I recently returned from an amazing journey to our nations capital. While I got to visit the monuments, and enjoy some of the local eateries and bars of Washington DC my trip was not designed for visiting tourist attractions. I took the sixteen hours of travel by bus and train to visit Michigan congress people, and senators, and discuss the importance of our government restoring the 155 million dollar contribution that the government used to give to the National Endowment for the Arts. This was far from a solo expedition. Aside from the other ten students from EMU, and our professor Susan Badger Booth, we came across hundreds of fellow art advocates from all over the country. We were all honored to come try to save the arts that have mattered so much to us.
Upon arrival I spent the first day in town walking around the monuments. I viewed some of the most intricate architecture in the world, with beautiful art work inside of them, and spotted some amazing quotes from people that have helped sculpt this great nation. I also saw a church with a rainbow banner over the entrance saying All Are Welcome. As a long time advocate of gay rights, this really warmed my heart. Seeing all the beautiful art work across the city, I felt so happy and inspired to be in DC advocating to continue funding of art.
The next day, we woke up very early to go to the Art Advocacy orientation and training event. We listened to veterans of the event talk about the kind of reactions we would receive from different congress members, and senators, and how to handle different meetings. We were introduced to many interesting facts about the impact of art funding, art education in schools, and in organizations, and the truth about how small the amount of money we are asking to restore really was. I initially felt very nervous about the two days to come. However, the Nancy Hanks Lecture that cam around that evening gave me not only confidence, but pride to be where I was.
The Nancy Hanks Lecture had several speakers, who could have just ranted about facts and figures that make the case for financing the arts, but they went much deeper than that. They told their own stories. They ranged from being raised by an artistic family, and having the luxury of a life surrounded by art, to stories of poverty that used art to escape everything, to Alec Baldwin, who found it himself, in inspirations from multiple artistic genres. Ben Folds gave me chills as he played two of my favorite songs by him with a group of student instrumentalists, in a style I’ve never heard them performed. Those musicians played together for the first time at 3pm and performed two beautiful pieces at 8pm later in that same day. If I would have left immediately following the Lecture I would have felt already that my journey was worth it, and there was still another amazing day to come.
I woke up the morning after The Lecture, and felt very patriotic. Knowing that I was on my way to capital hill, to meet politicians, and tell them what I believed they should do, made me proud to be in a country that I have that right. Before I had my first meeting of the day, I went to the Opening breakfast, where many of the speakers from the previous night said a few more things, along with several others including several actors, and other artists. After these speeches concluded, I had the chance to hand Alec Baldwin and actress Tiffany Thiessen, both AMP t-shirts. Once I took care of that, I made my way to my first meeting of the day. I went to meet Sanders Levin at his office, and got to speak with his top aide. He was nice enough, all though not terribly receptive, saying everybody needed to be prepared to make some sacrifices. From there I went to speak with John Dingell, a long time advocate of financing the arts. We got to speak with John for about five minutes maybe slightly longer. We mostly thanked him for his consistent support, and asked him what he thought we could do to help out cause aside from what we were already there doing. He was very honest with us, saying we need to get out there and vote, and inform out friends and family to vote with us. He warned that if the wrong shake ups happen this election year, the arts could see a substantial loss to the small amount we have already been receiving. After Dingell had to leave our meeting, we had the pleasure of speaking with his top aide for about fifteen more minutes. He was a nice young man named Greg, who I wish many successful years in Washington DC. My last meeting of the day was with Mike Rogers. I was most excited for this meeting because Rogers represents my home town Howell. Unfortunately we were unable to speak with Rogers himself, but we got to speak with his aide for about ten minutes. His aide was nice as well, but definitely did not seem terribly interested or impacted by what we were saying and doing.
Overall this is a trip that I plan to make again next year without question. It was informative, and made me feel proud to be an artist in one of the greatest countries in the world. I just probably will fly instead of taking the 12 hour train ride.
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