Designed by Harvey Pratt (Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma), the National Native American Veterans Memorial is located on the grounds of the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall and was commissioned by Congress to give all Americans and our international visitors the opportunity to learn more about the proud and courageous tradition of service of Native Americans in the Armed Forces of the United States. As a tribute to Native heroes, this work of public art recognizes, for the first time on a national scale, the distinguished service of American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian veterans in every branch of the U.S. military. Given that Native Americans have a long history of service dating back to the Revolutionary War, and also serve at the highest per capita level of participation of any demographic, it is especially appropriate (and it’s about time!) for Native American veterans to be honored with this memorial. Public art in the 21st century is playing a key role in creating meaningful places for gathering and contemplation. Many memorials created in the not-so-distant past are figurative statues of heroic and historical figures. By contrast, both the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the National Native Americans Veterans Memorial are abstract works that are meditative in tone and rich in symbolism. The National Native American Veterans Memorial also serves as a place of reverence and honor, a commemoration of people who served with honor, and a site of celebration.

Compassionate Artists, a nonprofit in Long Beach, California, brings music, dance, and art to financially disadvantaged seniors living in residential care facilities in Southeast Los Angeles County. Founder and Executive Director Carol Gibson launched Compassionate Artists in 2016. For six years, the team has offered live performances and activities, bringing joy and creativity to seniors. “I have personal experience in both the performance and production sides of special events like concerts, theatrical productions, dance companies, and creating art. My stage management experience has given me the organizational skills that I need to structure Compassionate Artists in the most productive way. I am very experienced working with all type of performers, so I am familiar with their needs and have the ability to connect with a variety of personalities. I have been a passionate volunteer my whole life and love making peoples’ lives better.” 

As the nation observes Military Appreciation Month in May, it feels an appropriate moment to give attention to arts programs that support our military-connected communities, especially Veterans. The cultural sector plays an active and meaningful role serving Veterans and their families, and it is important to put this work within a broader context of both key challenges and issues. Of the more than two million American troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, about a third have symptoms of post-traumatic stress, depression, and brain injuries. Many cultural organizations and individual artists have the capacity and interest to serve Veterans by providing them with opportunities to gain experience, new skills, and stronger ties in their home communities. For the cultural sector, the challenges of collaborating effectively with Veterans are demanding, and the work requires us to build relationships with Veteran organizations and develop specialized skills in how we serve Veterans. Given the special hardships and challenges members of the military face—including dealing with extreme stress and trauma issues and finding the wherewithal to reconnect with their daily routines, family and personal relationships, and their communities—the arts certainly play an integral role in advancing health and wellbeing. 

On March 9, I learned that in 48 hours President Biden would be visiting Luis Muñoz Marín Elementary School in North Philadelphia. Our school was selected for the presidential visit because it received critical funding from the American Rescue Plan—funding that kept essential before- and after-school programming going, like the arts clubs that I co-lead. It is not uncommon at Marín for students to participate in two to three clubs each week. During this special visit, I would have the opportunity to share how the art and design clubs I run are making a difference in students’ return to school amidst the pandemic. Over the past two years, everyone across school communities has been asked to press on and adapt in uncertainty. It feels like we have a lot to make up for after so much time spent online, yet we’ve also grown a lot from this experience. This visit prompted us to take stock of how much we have done and how empathetic, engaged, and wise our students are, placing our experiences within a broader interconnected web. That day, I felt reinvigorated by my commitment to listen to my students, provide them opportunities to lead, and create clear connections between the work they are doing and the impact they can have on our school community, their families, neighborhood, city, and world at large. 

The arts are fundamental to our humanity. They ennoble and inspire us—fostering creativity, empathy, and beauty. The arts also strengthen our communities socially, educationally, and economically—benefits that persist even during a pandemic that has been devastating to the arts. The following 10 reasons show why an investment in artists, creative workers, and arts organizations is vital to the nation’s post-pandemic healing and recovery. The arts are a proven contributor in keeping us mentally healthy—reducing depression and anxiety and increasing life satisfaction. Just 30 minutes of arts activities daily can combat the ill effects of isolation and loneliness associated with COVID-19—and 78% of hospital CEOs say the purpose of their arts programs is to aid in the emotional and mental healing of patients Those data points nail it. The arts are all about stories—often personal, always meaningful. This advocacy season, find your stories and pair them with the research-based findings in “10 Reasons to Support the Arts.”

No one living in New York last spring will forget the tension and the morbidity that enveloped the city when COVID-19 hit. In that period, all I heard were sirens and birds—an eerie silence for a metropolis that “never sleeps.” My roommates and I fully dealt with contracting the virus that April—from extreme fatigue and chest pressure, to headaches, fever, and the loss of taste and smell. In this milieu, I was attending virtual classes for my Arts in Health graduate certificate program, and observing my savings dwindle as work contracts and opportunities disappeared. While my body physically healed, feelings of uncertainty and anxiety overpowered me. Some days were an absolute struggle, but thankfully, I knew I wasn’t alone in my reaction and circumstances as many of my friends and peers were down and out. Even though all my work was canceled—including my first invitation to curate and co-produce a show in Manhattan — I knew I had to release what I was feeling.

