Bob Booker Welcomes Attendees to the Southwest Arts Conference
(8-10-10) Bob Booker, Executive Director of the Arizona Commission on the Arts, (and former president of NASAA) welcome attendees on July 29 to the Southwest Arts Conference. Jonathan Katz passes along the text of Bob's introduction:
The arts hold the ability to shed the “light of truth and understanding” across America in these challenging times. The arts have always taken the lead in facing the tough issues head on. From Picasso's painting, Guernica, to the poems of Langston Hughes, the arts are not shy, quiet or reserved.
Mexican artists took on the atrocities of World War II through their work, way before artists from any other country stepped forward. We showed the effects of the great depression in our cities and rural America through our artistry and then went on to rebuild America as workers in the WPA [Works Progress Administration], the Federal Art Project and the CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps]. We were part of the civil rights movement with our 8-millimeter cameras, our typewriters and our voices. We documented the farm works movement through photography and helped America understand the AIDS pandemic through stories, quilts, and images that spoke the truth.