Despite cutbacks in federal funding for the arts, the N. C. General Assembly has boosted its support for the arts in recent years - with one notable exception. The Artworks for State Buildings Program. In 1995, legislators repealed a law that had required public art for major state construction projects because of controversies surrounding some of the first artworks commissioned under the program. The law, enacted in 1988, had required the state to set aside money - 0.5 percent of the construction costs - to acquire art for new or renovated buildings and their surrounding grounds. But the program quickly became a target for some legislators who disliked two of the program's earliest and most visible projects:

The Education Wall, which features drawings and quotations about education from North Carolina writers, artists, leaders and educators. The project, which is sandblasted into the red granite walls of the state's new Public Education Building north of the Legislative Building in Raleigh, was completed in October 1992 at a total cost of $119,538. It includes a Braille inscription, a child's sketch of a schoolhouse, excerpts of verse from North Carolina poets, an illustration showing the hydrological cycle, and notes from a speech by former Gov. Charles B. Aycock.

The Spiraling Sound Axis, a sound sculpture that features man-made and natural sounds recorded throughout North Carolina. The work, which is played through speakers installed in the rotunda and entryways of the state's new Revenue Building in Raleigh, was completed in October 1993 at a total cost of $142,250. It includes recordings of sounds such as honking geese, croaking frogs, waves striking a beach, and the chants of a tobacco auctioneer.(p. 8)