I mentioned on the podcast a few weeks ago that I’ve spent a lot of the past year being ANGRY. And being so angry I couldn’t focus on reading or enjoying things I read or make.
I was always angry. I’m still always angry. (No, I am not going to use a gif of Mark Ruffalo here, because I’ll be damned if I use a dude to express my rage right now.) The latest in a long line of indignities the past several months has heaped upon our heads is the US proposed budget that removed funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Here’s the truth: art is a political act. Creating it is a political act. Consuming it is a political act. Writing is a political act. Reading is a political act.
Art is one of the things that makes us human- it’s how we process the world, it’s how we show our view of the world to other people, it’s how we learn about other experiences and explore ideas and think about what could be. Art is how we go beyond our own experiences. Art can be an escape from the horrors of the world, or a testament to them. Art is as necessary as AIR.
Here we are, in the year Two Thousand and Seventeen, and we, as women, still need to demand that our voices are heard. We still need to demand that we receive equal treatment, that we be taken seriously. The idea that our sexuality is even a THING as still revolutionary. Add to that complexities faced by women of color, queer women, disabled women, and transwomen at all of those intersections, and there are times when it feels like our very existence is a revolutionary act.
Using art to express our rage, our joy, the importance of relationships and emotions, of love and friendship, of our history and our hopes and our fears is going to be ever more important. Romance is a genre that is unapologetically woman centered, and while the intersectional aspects are still a work in progress (maddeningly slow progress at times), I feel the genre and the community are moving forward to inclusiveness for everyone. We’ll get there.
Dark times are on the horizon. I know a lot of authors are having trouble writing because what’s the point? It all seems so pointless! It’s not pointless. We need you. We need you to help remind us what the world could be. To give an escape. To sooth the soul. That’s the point. Writing is resistance.
And for us readers, reading is resistance. Seeing the world from other points of view, recognizing everyone has their own truth (although, some truths are more truthier than others….) and their own experience. It’s seeing that there is no one narrative, and that we are the heroines of our own story. It’s remembering that we have our own agency, and no one can take that away.
Dark times produce amazing art. I’m not saying that as a silver lining, because quite frankly, I’d prefer we not have these dark times to begin with. But this is why we need to support art. Read books. See movies. See plays. Go to museums. Support art. Remember why we live and why we fight to make our lives and the lives of those who came before heard.
I’m still angry, and I don’t see that going away. But the art we’ve all created, the art our authors have written, the art that helps bring definition to the world, that makes it worth fighting for.
Sorry; that should be 7,300,000 people giving $20 = $146,000,000.
Never do math before coffee, folks.
Government funding for the arts has been dwindling since the 80s, if not before. I worked in public broadcasting more than 30 years ago and our budgets were cut yearly even then by the federal and state government. If you are a consumer of NPR or PBS or any other public broadcasting, please support your local station if you don’t already. The Rockefellers and their peers pick up the tab for much of the programming but your local station needs to keep the power on and the engineers paid a living wage.
Same with art. Next time you’re decorating or need a gift, head to the local artist gallery or workshop or arts event instead of Pottery Barn or Anthropologie. If you don’t go out to shop, shop eBay or Etsy online. That $30 garlic keeper or $75 print may help an artist have healthier meals than ramen for a while. Even in my small, and very Republican I will say, town, we have an arts guild and studio that is supported by our neighbors. (As all our small businesses are.)
If you’re going out for an evening, spend the money on an obscure dance troop or theatre instead of at the cinema. Support your local entertainers so they can have a healthier meal than ramen. And buy the books!
I have friends who work in the arts or are studio artists. I have the means to have beautiful, yet inexpensive, art and a treasured pottery collection in my home and to have attended some memorable performances over the years, so I share it when I can. Put your money where your anger and your mouth is. Let’s take care of our own and keep them away from that deadly ramen.
Thank you! I am fortunate enough to work in the arts and to see every day how it enriches the lives of those who partake. Art is important!
I refuse to lose hope. But I’m not sure how to live with all this anger :/
I’m not good at adding anything constructive to these kinds of discussions, but I will just applaud you and agree with everything said in this post.
We cannot allow these programs and institutions, which help bring creativity, expression, joy, and escape to so many, to be defunded and taken away just because of a minority who might disagree with a work of art (look at how politicians in Washington keep taking that one kid’s artwork down), or ban literature from libraries that THEY disagree with. That’s not how society is supposed to work. That is not how Freedom of Speech works. We can’t sit on the sidelines and silently allow that to happen.
To the authors and artists out there, even those like me who only write and create art as a hobby. Yes, WE NEED YOU.
Amen. Exactly! Art defines our civilization and gives life to our experience. The best thing we can do is resist ! Read…write.. support artists.
Thank you for sharing this. I’ve been angry, sad, and frustrated since the election. Many days I feel pulled in a dozen different directions trying to figure out what to do to help make things better.
To the struggling writers, I understand completely. It’s hard to let go of the world around us and get into another. That said,please know that we need you, your words, your characters, your worlds. Good books can give comfort, hope and strength when readers are running low on those things.
It’s a sad thing that you are always angry. But it points to you as the problem since YOR anger is controlled by YOU. So get over it. As for arts being funded by tax dollars I say why? I agree that art is political. So that is why art should NOT be funded by tax dollars because the opposite side has to fund things they do not agree with.
Thank you RHG and my SBTB sisters.
Thank you, a million times. This year, for the first time that ai can remember, I have struggled to read. Knowing I am not alone in that tragic rage/loss is comforting. I appreciate your take on the values of art, and I will continue to strive to find my joy again with all forms of expression and passion.