for the Arts the belief that entertainment it's free. as for the majority Is all we need to fill up on non-working holidays? But the awesome contrast. are expensive a frills I'm not for the majority. But offer a small minority. well educated wealthy Americans these kind of Illusions Die Hard we on the outside. strike, no attitudes of moral superiority I'm claiming that we are. Superior but we begin by saying that good a lot like good entertainment. Is there to provide enjoyment for everyone? I'm sad but as odd and entertainment move together. At the stalk in providing enjoyment. There comes a point a boundary line. We're at a time with the photos exhaust itself as a means of enriching the individual. and moves on First and contrast at at a moment. All offers of perception and perception of the world around us. It enables us to see the world around us where the paint has. I to hear it for the musician's ear. The field with a Craftsman's sensitivity to his materials. To comprehend it in the way that the poet Sensibility. Brings all the interrelationship of all things when dr. Fleming Talk of the involvement of people in life. Perception is very much apart when we were aware of what is around us. Not only as individuals but as Citizens. Unless we are able to distinguish between what is beautiful and what is ugly? Then we will be surrounded Always by ugly that will be off date to be surrounded by ugliness. So that from now on the capacity of America is a part of our survival. second. Officers clarification the n-word perception of ourselves which comes when the artist who shares our experiences and our feelings. Just a tragic resolution and catharsis in the Aristotelian sense. And in Shakespeare's why do definition of the use of the imagination in midsummer's Night's Dream when he says that the office imagination give to everything around us. a local habitation in the name Turn on office identification. Through the traditional Arts starting in the middle theme song and oral poetry and dance to theater in music now. Three individuals now his antecedents and his Heritage and four groups within our culture to know where they have come from where they are going where they stand at this point and what they want out of life. fourth participation we come together in commemoration and celebration and worship in morning. And in each instance the act of joining together, which is the significant Act. Is made possible through up? and lastly and ultimately the concept of reconciliation the acceptance by the living But we are not alive for long. Let me give you one illustration. the 1922 William Butler Yeats was 57 He was blind in one eye was going deaf. He was deeply dissolution with the Civil War in Ireland. He's part of himself as an old man. He wrote to Olivia Shakespeare. I am tired and in a rage of being old. I am all that I ever was but an enemy has bound me and twisted me so that I can plan anything cuz I never could but I can no longer cheve all that I plan and think. The artist is unique and being able to transform his personal defeat. In the way you shared experience of lasting value. Uh did that in the series of poems which culminated in the great poem sailing to Byzantium. You start by acknowledging the break between himself at age is caused the life around him. That is No Country for Old Men. Big knowledge of his buddies at Klein and he sees where the him salvation lies. Age of man is but a paltry thing. a titled called upon a stick Unless Soul clap its hands and sing them loudest thing for every Tire in its mortal dress nor is there singing school but studying monuments of its own magnificent? Therefore I have sailed the Seas and come to the holy city of Byzantium. PH the holy city Byzantium is the city of the imagination. Lincoln process his long years of struggle against growing older end of the one triumphant phrase of sailing to Byzantium Once there at once out of nature. He says you will be fashion deliver gold and bird and set up on a golden ball to sing to Lords & Ladies of Byzantium if it's past or passing want to come. strip to that magical metaphor Yates and saying But through the act of creating. The artist may become what he creates. a pod of Eternity a century is lucky if it turns up one poet. the magnitude of Yeats but the struggle and what she participated is a struggle at which we all share. We all sense the feeling of worthlessness as we grow older. We all ask ourselves at some time. Why should I get out of bed this morning? And the question is unanswerable to those who approach the human being. As a physical object to be treated in physical terms. motivation the overcoming of the act of worthlessness a sense of worthlessness Is the same device as it was for Yates and in fact in this handbook which dr. Fleming mentioned? There was a perfect illustration to me. James Moore the poet who describes his activities here in Saint Paul He talks about meeting old people need describes one. When I told her how much I did enjoy talking to her he says and then I'd like to talk to her again. She said oh, I haven't any experience as I just worked on my life. That 70 I should be engraved on every caught at every person who works with older people in any capacity. So many older people have told me that in one form or another. I'm stupid was a terrible sense of worthlessness and one of them a feeling that they are nobodies. I suppose partly because they can't have the illusion that motivates the rest of us. I may not have done much but in the future in the future for them, there is no future of that kind. They can't kill themselves in the same way on the other hand right beneath the surface right under that feeling of worthlessness. There is an incredible richness of experience a whole life is waiting to be drawn on. And an Elms case at least that experience is almost immediately accessible. It's there for the asking. That to me is exactly what we're talkin about James Moore has one pilot represents a new generation of artists who have left. The isolated artist will come back to the mainstream of life to share the serve to alter to be heard. The artist and the orchestra is out playing in shopping centers in suburbs the oddest in the theater companies established now in 55 cities in this country where I was 10 years ago was limited to New York and San Francisco and a few others of the smallest continent. the Artist as a punt as long as the bridge and I was hearing some Paul is out in 5,000 school districts now. Working with children the free the poet that is in every child in every citizen. Government is a very small part of that Enterprise a significant part is reinforcing what artist themselves wish to do and what the American people wish them to do. Like Arthur Fleming's Administration on the Aging nonetheless over this last decade the story of the indominus a story of unqualified success. within that success there is uneven this, however And the approach to older Americans is a notable. failure on our part so far Lou Harris and his whole last year. What about the fact that for Americans age 65 and older 70% had not been to a museum in the past 12 months. 