Web Letters | The Nation

Web Letter

I agree that the arts deserve to assume an even larger role in helping to shape not just American culture but American politics, a new American message. Education is a crucial part of that process. Please read my Huffington Post blogs on arts education (Part I and Part 2).

Web Letter

Thanks for the enlightening read on the evolution of American creative industry policy. This article made clear in simple terms where the US has gone wrong in developing and supporting its cultural industries.

I've spent the better part of the past two decades working in the cultural development field internationally and always wondered why the US wasn't getting it right. Chang is onto something: we have invested in the lifestyle economy and not the creative economy.

I hope this article inspires more Americans to think in broader terms about the potential of investing and supporting the creative revolution. The UK currently leads the world with its holistic approach to its creative sector, with many other countries quickly gaining ground.

It's not too late for a Creative Stimulus, as Chang suggests, and this time I hope, with him, that it is founded on the creative ingenuity of local cultures and ideas.

See my site: "Creative Revolution: How British Creative Industry Policy Is Changing the World."

Web Letter

I loved this article. I think Chang's discussion is vitally important. I would like to add to these arguments, in ways that have been effective and overlooked, to reinforce what Chang writes about. Industry already knows what I will say and I retired from that in 2006, having designed toys and wine labels, among other things for forty years. Basically, everything in industrial society, from furniture design to recorded music depends on creative imput from artists, musicans etc. Fine artists also become applied artists, sometimes of necessity. It all starts with intuitive sketches and moves onward to finished impulse-item releases. By defunding the arts, the economic decline is a long-term consequence, as a co-decline with industrial design solutions is already far along .

As Chang discusses and I could elaborate upon, artists like myself also conceptualize things about improving life as art. Art is more then pretty sofa paintings. It's about building culture. I did the original concept work in a legislative workshop in 1975 that resulted, through twists and turns, in California's historic Solar and Home Conservation Tax Credits, which later became tax credits with President Carter. I went on to co-produce Living With Energy (Viking/ Penguin, 1978). Next I co-produced The Wizzard's Eye, Visions of American Resourcefulness (Chronicle Books 1979), which dealt with artists' using recycled material for creativity, now normal but novel then.

I also did the conceptual footwork on what for a while became the largest ethnic arts festival in Modesto, California (1986-2006), which grew out of trying to stop racism, the Ku Klux giving up in their attempted organizational drive because a 100,000 residents were enjoying music, dance and food from every ethnic group, instead of hatred.

Real art is about joyful life, not destruction, and budgets reflect our true values.

My current challenge is helping a friend get a novel published on Mexican immigration. He is working on the manuscript, and has had a full range of experience, from almost dying in the Arizona dessert to extreme corruption in the Guadalajara US Consulate. After repeated attempts to come here to work, legally, he was denied last week, after paying thousands in fees to the US Consulate.

Web Letter

The New Deal was not picky about providing jobs following the '29 depression. Work was work if it provided an income to stimulate the economy. Writers wrote for the Federal Writer's Project and murals by artists were painted on public buildings. The current generation hasn't got a clue about governance.

Web Letter

Artists make art. Some artists work for change. Artists, including some of those who supported Mr. Obama while he was a candidate, will begin to register dissent from the continuation of Bush Administration policies, such as the unmanned drones/missiles into Pakistan. Artists were supporting the idea of change.

The Obama campaign was masterful at "selling the candidate." While I knew Mr. Obama was centrist, I did expect a rollback of Bush "over-reach" of executive powers... or, I hoped.

It will be interesting to watch the reaction of the young, when they notice no change. How long will some people wait before making dissenting art?