Art Saves Lives

I have a small pin that I bought at a shop in Newton that has the motto “Art Saves Lives” on it. When I wear that pin, invariably someone asks me, “What does that mean? How does art save lives?

ART SAVES LIVES!  -  what a great headline that would make. I can imagine it as a crawl across the bottom of the television screen on CNN, MSNBC, and well, probably not FOX. How can art save lives? Well, you could try to sell off paintings you’ve received as gifts over the years in order to raise badly needed funds.  But Brandeis tried that, and found that after floating that idea in public, it was not as well received as they had hoped it would be.

Of course, we can all imagine the play, novel, film or essay that was so profound and moving that it influenced the direction of someone’s life - a message so pertinent to the moment of conflict or confusion in someone’s life that she was moved to act in a different manner, think in a new way.

Music has a unique ability to help us through the bad times in life, by lifting us out of ourselves so that we feel for a time as if we inhabited a better place, were capable of better things. Music tames us, calms us, inspires our imaginations.

But “Art Saves Lives” hits closer to home for me. In a way, I think art did save my life. It certainly put me on a better path through life.

When I was in the fifth grade, my mother informed me that she didn’t care for my friends. They were not the kind of people she wanted me hanging around with. I told her if that was the case, then my parents needed to move because these were the kids that lived around us and attended my school. I think my mother’s response to me was to say, yet again, that I was very glib.

Truth to tell, though, I was running around with a bad crowd. It wasn’t so much the girls who were my friends, it was their older brothers who were the problem. I made it through fifth and sixth grades with nothing “bad” happening. And then, when I was in the seventh grade my parents began taking the family to New York City for short trips to see Broadway shows – mostly musicals. Talk about a new experience. I would come home from those weekends and read theatre reviews,  plays, and pour over Theatre Arts magazine. My junior high school did have a small department that put on short plays once in a while, but I could no more imagine myself on stage than I could walking on the moon.

When I got to high school, though, everything improved. There was a theater department and I got very active in drama. I was chosen to be in the school choir.  I accompanied some other students in the solo and ensemble contest. I was an announcer on the school radio station. And I took many commercial art courses.  I could loose myself in all those activities, and I learned many skills that have served me well over the years. Because my family life was a bit of an adventure most days, these escapes into the world of art were critical for me. And I did find a much better crowd to run with. So, art did save my life.  

Ah, those were the days. Back when even the Cleveland Public System knew that in addition to physics, chemistry, biology, algebra, trig, world history, French, German or Latin,  grammar and literature, etc., kids needed opportunities to write creatively (a school produced newspaper, a literary magazine),  produce music (a marching band, an orchestra, a glee club and a choir, and lots of students had their own small bands) there were fine arts and commercial arts courses, there were ceramics, stagecraft courses, and a terrific theatre department. There were all-city competitions for many of these arts, so we worked hard and took it seriously. Interesting aside: Leonard Downie, Jr. who recently retired as executive editor of the Washington Post went to my high school with me, and was editor of the school newspaper. So, school experiences in the arts are not just time fillers, not really extra-curricular. Many students went on to college or conservatory and became artists, musicians, actors, writers, professors, architects and engineers.

But we live in different times. We think we cannot afford to offer the arts in all schools now. We see it as a frill. But I still stand by my philosophical pin – ART SAVES LIVES.