80% of not being do any concert or Opera? 85% no theater performance 95% no performance of live dance. That for us is failure. In the long run the endowment. Has a master strategy in my opinion which is to raise generations of Americans the sensibility to the Arts do aesthetic awareness in our schools as they grow older in the citizens. They will assert. Role of aesthetic awareness in American life and we'll find for themselves richness. But so far the majority of Americans have been unable to find in the Arts. but today as a result of our failings in the past and I school system. We have in this country at all and older Americans who have never learned how their own lives can be enriched through personal knowledge of and participation in the Arts. And this is a problem. We must approach in special ways. One characteristic of older Americans is a sudden lowering of income. lacrosse this country now temperature in the New Stage Theater in Jackson, Mississippi autistic institution set up through free concerts free theaters Lower ticket prices to meet this problem of lowered income for a substantial majority of the potential audience which remains to them. another characteristic of older Americans in Mobility the gun as part of the same ambition elitis to reach much wider audiences. professional institutions like the old Creamery Theater in Iowa Circle Center Learning Guild here in Boston, which is represented by two young citizens. takes Professional Arts out where old people So it isn't necessary for them to go through the laborious business of travel. third isolation the feeling of being a side left out the dates began by mentioning. Groups here attack the loss of purpose typically the free Street Theater, which we're going to see this morning. by getting older Americans involved in the creative process and all of those aspects of the Arts, which I mentioned of clarification of identification of creation doesn't once again, The basic elements of motivation which author Fleming describe the hold on a life. Every piece meal service that we provide in this way is worthwhile. But much more important in the long run is a comprehensive approach. The grouping together of August in a given community. Which looks of the community around them not in terms of one segment of the handicapped of the old of the young. the black but as a community bringing it together through the catalytic impact of the Arts. Which old people once again I brought back of the community instead of being isolated and treated separately and especially on their own. Karamu house in Cleveland Henry Street, Alice Lloyd College in Kentucky campus here in Saint Paul all engaged in this kind of activity. But regrettably. Steve cell Our only state director. Although there are other state agencies working in this program. I really want to hear today. I'll ask him is also here for, North Carolina. We have today the models on which. We can advance we know that they work. The task and coming together for the first time he heard of me. Justworks changing formations to learn what we have done what we have accomplished over the last 10 years. What's acid in terms of the cost and the contribution? I'm from there to go on to see how these models can be repeated and repeated an enlarged upon throughout the country. The endowment is a very very small agency of gum. It spends about $0.40 per head. per year When you reflect on the pain the fact that I say in Jackson, the free theater has got the cost of getting one old person to one theater performance down to $6. You realize there are built-in limitations and what one agency like the endowment can do. The endowment is a pilot agency. An agency which if it works will help Americans start up. The ideas which in the future will take hold and be built into the fabric of American Life. But I was it does this. The doctor Fleming said it must relate the other much larger agencies Municipal and County governments Departments of recreation Administration on the Aging. So that the fundamental concept? Are the oddest providing a service for which he is paid as he should be. Is accepted by the majority of Americans by the massive agencies, which represent them at every level of government. The doctor Fleming said this is a starting point. which If we can. Come together in some meaningful way. We can make use of the models we have begun by creating. He mentioned ways in which artist can work with his administration. He mentioned his own determination to do what he could to continue this creative partnership with Jack and you have started. I know that we in the endowment want to do the same thing to provide every support we can for this movement of this organization to see to it that we will meet not once a year but many times a year and many communities Steve and I and others will do everything we can to bring a state agency directors Andrew consciousness of all that you have as aging administrator. I'm all those empty points the doctor Flemming mention by which they can become effective and what can be a single force on behalf of odd and aging in America. We can't all be William Butler Yeats has but we are all engaged in some kind of voyage and in sailing to our own byzantium's. We have a better chance of getting there if we go together.