Sunday, March 19, 2017

The arts

Last weekend we were sitting in the audience in the Muddy Creek Music Hall in Bethania, patiently waiting for what we knew would be a wonderful Americana performance by Lexington's Snyder Family Band.

Before the show began, and as a sidebar to the introduction of the group to the audience, a member of the Muddy Creek staff took the stage to welcome us.

He then, somewhat surprisingly, encouraged us to support the smaller music venues (like Muddy Creek, which might seat 100 people if they can find a few more folding chairs) because, in his estimation, the small venues are where you can find the roots arts, as opposed, to say, the glitzy coliseum experiences that can cost upwards of $400 a ticket (or more).

Well, this gets complicated in a hurry. But I see his point. I love the intimacy of a small venue, where I can sit 10 feet away from a relatively unknown artist who is every bit as talented as (let's say) Paul McCartney or Stevie Nicks, and pay $15 for the show.

But I also figure the McCartneys' and the Nicks' have paid their dues and who fortuitously (for them) hit the lottery. Even in the big time, their craft is still their art. And vice versa.

I was thinking of all this when the Trump administration revealed its proposed "hard-power" budget on Wednesday, which would strip all funding to the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and public media (like NPR's popular "A Prairie Home Companion" or Public Broadcasting's "Downton Abbey").

I'm not sure I understand why even go in this direction. The arts and humanities represent such a minuscule portion of the budget that cutting them is not going to impact the national debt. Public broadcasting gets $445 million in annual funding, while the NEA and NEH receive $145 million from the $4 trillion federal budget.

Conversely, continued funding of these agencies, I believe, enriches us all.

But cutting their funding, to me, represents more of an administration philosophy. And in this case, it's hurtful. And souless. It's why I believe — hope — Congress will take its own carving knife to the proposed budget.

I suspect that stripping funding from the arts and humanities would reduce things like program grants, artist workshops, cultural preservation programs and the like — the very things that fuel our individual expression, voice and identity.

While the arts and humanities may not generate (at least, on the surface) the same importance in the budget as national defense or infrastructure, it's my belief they are important nonetheless. If we ourselves don't happen to be artists, it's still likely that we are consumers of the arts and humanities.

And the arts and humanities are still us.






No comments:

Post a Comment