Our nations creativity has filled the worlds libraries, museums, recital halls, movie houses, and marketplaces with works of genius. The arts embody the American spirit of self-definition. Barack Obama uniquely appreciates the role and value of creative expression.
Our new President Elect considers himself an artist. As should we all. If we do not rescue the Arts at this turning point in our nations history, our cultural identity will be reduced to basic marketing and data processing. We will all still be artists, but we wont be any good.
When it comes to the visual arts and Arts education, we are in trouble. The struggling economy combines with an emphasis on high-stakes standardized tests to strangle the creativity from our national voice. Arts programs and teachers are being cut from the system like blooming branches, leaving nothing but a bare trunk.
Whatever your style, whatever your most important issue, make sure you click around on change.gov until you find something to add to the new national suggestion box. There is a new day rising for feedback between the government and its people. Be creative with it, and express yourself. We are all artists in our own way. And now we have a President who understands that.
Our cries have been heard, and understood, and championed by a fellow creative soul. President Obama, we salute you. Artist to artist.
Bob Dylan says Barack Obama is 'changin' America
His 1964 track The Times They are a-Changin became the anthem for his generation, symbolising the era-defining social struggle against the establishment.
Now Bob Dylan - who could justifiably claim to be the architect of Barack Obama's 'change' catchphrase - has backed the new President to do for modern America what the generation before did in the 1960s.
Dylan gives a ringing endorsement to President Obama, the first ever black president, claiming he is “redefining the nature of politics from the ground up".
Dylan, 67, made the comments when being interviewed in Denmark, where he stopped over in a hotel during a tour of Scandinavia.
Asked about his views on American politics, he said: “Well, you know right now America is in a state of upheaval. Poverty is demoralising. You can't expect people to have the virtue of purity when they are poor.
But we've got this guy out there now who is redefining the nature of politics from the ground up...Barack Obama. He's redefining what a politician is, so we'll have to see how things play out. Am I hopeful? Yes, I'm hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to. You should always take the best from the past, leave the worst back there and go forward into the future.
Bob Dylan
Dylan's endorsement contains much symbolic significance. The legendary singer-songwriter, who has an art exhibition opening in London, became a focal point for young people worldwide when he released the album The times they are a-changin," including the famous song of that name, in 1964.
The track, which he wrote as the social liberation of the '60s astonished politicians and parents, included lines urging people to accept and embrace what was happening around them.
Memorable lines included: “Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call. Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall," and: “Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticise what you can't understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Your old road is rapidly agin'."
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