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Labour’s education revolution will put the arts and culture centre stage
Britain is a great creative nation known around the world for our arts, culture, music, screen and sports success. The creative and design economy is booming. From Cool Britannia to the Communications Act, to free museums and more, Labour nurtured the creative and cultural sectors in government. Yesterday we set out ambitious plans to reform our education system to embed creativity for all in schools.
A core ambition of the next Labour Government will be to ensure that no matter where a child is born or what their background is they have the chance to work hard and get on. Subjects like music, art, sport or drama must be available to all our children not just some.
Under the Conservatives, for too long the importance of the arts, culture and creativity in our education system has been overlooked and downgraded. Creative subjects have been squeezed out of the curriculum, with philistine Ministers devaluing their importance.
The same too, can be said for the importance of these sectors to our economy. Despite being larger than automotive, aerospace, and life sciences combined, the creative industries have been treated like Cinderella sectors by a Conservative government that is more comfortable with stoking the culture wars than championing culture as a key to economic growth and vibrant and valued places.
The creative industries have been treated like Cinderella sectors by a Conservative government that is more comfortable with stoking the culture wars than championing culture as a key to economic growth
Access to the arts, in all their varied forms, can open children’s eyes to new possibilities, give young people more opportunities, and ensure that school leavers have the confidence, critical thinking, and life skills that are so valued by employers and for their later lives. That’s as true for working class kids as those whose parents can afford private music or art tuition. That’s why last week [leader of the opposition] Keir Starmer unveiled plans to introduce more creative arts, digital and speaking skills to the curriculum to ensure young people leave school ready for work and for life.
Nurturing and harnessing creative subjects is also critical to ensuring that we have the skills and talent pipelines in place for young people to access the creative and digital jobs of the future, that are growing faster than the rest of the economy but held back by huge vacancies. Too often young people and their parents are told creative jobs are not for them, despite huge opportunities in the UK’s booming screen sectors such as film, TV or gaming.
Creative skills underpin other sectors too, with problem solving and design skills an important enabler across the rest of the economy, underpinning innovation. Our digital and tech sectors are all crying out for a more creative curriculum which incubates talent. Apple’s success is not just down to product, but design, marketing, and understanding how users interact and behave, all skills linked to creativity.
Rather than being a closed shop to creativity and culture as the current government is, Labour will put the arts and culture centre stage. As part of Labour’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity, we will ensure a broad and rich school experience at all ages and stages. So that children and young people don’t miss out on subjects such as music, art, sport and drama we will review the curriculum in government, and as a first step we will get more children learning a creative or vocational subject to 16. This will inspire young people and open their eyes to the possibilities of jobs in the performing arts, theatre, architecture, design and digital.
Alongside this focus on widening access to creativity in schools, Labour will address the skills crisis so that the huge skills gaps in the creative industries and cultural sectors can be closed. Labour’s reformed Growth and Skills Levy will give organisations the flexibility they need to train the workforce and deliver growth. But the creative industries have to act to ensure they are keeping up with the times and represent diverse, modern Britain in all its glory. The sector must work to open pathways and ensure that work is more secure so that it is open to anyone, not just those who rely can rely on the bank of mum and dad. As Keir said so powerfully last week, we’ve got to tackle the ‘class ceiling’ so that all children have the chance to flourish and succeed.
Labour will build a creative Britain with art and culture centre stage as we open up opportunity for young people, grow our economy, and back our creative and cultural sectors to surge ahead.
Lucy Powell is the Labour MP for Manchester Central, and the Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
Anatomy of a Book Cover: The Process of Book Cover Design
We’ve all heard the old adage “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” The saying isn’t actually talking about books, of course, which is a good thing because we all judge books by their covers. Constantly. Even if we choose which books to read based on recommendations from friends or critics, even if we pour over Goodreads and Amazon reviews in search of info, we have at least some reaction when we first lay eyes upon a cover. If we’re just randomly wandering bookstores? Covers are the first thing to draw us in.
With this knowledge in mind, it’s hardly a surprise that publishers, or authors if they’re self-published, invest a lot of time and money on the covers of their books. Designing a book cover is a long, collaborative process that merges art, marketing, finance, and more.
Note: the section about traditional publishing is based primarily on a large publisher like Penguin Random House. Smaller publishers may see a different, more contained process.
The process of book cover design in traditional publishing
When I first started looking into the process of book cover design, I was surprised by the large number of people involved. There isn’t just an art director and a designer. The timeline looks like this:
- The editor passes off the brief to the creative director/art director/senior designer/whoever is in charge at this particular publisher
- The art director then chooses a designer from their team and passes off the brief to them.
- The designer reads the brief, sometimes reads the full book, and gets to researching and making the first visuals.
- A number of meetings (at least three, but sometimes up to twenty) occur, where a lot of people give their opinion. These meetings are staffed by the editorial team, the heads of various departments (including marketing and sales), and the managing director.
Notably absent from these meeting participants is the author. Jackie Barbosa, a now self-published author of historical romances, recalls about her days as a traditionally published author, “I’ve had some traditionally published books and waiting on cover art (and worrying about it) was not one of my favorite things about that process.” Neil Swaab points out that, “authors are typically the last people to be consulted because it can be problematic if one gets excited about a direction but the jacket committee hates it. […] When everybody’s finally onboard, it’s time to actually make a book cover.”
Monique Sterling, a freelance graphic designer and former Senior Designer at Penguin, offers another perspective.
