Monthly Conversations

Interviews with Social Artists, Uncommon Heroes

Newsletter #21 -- Sep 10, 2011

From the Editor

Richard Whittaker

Why are the arts so often considered frills when it comes to what is needed in schools, in politics, in so many parts of life? The capacity for creative response is needed in all walks of life. In this issue we explore art as a tool for social engagement. [more]

More Conversations

• Being Generous By Being Selfish
• Richard Kamler, Part Two
• David Roth on Patrick Dougherty at Palo Alto Art Center

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Richard Kamler: Art of Engagement

Why is the first thing cut here in San Francisco--and all across the country--the arts? We have to cut the arts. Art is the thing that will save the damn city! I've worked with some gangs and I've found that if you give them a piece of paper and just say, draw please, it's incredible. Everything just settles down. I say, you cut the arts, okay, see how many more beatings you have on the street, see how much more of that stuff goes on. I have so many friends who do this work in prisons, do the art, and it's so transformative!

Plight of the Wild Horses

CRAIG Downer: They wanted to leave 125 wild horses in a vast area like 400,000 acres or something. And I said, "Well, in the first place, who is getting the major resources here? Livestock! Next to them, big game animals." Yet the law says these legal herd areas shall be "devoted principally, but not exclusively ..." to the wild horses or burros. Principally, but not exclusively! -- that's the language of the law. But this is not being carried out. ELYSE Gardner: People like to call the wild horse feral. Craig is doing an important service in recognizing the horse as native to this land. They're not feral. And horses don't lay around on the banks of rivers. They'll come, they'll drink and they'll leave. The ranch where I've worked has cows and sheep and horses, and I've watched how the cows like to hang around and defecate in the water, right at the water's edge.