I want to thank everybody for inviting me here this evening. I have always loved art and am very aware of the influence it has upon people.

I am also aware of the arguments art raises in society. What qualfies as art I do not know. Like so many Americans I feel I know art when I see it. Also, like so many Americans I am concerned about who decides what is art and what role the federal government has in subsidizing art and artists.

If we allow artists to determine what art is, anything passes as art. If we allow traditionalists to determine what it is, hardly anything contemporary will pass as art.

What every one agrees upon is that art can be very powerful. It can change opinions. It can change habits. It can be mainly a diversion – which might be good for busy people, but bad for someone who needs to be focused.

What I hope everyone can agree on is the right of every American to create, buy, look at and talk about any art that they want to. But this is not the case, even without government funding.

Yet is is government funding for the arts that is the reason you invited me to speak tonight. What is the federal government’s role?

The federal government must support art. It must support art because art forces people to feel. Unfortunately, our society is destroying people’s ability and desire to feel.

When people talk about things the government should do to improve the lives of Americans, it is usually health care, raising the minimum wage and funding more education that people mention. Nobody mentions emotions.

We are at an emotional weak point. I know the government should subsidize art programs in public shools and on public television. Our country desperately needs to feel more and deeper feelings.

What should be subsidized? Art created more than fifty years ago. I say this because contemporary art forms are thriving – movies and rap are examples of this. We do not need more of these.

We need to study art from the ancient world and from America’s past which seem so distant. They seem distant because we are distant from history, our past, each other and powerful troubling feelings that challenge us to be silent and motionless.

We need to stir and stew, marvel, ponder and think about what we are seeing, reading and listening to. When we can have a dialogue with ourselves rather than a monologue, we will need others to have a dialogue with.

Now we usually avoid one another. When we speak it is usually a monologue. We are not interested in hearing what someone feels or thinks.

What government subsidy of old and ancient art is implying is that there are other points of view that need to be experienced, if for no other reason than to appreciate the comfort, convenience and casualness of our times.

However our comfort, convenience and casualness make us soft. But the antidote to softness is not a continuation of the reckless speed with which we live and work to make ourselves decadent.

We need to slow down. We need to rejuvenate ourselves. We need people under 25 to be exposed to and challenged by the past so they can revitalize Americans to seek something vastly greater than hedonism, an unusable number of things and an unspendable amount of money.

What will result from this I won’t speculaate. I know though that there is much to be learned from the past.

There are the short simple profound awkward stories at the beginning of the Bible. There is the stillness and fluidity of a sculpture of Buddha and Aftrican busts. There is the eloquence of a song by the European composers. There is the cacophony of color in primitive and peasant art.

America desperately needs more color. One time driving across Washington I saw a word on an underpass sprayed in pink and white. It said TENSE.

The work was quite attractive, very troubling and very accurate. We are indeed tense. Like all great art, this work had tension. The viewer felt this tension – this oasis of art surrounded by tons of ugly concrete.

Obviously the government cannot subsidize art like this because it is illegal. But what is admirable about these type of artists is they take a risk. They might get shot or arrested.

Another thing admirable about these artists is that they work for free. They do not ask for a government subsidy.

They are truly independent spirits, the kind of people America needs to shake us. So artists must ask themselves if they want to be free, if they want to be rebellious.

Are you willing to risk getting fired, going to jail, being laughed at, being unable to marry and have children because you cannot afford to?

Are you willing to have to resort to giving your unsold paintings to friends, to playing music by yourself in the kitchen because you do not have the strength to join a band and travel, to rereading your poems that seldom get published because there are too many poets?

Art is not a way of life in America. Artists must accept their rejection and try not to be bitter as they vow to create better work.

I have faith in art.

Rather than subsidize artists, I seek to help them in two ways. First, a four year college degree will be paid for by the federal government. This will allow young people, as well as older people who desire an education, to expose themselves to the ideas that have shaped the world.

Second, my administration is seeking a government subsidized health plan. Such a plan will allow people to be insured no matter where they work. This will allow artists to seek a job that will best allow them to create their art.

Art is a wonderful thing and a demanding thing. America needs more art.

More importantly, America needs more proud artists willing to pay the price, to set an example for America to turn from its softness.

Thank you.

Copyright © 2025 by David Vaszko