Artist's rendering of the set for ITW's production of "Driving Miss Daisy" (c) 2008 by Set Designer Gary Lee Reed
A hot topic in the arts world at the moment seems to be Quincy Jones' plea to President Obama to create a new Cabinet-level position for a Secretary of the Arts. During a November interview on WNYC's "Soundcheck," Jones told interviewer John Schaefer that he was planning to urge our new president to create a position in his new Cabinet for a person to oversee the arts in this country. Here are links to just a few of the MANY articles one can find on the internet regarding this topic. (For more, you can simply type "Quincy Jones Petition" or "Secretary of the Arts" into your favorite search engine):
Rolling Stones "Rock & Roll Daily" Blog
Washington Post Article
NPR's Morning Edition Feature "Does the US Need a Culture Czar?"
Set of ITW's "Driving Miss Daisy" - photo (c) 2008 by Tina M. Harris
People have been weighing in on the subject in chat rooms, on various blogs, and on websites for newspapers and radio stations across the nation. We figure the arts must be important to you, too -- otherwise, why would you be interested in the theatre? -- so we have decided to ask you for your opinion.
What do you think? Should the U.S. have a Secretary of the Arts? Please feel free to post your comments below -- and be sure to take our online poll (featured up at the top of the page). We look forward to having you join in on the debate!
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3 comments:
The government's idea of supporting the arts is giving coupons to everybody to pay for the conversion from analog to digital TV. And now, because not enough people took advantage of this wasteful hand out before the February 17 deadline -- after more than two years of instensive publicity -- the government is going to extend the conversion, at considerable expense to all the private businesses that had geared up to meet the deadline.
NO!!! Please leave the arts out of the government's hands. They will only screw it up like they do with everything else. The arts are about passion and vision, and our government -- any government -- is comprised of people whose only passion or vision is to spend our tax money on a lot of BS programs designed to help them stay in office or land a lucrative job if they don't get re-elected.
Let the arts be funded by the Medicis and the Guggenheims and Rockefellers, not a bunch of bureaucrats with questionable tastes.
N.Lapham
I agree wholeheartedly with the previous comment. The less businesses (even creative ones) the government oversees, finances and participates in, the better. I am not in any way minimizing the importance of any of us to be able to produce and enjoy art. I do, however, feel that it can, and should, be funded primarily by private and corporate donations and expressed freely without government intervention as long as it adheres to all appropriate laws. Thank you for the opportunity to share my opinion on this subject.
While I agree with the notion that the arts need the Medicis and the Rockefellers and the Guggenheims of the world to help support them, my one question is this: where ARE these people in Central Oregon? Does this mean that the only communities that have a right to a thriving arts scene are the ones with the deepest pockets? And, if we are going to bring the Medicis into the argument, European countries have a long history of BOTH private and government support of the arts, which one of the reasons they have such a strong cultural heritage there.
I am so glad that people are participating in this discussion. Thanks for getting the ball rolling, Nick!
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