Thursday, November 22, 2007

The Rise of Arts Culture

You know, in case we forget, we're actually not doing too bad in terms of building arts culture. Douglas McLennan's recent post "The Rise of Arts Culture" reminds us of where America was in the 1950s and how much progress we have made. I haven't checked the facts and figures, but I always have to remind myself that, if you look at the number of undergrad majors in the arts, at no other time in human history are have we produced this many artists. The challenge as we move forward is to make sure there are outlets for all of these artists and that they speak effectively to those who are not artists. We've done a lot since the 1950s, and there's lots of work to still be done, but it's always nice to take stock and remind ourselves of our progress.