Why Art?

For the full published article, including further sources and further reading on the state of Denver art and the best way to help our city, read the full article.

Our Most Urgent Problem

In the 45 minutes you may take to read this, five of you who have work — right now — will lose your job due to your lack of education. That’s just in Denver.

Let’s be frank.

Do you live in Denver? Right now, your art programs are embarrassingly underfunded. Do you have kids? Nieces or nephews? You are giving them a more artless education than you yourself received.

Did you grow up with art classes? Were you ever allowed to freely express yourself as a child? Right now, over 5,000 kids don’t have access to even one art class. And that’s just in Denver.

The debate ended a long time ago. Lack of education is the single quickest way to poverty. Here in Denver, the data is clear.

The numbers are astonishing. Chances are, your child will attend 35% fewer art classes than you. It’s because of the landscape of ignorance we’ve built around our city. Ignorance is the biggest cause of your city’s poverty.

Interestingly, the Denver art industry alone (within the category of High-Education jobs), creates over $230,000 in wages every week. This illustrates the far-more dramatic problem at hand: the cost of education is only a fraction of the cost of ignorance.

This is fact. Any economist will tell you that creative skills are the most profitable skills to teach your kids today. In truth, right now, knowledge is your best insurance against poverty and joblessness. And, Denver, you’re not alone.

A global problem

To be blunt, it is a catastrophe. It is sweeping across the world as we speak. We need a revolution.

Worsening condition

Our city loses 50 jobs a day, not to cheaper labor, but to smarter workers.

Denver is losing 24,000 jobs a year, and it’s getting worse. Your schools are cutting art classes due to budget cuts. Artlessness costs Denver $80m a year, and it’s set to double in the next ten years to $160m.

Let’s be honest, we don’t have that kind of cash.

We need a systemic, permanent solution.

We need it. The time is now. We’re approaching the tipping point moment.

We’ve been amassing our movement for three years —and now the time is ripe for the picking.

Unskilled becomes unemployed

That’s why, last year, we went to the eye of the storm: 24th & Lawrence. The block outside the Denver Rescue Mission is generally the largest congregation of homeless people in Denver. It’s a beautiful street corner.

We wanted to share our gift with real hearts, real souls, and real people. We brought pencils.

Here are the people we care about. Your neighbors. Your children.

We met D’Angelo. He is staying at a shelter for families of battered women.

We gave him his first paintbrush and canvas. He is homeless. His six-year-old brother is homeless. His mother is homeless.

He has a 70% chance of remaining in poverty his entire life. He cannot afford a single class that will set him ahead in today’s job market.

We met Leticia. She can’t afford to go back to school. She used to paint but never had a place to sell her work. She carried over 20 paintings with her, unsold only because they were unseen.

Joblessness doesn’t just hurt the people who suffer from it. It hurts their sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, moms, and dads. Our city simply can no longer divorce ourself from our creative skills.

Preventable ignorance. Preventable poverty.

Dana Delaney teaches at HillCrest Academy in North Park Hill, the tip of the spear.

Dana was one of our first allies in the fight to end artlessness. She is at the knife’s edge of our problem. She’s the one who has to fail her students because she can’t afford art supplies, art lesson plans, or art textbooks.

She has to fail her students – and she’s fed up with it. She’s fed up with failing her own art classes, her friends, and her family.

In Jan 2010 her budget was slashed again, and she’s sick of it. This is preventable ignorance. It is a waste of great minds.

Three Main Causes

Honestly, what’s happened in this city that’s ripped our heart away from us?

1. Bring art back to local markets

Start with our marketplaces. Big brands have taken over our stores, which is no surprise. Corporations are some of the biggest powers in the world. Supermarkets. Big companies. Mass retailers.

Twenty years ago most of our art was largely local. It was taught by local teachers to local students who sold their art in local markets.

Now, most art you see in mass retailers is ubiquitous: a movie poster, a reproduced Thomas Kinkade print, or any number of impersonal, reproduced, advertised printouts.

Frankly, the art section in most Denver markets is a disgrace. What passes for the free exchange of ideas more often than not comes with a logo, a tagline, and another product to sell.

A single neighborhood art market can provide lasting relief to the poor. We asked Leticia to sell her work. We gave her just one wall in one gallery. She sold more than 30 paintings in a single night.

2. Bring art back into the home

The home used to be the heart of passing on art knowledge, cultural teachings, and a family’s heritage to the next generation. This cycle used to enrich our society into historic enlightenments, reformations, and renaissances.

But this isn’t happening now. To be honest, it hasn’t happened for twenty years.

DPAU connects parents, to preserve and share our families’ teachings once and for all.

3. Bring art back into schools

Studies show the largest hurdle to teaching is communication, and the clear fact is that our poorest students simply have no teacher.

Denver is cutting art classes by 10% per year. Our neediest neighborhoods are being hit even harder.

We must fix our creative education programs or we’ll face out-of-control, escalating unemployment.

A single art class can change a life. We gave D’Angelo a chance to learn. In one single class, he produced a large painting, which he would soon proudly stand next to in an art gallery, and sell to one of seven collectors who got into a bidding war to buy it.

The Solution: Mobilize

Denver Art Society is mobilizing Denver to solve these problems ourselves. We’re providing needed relief to our artless, healing our neighborhood economies, and eliminating the root causes.

By working together as a single great Movement, we can forever end artlessness.

How You Can Help

Donate.

Our society waged war on artlessness. Our economy is at stake. Our city’s wellbeing is on the line. Our kids’ education is at risk.

We can rebuild Denver’s art programs — from the ground up — but we need your help.

Your support. Your charity.

Are you tired of waiting for others to solve our problems for you? So are we. With your help, we can repair our failing economy once and for all.

Now, we have the tools, the people, and the skills to get this done ourselves. Rise up with us. Take back control of our art society, our art classes, and our art markets.

Your donation helps in several ways

You help us cover the increasing costs of maintaining a growing network of art students, art teachers, and artists.

You give teachers the tools they need to remain strong and effective.

Your gift provides relief to schools, making it easier to teach art, easier to learn art, and easier to build new art schools.

Your donation has a direct impact

Thanks to generous private donors, 100% of your donation today goes directly to Denver art projects.

We have the teachers. We have the students. We just need the resources to see this fight through until the end.

We invite you to join us: help bring an end to artlessness.

100% of your donation goes straight to our people on the ground (learn about the 100%). Denver Art Society is a registered nonprofit organization.