With many challenges and opportunities, from hurricanes to elections to personal happenings, affecting our lives, sometimes we overlook two important fields of human spirit that make life better for people every day. Fortunately, National Arts & Humanities Month is observed every year in October, with celebratory acts everywhere to see, demonstrating the importance of artistic, cultural and humanistic endeavors to our mental and physical health, and our prosperity and well-being.
October’s designation as National Arts & Humanities Month is a way to encourage greater individual and collective participation in arts and humanities activity. There are no mandates about how or what form any celebration of, or heightened focus on, the arts should take, but with Juneau being so accustomed to a panoply of regular artistic activity it bears reminding that it is always worthwhile to make sure that the importance of arts is recognized by society at large, in particular by elected leaders and the younger generations that are our future.
The cultural richness celebrated by National Arts & Humanities Month derives from the collective passion of the nation for artistic and cultural meaning, but two federal agencies are mandated to support this beneficial activity. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) were both established by Congress in 1965 with an eye toward making sure that all Americans had access to meaningful artistic, creative, educational, linguistic, and other activity, instructional tools and thought processes. The United States had invested aggressively in science and technology throughout the first half of the twentieth century, and it was seen as wise to follow on this sound policy with one attuned to the need for a creative, imaginative and inspired people to prosper, thrive and lead the world in a myriad of fields.
One of the ways the NEA and NEH achieve their respective missions is through partnerships with the states and territories in reaching as many Americans as possible. Alaska had two different agencies that co-operate with the NEA and NEH, the Alaska State Council on the Arts (ASCA) and the Alaska Humanities Forum. (I serve as chair of the ASCA board, and formerly served on the Humanities Forum board.) Both of these agencies leverage significant amounts of investment from sources beyond the targeted but modest federal funds allocated each year, which sets them apart from most agencies in the context of our national government.
Both ASCA and the Alaska Humanities Forum can be considered public-private partnerships. There are some basic organizational differences, as ASCA is a public corporation and statutorily mandated part of state government, and the Humanities Forum is a private nonprofit corporation with a formal relationship with the state, but at the end of the day, both are integral to the cultural health, resilience and growth of Alaska.
Many Alaskans do not directly see the way that ASCA and the Alaska Humanities Forum enrich life on the Last Frontier the way they do for their local arts agencies. The Juneau Arts & Humanities Council (JAHC) has been the private, nonprofit local arts agency for Alaska since the early 1970s. (I work at JAHC on Marketing & Development and formerly served on the board.) JAHC has many similar incarnations across Alaska which do a host of great things. Local arts agencies bring concerts and other traveling entertainments to remote Alaskan communities, often in collaborating in “block booking” to make it economically feasible. Local arts agencies provide crucial arts education training, classroom opportunities, transportation and other support for financially strapped school districts so as many Alaskan students as possible can benefit from the arts and become better workers, voters, jurors, citizens and leaders. Local arts agencies support individual artists and arts organizations which creates crucial economic activity in a region of a state sorely needing additional diversification for long-term sustainability.
Ironically, Juneau began celebrating National Arts & Humanities Month just the day before the last cruise ship visited Juneau this year. The visitor industry is a perfect example of why Alaskans do and must celebrate the arts, for better future Alaskans and a stronger economy and society. Between now and Halloween, lift up arts and humanities and you’ll be happy you did.
• Benjamin Brown is a lifelong Alaskan who lives in Juneau. He works for the Juneau Arts & Humanities Council and serves as Chairman of the Alaska State Council on the Arts. My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire.
