Why Didn't The White House Call Me?

By Alicia Colon

It's not every day that artists are contacted by the White House to do its bidding, so I was somewhat miffed to be left out of its telephone conference hosted by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)? After all, I'm an award-winning artist who designed a domestic violence poster for New York State. I've also created an anti-smoking poster (seen here) that would have warmed the cockles of our nanny mayor, Michael Bloomberg. In all seriousness, I hardly expected inclusion because I don't get government funding. Hmm, but isn't that illegal?

Last week, we learned of that possibly unethical connection between the White House and the NEA, a public agency instituted to support excellence in art by providing taxpayer funds via grants to all deserving artists. However, it's not supposed to be promoting the agenda of the current administration. The conference call included artists who had been involved with President Obama's 2008 election campaign and other NEA grant recipients and community stakeholders.

Once again a controversial news story was uncovered by the alternative media www.biggovernment.com, which also exposed the corruption of ACORN. One of the individuals invited to the August event - an art community consultant, Patrick Courrielche - brought the taped audio and transcript to the attention of Andrew Breitbart, who then broke the story on his Web site. A quote from the NEA host reveals that the event was knowingly blurring the line on ethics: "This is just the beginning. This is the first telephone call of a brand new conversation. We are just now learning how to really bring this community together to speak with the government. What that looks like legally? ... Bear with us as we learn the language so that we can speak to each other safely..."

The brouhaha that followed led to the reassignment and eventual resignation of the NEA communications director, Yosi Sergant. Republican senators have drafted a letter to the NEA chairman, Rocco Landesman, questioning the possibility of "taxpayer dollars to engage in lobbying activities to promote the President's health care legislative agenda and other legislative priorities."

The letter also raised serious questions regarding how the NEA's participation in these calls may have violated federal criminal restrictions on lobbying Congress, the Hatch Act, appropriations restrictions on spending funds for such purposes, and possible contradictions with the entity's mission under its authorizing statute.

Why is everybody so surprised that the NEA is so entrenched in the pocket of Mr. Obama? His election probably sent all the arts groups into spasms of ecstasy. The NEA was allotted millions in his stimulus package. This unethical symbiosis between artists and this administration is the final proof that the world of legitimate art no longer exists.

It was still viable in the early '60s and very much in evidence in this city. I sold my first painting at the Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit and would spend hours over one cup of cappuccino in the coffee shops on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, which was then the epicenter of Bohemia.

My young nephew once called me a hippie and I had to explain to him the difference between hippies and bohemians. Hippies and yippies were generally anti-establishment and prone to group consensus. Bohemians, on the other hand, are artists and writers who live and act free of regard for convention and tend to be loners.

My friends who fancied themselves harbingers of the Age of Aquarius invited me to go to this outdoor concert in an upstate place called Woodstock but I turned them down when I found out about the lack of toilets and sleeping facilities. Been there, done that, I said.

The end of the '60s inaugurated the era of faux everything, especially in the art world. I remember answering a Village Voice ad seeking artwork for a new nightclub. The woman at the club asked me how large my paintings were and when I told her that my largest was 4 ft. x 4 ft., she said they were looking for much larger pieces for the walls. I told her that she probably would have turned down Van Gogh. She asked, "Who?"

In 1992, I became the president of a local art group, which was based in Snug Harbor on Staten Island. This was basically an administrative position seeking exhibition venues for the group and grant opportunities. That's when I discovered the criteria of NEA and the Council on the Arts here in New York, which ruled out most of the members in my group who were talented traditional artists.

The artists who succeeded in getting grants submitted politically correct statements; bloodthirsty priests standing over pregnant women dying from botched abortions; animals wounded by evil hunters, and city streets choked by poisonous greenhouse emissions. In other words, you could be a starving artist with integrity or you could survive on government handouts, provided you used your talent for liberal propaganda.

My art group finally won its first grant when we combined our annual art exhibit with a fundraiser for a good social cause that would appease the Council judges. Awarding half the proceeds to community groups that support AIDS patients and the homeless qualified us for minor funding.

These criteria would be exemplary were it not for the fact that so many of the community groups that get government funding are corrupted by those who know how to work the system. These art groups get funding that never seeps down to the minority artists who perform in the public art displays that qualify the group for funding. These struggling artists work for free because they see these venues as opportunities for publicity while the hierarchy gets paid very well on taxpayer money.

This corruption is not limited to art groups. Consider the fact that ACORN flunkies bear the brunt of the notoriety while its co-founder, Wade Rathke, escapes any official investigation.

Artists throughout the ages had patrons and sponsors who paid for their livelihood but most allowed them to create what inspired them. Genius was allowed to flourish.

When the government steps in to pervert talent into propaganda, it's nothing less than procurement. All the artists who participated in that conference call should have felt insulted. If they didn't, then there wasn't a Bohemian amongst them.

Alicia Colon resides in New York and is a columnist for nysun.com. Her Web site is aliciacolon.com.