arts, announce to other regions that they
not only possess a strong arts culture, but they also recognize and support
their arts with exposure in the media. Can we wake up our regional media
managers, editors, employees and advisors who are always on the lookout for
news...good news as well as bad?

Good work, Arts Digest. Keep it going!

Gary John Gresl


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]