The Hope of the South: Art as Healing

If we’re under the erroneous impression that creative art is only occurring on the coasts, we’re overlooking a vast amount of profound, transformative, and transcendent work impacting communities across the country.

South Arts’ ArtsHERE, a new initiative from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) aimed to “expand access to arts participation in our country” is a significant indicator that someone (or ones) at the top of the NEA food chain understands creative arts are a vital way to approach healing – and that artists in the South need more support.

One might look at it as a step toward rescuing/saving our country as it supports those people and organizations that, in their creative work -- and many within their DNA -- are carrying the weight and legacy of this country’s saddest and most painful truths.

That’s not to say everyone down south is doing creative work dealing in deep, soul-wrenching output. In the Tampa Bay region, countless award-winning museums annually present the work of internationally acclaimed artists working in every form imaginable.

The evidence of art as an economic driver has been studied for six years by Americans for the Arts, and Creative Pinellas has taken seriously the call to push the region forward. Embarking on a county cultural plan, it aims to improve how the county’s 2 billion dollar economic impact reaches a larger portion of citizens.

It’s on a local level that one sees the soul-healing aspect of art happening, as a new generation of creatives is creating life-affirming paint parties at local shops, others are hosting hip-hop podcasts, DJ cafes, fashion events, and a plethora of local art offerings. Local artist Myiah Pink’s art festival and fundraiser for sickle cell disease at St. Petersburg’s Studio@620 exemplifies how young artists are making the connection between art and wellness.

Grassroots film events such as the Tampa Latin International Film Festival and the Black Art and Film Festival and family-friendly events like the 2nd Tampa Bay Chalk Festival bring local and national artists into view. Organizers and producers keep fees and costs for artists and attendees low or completely free, allowing accessibility for as many under-resourced community members as possible.

Local artists are working with children and families, including those in foster care and the juvenile justice system, like NOMADStudio – as well as offering young adults opportunities to engage in “trap—everything,” from painting to yoga to business gatherings.

Art is as vital as air and it is everywhere…and is often most vibrant and life-affirming when it comes from places on the planet where the “transgenerational inheritance” of struggle – whether geographical struggle, economic struggle, racial or ethnic struggle -- is a part of one’s life. ?(The DNA-level struggle that the study of epigenetics has been out to investigate.)

Unfortunately, this kind of struggle is of course global, and getting more and more demanding of our attention these days.

So…as a way to heal, to deal, to reveal…we create art…or we watch art…or we dance to art.

Perhaps in this time of revealing deep rifts, anxiety, and illness in our union, great hope lies in the places where creative excavation of our deepest illness, greatest national shame, and most enduring denial of justice lives. Maybe revelation and creative excavation of the South is where our hope for a way out of all this mess lies.

If so, thanks to the NEA and South Arts, a little more hope is about to explode into the universe.