image created by Olive Moja

Following the release of the White House’s proposed budget and the nature of its reductions, we feel the need to compel our audience to action. While the budget is not in any way final, representing something of a “wish list” more than something inked in permanency, it’s troublesome for a variety of reasons beyond the arts, with proposed cuts to environmental and scientific agencies, in addition to valuable social programs. As most people are likely already aware, the Trump administration is proposing eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. All of these organizations are means for artists, historians, writers and journalists to explore new lines of inquiry within the humanities while providing educational and meaningful programming to the public. Despite attempts to brand these organizations as elitist, public funding is often most critical to small-scale organizations and emerging talents , who do not have a wealthy philanthropic base to draw from. Many of the beneficiaries also provide services to more sparsely populated areas, outside of dense metropolises.

Beyond the frustrating, emotionally linked reaction that comes with seeing this administration’s priorities manifest themselves in another offensive proposal, there’s a kind of impractical cruelty embedded within these cuts (and other programs), given their tiny magnitude relative to the size of the Federal budget. Though it’s tempting to view these cuts as a Trumpian anomaly, it’s a proposal that falls well in line with more traditionally conservative rhetoric about government-funded programs that exist for the public good. Policy recommendations by libertarian think tanks consistently employ metaphors of getting rid of waste, trimming fat, etc, etc. for the sake of a specific kind of ideological purity. Imagery of garbage and raw meat aside, these narratives are the intellectual products of Ayn Rand fanboys with too much influence. Who reads Atlas Shrugged and gleefully settles into such a jaggedly cut worldview? It’s a rhetorical question, but somehow there are a lot of elected officials that would unashamedly raise their hands.

Now on to Trump himself. You can head to any of your fave publications to read some sort of op-ed psychoanalysis of the man, so I’ll spare you the dripping red detail. This president’s world is zero sum, capitulating friends and shadowy enemies, gold-flecked winners and vengeful, misshapen losers. It is a precarious viewpoint of continually torn open and smarting personal grievances, fingers curled in a nervous grip around people, places and things that serve to adorn a persona beyond any greater appreciation.

Though I should hope the majority of the population shuns such steeped-in cravenness, we all have our moments of it, where we are wounded, one-dimensional, inconsiderate and snarling, purposeless save for instincts of self-promotion or preservation. Art, in beauty, humor, tragedy, and ugliness, pulls us out of ourselves in these times. It exists to turn over our conceptions and emotional states, the bending of the alchemical state of ourselves on a given morning. In less highbrow language, it doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) allow for a life unexamined, stones unturned, wounds unhealed, and experiences unshared. We relate to one another through screamed out lyrics, in quiet museum halls, on the sticky asphalt of a summer street festival, in tears shed with strangers seated in a dark theater. We learn the history of the pavements and worn earth beneath us, and a bit about the present of places thousands of miles away. We relinquish our prejudices. We change our minds and learn new things, dynamic in effect. In a nation that appears to be facing a listless malaise unique to the 21st Century, these effects matter.

Here’s how you can help:
Attend Arts Advocacy Day, on March 28th, 2017 (Event by Mass Creative, at the Paramount Center and Statehouse), link to event here.
Call your elected officials especially if you happen to be registered in a Republican state.
Check out this toolkit here, for more information.

image created by Olive Moja