Saturday, January 17, 2009

Secretary of the Arts Petition

Secretary of the Arts Petition

Here's a favorite quote of mine from Katherine Anne Porter, about the importance of the arts, to our society and to our history:

“The arts live continuously, and they live literally by faith; their nature and their shapes and their uses survive unchanged in all that matters through times of interruption, diminishment, neglect; and they outlive governments and creeds and societies, even the very civilizations that produced them. They cannot be destroyed altogether because they represent the substance of faith and the only reality. They are what we find again when the ruins are cleared away.”

America is one of the few countries that doesn't have a Minister of Culture. When international culture ministers meet on global issues affecting the arts and artists, the best we can do is send the head of the NEA, if we send anyone at all. It's time to turn that around. Obama is an arts supporter, and Quincy Jones has started a petition for a Secretary of the Arts that has a real shot at making an impact. Let's all sign it!

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