It is a human reality that civilizations create institutions to preserve/protect our most sacred ideals: to preserve freedom /liberty we create government; to protect morality/ promote universal brotherhood we create religion. Inevitably institutions become more obsessed with protecting/preserving the institution -- even at the expense of the very principles they had sworn to protect. Thus: we have governments that undermine the very freedoms they pledge to protect & religions that perpetually find new groups for us to hate. It is at such times as these the ARTIST MUST RISE to shine his/her light on the self-evident truths our governments/religions continually pervert and then persecute.

Many of the Biblical prophets were POETS - independent spirits who understood how words well-arranged possess a power to expose with clarity what ordinary prose could never hope to express. Like Isaiah & Jeremiah, so too the poets, writers, painters, sculptures, composers, choreographers in every age & every culture: so-called "radical" thinkers who challenge conventional wisdom & ultimately expose the blatant hypocrisy your average citizen is skillfully lulled into accepting as normal.

Most of these "nay-sayers" barely scratch out a living...but you can help them survive, if only for another day. Buy a chapbook or a CD, drop a few bucks in a tip jar, hire a struggling artist to paint your house or re-tile your kitchen.

By supporting your local artist you too will be waging art....