From: perez@mgr.hjf.org (Charles Perez)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship
Subject: Re: Nea a need *2*
Date: 31 Jul 92 14:03:39 GMT
Organization: HJF AIDS Research Project, Washington DC

In article <IeR45i_00iUx84HXkj@andrew.cmu.edu> jg58+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jeff Gates) writes:
>Mike Percy writes re the NEA:
>"Especially considering that it's just a subsidy to people and activities
>who's product is not fiscally appealing enough to fund itself, or that
>some of the product can support themselves, so why do they need
>subsidies?
>
>Instead of thinking of art as "product" (and therefore trying and fit it
>into a market system) lets think of the creation of art as "process"
>where how the artist creates is as important (if not more so) as the
>products he/she makes.

Okay, why should we subsidize an artist's "process" when this artist
is not willing to support himself? Is the essence of art "process"?
Can we call someone an artist who has no finished products to his
credit? Or is this person just an aspiring artist? And, if it is
so important to save the creative "process", why is the process
never saved? Why is it that the only thing we see is the finished
product?

An artist, as an artist, should be a producing member of society, just
as everyone should. An artist's product is selective representations
of reality that stand on their own, that exist for their own sake,
ready to be contemplating. People get the good of art by contemplating
it - viewing, reading or even feeling it and thinking about it. Good
art is art worth contemplating. Its value is obvious to whoever is in
a position to contemplate, or it's not art.

>
>If art is to be considered important in this society, we should focus of
>how one can pass on creativity to others. Artists are in a prime
>position to do so.

Pass it on just by doing it? Creation of art is a very private process.
I've written more than one work of fiction, so I know. Nothing about
it lends it to being shared. The process of creation doesn't invite
spectators, only its result.

>We do at least one thing where no one is telling us
>what to do (the making of our art). That is a very empowering
>experience.

The experience is empowering to *me* when I can support myself as I
do it. I don't feel very powerful if I have to answer to *any* funding
organization, especially a governmental agency.

>When we pass the ability to be creative on to children and
>others who, for various reasons have been marginalized, we are working
>to build self-esteem. (I don't think I need to diagram the ramifications
>low self-esteem has in our culture.)

Sounds like art *education* to me, and how many *educational* programs
does NEA fund? Never mind whether you think education should be publicly
funded (I don't, but that's another argument for another day).

>
>There are many artists who are working in this manner in the communities
>they inhabit. As an art administration fellow at the NEA two years ago,
>I wrote a report on interaction between artists-run organizations and
>the communities they live in. The social programs that many of these
>artists are developing are in many ways superior to other social
>programs instituted by local, state and federal agencies. AND much of
>this is being done with money from the NEA.

Sounds like an extension of welfare to me. This seems to belong under
a discussion of entitlement programs - whether they *should* exist and
on what form.

.sig
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