A Quiet Worker Who Turned the Tide - NYSCA's Earle I. Mack Reflects on a Love of the Arts and Leaving a Legacy

He is, first of all, a soft-spoken, thoughtful man; scrupulous in word choice in interviews; humble enough to ask, at times, if he's chosen the right word; wise enough to avoid taking credit for accomplishments, and argue for where he feels the plaudits really belong.
But Earle I. Mack‹who resigned last week after nearly three years as chairman of the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA)‹will prove hard-pressed not to accept credit for a tenure that has turned the tide. He appears to have worked and won in his effort to nurture the state's struggling arts agency back into a force of economic and structural stability.
In his resignation letter to his friend Gov. George Pataki, he listed three pages of accomplishments‹which he credited to Pataki‹including raising the council's low morale and once-eroding arts infrastructure, and increasing public arts funding by 45%. And in an exclusive interview with Back Stage, he offered respectful laurels for the state legislature, including Sen. Roy Goodman (R-Manhattan), Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), and Assemblyman Paul Tokasz (D-Buffalo), who spearheaded the legislative drive for increased arts monies.
But the truth is that, before Mack's arrival, the legislature had slashed the arts budget by more than half; and Pataki's FY96 budget called for a further $6 million cut, which led to NYSCA staff resignations. So when Mack came on the scene in March of '96, he faced a darkened set with a doubting audience.
"They called me a one-art person," he confided last Friday, because of his active leadership in the ballet community. And because he is seen as a conservative, successful businessman, some in the arts family stood cautiously in wait of his agenda, and how he would implement it.
A clear illustration of the arts community's view of Mack on his arrival, and at his leaving, comes in the words of Norma Munn, chair of the New York City Arts Coalition and a major legislative soul of local arts:
"I have no knowledge of him, and can't comment," Munn bluntly told Back Stage three years ago. Then, last week, she observed to the New York Times, "I found Earle to be extremely hard-working. I found him sophisticated about the political atmosphere in Albany. One would expect him to have connections to the governor, but he had connections to the legislators."
Asked what, in his attitude, allowed him to step past the critics and doubters, Mack unhesitatingly quoted from Shakespeare's "Macbeth": "Screw your courage to the sticking place and we'll not fail."

Dedicated to NYSCA's Mission
To Mack, that sticking place was NYSCA's mission, which he saw as proving to the politicians that the arts "were not discretionary spending," but contributed to the state