Last year the Illinois State Arts Council canceled its individual artists’ grants. This year the situation in Springfield looks bleak for painters, writers and other artists in the Land of Lincoln, where I live.

David Weinberg’s drop-in was aired April 19th on American Public Media’s “Marketplace,” with Kai Ryssdal’s spiffy introduction. The piece deserves to be broadcast widely.

Do we need to be reminded that public funding for the arts is drying up all over the country? Federal support from the National Endowment for the Arts still exists, with its budget a minuscule portion of Washington’s total spending. Last week, however, the Georgia House of Representatives voted to do away with its state arts council. Elsewhere, states strapped for funds have given a thumbs-down to artists.

The good news in Weinberg’s piece is that ordinary people interested in the arts have been getting together in small droves. In Boston, Portland and St. Louis arts backers have been paying a measly ten bucks for a simple monthly dinner, a Sloup—which rhymes with “soup.” As a variation of a soup kitchen, Sloup contributes ten bucks from each of its maybe two dozen donors/diners to local artists who have submitted proposals to be voted upon by the donors/diners. The event resembles a dinner party, a friendly community event, rather than a committee meeting to judge artists’ projects. What’s more, the whole process of awarding a grant takes a month, perhaps a twelfth the time it takes with a grants agency.

For centuries private patrons supported artists. Weinberg sees in Sloup a return to this great tradition, which bolstered such artists as Botticelli and Beethoven.

Thumbs up for Weinberg!