The existential battle between artists and Trump

This piece was originally published on The Rival Rochester on 2/17/2017 and can be found here.

Within the arts community, there has recently been an uproar regarding the Trump Administration’s plans to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts in an effort to cut government spending.

For those who are unaware, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is a government agency that has given grants to arts programs around the country since the 1960s. The agency has operated with around $146 million a year for the past three years; however, this is a very small budget considering the scale of the federal budget and considering the positive impact the agency has. Roughly half of this money, according to the agency’s yearly report for 2015, is designed to support arts in underprivileged populations. That said, the money from over 2,300 grants supports arts in every congressional district in the country, meaning the agency’s funding benefits a wide range of communities, regardless of their socioeconomic status.

For artists, funding from the NEA — direct or indirect — provides exposure and opportunities otherwise unavailable. The organization in 2015 alone helped support 30,000 performances and 5,000 exhibitions. These grants go to small community venues as well as venues as prestigious as the Museum of Modern Art, Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall. Even these large iconic venues need the grants provided by the NEA in order to fund the arts.

The agency is also particularly well-known within the arts community for funding programs that provide opportunities for the next generation of artists. This includes community outreach programs to expose novice students to the arts as well as programs to encourage the next generation of America’s luminary artists. Some of these programs include the National YoungArts Foundation (YoungArts), GRAMMY Camp, and the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

The YoungArts program is one of the more well-known programs, and it alone has produced alumni such as film director John Ridley, singer-songwriter Josh Groban, artist Doug Aitken and dancer Desmond Richardson. The list goes on and on.

YoungArts recognizes artists under 18 years of age with the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program and the National YoungArts Week program. The former awards students who excel in standardized testing as well as arts, and the latter is a week-long program that invites students to an interdisciplinary seminar with leading artists as mentors. Without this program, young artists would lose one of the few opportunities available to gain the recognition needed to take their art to the next level.

Additionally, the National Endowment for the Arts funds a program called the NEA Regional Touring Program, which sends performing arts groups across the country. This not only allows for rural or lower-income areas to experience art, but it also gives young musicians opportunities to gain exposure.

This affects U of R and Eastman students, too.

Musicians from Rochester and the Eastman School of Music have directly benefited from the NEA Regional Touring Program. The Ying Quartet from Eastman was involved in a joint venture between the NEA and Chamber Music America in 1992 to bring live music and music clinics and seminars to rural areas. The group later won a Grammy.

The NEA is active in giving grants for therapeutic and public art works as well. In the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, for example, the NEA provided arts projects for victims and victims’ families. The NEA also helped fund exhibits at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum and helped create Blue Star Museums, which are free to veterans and their families. Additionally, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial design contest was funded by the NEA, and the design was selected by an advisory council of the National Endowment for the Arts.

The preservation of American art and artists is yet another of the NEA's interests. Some examples include negatives of Norman Rockwell's photography and the painting of George Washington in "The Passage of the Delaware." Regarding commemoration, the NEA presents the National Medal of the Arts, an award granted to artists in all fields, whose winners include Aretha Franklin, Ray Bradbury, Yo-Yo Ma, Clint Eastwood, and many more.

All of the above mentioned programs, projects, and awards represent opportunities that would be lost or depleted with the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts. The agency's previous foes have even acknowledged the NEA's importance: when the agency was threatened with elimination by the Ronald Reagan transition team, the Reagan presidential task-force concluded that the benefits from the NEA were too significant to eliminate.

We must keep the National Endowment for the Arts intact to commemorate the art that represents our nation's historic and artistic past and to support the art that will represent our nation's present and future.

If this issue speaks to you, you can sign and support the official White House petition here.