Focusing on the arts is a good way to wrap up the century
by Ed Wojcicki
The greatest orator of this century, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., referred to the arts when he wanted to promote the search for excellence. He liked to say that if someone is a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets as well as Shakespeare wrote, or Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed. He should sweep streets so artfully that all the world will stand up and say, "Here is a great streetsweeper who did his job well."
It's fitting that we end the year, the century, the millennium (tired of the word yet?) with a focus on the arts. The arts transcend many barriers.
As much as I love words, I know they have limitations. Words can create divisions when used to slug a political opponent, distort facts, mislead. They can create barriers among ethnic groups who don't speak the same language. But the arts, especially the visual arts and music, have the power to overcome barriers.
Almost everyone can appreciate a Beethoven sonata, or a Monet painting. Or a cow on parade. And those of us with little or no talent in painting, singing, sculpting, molding or building still have the capacity to be inspired by those who do it well.
That's why I admire Lois Weisberg, Chicago's culture commissioner, who is featured on pages 34 through 36. She believes it's just as important for government to spend money on cultural activities as it is to pick up the garbage or provide police and Fire service.
And that's why I appreciate the aging novelist, Kurt Vonnegut, who recently commented in The Miami Herald:
"Please write a six-line poem that is rhymed. Make it as good as you can. Really work on it. This is with nobody else around, and nobody else knows what you're doing. When you've got it in perfect shape, for you, tear it up in little pieces. Take these pieces and distribute them between widely separated trash receptacles. Please don't try to memorize the poem. Please don't ever tell anybody you wrote it. You'll still have gotten your complete reward.
"People are idiots not to write poems or try to paint pictures or to dance or to write a piece of music just because they can't make a living out of it. Practicing the arts is not a way to make a living. It's a way to make your soul grow."
I had considered writing this final column of the century about Illinois' governmental performance. But any such historical analysis would, too predictably, have high points and low points. A more intriguing question is whether we're doing what we feel inspired to do, and whether we're true to a basic instinct to think, dream, create, build community, try, fail and try again. The arts inspire our souls and therefore help us understand this question. And that's why they're so important. ž
Illinois Issues December 1999 / 3