Advocate for your Arts!

So, ya'll have already read a post from me about the importance of the arts. If you haven't, here it is.

For those U.S. readers, the U.S. Congress is voting THIS WEEK on the reduction or elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts' funding. Please take a moment and write your congressional representatives. You can send them an e-mail via this link: Advocate for the Arts!!

To put things in perspective for you and your home state, take a look at the States Arts Agency 2011 Fiscal Year Budget press release. Pennsylvania's budget was cut by 30%, Kansas's budget was cut by 28.7% and Washington state, Missouri, and South Dakota's budgets were cut by 27%. For Georgia, the state arts agency budget was cut by 65.9% (As a Georgian, this upsets me greatly).

Why does this matter?

Because of the arts funding deficiency many states are already facing, arts agencies, programs, and opportunities need the support of government arts agencies to survive. Without them, we'll continue to lose arts programs...This includes theater, architecture, music, dance, literature, the visual arts, photography, etc. And here's yet another informative article from Psychology Today about why cutting arts budgets is a bad idea.

We really need to fight for our arts programs and let our representatives know that we want to keep them! It takes just a minute to send an e-mail.

Something to consider

If you're a part of the arts community, you know right well how frequently the arts come under fire. They have this stigma of being less important than Business, Law, and Medicine. But the arts are SO important to quality of life and intellect, and there are studies and research to prove it. I included some links to articles below for you to look through. Hopefully they'll help explain why I think the Arts are so important.

• http://www.edutopia.org/arts-music-curriculum-child-development <-- Why the arts are important.
• http://www.philnel.com/2011/01/18/nodrift/ <-- Humanities students learn more.
• http://www2.ed.gov/teachers/how/tools/initiative/updates/040826.html <-- U.S. Department of Education thinks it's important too.

Yet again, the Arts are in danger. Congressional Republicans are calling for the elimination of National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities, two of the nation's makers of government arts grants. Please write your senators, write your congressmen -We can NOT let this happen!

• http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/01/congress-republicans-nea-neh.html
• http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-dickstein1-2009apr01,0,7168938.story <--Ohh, look. The Arts helped dig the country out of the 1930's Depression by providing social therapy and improving quality of life. We can do this again!