The Healing Arts

Thank you for the article by Diane Haithman. I am a mask assemblage artist and hold an L.A. Arts Recovery Grant to work with students in the Crenshaw District. If I did not have the opportunity that this funding has given me, these students would not be able to express the uprising the way they experienced it.

Art is a fun and creative process. I believe that giving my students permission to feel their feelings and what they saw is an important part of the healing process.

I do not agree with writer-artist Harry Gamboa (who, Haithman reports, likens the grant procedure “to decorating a ticking time bomb”). As a substitute teacher working in South-Central for 3 1/2 years, I feel that we need more programs like this one.

BETH BACHENHEIMER

Los Angeles