“In my experience designing for the children’s side, if an author strongly dislikes a cover, their concerns and feelings aren’t simply dismissed. It usually starts a bigger conversation of asking the author to trust the publishing team’s experience and understanding of the market along with the designer’s (or art director’s) vision. Or trying to find a middle ground on fulfilling a small or major part of the author’s request. Within the imprints I’ve worked with, we also regularly shared cover sketches with the author for feedback and approval before moving onto to final art. Just to ensure everyone’s on the same page. However, the process might be a lot different when working with adult books or just varies overall by publishing house and imprint.”
Let’s break down this rather overwhelming timeline of cover design, shall we?
The first steps: briefs and research
Every month, editors give the art departments briefs of upcoming titles. These briefs, also called cover memos, include an outline of “the central plot of the book, the main characters, the target demographic, comparable covers, and any ideas the editor and author may have,” explained Swaab.
Sterling says that “for picture books, it was much less formal. I would usually get all the project info from a kick-off email and/or meeting. And in that meeting or email, I’m given the basics about the book, which includes the title, author, illustrator (if one’s already signed up), short summary, format, any special requests, and the pub season.”
The Creative Director will then assign the books to the members of their team most suited for each one, who will proceed to the research process.
The creative process: first visuals and beyond
Although the designers will read the brief, reading the actual book is optional. Most will opt of reading the full book, but some may read at least a few chapters to get a comprehensive idea of what the cover should look like. Still, regardless of whether they read the full text or not, the designer will liaise with the editor to make sure they know the most important information, that which absolutely should come through in the cover.
From then on, it’s a matter of researching and creating the first visuals. Research may look different for different designers. Designer Marianne Issa El-Khoury said: “I dedicate the first couple of days to research. For me, this means needing to read at least part of the manuscript to pick up on small elements I can incorporate into the cover. The wider process can vary from book to book, but I always start this way.”
Suzanne Dean, Creative Director, points out that “if the book is a classic title I’ll start by looking at any of the previous covers, as I don’t want to repeat anything someone has done before me. I make notes in the margins of the novel, and from there I go to my creative notes.”
Research also involves knowing about trends and understanding target audiences. In keeping up with trends, Sterling said that it’s “very important! But it’s also imperative to find a balance, if possible, between staying on trend and stepping outside the box. The design still needs to have some level of uniqueness to it—pulling the attention of your target audience to a style they’re used to and comfortable with while mixing in something new that’ll “wow” them. Otherwise, it can come across as just replicating what’s already out in the market, which can get visually tiring. Although, sometimes it can be tricky to step outside of comfort zones and try something completely different, because it can ultimately affect the book’s sales.”
A collaborative endeavor
As mentioned above, a lot of people are involved in the process of cover design. When I asked Sterling if the number of people involved in the decision-making process made it difficult to strike a consensus, she answered with an emphatic yes.
“There are lots of cooks in the kitchen when working on a book. Along with [editors, creative directors, and designers], the author, publisher and sales team can also bring their voices to the table. And depending on who feels the strongest about an aspect of the book’s design, that’s who might have the final say.” She values that “everyone’s voice is heard.”
Anna Billson, Art Director at Penguin Children’s Books, agrees.
“Collaboration is part of the whole design process – from working with different teams and illustrators outside the company, to sharing inspiration or unlocking a problem, it helps us create the best possible book covers.”
The process isn’t painless though. Ben Hughes, Deputy Art Director also working at Penguin Random House, expands, “You have to have a thick skin because your work gets pulled apart. Sometimes you come out of the meeting and they’ve asked you to change something and it can be your favourite part of the cover! But nine times out of ten, when you start working on it, you realise they were absolutely right, which is why these meetings are so important.”
A new layer is added when a cover is illustrated: that means adding an illustrator to the mix. Sterling explains that “usually, we’d present illustrator options as a team and come together to decide who would be the best fit for a book. Then once the illustrator was signed up, we’d kick things off with a meeting to go over project specs, deliverables, vision, schedule, and other important aspects of the project. Artists were responsible for sticking to the schedule we outlined and if things were ever falling behind, we’d send a nudge and adjust the schedule accordingly.” Because Sterling’s specialty is picture books, working with the illustrator can be a huge part of the process.
How long does it take from conception to completion?
Put quite simply, it depends on several factors. Sterling enumerates them when she says, “the team that’s managing a specific title plays a huge part in how long the entire process takes. For picture books, if everyone involved provides timely feedback and stays on schedule, it can take up to a year. If there are disagreements, unforeseen circumstances or slow feedback, it can delay the book’s production schedule. And in those cases, it can push the completion time out another 6 months to a year since it’ll need to be slated into a new publication season. However, almost half of the production process can be spent on actually printing the book.”
As you might expect, it takes less time for novels.”The cover design process can take just a handful of weeks or months depending on the design direction and speed of team feedback and deliverables, ” Sterling adds.
The process of book cover design in self-publishing
Like everything else, self-publishing comes with its pros and cons. On one hand, the author needs to do or delegate everything themselves, from editing, production, marketing, sales, and — you guessed it — book cover design. On the other, this grants them a level of control that traditionally published authors simply do not have.
Jackie doesn’t take this control for granted. “There are a lot of things a publisher does for you that I’d love to divest myself of, but cover art isn’t one of them.”
Book cover design looks different from the self-publishing side of things: the only interactions happen between authors and designers/illustrators, and that’s it. No multiple meetings where everyone gives their opinion are required. When I asked Barbosa about the process she and her designer, fellow author Beverley Kendall, go through in order to do her covers, she explained that, “Bev and I can kind of read each other’s minds after this long, but we generally always start with a stock photo of a couple (because I still like clinches, damn it, and I’m not giving them up!) and then discuss color palette, scene setting, etc. She’s pretty good at running with it from that point on.”
