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Reading just got a whole lot cooler. Online Ceramics, a cult East L.A. clothing brand that makes hand-dyed apparel for artists like the Grateful Dead and André 3000 and helped A24 win the movie merch game, has a new capsule collection with the biggest trade publisher in the world that celebrates the freedom to read. [Photo: courtesy Online Ceramics/Penguin Random House] The Reading Is a Right collaboration with Penguin Random House comes against a backdrop of increasing book bans across the country. Penguin Random House is among the publishers suing states like Idaho and Florida over recent laws they say are onerous and could lead to public and school library bans on books by beloved authors like Maya Angelou, Ernest Hemingway, George R. R. Martin, and Toni Morrison. The collaboration is an attempt to fight back through merch, raising awareness, and fundraising. [Photo: courtesy Online Ceramics/Penguin Random House] The collection includes Online Ceramics cream and tie-dyed T-shirts with the publisher’s penguin mascot and an opened book that says “Practice Magic: Read. Prices range from $5 for a “Read a Banned Book” bumper sticker to $35 for “Reading Is a Right” socks. Hoodies are priced as high as $135, but 100% of Penguin Random House’s net proceeds will be donated to the nonprofit American Library Association (ALA). [Photo: courtesy Online Ceramics/Penguin Random House] The gesture is welcomed. “This message is incredibly timely in this climate when censorship is rampant and federal funding for libraries has been gutted,” ALAs president, Cindy Hohl, said in a statement. There were book challenges against 2,452 unique titles in 2024, according to ALA data, a figure far above the average 273 unique titles challenged annually over the period from 2001 to 2020. And President Donald Trump signed an executive order cutting the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which provides federal funding to libraries. [Photo: courtesy Online Ceramics/Penguin Random House] Penguin Random House publishes more than 14,000 new works annually. It’s the parent company to subsidiaries that have published bestsellers like former First Lady Michelle Obama’s Becoming and classics from George Orwell’s 1984 to Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Online Ceramics cofounder Elijah Funk called Penguin Random House “the absolute epicenter of all things books” in a statement, and for him, teaming up for “Reading Is a Right” was a long time coming. [Photo: courtesy Online Ceramics/Penguin Random House] “I’ve always wanted to partner with them, and once I found out about their work standing up for the fredom to read, I knew we needed to highlight their efforts as a positive force for good and bring more visibility to this issue,” Funk said. “There’s a reason books are usually one of the first things to be burned or banned from communities. Books are about justice, freedom, history, and imagination: some of the most powerful tools a person or community can have. And the library makes them free and accessible for every person.” With book bans on the rise, “Reading Is a Right” gives people a new way to show their love of reading on their sleeves and raise some money to support U.S. libraries in the process.
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In a February 2025 Truth Social post, President Donald Trump declared a Golden Age in Arts and Culture. So far, this golden age has entailed an executive order calling for the federal agency that funds local museums and libraries to be dismantled, with most grants rescinded. The Trump administration has forbidden federal arts funding from going to artists who promote what the administration calls gender ideology. Theres been a purge of the board of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, with Trump appointing himself chair. And the administration has canceled National Endowment for the Humanities grants. Suffice it to say, many artists and arts organizations across the U.S. are worried: Will government arts funding dry up? Do these cuts signal a new war on arts and culture? How do artists make it through this period of change? As scholars who study the arts, activism and policy, were watching the latest developments with apprehension. But we think its important to point out that while the U.S. government has never been a global leader of arts funding, American artists have always been innovative, creative and scrappy during times of political turmoil. A rocky relationship with the arts For much of the countrys early history, government funding for the arts was rarely guaranteed or stable. After the Civil War, the Second Industrial Revolution facilitated massive concentrations of wealth, in what became known as the the Gilded Age. Private arts funding soared during this period, with some titans of industry, such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, seeing it as their duty to build museums, theaters and libraries for the public. The heavy reliance on private funding for the arts troubled some Americans, who feared these institutions would become too exposed to the whims of the wealthy. In response, Progressive Era activists and politicians argued that it was the governments responsibility to build arts spaces accessible to all Americans. Efforts to fund the arts expanded with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, as the country was reeling from the Great Depression. From 1935 to 1943, the Works Progress Administration provided jobs with stable wages for artists through the Federal Art Project. However, Congress famously terminated the program in response to a 1937 production of The Revolt of the Beavers, which conservative politicians denounced for containing overt Marxist themes. Nonetheless, over the ensuing decades, the federal government generally signaled its support for the arts. Congress established