The Arts Should Damn Well Demand, And Receive, Government Funding

“Historically, we haven’t looked for government funding until, like the Los Angeles Opera in 2009, our backs were against the wall. It’s easier and faster to ask for money from our friends, and the success rate is higher. … We owe it to those donors who have gotten us this far to knock on government doors the way we knocked on theirs. And we owe it to the next generation to ensure that art doesn’t become truly elitist.”