North Carolina Arts Council

The NC Arts Council conducts regional competitions using local members of arts organizations as judges for applications for individual grants in various disciplines. As a member of a local arts foundations, I was invited to be one of the observers who sit in on the deliberations. It took all morning, and after lunch, the board members from each of five counties were charged with figuring out the best way to distribute the funds allocated among those deemed most deserving.

It's rare to have a chance to observe such a process, and very educational. I was assigned to the group who were to judge the five applicants for grants to further their careers as potters. Since this is an area I know almost nothing about, just hearing the discussion was a learning experience, but the main pleasure after the day was over is in the knowledge that there is such a lively and practical interest in the arts in our state. A representative from the state had driven three hours to spend the day overseeing the decisions being made by representatives from five counties.

A great deal of attention was paid to making the best use of the available funds for the benefit of the individual applicants while applying demanding standards of quality for the discipline and for the thoroughness and thoughtfulness of the applications.

We decided to fund seven artists involved in jewelry-making, photography, basketry, pottery, and music performance. Over $7,000 was awarded.

These are hard times that give rise to many a letter on the op-ed pages complaining about frittering away tax dollars for nonessentials like the arts. For those of us who know the value of those relatively few dollars, a (tiring) day like that is worth every minute and every penny. Long live the determination to keep enriching our lives and to keep supporting those who contribute the most to that endeavor!

Imagination

I can't let another day go by without saying something about the death of a sales clerk in a stampede at a Walmart. That is the kind of story that makes fanatics out of people who consider themselves above the common herd, who think of themselves as religious and/or ethical experts. It's also the kind of story that makes anyone with a modicum of imagination wonder whether the pronouncements about "common humanity" and "essential goodness" have any but the shallowest foundation. I tremble to think that so many people could be so intent on buying things that they could overlook--worse, perpetrate--the destruction of a stranger's life!

There are so many frightening events these days, and often I'm even glad to be old enough to know I won't find out how they will all play out because I'm scared of how the resolution could be. And that's the most upsetting of all: the thought that maybe the good could actually be outdone by the evil.

Every ordinary person simply cannot become like the people who work in slaughterhouses who have to learn to shut down empathy. Somehow we have to show our children and theirs that until we can in some degree imagine what it's like to be someone else and care about them, we could be dooming the planet!

The Best Part of Writing

I've come to the conclusion that something I remember reading long ago is absolutely right: that to write is one of the best ways to discover what you think. My recent excursion into the world inhabited by columnists and professional essayists has thus far been a double learning experience that has me practically jumping out of my skin with excitement, even glee.

After embarking on the unknown waters of a subject I think I have either some knowledge or an opinion of, I often suddenly realize neither is what I thought when I started to tap the keyboard. Like any other college graduate, or even a lucky high school graduate, I was taught to develop a premise and outline the argument, and arrive at a conclusion. You couldn't take an essay exam without that. Now I've found out how much more revealing (and how much more fun!) it is to begin and let the devil take the hindmost, as my father used to say.

Which reminds me of another gem dropped into one of my lectures in college, to the effect that the really important stuff isn't in the instructor's notes, but in what the lecturer called the obiter dicta. Yes, I know, practically nobody is taught Latin any more, so I'll translate: it's in the parenthetical comments, the throwaway lines that an attentive student picks up. It's those that will matter ten or fifty years later. They're like the discoveries I've been making as I try putting down some point I think I want to present, only to discover either that it's turned into a different point altogether, or that it has a whole dimension that hadn't entered my head until I found the words in front of me on the screen! It's the remarks that aren't in the script and find their way out that say much more than I realized I had in mind. Serendipity for sure.

Recommended reading

An essay by Julia Sneden on the SeniorWomen.com website about what careless attitudes and misunderstanding of how and especially why children learn should be read by every member of every school board. It's a shame that the powers that be in our country seem oblivious to the advances made in psychology and technology when it comes to making our future leaders capable of meeting the challenges ahead. When will government learn to encourage innovation and diversity instead of insisting on consistency and conformity? If only No Child Left Behind had addressed the needs of the children!