Art Budget Cuts

With the recent $45,000 National Education Assn. budget cut, Congress--especially members like Reps. Dana Rohrabacher and William E. Dannemeyer--has mounted a triptych of potential trouble for artists and artists’ groups.

First, congressional meddling in NEA matters would deter many future NEA applicants. As an active poet/fiction writer/essayist, I would be highly reluctant to pursue NEA funding--as much as I would consider congressional censorship somewhat of an honor.

I also speak for nearly all 70 members of the Orange County Literary Arts Foundation, an organization I co-founded five years ago. The foundation is proud to depart from WASP-ness, the second product of Congress’ overaction. The foundation actively seeks the voices of Orange County-based writers regardless of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, creed or sexual orientation. Lest Rohrabacher, Dannemeyer and their cohorts think that the OCLAF is just another front for “immorality,” the OCLAF and its associates judge an item for publication or performance on quality--not quotas.

These policies are built on the beliefs that the arts are as essential to people’s survival as food, shelter and medical care, and have the power to ameliorate problems such as gang warfare, substance abuse, teen pregnancy and school dropout. Human needs cannot be neatly delineated in Maslow-type hierarchies the way Rohrabacher has attempted.

Finally, NEA’s punishment will ultimately be reflected in the already-depleted coffers of state and local arts councils. The real losers will be our children--left with a legacy of chaotic, semi-comatose living due to the disease of self-interest.

KELLI BOND

Secretary/Treasurer, Orange County Literary Arts Foundation

Cypress