In the midst of the constitutional chaos over federal spending is the disbanding of the presidential committee on the arts and the humanities. From Art Newspaper:
[Trump] dissolved the committee in an executive order reversing Joe Biden’s own executive order reviving it. [The PCH] endeavours to boost support for the arts, humanities and museum and library services at the federal level.
Not that it really matters, but the PCAH was establishedy by President Reagan in 1982. As an artist or creative, it’s easy to be disheartened in times like this. But that is exactly the point. Creating a sense of hopelessness and futility is a key objective of the “strategic confusion”.
This quote by Toni Morrison was something I turned to often during the 45th presidency, which she herself wrote in response to the 2004 re-election of then President Bush (included in The Nation’s 150th Anniversary Special Issue):
This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.
I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge even wisdom. Like art.
Note to self: keep making.