I did wonder how many versions of the cover of a self-published book there may be, and how involved the author is. Barbosa said, “how many versions I see really depends on a number of factors, but there’s usually one MAJOR revision and then a few tweaks after that. I don’t know that I’ve ever had to ask Bev to completely redo a cover from the ground up once she’s showed me the first draft. Sometimes we’ll change the color palette a bit or change the backdrop, but those are pretty minor things.”
A Parting Word
I already admired graphic designers and illustrators who work on cover design, but after reading up on the process and speaking with professionals, that admiration has increased a thousandfold. It is a fascinating, complex field that requires collaboration, out-of-the-box thinking, and a wealth of knowledge that spans multiple subjects.
I don’t know about you, but I’m walking away from this discussion with a newfound appreciation for the beautiful covers on my shelves.
Nneka Jones: Stitch Niche Painter
Talented recipient of Hillsborough County Arts Council grant incorporates paint, thread, and activism to create striking art
Nneka Jones may be young, but she is going places in the art world. The Trinidadian artist has carved a serious niche for herself by creating vibrant mixed-media paintings and thought-provoking, socially conscious art. Her innovative use of thread and paint meld the fine art world with the craft realm, making her work as unique as it is visually stunning.
Mixing mediums to mold messages
What sets Jones’ work apart from others is her masterful combining of stitching and painting to create colorful portraits. In fact, her threadwork mimics brushstrokes so precisely that the fiber can be overlooked – and presumed to be paint – if one does not see her work in person or zoomed in.
For Jones, the pairing of thread with traditional paints is highly deliberate. Her stitching adds interesting texture to her pieces and grabs people’s attention. She is intentionally mixing mediums as a way to compel viewers to stop and scrutinize the surface of her canvases. As a result, a viewer is often provoked to observe and appreciate the artwork in its entirety, leading one to ponder the message behind Jones’ portraits.
Jones understands that her work has profound meaning to viewers. “As I evolved as an artist and a student, I realized that people were not just connecting with my artwork because it was a pretty portrait, but because it made them feel something … it spoke to them in a certain way. And so, I learned that I was no longer just creating art that you could hang on the wall, but it was more so a powerful message or a powerful way of storytelling. And I used my art as a vehicle to captivate people so that they slow down. Because we’re so busy, especially now with social media … it’s difficult to just digest what an artist is putting out through their art,” explained Jones.
Nneka Jones’ threadwork mimics brushstrokes so precisely that the fiber can be overlooked – and presumed to be paint – if one does not see her work in person or zoomed in.
Making a name in the art world, one stitch at a time
Though not even 30, Jones’ talent has already been showcased on the cover of Time magazine. While still an art student at the University of Tampa, she won the Emerging Artist Award at the Gasparilla Festival of the Arts in 2019. More recently, Jones was awarded a Hillsborough County Arts Council Professional Development for Artists Grant for 2023. Jones believes the grant helped propel her career forward.
“For me to have that grant, it allowed me to not only focus on my work but ensure that I have the right equipment. I was able to purchase a laptop. That helps me to project my designs when I’m doing large-scale murals, to write business contracts, [and to] help me manage my website,” said Jones.
Arts Council of Hillsborough County
The Hillsborough Arts Council provides a unified voice for all cultural organizations and activities in the Tampa and Hillsborough County region. The Arts Council promotes news about the cultural vitality of the community while providing grants, unified marketing efforts, research, and advocacy to help the cultural community thrive.
The Arts Council oversees the Professional Development for Artists (PDA) Grant Program, which provides support for specific projects that advance the careers of artists in Hillsborough County. It is an annual grant program that provides funding to emerging or established artists in a variety of disciplines. Currently, the Arts Council is looking for up to 15 more artists to receive funding through this program. The deadline to apply is July 28, 2023. The application can be found on the Hillsborough County Arts Council Artist Grant Opportunities webpage.
For more information, email Arts@HCFLGov.net or call (813) 571-6991.
Top photo information: Nneka Jones poses in front of her artwork inside her Tampa studio.
Recognising what’s special about museums: marking 10 years of the Art Fund Museum of the Year prize
This is the tenth year of the Art Fund’s Museum of the Year – but prizes for UK museums have a much longer history. An annual award has been taking place for 50 years, since a small charity called National Heritage (not to be confused with the many groups that have similar names) started a prize, which awarded the winner £2,000 and a Henry Moore-designed statuette.
By the turn of the millennium, it was felt that something more substantial was required. National Heritage joined with Art Fund, the Museums Association and the Campaign for Museums; several smaller museum prizes were merged into one and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation provided a £100,000 top prize, one of the most generous arts awards in the world. As David Barrie, the then director of Art Fund, told the Guardian in 2007: “It’s important… that the prize is a fairly decent sum of money, which can help to do something great, not just a bauble to sit on the mantelpiece.”
The award went through several further iterations before it was relaunched as Art Fund Museum of the Year in 2013, but its substantial first prize has remained. Indeed, this year it has been bumped up to £120,000 to mark 120 years of Art Fund’s support for museums. The remaining four shortlisted finalists will get £15,000 each.
The money makes a huge difference. Hadrian Garrard, newly appointed
director of the first winner, William Morris Gallery in north-east London, says: “Winning the award in 2013, just after [the museum] had undergone a major redevelopment, brought recognition for the many people that work here – our volunteers, supporters and local communities – at a crucial time for us. It allowed us to invest into initiatives that have helped to secure the gallery’s long-term future. In the last ten years, we have built on this success and expanded our audiences locally, nationally and globally.”
