NEA Funds: Artists Have a Right to Eat

Re “Jesse Helms Was Right: Kill the NEA,” Commentary, Aug. 30: I wonder at Crispin Sartwell’s naivete. I will give up my (small) government grants when he gives up his comfortable salary and its perks at the university where he teaches. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) is indeed a blight upon the body politic and, although he doesn’t understand anything, he knows what he likes.

But, Mr. Sartwell, get a grip. The NEA does not even have a budget the size of the art budget of the city of Paris and, believe me, French artists do not follow any party line. Until Helms, there was no party line, and there still isn’t; 1984 is gone. But in this day and age, artists have the right to eat and exist just like everyone else.

Anthony Shay

Avaz International Dance

Theatre, Los Angeles

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If we are to use Sartwell’s logic, then anything objectionable that the government does with my money should be eliminated. Well, my list has much bigger targets than the National Endowment for the Arts: How about the idiocy of “Star Wars”? How about congressional junkets and franking? Or $30 million to send a letter telling us that we are getting a check in the mail? Land mines and other weaponry?

The NEA is one of the few government programs that has consistently delivered, both in content, from which the vast majority have benefited, and in economic stimulation (it’s been demonstrated over and over that money spent on the arts rebounds positively as tax income through restaurants, parking, income taxes from employees of arts organizations, etc.). The NEA has greatly revised its granting process in response to the controversies of the late 1980s, demonstrating its responsiveness to the will of the people (or at least to the conservative right). There’s one more government expenditure that outrages me: Helms’ salary.

Mitchell Krieger

Tustin

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From my visits to various museums throughout Europe it seems that a good deal of the best art was backed or promoted by powerful families or rich individuals and not politically correct government agencies. We have the wonderful works of Michelangelo and others because of the quality of their work and not because of the whims of a few bureaucrats.

Richard A. Reynolds

Lomita