The arts bring comfort, escape, inspiration and opportunities for change, which is why they aren’t a luxury but a necessity, writes Kerry Hudson.
Mornings always start the same way in this house. A cuddle with a sleepy toddler; the dog at my feet, thumping his tail on the radiator, waiting for his walk; the cat’s eyes boring a hole through my head for me having the gall not to feed her as a matter of urgency, though her bowl is full.
Most inevitable of all is that, once everyone is happy and we’re sat at the table, each and every morning, I’ll pick up my phone and cue up Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance with Somebody.
You might think that I am a Houston superfan. Certainly, it seems I’m creating one of my son. I’ve never had any strong feelings about Whitney Houston, or her music, except for the reasonable and correct opinion that Dolly Parton’s version of I Will Always Love You is far superior.
But, at the beginning of the year, when I was extremely sick before my surgery, when I couldn’t get out of bed for more than half an hour at a time, this song became a lifeline. A moment of joy to share with my son when I felt we were all being robbed of so much.
Back then, I knew my energy was finite, so I always got up to give him his breakfast. One morning, I had a little bit of extra energy and put Houston on. I sang along, spun around in our tiny Prague kitchen, and kissed my baby’s soft, blonde head. He giggled, grinned and moved his little head along with me.
For the duration of that song, we weren’t a family being ravaged by a brutal and unexpected illness, but just a joyful family enjoying our life together.
Since then, I put that song on every morning to remind myself how lucky I am to have my health again. How lucky I am to be up and about with my son. How good it feels to be able to dance around the kitchen.
Arts are the lowest priority – but they save lives
Like most creatives in Scotland, I am very worried about the future of the arts in this country. I, like most former and current Aberdonians, felt the acute loss of the historical Belmont Filmhouse.
In education, we’re seeing more and more hostility towards humanities. And funding for the arts is stretched thinner with each year that passes.
The retort is often that there just isn’t money. There is a cost of living crisis. That there are more urgent needs within our society and communities, and something as luxurious and frivolous as art will have to wait.
It seems lately that the arts are the lowest priority, and who can blame people for saying that music, art, film and books are less urgent than food in your stomach and a safe place to live?
But, I think what is often overlooked is how genuinely life-saving art can be, especially during times of deprivation. Here, I can put my money where my mouth is. Because, as most regular readers will know, I grew up in extreme poverty, even by 1980s and 1990s standards.
I left school at 15, with very little hope for the future and my self-destruct mode fully engaged. Art gave me a chance at a better life. First, in school, through drama and English classes, and then at college. Most of all, in libraries.
Author @ThatKerryHudson on how libraries saved her life. #SaveLibraries #LoveLibraries #BookWeekScotland pic.twitter.com/hbxnnBFAWP
— Scottish Book Trust (@scottishbktrust) November 21, 2019
I’ve said often that libraries saved my life, and that’s not hyperbole. I really do not think I would have survived the far-reaching consequences of the trauma of my childhood and late teens without being able to go somewhere free, safe and warm, and access other worlds every time I opened a book.
Indeed, every time I looked at a piece of art (thank you, free galleries) or watched a film or listened to some music (thank you, BBC) or read a library book, it was as though my horizons magically broadened and life was promising me something else. If I could just stay alive. If I could just keep going another day, week, month. If I could just ease back on the self-destruct pedal.
We need the escape of art as well as necessities
If you ask most people who have been through anything hard – bereavement, an illness, a period of poor mental health or hardship – there’s almost always something in particular that got them through. Sometimes it is running or gardening or good, strong whisky at the end of the day.
Life without art is a life without being able to find comfort. It’s a life where we’re deprived of imagination and inspiration
But, overwhelmingly, what people name is a particular song, maybe a TV series they binged, a book, or a poem, or a picture they laid their eyes on that made them feel restful. Whether simply through momentary escape or by forging a new path entirely, art is life-changing.
Life without art is a life without being able to find comfort. It’s a life without being able to explore human complexities through others’ representations and experiences of them. It’s a life where we’re deprived of imagination and inspiration.
I would argue, as someone whose life has been saved by art, that even when there was not enough food in the cupboards and homelessness was imminent and hope was non-existent, art was not a luxury. It is an absolute essential, especially in the roughest of times.
We do need secure housing. We need good education and healthcare. We need to have incomes that allow us to buy enough food and care properly for our families. We need safe streets. We need all of these things. And, alongside that, we need the illumination and escape of art, too.
Consider the art that has brought you solace and joy, and then imagine where it once was: silence, an empty space on the wall, a blank page, a deserted stage. A pub where a cinema used to be. Consider that loss, and I think we’d all be fighting to save art as hard as art has fought to save us when we needed it.
Kerry Hudson is an Aberdeen-born, award-winning writer of novels, memoirs and screenplays
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