Perpetually Curious

I've had Barbara Kingsolver's High Tide in Tuscon: Essays from Now or Never  sitting on my To Be Read pile for, oh, five or six years now. I picked it up after reading her essays on farm life,  Animal, Vegetable, Mineral,  but then it got shuffled into the stack and sat there, waiting. As usual, the Universe knows the right timing. When you start advocacy, you need to have a pretty clear idea about exactly what it is you're advocating for. When it comes to increased support (financial and otherwise) for artists, I've long been back and forth in my thinking, not really certain what tactic was best. I mean, do we focus on the "arts for arts sake"? (And really what does that even mean?) Do we show how the skills you develop pursuing any of the arts help you no matter what your career path? Or do we talk about the return on investment for municipalities in their artists and arts businesses? Because I'm so close to it, I can argue many different angles about ...