Washington File

21 December 2000

President Hails 24 for Contributions to Arts, Humanities

(Presented National Medals at ceremony December 20) (1670)
By Michael J. Bandler
Washington File Cultural Correspondent

They write the poems and novels that engage audiences of diverse ages.
They create works of art that adorn the nation's public places and
fill its museums. They play or write music that appeals to popular or
classical tastes. They offer historical and social perspectives that
shape people's breadth of knowledge and opinions. And if they don't
perform or write works themselves, ultimately they create the
atmosphere, and provide the resources, that enable others to do so,
thereby enhancing culture in the United States.

This was the type of imagination, activism and beneficence President
Clinton celebrated December 20 when he presented the National Medal of
Arts and the National Humanities Medal to 23 men and women and one
broadcast organization whose roles have been inexorably shaped by the
challenges and possibilities of culture, and who, in turn, have
transmitted those values to millions of people in the United States
and in other countries.

The honorees included such internationally-known figures as writers
Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou, country music star Eddy Arnold, jazz
musician Benny Carter and classical violinist Itzhak Perlman,
composer-arranger Quincy Jones, artists Chuck Close and Claes
Oldenburg, dancer-choreographer Mikhail Baryshnikov, Broadway
producer-director Harold Prince and singer-actress-director Barbra
Streisand. Honored, too, were Chicago arts patron and collector Lewis
Manilow and the cultural programming division of National Public
Radio.

For arts medalist Angelou, the event was as singularly bittersweet as
it was enthralling. She was present during the first minutes of the
Clinton Administration - at the first inaugural in January 1993 -
reading a poem, On the Pulse of Morning, which she wrote for the
occasion. Now she was being honored during Clinton's final weeks in
office. She suggested, in a conversation after the ceremony, that the
two events represented "bookends, a closure" of sorts.

For his part, the President thanked Angelou - novelist, poet, essayist
and film director - for "offering us always the raw truth and the
eloquence of hope," and for showing the world "the redemptive healing
power of art."

On a day marked by tributes not only to the Medal recipients but also
to youth involved in arts projects and designers of public buildings
and monuments, the President stressed, at the ceremony, that the arts
and humanities "bring us together, by making us more self-aware and
more human," and, as a result, "make us more likely to understand our
neighbors and to be better neighbors ourselves."

Clinton dappled his personal remarks to the Medal honorees with
comments reflecting this theme of interdependence and community. For
example, he pointed to sociologist Robert N. Bellah, a winner of the
humanities medal, as someone who "understands the tension between two
of America's core values, individuality and community," and who has
pointed out, at "some very difficult periods in our nation's life ...
that for all our enshrinement of individuality, we can never make the
most of our individual lives unless we first are devoted to our shared
community."

In that same vein, he described novelist Barbara Kingsolver, also a
humanities honoree, as someone who "writes with beauty and wisdom
about the ethnic and cultural divides that challenge humanity," adding
that "she offers in novels and essays a compelling vision of how they
might be healed." Above all, he continued, "she reminds us of the
value of hope, telling us not to admire it from a distance, but to
live right in it, under its roof."

Noting the tireless efforts of leading civic activist and
philanthropist Herman Guerrero "to preserve and promote the rich
history and culture" of the Northern Mariana Islands, the President
expressed appreciation to the humanities medalist "for raising the
hopes and dreams of his people." Similarly, he underscored musician
Jones' specific humanitarian work - from the Los Angeles inner city to
South Africa - "to uplift and inspire young people," and praised
African American novelist Ernest J. Gaines - author of such works as
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman - for teaching people, through
his writings, "that the human spirit cannot be contained within the
boundaries of race or class."

In that same vein, Clinton pointed to the work of Lakota Sioux
novelist, folklorist and teacher Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, honored
with a humanities medal, who "has devoted the past three decades to
educating children and others about Native American culture, to
breaking down stereotypes and replacing them with knowledge and
understanding."

In their comments, both the President and First Lady Hillary Rodham
Clinton reflected on the personal pleasure they have derived from
these annual tributes because of their affinity for so many of the
artists. Besides the writings of Kingsolver, humanities medalist Toni
Morrison's fiction - which Clinton described as "powerful, unflinching
and beautiful" - is another favorite in their household. The
President's first encounter with the country singing of arts medalist
Eddy Arnold came as a young boy, growing up in a home with a radio but
no television. And humanities medalist David C. Driskell, an art
scholar and curator, endeared himself to the Clintons by helping to
bring the first work by an African American artist - Henry Ossawa
Tanner's Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City, to the White House
collection.

