Welcome
As I have settled in on Commonwealth Avenue in the past few months, I have met many students, faculty, alumni, staff, and fellow members of arts organizations around Boston, and well beyond. This is a way for us to stay in touch. If I have not yet met you, we can use this blog as a way to get acquainted and exchange ideas.
I want this to be a dialogue. Please let me know of your thoughts on anything you see here or on matters of interest to you that relate in some way to the arts.
President Kennedy
Fifty years ago this morning, John F. Kennedy, a Bostonian, was elected president of the United States. He was a promoter and defender of the arts. His visionary words lead to the creation under his successor, President Lyndon Johnson, of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and later, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C.
Here are some of those words:
“I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft.” Amherst College, 10/26/63.
“The life of the arts, far from being an interruption, a distraction, in the life of a nation, is very close to the center of a nation’s purpose…and is a test of the quality of a nation’s civilization.” Statement prepared for Creative America, 1963. JFK Library
Unfortunately, few leaders today share President Kennedy’s interest in, much less, understanding of the crucial role the arts play in our society. If current political and economic trends are an indication, public support for arts organizations will continue to decrease. This is why students must prepare to become not just artists but arts advocates. They cannot wait for leaders to do this for them.
2 Comments
Jim Petosa posted on November 9, 2010 at 5:43 pm
This blog is a great idea, Benjamin!
Reading your comment about JFK brought to mind something I would like to share. The next time you find yourself at the Kennedy Center in D.C., take a moment to walk around the exterior of the building. The quotations etched into its walls from JFK, largely based on his convictions about what art means to the identity of a nation and the quality of its ambitions, can be thought provoking and quite moving.
I’m also reminded of an arts supporter, and old friend and advisor, Livingston Biddle, who passed some years ago. He was tapped by Claiborne Pell and JFK to help create that first NEA. Hearing him speak about the vision of the original builders of that agency was an inspiration. While the grand idea has gone through difficult times, it still exists. But the notion of state subsidized art remains contentious, polarizing, and difficult. From my standpoint, it is essential – tho it must be free of political taint. Is that possible? Hard question.
Richard Bunbury posted on November 10, 2010 at 12:15 am
Dean Juarez, congratulations on inaugurating a blog and for choosing JFK’s election anniversary as an entre for arts advocacy in this country.