The exposure is also vital, says Art Fund’s director, Jenny Waldman, boosted by the fund’s marketing muscle and its 135,000 members. Recent research conducted by the charity has found that two-thirds of the museums shortlisted in the last 10 years saw higher visitor numbers, which is crucial as the UK’s museums struggle to recover from the impact of the pandemic. For example, the 2019 winner St Fagans National Museum of History in Cardiff reported a 65 per cent increase in visitors, while The Hepworth Wakefield (2017 winner) saw 22 per cent more. The CCA Derry~Londonderry (shortlisted 2021) is now being namechecked in guided tours of the city, when before it had been ignored.
“That’s a tribute to them for using the opportunity of being shortlisted to sing about themselves locally, regionally and nationally,” says Waldman, “It’s a way for people to discover museums that they didn’t even know about in the heart of their communities.”
Bigger visitor numbers also help museums when they’re advocating for funding, whether that’s from central government, the Arts Council, local councils or universities, says Waldman. Garrard agrees, saying that William Morris Gallery winning the award helped to secure “ongoing commitment” from Waltham Forest, the London borough which owns and operates the museum.
Of course, different museums have different needs. As every year, the shortlisted museums in 2023 cover the length and breadth of the UK and vary greatly in size and scope. How do you go about comparing apples (the Natural History Museum, the most-visited museum in the UK last year) with oranges (the tiny Scapa Flow Museum on remote Orkney)?
“It’s, remarkably, not a problem,” says Waldman. “You’re looking for the same kind of creativity, invention, ideas, passion, energy, commitment, and the embracing of community, supporters and artists… You get that whether it’s large- or small- or medium-scale, whether it’s an art museum, a history museum or an arts centre. You can just recognise what is special about museums wherever they are and whatever scale.”
• The winner of Art Fund Museum of the Year 2023 will be announced on 12 July in a ceremony at the British Museum
Krasl Art Fair on the Bluff wraps up 61st year
ST. JOSEPH, Mich. (WNDU) – The 61st annual Krasl Art Fair on the Bluff wrapped up another big year.
Throughout the weekend, thousands of artists and art enthusiasts were in St. Joseph for the event. The fair featured nearly half a mile of art, with over 170 artists from 24 states.
Officials with the Krasl Art Center say the $5 admission fee goes to support year-round access to the arts in southwest Michigan.
“We see around 20,000 people who come here, they are excited to buy,” said Matthew Bizoe, marketing manager for the Krasl Art Center. “The other reason artists love coming here is this amount of support that we get through our volunteer team. It takes about 300 people to come here and take care of all the different elements, and that’s just in the weekend alone. We also start planning this event really in August every year.”
The fair also has quite the significant local business impact. A study conducted by Krasl Art Center revealed that the two-day event brought in an estimated $1.2 million in 2021 to the local economy.
The 2021 Krasl Art Fair was also ranked No. 24 on the Sunshine Artist Magazine’s best art and crafts festivals in the country.
Copyright 2023 WNDU. All rights reserved.
Why Good Politics Makes for Bad Art
Intrinsically, there are no subject matters unsuitable for art. For art this is forever true; for artists, in practice, it has been a truth granted only very recently, certainly for less than 200 years, and not always without incident. Still: In the West today, the charge of prescriptivism—what to commit to as one’s subjects, eschewing all the infinite others—falls to the individual artist, rather than some named or nameless authority. The granting of this universal truth, an extraordinary thing historically, has not simplified the plight of artists.
When Horacio Ferrer de Morgado approached the canvas on which he would paint the work he titled “Madrid 1937 (Black Aeroplanes),” his subject allowed for no obscurity. The painted figures, four women and three children against a background of rubble and smoke, would be life-size. Because the artist was then working in the style of social realism, his scene of war could not blatantly include General Franco looming as perpetrator. But symbolic details that Ferrer incorporated—the communist-red scarf around the head of one woman, the raised fist of another, in the defiant salute of the Republic—made clear who were the terrorized victims he depicted. At the opening of the 1937 Paris World’s Fair, one year into the Civil War in Spain, the painting was first presented to the public. It was, a Republican government administrator back in Madrid heard, the Spanish pavilion’s “greatest popular success.”
Who reading this knows the painting? Who has looked at it, in person or in reproduction, for those long minutes in which time stops? Not “Madrid 1937” but “Guernica” is the enduring artwork of the Spanish Civil War, and probably the most celebrated antiwar painting of the century. On the ground floor of the Spanish pavilion, one floor below the gallery containing Ferrer’s work, Picasso’s was the only painting hung. How odd it seems to us now that on being unveiled, “Guernica” was condemned by Spanish loyalists as insufficiently political—too indirect and ambiguous. One group called for its removal and the mounting of “Madrid 1937” in its place. Another group demanded it be replaced with a painting of dead children.
The politics of Ferrer’s and Picasso’s paintings are of course not dissimilar. If the realist work seems to us, at once, less caustic or damning, and at the same time, plainly didactic, our evaluation is at odds with its contemporary audiences’, for whom “Madrid 1937” was more powerful because more politically defiant. Where, for us, the conflation of immense visual coherence in “Guernica”—a scene illuminated as though by the flash of an explosion—with narrative incoherence—carnage the common element among its unrelated figures—generates upon the viewer an assault both moral and aesthetic, many in Paris found the painting difficult, challenging in a way they wished not to be challenged. Its ambiguity offended. Conversely, the designed-by-committee quality of Ferrer’s painting pleased antiwar audiences. They did not want an aesthetic assault.