The effective arts advocate needs to articulate the value of the arts in as many ways as possible—from the passionately inherent to the functionally pragmatic—and to deploy the right case-making tool in the right moment. Consider these “10 Reasons to Support the Arts” as your Swiss army knife for arts advocacy. It can feel intimidating Zooming with, or walking into, a legislator’s office—even to experienced advocates. To always feel prepared, I break the advocacy process down into three questions: Who gets the message? What is the message? and, Who delivers the message? When you are preparing your case for the arts, remember The Golden Rule: No numbers without a story, and no stories without a number. The arts are all about stories—often small, always meaningful. Share yours. It is engaging and draws your listener in—and then pair it with the research-based findings in “10 Reasons to Support the Arts.” Yours will be an advocacy visit that is not soon forgotten!

About this time last year, Americans for the Arts staff put our heads together to create a “Trends in 2020” blog post. We didn’t anticipate an economy-grinding pandemic, which has devastatingly shaped everything this past year, but we did hit some of the other trends that occurred—demographic change, rising division and distrust, shifts towards equity, the fight over who would get to vote and political power, and the primacy of data. Across the arts field, most of us would agree that 2020 was a humbling, surprising, traumatic, and frustratingly unpredictable year. While trend forecasting in this moment is a tricky business, understanding what might be coming around the bend is crucial to our success as a field, particularly as we navigate such a volatile time. Who knows, honestly, what 2021 will bring—but the staff at Americans for the Arts got together (virtually, this time) and here’s what we’ve come up with—10 trends that we think will impact arts, culture, and the creative economy in 2021.

Community as a concept is understood universally; in function its possibilities are inherently dynamic. However, community becomes a necessity when it supersedes formation through common interests and is developed by way of shared experiences. For some queer individuals, and specifically ones of color, the ballroom scene is an example of a community formed through the need to have a space where everyone understands each other through shared experience. In interviewing Noelle Deleon, a Black trans woman from Texas, we are allowed insight into the ballroom community that she recently found herself a part of. When asked about the importance of ballroom she says, “It's where queer men and trans women can go to be free. There is an absence of the influence and presence of people who don’t understand us.” However, there is an elephant in the (ball)room, and that is COVID-19. What happens to trans women when it is no longer safe to host these grand balls with hundreds of other people in the room? 

Ten years ago, on March 11, 2011, Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants suffered massive damage in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami. A dance artist, Eiko Otake, long familiar to audiences at the Flynn Center in Burlington, Vermont where I live, felt compelled to perform in the irradiated disrupted landscapes. “By placing my body in these places,” she says, “I thought of the generations of people who used to live there. I danced so as not to forget.” Joining her was a colleague from Wesleyan University, William Johnston, professor of Japanese history. The two co-teach a class on Japan’s nuclear disasters, with Fukushima now added into the curriculum along with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Johnston, also an esteemed photographer, journeyed along to document Eiko’s performances as an artistic collaborator. Art performs life in this luminous project, reminding us that the role artists play in commemorating losses can never be underestimated. 

For me, handmade objects have “sparked joy” long before Marie Kondo became a household name. A fine craft collector invests in the artist and the story of the artist. The artist’s journey to learn their craft is a part of that object. As many of us re-learned in 2020, our conscious choices to purchase local and handmade have reverberations through our community and country. I serve the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen (PGC) as its Executive Director. Founded in 1944, and headquartered currently in Lancaster, PA, the PGC is one of the oldest and largest professional craft guilds in the country. The PGC was born out of an effort to promote wider awareness of the contributions that craft can bring to a community through the stimulation of achievement and enrichment of cultural, aesthetic, and educational interests. Its very existence was inspired by the recommendation of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to find ways of transferring wartime skills to peacetime work. Our state’s fine crafts are not just beautiful, useful objects; they also demonstrate Pennsylvanian practicality and authenticity, speaking to our state’s historical Quaker roots.

Americans are stressed—the COVID-19 pandemic, racial injustice, polarizing politics, remote learning for students, unemployment, a fragile economy—so it is no surprise that mental health issues are spiking across the country. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that one-third of the population is showing signs of anxiety or depression—a tripling over just the previous year. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that nearly half of Americans believe the pandemic is harming their mental health. As community leaders seek to maintain the wellness and mental health of their residents amidst challenged budgets, new research shows the arts are an effective resource in reducing depression and anxiety and increasing life satisfaction—improving both quality of care and the financial bottom line. The arts are a proven contributor in keeping us mentally healthy, helping us heal when we are not well, and reducing healthcare costs. The NEA as well as local and state arts agencies support arts programs that address a vast array of mental health and personal well-being issues. With those benefits, it is no wonder that 73% of Americans favor government funding for arts in healthcare programs and 68% of Americans agree that the arts improve health and the healthcare experience.

