By Pamela E. Barnett The Presidential election is next Tuesday, which means many of us will spend the rest of the month obsessively analyzing the victor’s path and reading informed accounts about what the future could hold. I hope some of us will take a break from the exhausting news cycle and turn to the arts, which are exactly what we all need in the wake of this highly polarizing and divisive campaign and election season.
Artistic experience affirms and expands our humanity. Art connects us. We need that now more than ever.
In an “Arts Talk” for the National Endowment for the Arts, singer and composer Josh Groban made the case that “art matters because it is a hate-killer. Art matters because it is the one true great connector in a world that seems to be very unconnected, and it’s important now more than ever to shine a huge light on that connectivity that we have, that we often forget.” Art enriches, deepens and elevates all of us.
When we truly engage the expression of others – their words and stories, their images and designs and music – we are giving our own consciousness over to the experience, perspective and vision of others. We can feel connection and empathy for people from other nations or other cultural backgrounds. Anyone who has watched a Greek tragedy in horror or sung along to an early American hymn or spiritual knows how art can enable us to connect with others across the very ages.
As NEA staffer Victoria Hutter put it: “The arts matter b.