Particularly because of his roots in the U.S. South and Arkansas,
Clinton has clear links to another humanities medalist, civil rights
activist Will D. Campbell - who escorted the original nine black
students into Little Rock (Arkansas) Central High School, one of the
defining moments of the desegregation era of the late 1950s. And, as a
native of a small town, he has ties to the "magnificent" dramas,
novels and screenplays of arts medalist Horton Foote, which, the
President emphasized, are "rooted in the tales, the troubles, the
heartbreak and the hopes of all he heard and saw" in small-town Texas
- stories "of family, community and the triumph of the human spirit."

The President took special delight in identifying the uncommon
characteristics of each of the honorees, among them three arts
medalists. For Russian-born Baryshnikov, whose 1974 flight to freedom
riveted the world, it is "his bold forays into new forms" and for
taking risks. The "ambiguity" of painter Chuck Close's oeuvre is what
"makes his art so powerful, so interesting, so clearly a reflection of
life itself," Clinton observed. As for Claes Oldenburg's "monuments to
the mundane," Clinton - citing a towering clothes pin in a
Philadelphia plaza, a massive matchbook on a Barcelona hillside and a
bicycle buried in a Paris park - observed that this artist "has
brought a welcome sense of whimsy to our public places."

Acknowledging several arts medal recipients from different musical
fields, the President marveled how 93-year-old jazz artist Carter has
"miraculously continued to compose, arrange, teach and perform music
that speaks to the human soul," in a life that is "a great riff to the
human spirit." Pointing to Perlman's "sheer energy, courage and
happiness with which he has embraced life, without pity or regret,"
Clinton added that the well-traveled violinist's music-making "for the
sheer joy of it reminds us that pure beauty can help us all to
transcend ourselves and our differences." In discussing Prince's
accomplishments on stage and in the operatic world, the President
simply mentioned three of the director's successes - West Side Story,
Fiddler on the Roof and Phantom of the Opera. And describing Streisand
as "a singular presence" on stage, screen and in the director's chair,
in musicals, comedy and drama, noting her "capacity to touch the
deepest chords of our being," he cited her "great mind, enormous
creative capacity, huge heart and the voice of a generation."

A number of this year's humanities medalists defy categorization, and
Clinton emphasized their unique achievements:

-- Judy Crichton, documentary filmmaker and producer, and daughter of
a pioneer television network producer, created the prestigious
American Experience series on U.S. public television, and in the
process, "has elevated a medium she loves and lifted all those who
watch it."

-- Edmund S. Morgan, retired Yale University historian, an authority
on Puritan and American colonial history, and author of a number of
prizewinning volumes, has enabled scholars and general readers to
savor "his clear writing, clear thinking and his knack for the human
touch, the anecdote or detail that brings history alive for every
reader."

-- Earl Shorris is creator of an experimental, no-charge eight-month
college course in the humanities aimed at transforming the lives of
the disadvantaged through education in this field of study. Open to
students ages 18 to 35, it reflects the fact that, in the President's
words, "the humanities mean the most as a part of people's daily
lives, not locked away in some ivory tower or secret closet."

-- The cultural programming division of National Public Radio, which,
for three decades, has offered listeners everything from advice on how
to maintain their automobiles to discussions and presentations of
grand opera. "We are a better, more humane nation," the President
said, thanks to NPR's examination, "with wit and wisdom, the myriad
facets of the human condition, our national life and the state of the
world."

-- Lewis Manilow founded the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago,
and also spearheaded the rebirth of the historic theater district in
the city's "Loop," or center sector. Recalling President Franklin D.
Roosevelt's comment that "the conditions for art and democracy are
one," Clinton observed that Manilow "has spent his entire life
creating those conditions."

At day's end, at a dinner honoring the medalists, the President
recalled to the "special feeling" he has for the arts and humanities.

"In politics, we are always concerned with the moment, and trying to
win the moment for the American people," he told the recipients. "But
in the end, those things that are timeless matter more. And that is
what all of you have given us."

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)