Our country's interest in and support for its arts is already a disgrace with the paltry amount of money that is currently allocated to the National Endowment for the Arts - money that we nevertheless desperately need to help our arts in every level of life from the cradle to the grave -- and now the new Republican Congress, feeling its oats, has proposed massive cuts in all kinds of areas that are already nearly choked off -- including taking the NEA down to zero.
The NEA's FY2011 budget was $161.3 million. Put another way, the annual cost to each citizen is $0.54 to have a national arts endowment for films, dance, theater, art, music, and writing. Fifty-four cents. Less than a postage stamp. That amount was after being cut in President Obama's FY2011 budget from its 2010 level of $167.5M. So much for his vaunted platform for supporting the arts.
A campaign to ask for a single dollar from every citizen would just about double our current arts budget.
(Just one contrasting example - France's Ministry of Culture Budget for 2006 was nearly €3 billion, or 252 times as much support as the United States offered its artists and cultural workers.) That is a palpable difference that shows up in the statistics for creativity.
Even George W. Bush spoke of the value of the NEA to our nation, as quoted in the cited article:
"the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities have strengthened our democracy by supporting our nation's ideals, institutions, and emerging talents. The NEA has provided support for music and dance, theater, and the arts across our great country. It has helped improve public access to education in the arts, offered workshops in writing, and brought artistic masterpieces to under-served communities."
Art is not frivolous. It is a necessary part of a healthy society. Grant Eckert writes,
This is what makes art so important. It benefits the brain by training it to think outside the box. It helps children understand concepts with greater ease. It aids children in getting better grades. In the real world, the artistic side of the brain helps engineers solve problems. It guides individuals to create solutions. Art is the property of fine artists; it is also the product of engineers, technicians and computer designers. Art, in many different ways, helps people make the world a better place.
The problem is that Congress doesn't think that art is important to society and that its cultural workers deserve neither regard nor support.
In this case, I agree with Laa Ceredona, who said that if Congress does not care for the arts and finds them to be of zero value, they should meet from now on in a warehouse with folding chairs and tables, since they don't care about their lavishly appointed buildings and meeting chambers.
I thought about all the things that they enjoy from the work of artists. Why stop there?
Let's remove the wood paneling, railings and crown moldings, the carved executive desks. Let's fire their speechwriters, photographers, makeup artists, cameramen and sound and light technicians, since they are not important.
Let's remove the televisions and radios so that they do not need to be troubled with the racket of actors, singers and announcers. In fact, let's close the television and radio stations altogether. I further suggest closing the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, since our leaders evidently cannot abide the opera, theater, ballet or symphony. I suggest we likewise close the Smithsonian and the National Gallery. Or at least, every member of Congress should be prohibited from entering any gallery, museum, or performance anywhere, since they deem it to be of zero value.
Let's dismantle the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam and Korean War Memorials, the Jefferson Memorial. Perhaps we could sell them to China to aid our trade deficit. (Would they also be willing to purchase and remove the National Cathedral? It's such a blight on the landscape!) Let's remove every statue and every fountain from every park. In fact, let's pave the parks and fire the landscape architects. Let's forget designs for coins and bills and instead employ low-wage workers to write the denominations on index cards with sharpies.
For our leaders, let their closets be cleared of designer clothing, since it is so degenerate that anyone would want to design clothes, and no sane public servant would be caught dead wearing them. Let's give them a new uniform of surgical scrubs and Crocs. We should also stop creating medals for our civic and military honorees. Why bother? No self-respecting hero would want them. Instead we can use the cut tops of tin cans on kite string. It recycles materials into the bargain.
What shall we artists do? What shall the nation's dancers, writers, painters, light and sound pros, cameramen, photographers, sculptors, videographers, directors, actors, singers, musicians, conductors, poets, playwrights, deejays, radio announcers, cinematographers, chefs, animators, product designers, architects, landscapers, curators and art teachers do? What shall its museums and galleries and symphonies and orchestras and theaters do?
What will we do to assert our right, by the social value we present, by the myriad aesthetic treasures we tirelessly create and offer, to share in just one dollar's worth of the largesse, vision and abundance of America?
What would happen if every work of art, every thing that required the hand or the mind of an artist, was withdrawn from view or earshot for one day, or one week, or one month? Imagine it.
What would happen if everything was veiled in black until some concession is made? Would we organize to do that? Would even the museum and gallery leadership, careful to avoid hurting congressional feelings, stand up knowing they are already held in contempt by these same people, and that they have nothing to lose? Would they follow the example of Italian Museums who protested Berlusconi's budget cuts? (NB: the cuts were 2.5 times the amount of our entire arts budget.)
No?
Failing that, we have one arrow left in our quiver. We have a voice. Artists shape the context and content of our society. Our last asset is that which is inherent in our work -- our voices. What will we use them to say?
Will we ask our own government to recognize the value and worth of the kaleidoscopic scope and reach of the arts in their many forms to our society? We would have them recognize that art is not the enemy, and it is not worthless -- it is the lifeblood of our society.
We can use our voices to speak against art's denigration by the ignorant and cynical people who pretend for the sake of political expediency not to care about art, although they luxuriate in it every single hour of every single day. They are blind and deaf to this reality, and to the fact that a society without its artists is a dead society. Or if they are not blind and deaf to it -- if they would, in fact, miss having all these matters of beauty and aesthetic and cultural richness -- then they are hypocrites and liars who would declare to everyone that art has no value in this country.
