The World Needs an Arts Holiday, by Rebecca Mate

January 16, 2009 – Hollywood: The World Needs an Arts Holiday, So, I started one in 1998. Why?

I saw arts education cut from schools. Trash and degradation were being passed off as art in museums. I saw mostly seniors at plays. Poets and writers were struggling to get their voices heard over national in-fighting, celebrity immorality and impending environmental doomsayers. There were an increasing number of performers drunk with narcissism, forgetting to uplift and inspire their audiences. I felt isolation from the community while standing in a booth at an arts fair, surrounded by the most beautiful close-up photographs of flowers which would have brightened up the living room of any home, but weren’t being bought to take there.

I saw artists of all disciplines, self-assigned the duty of bring about a better world, but externally vilified as supernumerary, compartmented into museums, filtered through watered-down entertainment channels and (to top it off) labeled as insane.

The spirit of the arts is manifested in a triangle whose three corners (Arts, Culture and Humanity) must increase together to create a new Renaissance.

Eliminate the arts, degrade the culture and promote war, dishonesty and self-implosion — society goes down the drain.

Or, on Art Day, second Friday in August, celebrate the arts. Support artists that elevate our culture with humanitarian messages, images and performances. You will incite virtue, prosperity and peace.

Sincerely,
Becky Mate
Founder International Art Day, second Friday in August