Pablo Picasso, ‘Guernica,’ 1937
We struggle to know, unless we are Ukrainian, the urgency felt then by the Spanish people. Franco’s Nationalist army had captured cities from Málaga in the south up through Seville and, now with the aid of its Nazi and Fascist allies, Bilbao and much of the Basque country. What are aesthetics when one is living in wartime?
Writing on the World’s Fair in The Spectator, a British art historian articulated a common view of the painting when he called Picasso’s work “not an act of public mourning but the expression of a private brain-storm.” The characterization was meant negatively, the review highly critical. Months later in the magazine, the writer reiterated his point—that “Picasso’s art is a highly specialized product, an essentially private art, which is therefore not easily applied to public problems.” Ironically, this is an accurate evaluation of “Guernica,” a painting so powerful for the very reason that it is a fully private expression, a vision no one’s but Picasso’s.
A great many working artists choose in their art to address “public problems.” One difficulty is that, unlike in a time of civil war, the political issues of our day are not straightforwardly, collectively, diagnosable. If we were in want of consensus on how best to confront our problems—if it were merely solutions that eluded us—our society would be unrecognizable. It would be functional. We might thrash ideas out. But no: The economy, our social mores, freedoms of speech and association, criminal justice, the global climate, are all areas afflicted by crises whose natures are diagnosed by different groups in impossibly antithetical ways.
So fierce are disagreements over our public problems that the simple statement “such and such is wrong,” the simple outlining of a problem, rather than a proposal for how it might be responsibly tackled, strikes many as good politics. Hearing the statement, we feel we are not alone, going mad. Those crises that impact or trouble us exist not only in our heads. They are concrete.
Rarely are the politics of an artwork, even when it addresses political matters directly, any more penetrating than the statement of a problem. Rarely does art treat political subjects with the complexity found even in quality journalism. Expecting artists to contend with social scientific data, to carry out the work of think tanks or propose legislation, would be silly. Instead, what political art does proffer is the experience of recognition. For many, finding in art an expression of their political concerns asserted in a voice not their own can be terribly affecting, because it is validating.
For those of us not needing our political attitudes affirmed by art—for those of us who live without such insecurity—we turn to artworks for other reasons, reasons unknown to us until a work takes us in. Affirmation is available everywhere. Why look for it in art, when what the most valuable works offer up exists nowhere else?
Affirmation is available everywhere. Why look for it in art, when what the most valuable works offer up exists nowhere else?
Whereas politics attend to concrete social matters, every great work of art is itself the manifest solution to a totally invented problem. Only in the artist’s psyche was the problem ever real. No artwork ever had to exist, nor be made to exist as it was. This is true even of commissioned art, when significant. Every treatment of every subject demands its own form. As phenomena born of the aesthetic imagination, artworks are complete when the artist knows so—not upon reaching a certain word count or run time, not at the moment the canvas has been filled or materials used up. (Automatic and constraint-based methods necessarily yield lots of dreck because of this.) The artist alone recognizes when a work has attained the state of completion, when it has been realized as a singular solution bound up in its problem.
“All art is political,” a notion with which we are bludgeoned, derives from two facts of formidable substance: that (i) artworks are produced by and exist for people, and that (ii) wherever there are people, there are politics. Gut bacteria also are present wherever there are people, though are we advised less frequently to seek in poems and sculptures hard truths about the microbiome. Toni Morrison, a superlative artist, endorsed the notion in the way it is most typically pronounced. From a 2008 interview:
Are you really telling me that Shakespeare and Aeschylus weren’t writing about kings? All good art is political! There is none that isn’t. And the ones that try hard not to be political are political by saying, “We love the status quo.” We’ve just dirtied the word “politics,” made it sound like it’s unpatriotic or something. … My point is that it has to be both: beautiful and political at the same time. I’m not interested in art that is not in the world.
By “art … in the world,” I take her to mean art concerned with social relations, which regretfully fails to encompass all sorts of works of both nonrepresentational and nonnarrative art. It is to the detriment of all who revere Morrison that the interviewer did not follow up with the question of whether Monet’s waterlilies, as examples of “good art,” are political. Possibly Morrison did not care for those paintings. Monet’s plants had been imported from Egypt and South America; maybe, though I can hardly imagine it, she would have something to say about the politics of the late 19th-century botanical trade.
Morrison’s distinction between political and apolitical (and thus status quo-loving) art is puzzling, especially when coupled with the artists she cites. If (falsely) apolitical art upholds the status quo, does it stand that overtly political art always challenges it? Or is it possible for “good art,” which for her is always substantively political, to explicitly align with the status quo? Shakespeare’s plays are immeasurably rich, but in them we do not find a great variety of attitudes regarding the necessity of social order, social hierarchy, and stable institutions. His plays certainly did not challenge the status quo of the royal court. The Oresteia culminates in the establishment by Athena of a new legal system in which justice is achieved through jury trial. Without the judicial system under which Aeschylus’ audience was living, his trilogy demonstrates, the curse on the House of Atreus—the cycle of violence—would never have broken. The plays positively champion the status quo.
At their most commanding, Morrison’s novels share with the works of both playwrights not some political nature but the quality of profound moral seriousness. The contradictions within a society’s ethical system; the brutal arbitrariness of what behaviors a society deems acceptable; morality’s confounding inconstancy; its elusiveness; the gap into which one whose moral code misaligns with society’s ethics may fall; acts of judgment and cowardice that ripple through time: Of all art forms, fiction is especially well-suited to exploring these issues and their implications for the individual human life. Any appreciation of an artwork is cheapened, not enriched, by imprecisely claiming as political what are moral and social issues.
