Description
Book SynopsisArtists today are at a crossroads. With funding for the arts and humanities endowments perpetually under attack, and school districts all over the United States scrapping their art curricula altogether, the place of the arts in our civic future is uncertain to say the least. At the same time, faced with the problems of the modern worldfrom water shortages and grave health concerns to global climate change and the now constant threat of terrorismone might question the urgency of this waning support for the arts. In the politically fraught world we live in, is the felt experience even something worth fighting for? In this soul-searching collection of vignettes, Patrick Summers gives us an adamant, impassioned affirmative. Art, he argues, nurtures freedom of thought, and is more necessary now than ever before. As artistic director of the Houston Grand Opera, Summers is well positioned to take stock of the limitations of the professional arts worlda world where the conversation revolves