A Director Emeritus and former Board member of Americans for the Arts, Brigadier General Nolen V. Bivens, U.S. Army Ret., is currently serving as our Interim President and CEO. He serves as Chair, National Leadership Advisory Council for the National Initiative for Arts & Health Across the Military, and Military community advisor for the National Endowment for the Arts Military Healing Arts Network Creative Forces program, among other roles. “As a senior military leader, I had to find answers to problems that traditional military training didn’t prepare me to deal with. Getting service members to address personal trauma was one of those problems. Following tours in Iraq and training to return, it became apparent to me that service men and women weren’t always taking care of themselves. Individuals who encountered some great trauma were not taking advantage of medical resources and it was showing up in all sorts of ways—from ever increasing suicides to family violence. They weren’t taking advantage of the traditional therapies available for various reasons such as fear of losing their clearances or being stigmatized as a weak leader. I found that many of them simply wanted to engage in activities which would free their minds of the stress they were experiencing. The arts were a way to do this without telegraphing the need for help.” 

On Inauguration Day, we witnessed an explosion of arts, culture, and creativity in Washington, DC. Arts and culture were the backbone of the entire day—they carried the symbols of a broken country knitting itself back together, they celebrated our history and articulated visions of our shared future, they consolidated in striking images and economical language the whole complex ethos of a new presidential administration dedicated to unity, hope, and an American Renaissance. It was an inspiring thing to see, and hopefully bodes well for the position, and support of, arts, culture and the creative economy in the Biden/Harris Administration. In the days and weeks to come, President Biden will step into complex negotiations to build and then pass first the American Rescue Plan, a $2 trillion relief package, and then a subsequent large-scale workforce and infrastructure recovery bill—and this is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to how much, and in what ways, the new administration thinks about the centrality of arts, culture, and the creative economy. There can be no national recovery, no American Rescue, without the creative economy, and the 5.1 million creative workers who make it up. 

“How do you measure … measure a year?” I won’t even try to measure the sum total of the dumpster fire that was 2020. But looking back on one of the most difficult years of our lifetime through the readers of ARTSblog paints an illuminating—if not entirely unexpected—picture. In a year when social media was often loud and angry (though also entertaining—if only our blog could skateboard to Fleetwood Mac while drinking cranberry juice!), ARTSblog remained a steadfast space for our members and the arts & culture sector to learn from each other, share our struggles and successes, and most of all stay connected in an unbelievably isolating time. The year’s most read blogs reflect how 2020 shaped the field’s fears and furies, but also our hopes and optimism for the present and future of the arts.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage, so does its devastation of the nation’s arts sector. Since the first U.S. case was reported in January 2020, cancellations have taken place at virtually every arts organization across the country, artists are among the most severely affected segment of the nation’s workforce, and 1 in 10 nonprofit arts organizations doubt their ability to survive the pandemic. It has been unquestionably brutal for the arts. When we get to the other side of the pandemic, however, I believe the arts will be among our greatest assets in helping the nation to recover. The arts are kindling for the economy—small investments that deliver big returns. The arts also provide shared and meaningful experiences in public spaces—a community connection that heals the loneliness caused by isolation and social distancing. The arts are on the right side of what needs to be done to rebuild and heal our country. We must continue to invest in our artists and fund our arts organizations to capture these benefits.

The Ancient Greeks anointed Apollo as the god of both the arts and of healing—a hefty portfolio even by early mythology standards. As different as those areas may seem, new research suggests this was a prescient choice. When the arts are part of our healthcare experience, we have shorter hospital stays, less depression, and take less medication—all of which adds up to reduced healthcare costs. In recent years, there has been a growing understanding of the benefits, and prevalence, of arts in healthcare programs. When hospital administrators were asked, “Why the arts,” chief among the responses were that they aid in the mental and emotional recovery of patients (80%) as well as their physical recovery (41%). Many programs extend beyond the patients in order to strengthen the entire healing system: 80% of programs serve patients directly, 58% include the patient’s family, and 42% are for staff to help them deal with the stress of working in the healthcare environment. With these (and many more) benefits, it is no wonder that 68% of Americans agree that the arts improve health and the healthcare experience—and 73% favor government funding for arts in healthcare programs.

Kyaien (Kya) Conner, PhD, LSW, MPH, began studying West African Dance at the age of six and became a professional West African Dancer at 14. Trained in dance forms of Djembe, Sabar, and Kutiro, she is a member of Kuumba Dancers and Drummers in Tampa, Florida; teaches West African Dance at the University of Tampa; and has taught West African dance nationally and internationally. Conner also is a tenured professor of Mental Health Law and Policy at University of South Florida, specializing in health disparities and the benefits and effects of culturally relevant psychiatric treatments and community-based intervention in older African Americans.

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