With important artists on record stating that all good art is political, naturally people throughout the culture will themselves insist on the notion in an effort to have them and their output appear more serious than they are. When presented as forthrightly political, commercial products transmogrify, instantly, into works of art. Here is how the entertainer Lin-Manuel Miranda opened “What Art Can Do,” a 2019 magazine article: “All art is political. … Art lives in the world, and we exist in the world, and we cannot create honest work about the world in which we live without reflecting it.” He goes on, in no less bracing prose, to explain that his forthcoming film is about immigrants, who indeed live in the world, and that some immigrants have been demonized. Present political conditions, Miranda writes, have made his story a “radical narrative.” Today, “for some, considering an immigrant a human being is a radical political act.”
No doubt emptier statements than this have been printed in The Atlantic, but its meaninglessness in the context of contemporary American life is worth observing. It is a farce to imagine that artworks about the plight of immigrants in any way help attend to the material problems of how the nation’s immigration and asylum systems are to be run. The number of people worldwide wanting to move to the United States was 160 million on last count. Should all be welcome here? May they arrive tomorrow? What resources will be apportioned to support the poor, the helpless, and the sick among them? Will working class wages be affected, and do we care? Are there jobs and schools and housing enough for the new arrivals? If there are not, what is to be done so that each immigrant is not merely considered a human being, terribly radical though this act is, but capable of living decently as one? Artworks sold as politically radical allow the purchasing public to indulge their concerns in the bloodless realm of abstraction. Along with a ticket to one of Miranda’s productions, they buy the lie that to attend is the height of civic responsibility.
If there is a tangible effect on our politics resulting from artworks and entertainment products such as Miranda’s, it is in their degrading of the political discourse. Politics are more infantilized, tribal, performative, and symbolic because of such works. Their overall political effect is in all directions negative.
The pull of art is older within us than are the demands of politics, older than states or cities or settled communities. Politics are a consequence of our living in societies, which we have not always done. Even if one believes the story told by David Graeber and David Wengrow, that humans have exhibited “political self-consciousness” since before the invention of agriculture, perhaps 30,000 years ago, by their reckoning—even if one accepts all that, our earliest known artworks still precede our political selves by tens of thousands of years. Far longer have humans been making symbolic visual marks, adorning themselves, making music, even making figurative art. (We know our human relatives and ancestors were engraving and painting and playing instruments earlier still.) Our aesthetic temperament exists autonomously, deeply, within us. We make art because we can, because the Muses insist, because we have the will to do so.
To discern that the relation of art and politics is incidental, not inherent, is hardly to underestimate art’s power. Rather, claiming everything human is political is an underestimation of the human.
How much easier the task of publicizing artists and their works is during a time of political art’s ascendance. Compared with politics, aesthetics are wretchedly difficult to promote. The marketing copy about political art writes itself.
A recent major museum retrospective was advertised as a survey of “one of the century’s most radical painters, a champion of social justice whose longstanding commitment to humanist principles inspired her life as well as her art.” Within Alice Neel’s large body of work are scenes of privation, social inequality, political protest, and sexual liberation. Her portrait subjects included the civil rights leader James Farmer, labor organizers, and left-wing activists, among other political figures. Understandably, given that much of her art addressed political issues, the show’s curators foregrounded the politics of both the painter and her subjects. Writing in The New York Review of Books, Susan Tallman offered a different assessment of what motivated Neel, something other than her “humanist principles”:
A visitor looks at Alice Neel’s ‘Pregnant Julie and Algis’ (1967), in Paris in 2022
These are great paintings for the same reasons that the Bronzinos are great paintings—they have been put together by someone relentlessly interested in the surfaces of the world. Neel’s fascination with painting naked pregnant women may have been driven by the socially conscious desire to record female experience, but what she said was, “Plastically [pregnancy] is very exciting.”
Outwardly, Neel’s subjects are political—the contents of her paintings are political subjects—but the substance of her art—what her paintings address—is, more precisely, how “the surfaces of the world” can find expression in paint. This fact of Neel’s work extends to other art forms. Poems are ostensibly about particular subjects, but their substance is their language, the words and the effect of what has been done with them. An artwork’s aesthetics are not its exterior but interior, not its surface but its depths. This truth is perhaps more obvious with the performing arts: Music’s genuine subject is sound; how the dancers’ bodies move through space is always the subject of a dance.
If in recent decades the artworks that influential people have heralded—the works receiving promotion, glowing write-ups, and major awards—seem unlikely to be found meaningful by audiences even a decade from now, it is not so much because certain subjects have been overrepresented. More broadly, the arts suffer because they have been overtaken by a perversion of the democratic spirit. Political art has been prominent; derivative, pedantic, unambitious, historically ignorant, shallow, designed-by-committee art has been more prominent still. Great artworks may or may not be difficult but are always ruthlessly singular expressions, their nature aristocratic. A culture valuing inclusion above all else will never know its masterpieces.
Youngstown State University graduates
YOUNGSTOWN – More than 1,500 students were awarded undergraduate and advanced degrees and certificates at Youngstown State University’s Spring Commencement.
Local graduates include:
Nathanial Adams of Petersburg received a Bachelor of General Studies.
Nathaniel Alessi of North Lima received a Bachelor of Science in Physics and Astronomy.
