I was heartened when I read the Rand findings, actually. I have read or heard speech after speech telling us how the "Arts" help test scores, improve Math, how the arts help lower recidivisim, how the arts help economic development and stimulate business, etc, etc- all of which is very true.

But I keep coming away from these speeches and essays feeling like the essential value to making or experiencing art is NOT being discussed nor sold- what it does to us as human beings and member of a human community. I know- not concrete and too theoretical. But I feel that we won't change century-long low opinion about art's place unless we get all the way down to addressing "What does art do for me?" And that's what we need to do.

And all the reports, no matter how valid don't change the pre-set opinion when someone hasn't experienced what Art does for them personally. So addressing this question means using personally affecting art experiences to sell art's value. And while we must invest in children, parents who believe in the value of art will pass that value onto their children- so adults are an important group to affect- to educate those children.

To that end- where can we embedd art so parents and kids are regularly exposed? Where do they buy their socks, their food? How do we get it into the workplace? Daily lives is where to put, not just Friday nights in Art Districts when they have the time and money to go-

I think we need to make a concerted effort to find ways to get the populace at large's hands messy with art, or at least warm their hearts with an art experience they didn't expect. What if a photographer was hired by a neigborhood shopping district to take pictures of the community and all the pictures were made into a series of montages they could see throughout the shops? What if a sculptor used things donated by the community to build whimiscal sculptures in the district center and in the shops, and then the community got to play jury and vote on their favorite? What if a person brought a favorite baby bracelet charm into a picture framer, and they worked together to incorporate it into a frame around a picture of the child who wore it?

There are ways, most especially in the arena of commerce to intertwine art and business into what people do every day. This is focus of my Bohemian Quarter. We are striving to establish art in daily life, and everyday places in as many ways as the artists who join can conjure, using their own art expression.

Let's be subversive, as well as use the reports and the statistics, which indeed keep it on the legislative radar.