The NEA's FY2011 budget was $161.3 million. Put another way, the annual cost to each citizen is $0.54 to have a national arts endowment for films, dance, theater, art, music, and writing. Fifty-four cents. Less than a postage stamp. That amount was after being cut in President Obama's FY2011 budget from its 2010 level of $167.5M. So much for his vaunted platform for supporting the arts.
A campaign to ask for a single dollar from every citizen would just about double our current arts budget.
(Just one contrasting example - France's Ministry of Culture Budget for 2006 was nearly €3 billion, or 252 times as much support as the United States offered its artists and cultural workers.) That is a palpable difference that shows up in the statistics for creativity.
Even George W. Bush spoke of the value of the NEA to our nation, as quoted in the cited article:
"the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities have strengthened our democracy by supporting our nation's ideals, institutions, and emerging talents. The NEA has provided support for music and dance, theater, and the arts across our great country. It has helped improve public access to education in the arts, offered workshops in writing, and brought artistic masterpieces to under-served communities."
Art is not frivolous. It is a necessary part of a healthy society. Grant Eckert writes,
This is what makes art so important. It benefits the brain by training it to think outside the box. It helps children understand concepts with greater ease. It aids children in getting better grades. In the real world, the artistic side of the brain helps engineers solve problems. It guides individuals to create solutions. Art is the property of fine artists; it is also the product of engineers, technicians and computer designers. Art, in many different ways, helps people make the world a better place.
The problem is that Congress doesn't think that art is important to society and that its cultural workers deserve neither regard nor support.
In this case, I agree with Laa Ceredona, who said that if Congress does not care for the arts and finds them to be of zero value, they should meet from now on in a warehouse with folding chairs and tables, since they don't care about their lavishly appointed buildings and meeting chambers.
I thought about all the things that they enjoy from the work of artists. Why stop there?
Let's remove the wood paneling, railings and crown moldings, the carved executive desks. Let's fire their speechwriters, photographers, makeup artists, cameramen and sound and light technicians, since they are not important.
Let's remove the televisions and radios so that they do not need to be troubled with the racket of actors, singers and announcers. In fact, let's close the television and radio stations altogether. I further suggest closing the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, since our leaders evidently cannot abide the opera, theater, ballet or symphony. I suggest we likewise close the Smithsonian and the National Gallery. Or at least, every member of Congress should be prohibited from entering any gallery, museum, or performance anywhere, since they deem it to be of zero value.
Let's dismantle the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam and Korean War Memorials, the Jefferson Memorial. Perhaps we could sell them to China to aid our trade deficit. (Would they also be willing to purchase and remove the National Cathedral? It's such a blight on the landscape!) Let's remove every statue and every fountain from every park. In fact, let's pave the parks and fire the landscape architects. Let's forget designs for coins and bills and instead employ low-wage workers to write the denominations on index cards with sharpies.
For our leaders, let their closets be cleared of designer clothing, since it is so degenerate that anyone would want to design clothes, and no sane public servant would be caught dead wearing them. Let's give them a new uniform of surgical scrubs and Crocs. We should also stop creating medals for our civic and military honorees. Why bother? No self-respecting hero would want them. Instead we can use the cut tops of tin cans on kite string. It recycles materials into the bargain.
What shall we artists do? What shall the nation's dancers, writers, painters, light and sound pros, cameramen, photographers, sculptors, videographers, directors, actors, singers, musicians, conductors, poets, playwrights, deejays, radio announcers, cinematographers, chefs, animators, product designers, architects, landscapers, curators and art teachers do? What shall its museums and galleries and symphonies and orchestras and theaters do?
What will we do to assert our right, by the social value we present, by the myriad aesthetic treasures we tirelessly create and offer, to share in just one dollar's worth of the largesse, vision and abundance of America?
What would happen if every work of art, every thing that required the hand or the mind of an artist, was withdrawn from view or earshot for one day, or one week, or one month? Imagine it.
What would happen if everything was veiled in black until some concession is made? Would we organize to do that? Would even the museum and gallery leadership, careful to avoid hurting congressional feelings, stand up knowing they are already held in contempt by these same people, and that they have nothing to lose? Would they follow the example of Italian Museums who protested Berlusconi's budget cuts? (NB: the cuts were 2.5 times the amount of our entire arts budget.)
No?
Failing that, we have one arrow left in our quiver. We have a voice. Artists shape the context and content of our society. Our last asset is that which is inherent in our work -- our voices. What will we use them to say?
Will we ask our own government to recognize the value and worth of the kaleidoscopic scope and reach of the arts in their many forms to our society? We would have them recognize that art is not the enemy, and it is not worthless -- it is the lifeblood of our society.
We can use our voices to speak against art's denigration by the ignorant and cynical people who pretend for the sake of political expediency not to care about art, although they luxuriate in it every single hour of every single day. They are blind and deaf to this reality, and to the fact that a society without its artists is a dead society. Or if they are not blind and deaf to it -- if they would, in fact, miss having all these matters of beauty and aesthetic and cultural richness -- then they are hypocrites and liars who would declare to everyone that art has no value in this country.
Well said!
ReplyDeleteI also love Jane Alexander's book about her stint as head of the NEA and her take on how to handle the low status art funding often gets in our country.
ReplyDeleteIt was fun to meet you at Linda's event and I look forward to seeing your blog about it. And my son will be thrilled to see his picture if you do use it!
warmly,
Erika