Rachel Amos of Salem received a Doctor of Physical Therapy.
Lindsey Barnett of Salem received a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology.
Micah Beal of East Palestine received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
Allison Beight of New Waterford received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Accounting.
Kayla Berdine of Columbiana received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing in Nursing – RN to BSN track.
Dante Bernard of New Springfield received a Bachelor of Arts in History.
Alexander Birtalan of Salem received an Associate of Applied Science in Electrical Engineering Technology.
Harmony Black of Wellsville received a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences.
Colton Blair of Lisbon received a Master of Accountancy.
Courtney Blair of Lisbon received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art Studio – Photography track.
Isaac Bobin of East Palestine received a Bachelor of Arts in Professional and Technical Writing.
Alexander Bowser of East Palestine received a Bachelor of Science in Applied Science in Information Technology.
Jared Bryarly of Columbiana received a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering.
Thurston Burt of Columbiana received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science.
Marshall Calvin of Leetonia received a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering.
Joel Campbell of East Liverpool received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing in Nursing – RN to BSN track.
Maria Campean of North Lima received a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences.
Arianna Carroll of Minerva received a Bachelor of Science in Dental Hygiene.
Feng Chen of Salem received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
Brock Cheurco of East Palestine received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Finance – Certified Financial Planner track.
Kathryn Chludzinski of Lisbon received a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering.
Brandon Cioffi of Lisbon received a Bachelor of Science in Applied Science in Hospitality Management.
Michael Clendenning of East Liverpool received a Bachelor of Science in Applied Science in Criminal Justice.
Kally Conto of East Liverpool received a Bachelor of Science in Education in Primary/Primary Intervention Specialist Education.
Alissa Courtney of Sebring received a Master of Science in Nursing in Family Nurse Practitioner.
Hannah Koran of Salem received a Master of Social Work.
Aubryn Crawford of New Waterford received a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology.
Jennifer Cvelbar of Salem received a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering.
Madison Daugherty of Columbiana received a Bachelor of Science in Education in Middle Childhood Education – Language Arts and Social Studies track.
Ellie Davidson of Salem received a Bachelor of Science in Applied Science in Criminal Justice.
Caitlyn Davis of East Liverpool received a Bachelor of Science in Respiratory Care.
Sophia Delatore of Salem received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
Jose Angel Diosdado De la Pena of North Lima received a Doctor of Philosophy in Materials Science and Engineering.
Brook Donatelli of Petersburg received a Bachelor of Science in Education in Early Childhood Education/ Early Childood Intervention Specialist.
Jacob Duncan of New Waterford received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
Victor Duncan of Salineville received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Management – Supply Chain track and a Certificate in Enterprise Resource Planning.
Julia Dundon of Salem received a Bachelor of Science in Education in Primary/Primary Intervention Specialist Education.
Joshua Entrikin of Lisbon received a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering.
Roman Ferry of Leetonia received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Business Economics.
Gabriel Fitch of Salem received a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering.
Reilly Fryman of East Liverpool received a Bachelor of Arts in English.
Vanessa Galiffo of Salem received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science.
Samantha Geary of Salem received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art Studio – Graphic + Interactive Design track.
Ethan Gill of Leetonia received a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering – Computer Digital track and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science.
Megan Graham of Lisbon received a Bachelor of Social Work.
Hunter Guilliams of Petersburg received a Bachelor of Science in Education in Middle Childhood Education – Language Arts and Social Studies track.
Katelyn Haifley of Lisbon received a Certificate in Data Analytics.
Hope Halas of New Waterford received a Bachelor of Engineering in Civil Engineering.
Deanna Hall of Columbiana received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
Autumn Hawkins of Salem received a Master of Social Work.
Aaron Hays of East Palestine received a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering.
Jarrett Herberger of New Springfield received a Bachelor of Science in Applied Science in Exercise Science.
Summer Householder of Hammondsville received a Master of Science in Education in Curriculum Instruction – Digital Teacher Learning.
Corey Hughes of Lisbon received a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology.
Megan Jones of Lisbon received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
Jarred Kalina of Columbiana received a Certificate in Data Analytics.
Jessicca Kaneck of Leetonia received a Bachelor of Social Work.
Sarah Ketchum of Wellsville received a Bachelor of General Studies.
Kayla Kiger of East Liverpool received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art Studio – Graphic + Interactive Design track.
Joseph Kusior of New Waterford received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
Lauren Lindquist of North Lima received a Bachelor of Science in Respiratory Care.
Charles Lindsay of Columbiana received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration.
Mackenzie Mackall of New Waterford received a Bachelor of Science in Applied Science in Exercise Science.
Jason Mattix of Leetonia received a Bachelor of Arts in History.
Matthew Mazei of Columbiana received an Associate of Applied Science in Criminal Justice.
Maxwell McEndree of East Liverpool received an Associate of Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering Technology.
Elizabeth McGarry of Columbiana received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Management – Supply Chain track and a Certificate in Enterprise Resource Planning.
Emily Monte of East Liverpool received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Marketing and a Certificate in Leadership.
Richard Moore of Alliance received a Master of Social Work.
Caitlin Morozov of New Springfield received a Bachelor of Science in Applied Science in Criminal Justice and a Certificate in Homeland Security.
Landon Morucci of North Lima received a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering.
Madison Moser of Columbiana received a Bachelor of General Studies.
Mary Nyers of Columbiana received a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology.
Madison Owen of Salem received a Bachelor of Science in Applied Science in Exercise Science.
