Artists Are Our Canaries

The newspaper’s publisher’s mother thought I was the best.  

The newspaper publisher, not so much.  

The man actually said, “Jack can’t be trusted not to tell the truth.” 

Here’s a column published August 22, 1990. – JDW

Did you ever notice all the thigh that bronze goddess Portlandia is flashing? 

Does Jesse Helms know about this?

Some three dozen people, maybe more, were walking outside City Hall.  Marching, really.  They were carrying signs of protest.

SAY YES TO ARTISTIC FREEDOM!

SUPPORT ART, NOT WAR!

NO RESTRICTIONS ON THE NEA!

All correctly spelled.

Artsy types.  Robert Shockley, Charles Deemer and Ursula LeGuin among others.  The usual suspects.

I was marching, too.  Ready with a prepared sound bite if anybody stuck a microphone in front of my face.  But, of course, nobody asked me.  I was pretty disappointed.

You know what all the excitement’s about.  A couple of photographers used their National Endowment for the Arts money to take pictures of naked children and homosexual acts and religious symbols floating in urine.  I’ve no problem with nude kids, but photos with the, uh, bullwhip and crucifix in the toilet did cross my personal boundaries.

A whole lot of people felt that way.  It was pretty tasteless stuff.  Sensing an issue that might take people’s minds off the fact that the President’s son is up-to-his-neck in the Savings & Loan scandal, Republicans in Congress were outraged.  Sensing an easy way to raise money for the conservative right wing, Jesse Helms was outraged.

Not showing much sense at all, the rest of them fell in line, saying that, hey, it was their job, wasn’t it, to make sure the taxpayers’ money was well spent.

This from the folks who spent 1.5 billion to shoot a telescope into space so we can have blurry photographs – the good lens is back in storage – of stars 174,000 light years away.  There’s some information I’ll no doubt find handy.

Anyway, Congress put restrictions on the NEA, and some leaders have threatened to end the art subsidies entirely  Artists are howling that such a move is censorship.

So, we all piled into City Council Chambers.  It was filled for a public forum called by Councilman Mike Lindbergh, who was looking for a bandwagon to jump on.

There was even an agenda which seems a very scary thing to me sometimes.  You might say it has a chilling effect.

“Can our government encourage artistic development and restrict freedom of ideas simultaneously?” was the first question posed.

“The day when I’m allowed to choose NOT to fund the Stealth bomber with my tax dollars,” offered Barbara Echol, ” is the day Jesse Helms can choose not to fund the arts with his tax dollars.”

Rabbi Rose made a great deal of sense.  “This country’s uniqueness is the free flow of ideas…  In raising my children, the greatest mistakes I’ve made is hiding ideas from them…  The LAST one who should be determining what ideas are expressed is our government.”

Katherine Dunn, a writer, spoke about the canaries who were once taken down into coal mines.  The theory was that the birds would pass out first if any deadly gas was present, allowing the miners to escape.

In society, artists serve the same role, Dunn said.  They are an indicator species.  Artists are our canaries.  “If they can shut us up, they can shut you all up.”

And she’s right.  This NEA controversy isn’t about art and tax money.

It’s not even really about censorship.

It’s about power.