Americans for the Arts

The following is an email letter sent to an indivdual quoted in a regional NY paper on the arts' being of no value to prisoners in future employment efforts.

Dear Mr. Walker-

I would like to offer a perspective in response to the article “Inmate’s Show Won’t Go On” in the Times Herald-Record online, dated May 17, 2009. My hope is to illuminate the simple fact that the arts and arts education mean jobs.

The article notes that you called the prisoner’s original theatre piece “a blatant waste of manpower and funding." It also noted that you asked, "How many of these medium-security convicts do you think will go to Broadway and get a job?" Fortunately, Americans for the Arts has conducted some research to answer your question.

I have been working in the arts and education since 1968 – first as a classroom teacher in Brooklyn and then, starting in 1973, managing arts programs at Henry Street Settlement, the Jamaica Arts Center and currently at ArtsConnection, a city-wide, dedicated arts-in-education organization, where I have been Executive Director since 1985.

Obviously, I look at this work from the context of cultural provider. I strongly believe that the arts community has a great deal of energy and expertise that can be of real value to schools and students – and I have seen tremendous changes in how we approach this work – about how the field operates, over that time.

For one, this is, now, a field. In 1973 sending artists into classrooms was still a new phenomenon both here in New York City and nationally; there were few arts in education programs within arts organizations and even fewer dedicated arts in education organizations. A principal I knew once described the schools of that era as kind of castles with deep moats around them to keep strangers out. I am proud of the fact that the arts community was in the forefront of breaching those moats, bringing needed skills and authenticity into schools and creating opportunities for children to participate in the arts during a period of severe budget cuts and layoffs of arts specialists.

My son just started Pre-Kindergarten this August. Every day after school, I ask him what "classes" he had that day and what he did in those classes. His classes are the "specials" or content areas not taught by his regular PreK teachers, and include PE, art, music, Spanish, library and computers. Last week, he talked to me about his art class. He said they were learning about cool and warm colors. He then promptly named off the cool (blue, purple, green) and warm (orange, yellow, red) colors for me. At the end of the week, he brought home a painting he had done of the cool colors, which we will hang in our art gallery (our hallway).

One of the reasons we chose this school was because of the high quality of the arts programs. My husband teaches in the performing arts section of the school, so we are very knowledgeable about the music and drama programs offered. While I have always appreciated the quality of the visual art I've seen displayed at the school, I knew less about the quality of the art learning going on in the visual art classrooms. I had high expectations, yet I was still surprised that my 4 year old, within a month of the start of school, is beginning to confidently use appropriate art terminology in his discussions of his art and his art class.