Art as a Way to Deal With Negative Feelings

Everyone gets down in the dumps every once in a while, and when we feel like this we seek comfort. Whether you pick up a football, a pencil, or a phone, we all have different ways of coping with unwanted emotions. Art is one healthy way that a lot of people deal with negative feelings, but unfortunately it’s not getting the funds it needs to be accessible to everyone. Art programs should be publicly funded by the government because people use it as a coping mechanism, poor people should have access to it, and art is a large part of our history not only as americans, but as a human race.

Art should be publicly funded because people use it as a coping mechanism. There is a generalization that art and mental illness are linked, and that stereotype isn’t based on lies. A swedish study found that students who were exceptionally creative were four times more likely to have bipolar disorder. People struggling with mental illness often need to have a way to vent and cope with their chemical imbalances. Art is the outlet for a good portion of these people. If art programs weren’t available, mentally ill people wouldn’t have reliable access to the things that help them to function properly in a society that so often downplays and rejects them.

Art should be publicly funded because poor people should have access to necessities. This ties somewhat into my last point. People who live in poverty are twice as likely to be depressed. They might seek a way to cope with their situation, no matter what that might be. Lots of artists grew up poor, imagine what would have happened if they hadn’t had access to their supplies? We’d be living in a world where Edgar Allen Poe, El Greco, and even Bach were just ordinary, unheard of people.

Art should be publicly funded because it’s a large part of our history. We put a lot of pressure on social studies, making it a mandatory class, but we don’t focus much on art history even though it has shaped history. For example, Pablo Picasso’s Guernica was a statement on the tragedy of war that changed the perspective of many people. The history of art is something very important that we don’t give near enough attention to.

You might be thinking that art doesn’t need to be funded by the government; that it should be privately funded. I’m here to tell you why that simply isn’t true. The government has way more money than you or I could ever imagine, and in reality it doesn’t take that much to keep art programs up and running. If the government can spend $84 million to on erectile dysfunction medication, they can afford to put a couple million towards art programs across the country.

In short, art programs should be funded publicly. Lots of people, especially poor people and mentally ill people, use art as coping mechanisms for their sicknesses. Art history is also something that should be better funded as it is a large part of our history as a human population. The government can afford to spend more money on art, and they should.