Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton revealed the Wisconsin Arts Board’s 2012-2014 drafted plan to encourage arts in the state to members of the arts community Tuesday at Edgewood College.

As chair of the board, Lawton joined executive director George Tzougros in the town hall-style meeting to hear community input, which she said helps ensure the plans facilitate partnerships between the arts community and the state.

“We as a board have been holding these town meetings since 1992 as a way for us to share what we’re doing in the community and to get feedback and bring information in so we understand how to better lift the visibility of the state art agency,” Lawton said.

One of the main goals of the plan is forming a strong relationship between engagement in the arts and quality of life, Lawton said. This means encouraging all residents to live vibrant, expressive lives with opportunities to connect to the state’s heritage and explore their individual creativity.

“When we use the term ‘expressive life,’ we like it because it broadens the picture. So not only is it the fine arts but it’s the folk arts. It’s not only the non-profit arts, but it’s the for-profit creative industries,” Tzougros said. “The picture of what we mean by ‘expressive life’ also takes people from simply being audience member to get active and participate.”

Lawton said the board plans to accomplish this goal by providing grants and services to support creative work and cultivate expression, and developing new ways to support Wisconsin’s artists and bring their work to national and international attention, among other things.

Another goal of the board, according to Lawton, is to integrate more arts programs into the core education curriculum, instead of simply being education enrichment.

“We’ve talked about a long overdue and urgent need for a transformation of a public education system that was designed on a manufacturing model for knowledge,” Lawton said. “What we need to do is give them the tools to navigate the unknown, and that comes from their capacity for creativity and innovation.”

John Schaffer, chair of the University of Wisconsin’s music school, questioned what initiatives the board has for arts in higher education at UW and other colleges in the state.

Tzougros said the board currently plays a role in helping graduates translate various arts degrees into career opportunities, specifically in business and teaching. Both he and Lawton said they are in contact with the state Department of Public Instruction about arts education work and encouraged UW’s music school to do the same.

Lawton and Tzougros also highlighted how this plan and other programs of the board may have to change, given budget constraints in the current economic atmosphere.

Currently, the board’s budget is just over $3 million, according to Tzougros.

“This is a results-driven plan. If we get a decrease in funding, we need to understand what that would mean,” Tzougros said. “We want to also look at if the budget will be the same. We can’t add another program without taking a program out.”