Rocco Landesman (Michael Eastman photo)

Rocco Landesman didn’t pick just any old time to include St. Louis on his Art Works tour. He’s scheduled come here the week of Nov. 23 - the week of Thanksgiving.

Landesman and his wife, Debby Busch Landesman, are both from St. Louis. (He went to Clayton High School, she went to the Academy of the Visitation.) By scheduling the trip around the holiday, they’ll be able to carve out some personal time, including Thanksgiving dinner with his aunt and cousins and the fiftieth annual Turkey Day Game, a touch football game that he and a few boyhood friends have played without fail since they were in seventh or eighth grade.

“There have been years when the game moved to Boston or New York, but usually we’ve played in St. Louis,” Landesman said. “Of course, our kids beat us pretty regularly now. The writing is on the wall.”

In St. Louis, Landesman plans to visit Citygarden, the downtown sculpture garden that he praised in his address today at the Grantmakers in the Arts conference in Brooklyn, N. Y., and the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. So far he doesn’t know what else time might allow.

But in cities around the country, he will see all kinds of art, usually in public spaces, on his Art Works tour. In Peoria, where the tour begins Nov. 6, he plans to visit the “warehouse district,” see a local performance of “Rent” and take part in a round table discussion of the impact of the arts on the community.

“I have a big learning curve at the NEA,” said Landesman, a longtime Broadway producer whose hits include “The Producers” and “Big River.” “That’s one reason I am traveling, not to preach but to learn. I want to bring Debby on these trips as much as possible because she has spent her career in philanthropy. She is an invaluable guide.”

As he travels to explore local arts in different disciplines around the country, Landesman will post dispatches about what he finds at a blog the NEA will host at arts.gov.  Artists and arts enthusiasts are invited to contribute to the blog, too, posting stories about how art works in their communities.

Art Works, a motto for the NEA that he introduced in his speech today, came to Landesman “in an epiphany,” he said.  He quickly observed that the phrase is not entirely original; over the years, many arts organizations have used those words or something similar as a slogan.

But, he added, “I think I am the first to conceive of it as a triple entendre.”

In the first meaning, Art Works is a noun. It refers to books, crafts, dances, designs, drawings. films, installactions, music. paintings, performances, poretry, textiles and sculptures that artists of all sorts create.

In the second meaning, it’s a verb. It describs the way that artistic productions change and inspire people, and addresses the need to imagine and create that prompts us.

In the third meaning, it’s a  declarative sentence. It affirms that arts jobs are real jobs, part of the real economy. It contributes to economic growth and neighborhood revitalization. Also, people who work in the arts pay taxes.

“That (third) part is the most important,” he said. “I get indignant about that.”

In his speech, he praised Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who created a bustling theater district and built Millennium Park, which features art installations. “Create an arts scene downtown . . . and you change (a) place,” Landesman told the grant-givers. “Artists are great place-makers . . .and they should be the centerpiece of every town’s strategy for the future.”

Landesman said he thought that the speech was well-received. He acknowledged that in recent years, arts funding has been cut back, but he said that many people in the audience were ready to share his optimism about the future. “People have taken the blow and think things could get better. I am all about optimism,” he said. “I hope they will feel inspired. If they aren’t, it won’t be because I’m not forceful.”