Viktoryia Paliakovich of Salem received a Master of Arts in American Studies and a Graduate Certificate in Applied History.
Taryn Patterson of New Waterford received a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology.
Katelyn Pfouts of Columbiana received a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology.
Madyson Pickett of East Palestine received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
Sarah Rambo of Columbiana received a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics.
Chase Reiter of Salem received a Master of Science in Mathematics.
Alexei Rinko of Salem received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
Nicole Rodriguez of Youngstown received a Bachelor of Science in Applied Science in Criminal Justice.
Olivia Roe of Wellsville received a Bachelor of Arts in Telecommunication Studies – Media Arts track.
Hunter Saltsman of Wellsville received a Bachelor of Science in Applied Science in Information Technology.
Kylee Sayers of Minerva received a Bachelor of Science in Dental Hygiene.
Travis Schauer of Columbiana received a Master of Science in Mathematics.
Mackenzie Scott of Minerva received a Bachelor of Science in Education in Primary/Primary Intervention Specialist Education.
Mitchell Sharp of Beloit received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre.
Alyssa Smith of Minerva received a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences – BaccMed track.
Jordan Smith of East Liverpool received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art Studio – Graphic + Interactive Design track.
Dustin Soos of Leetonia received a Bachelor of General Studies.
Natalie Spalding of North Lima received a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering.
Neil Stafford of Minerva received a Bachelor of Science in Applied Science in Criminal Justice.
Zachary Tabor of North Lima received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and a Certificate in Leadership.
Jacob Thomas of Columbiana received a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering.
Ryan Thompson of Petersburg received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
Zach Thompson of East Liverpool received an Associate of Applied Science in Electrical Engineering Technology.
William Todd of East Liverpool received a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering.
Savanna Triplett of Salem received a Bachelor of Science in Respiratory Care.
Adam VanTassel of North Lima received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Human Resource Management and a Certificate in Leadership.
Johnny Ware of North Lima received a Master of Science in Education in Special Education – Intervention Specialist Mild/Moderate Disabilities track.
Evan Wiesemann of Salem received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Finance – Financial Management track.
Alexandria Yorlano of Salem received a Bachelor of Science in Applied Science in Criminal Justice and a Certificate in Forensic Science.
Riley Zawrotuk of North Lima received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
Wei Zhang of Petersburg received a Master of Science in Education in Curriculum Instruction – Digital Teacher Learning.
Daniel Zink of East Liverpool received a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry.
New art-focused nonprofit in Armstrong County seeks recruits
A new nonprofit aims to boost the arts scene in Armstrong County.
The Armstrong County Arts Council formed in May and held its first meeting in June.
The organization is dedicated to advancing the arts in Armstrong County, and its leaders are hoping to recruit more artists from the county and beyond to get involved.
Donna Weckerly is a founder serves as its executive director.
Committee volunteers are working to identify ways to connect artists with upcoming events and other opportunities this summer and fall.
Organizers hope to host events such as community mural projects, art exhibits, quilt shows and dedication ceremonies.
Weckerly, a professional photographer, retired from the steel mill industry after 28 years and worked with the Armstrong Welcome Center in Kittanning to get the nonprofit up and running.
“Our goal is to foster the arts in Armstrong County, and all artists are welcome. It’s about building up this area with art,” she said. “We want to help our artists to grow their art businesses, and it’s about building the economy with art to see what we have going on. It will help the artists economically, socially and culturally.”
Robin Lemmon of Applewold serves as a volunteer on the artist directory committee.
Lemmon, 72, a painter, owns an art business in Kittanning. She specializes in watercolor, acrylic and oil florals.
“We need to get it out to the public: Any artist that wants to get involved, please, contact us,” said Lemmon, who retired after 30 years of teaching art in the Armstrong School District.
More than 25 volunteers have offered to serve on two other committees: community asset mapping and marketing.
“This is for all artists in Armstrong County to help with art economic growth. It’s such a beautiful area where we live — along the river. We’ve always needed a vehicle to bring people from the Pittsburgh suburbs to Armstrong to buy local art,” Lemmon said.
Weckerly is hopeful more artists attend the next meeting and get involved in promoting the arts in the county.
“Together, this information will connect artists of all genres with event venues, business opportunities and education resources,” Weckerly said.
Courtesy of Donna Weckerly
Thefirst meeting of the nonprofit Armstrong County Arts Council was held in June at the Experience Armstrong Welcome Center in downtown Kittanning.
About 40 artists attended the arts council’s first meeting.
The next public art initiative discussion and committee meeting is scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday , July 11, at Mystic Beauty Spiritual Wellness Studio in Ford City.
Area businesses take turns hosting meetings, which also are offered via Zoom.
Each artist is invited to bring one of their pieces for a show-and-tell.
“What started out as a way to identify the needs of the creative community and the economic opportunities in Armstrong County quickly became something so much bigger,” said Cheyenne Filous, former director of Experience Armstrong Inc. “Within months, we went from a spark of an idea to a robust group of community volunteers who recognized the value of an arts and culture presence in our rural region.”
A rotating art exhibit, dubbed the Summer Artist Series, is the nonprofit’s first initiative.
Lemmon’s art was exhibited throughout June at A Mano Eatery in Kittanning. Weckerly’s work is on display there in July. An artist for August has yet to be determined.
To join the Armstrong County Arts Council, contact Weckerly at 724-664-3976 or email armstrongcountyartscouncil@gmail.com.
Joyce Hanz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Joyce by email at jhanz@triblive.com or via Twitter .
