Art worth the investment

For those who need a pragmatic reason for funding the arts (“Arts deserve budget line,” Jan. 31), look to brain functions. Recent research shows that artistic production and appreciation (such as attending a poetry reading, allowing the words to conjure images of sylvan meadows, or adjusting elements in a landscape painting to achieve visual balance) enhance imagination and the ability to solve open-ended problems.

Imagination here means a mental function which assists us in visualizing outcomes and the steps leading to those outcomes. Open-ended problem-solving, also called “thinking outside the box,” is inventiveness, finding new and more efficient products and production methods.

Little wonder that knowledgeable organizations, when assembling research/production teams, insist on at least one member of those teams having a background in visual arts. Along with the many other benefits the arts have to offer, this teaming between the arts and the worlds of science, economics and business shows that those worlds are more than just connected. In fact they should be viewed as interdependent.

Maintaining funding for both arts and sciences will require imagination and open-ended problem-solving and ought to be looked upon as necessities of our society.

Scott M. Thompson

Spokane