My Turn: Picture This — Why the National Endowment for the Arts is essential to American life

Madeline Miller

Madeline Miller STAFF FILE PHOTO/PAUL FRANZ

By MADELINE MILLER

Published: 05-09-2025 10:07 AM

Shortly after 7 p.m. on Friday, May 2, I received an email from the National Endowment for the Arts notifying me that Artspace Greenfield’s current grant in support of our community gallery had been terminated. This grant had helped fund our gallery for roughly a year so far, offering new and emerging Franklin County artists an opportunity to exhibit in a professional setting, and increasing the amount of art on view for local people to experience.

The good news is that we are on the verge of reaching the end of our project period and we had just been reimbursed for all of our eligible expenses in early April. The bad news is that we had applied for a bigger grant for the coming year to support affordable youth ceramics education, a grant which we now assume is null.

The really bad news is that many of our fellow grantees across the country and across the NEA’s multiple grant-making programs are much worse off. Hundreds of organizations are being left high and dry, mid-stream with big arts projects. These organizations had received funding commitments from the NEA, and had in turn made commitments to artists and communities that can’t be rescinded without harm.

In many communities NEA funding is what makes it possible for arts organizations to better serve communities that have, as we say in the field, “barriers to arts participation” — financial, cultural, or physical circumstances that make it hard to engage with the arts. The NEA has aimed to make it possible for everyone to experience and participate in art, no matter their demographic, and to elevate not only fine art coming from academia, high-profile galleries, and the like, but also art that is generated at the community level, like murals, youth performance, and festivals.

The NEA is a small federal agency, but its 60-year history serves as a chronicle of American life, culture, and values. The NEA supported Alice Walker a decade before “The Color Purple”; created the design competition that produced the Vietnam Veterans Memorial; funded a community art program to help restore civic life in Oklahoma City after the 1995 bombing; provides free museum admission to active-duty service members and their families; and in addition to Artspace, has supported Franklin County’s own Double Edge Theatre. The arts bring people together, and togetherness is something we badly need in this country.

Making and experiencing art are fundamental human activities, and they will continue without federal funding. But it will be harder for small organizations like Artspace to undertake big projects. Individual artists will have fewer opportunities to hone their practice, and simply to find employment. It is likely that it will be harder for people who don’t live in a wealthy community to experience and participate in art. And we can only guess what important ideas might never come into artistic expression if the NEA isn’t there to fund them.

At Artspace we are going to continue our work, full steam ahead, no matter what. Artspace believes that this little corner of the country — and the entire country — needs, wants, and deserves art. We will work, and we will both hope and strive for a time when the federal government once again acknowledges that art is a basic human right, and invests generously in a bright, creative future for all.

Madeline Miller is director of Artspace Greenfield.

Article continues after...

Yesterday's Most Read Articles

Study examines feasibility of 6.7-mile trail connecting Whately, Deerfield, Sunderland and Amherst
‘You’re not going to see anything quite like it’: Bernardston Gas Engine Show, Flea Market and Craft Fair returns
Write-in Goldman wins Montague Selectboard seat in a landslide
Greenfield Police Logs: April 28 to May 3, 2025
State board agrees on vocational school admissions reforms
Franklin County librarians detail modern-day challenges