Artists for Obama

Wild Animal Circus ~ Walker Evans 1936 WPA photo

Always an optimist (except when I'm being cynical) when asked if I was worried about the possible coming depression I said no, I hope to be employed like Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Alice Neel, Dorthea Lange and Walker Evans were during the great depression of the 1930s making Art for America. During the New Deal painters were paid $26.86 a week, by the government, a salary equal to a Woolworth’s salesclerk at the time, to paint. Photographers were hired to document America. These programs gave America its best art of the time. Mid-century Art of the 20th century would have been a bleak story without this support. It is doubtful the Abstract Expressionist Movement in New York could have existed without it. But my dream can only come true if Barack Obama is elected. Obama’s consistent interest in and support of the arts and art education, especially compared to McCain’s record, (McCain voted to terminate the National Endowment for the Arts) gives me all the more reason, as an artist, to support Barack Obama. Only Obama understands that Art is not an expendable option for a culture but ever since human beings painted patterns on cave walls Art has been the glue that holds human culture together.