the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1965 to fund arts organizations and artists. And since 1972, the General Services Administration has commissioned public art for federal buildings and organized a registry of prospective artists. The NEA gave US$8.4 million in direct funding to artists in 1989 via fellowships and grants. This might be considered the high-water mark for unrestricted government funding for individual artists. By the 1980s, sexuality, drugs and American morality had become hot-button political issues. The arts, from music to theater, were at the center of this culture war. Pressure escalated in 1989 when conservative leaders contested two NEA-funded exhibitions featuring work by Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe, which they deemed homoerotic and anti-Christian. In 1990, Congress instated a decency clause guiding all future NEA work. When Republicans regained control of Congress in 1994, they slashed direct funding for the arts. With direct funding to artists largely eliminated, todays artists can indirectly receive federal government support through federal arts agency grants, which are given to arts organizations that then dole out a portion to artists. Local and state government agencies also provide small amounts of direct support for artists. The stage of democracy Artists and arts organizations have a long legacy of persistence and strategic organizing during periods of political and economic upheaval. In the pre-Revolutionary colonies, representatives of the British government banned theatrical performances to discourage revolutionary action. In response, activist playwrights organized underground parlor dramas and informal dramatic readings to keep arts-based activism alive. Activist theater continued into the antebellum period for the purposes of promting the abolitionist cause. These dramas, often organized by women, would take place in living rooms, outside of public view. The clandestine staged readings the most famous of which was written by one of the earliest Black American playwrights, William Wells Brown seeded enthusiasm and solidarity for the antislavery cause. These privately staged readings took place alongside public performances and lectures. Craft the world you want Dozens of experimental schools like the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee and Commonwealth College in Arkansas were founded in the 1920s and 1930s to train activists. Supporting adult learners of all ages but specifically young adults they initially focused on arts-based techniques for training workers in labor activism. For example, students wrote short plays based on their experiences of factory work. In their rehearsals and performances, they imagined endings in which workers triumphed over cruel bosses. Many programs were residential, rural and embraced early versions of mutual aid, where artists and activists support one another directly through pooling money and resources. Tuition was minimal and generally provided directly from labor organizations and allies, including the American Fund for Public Service. Most teachers were volunteers, and the learning communities often farmed to cover basic necessities. Although these institutions faced perpetual threats from local governments and even the FBI, these communal schools became testing grounds for social change. Some programs even became training sites for civil rights activists. Linda Goode Bryant attends the opening reception of an exhibition honoring Just Above Midtown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City on Oct. 3, 2022. [Photo: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for The Museum of Modern Art] Curate the world you need Black artists have long created spaces for community connection and career development. The Great Migration brought many Black American artists and thinkers to New York City, famously spurring the Harlem Renaissance, which lasted from the end of World War I through the 1920s. During this period, the neighborhood became a fountain of culture, with Black artists producing countless plays, books, music and other visionary works. This legacy continued at Just Above Midtown, or JAM, a gallery and arts laboratory led by Linda Goode Bryant from 1974 through 1986 on West 57th Street in Manhattan. At the time, arts organizations primarily supported artwork by white men. In response, Goode Bryant launched JAM to create a space that supported and celebrated artists of color. JAM provided arts business workshops, cultivated collaborations and launched the careers of Black artists such as David Hammons and Lorraine O’Grady. The future is now Whether or not they realize it, many artists and arts organizations today are integrating lessons from the past. In recent years, theyve promoted the unionization of museum workers and created local mutual aid networks such as the Museum Workers Relief Fund, which was one of many groups fundraising for arts workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Theyre building networks of financial support to share space and money with other artists and arts organizations. And theyre forming cultural land trusts, which create land cooperatives where artists can work and live with one another. Whats more, new philanthropic models are reshaping arts funding by elevating the perspectives of artists, rather than those of wealthy funders. CAST in San Francisco helps arts organizations find affordable gallery and performance spaces. The Community and Cultural Power Fund uses a trust-based philanthropy model that allows artists and community members to decide who receives future grants. The Ruth Foundation for the Arts makes artists the decision-makers in giving grants to arts organizations. While the current challenges are unprecedented and funding threats will likely reshape arts organizations and further limit direct support for artists were confident that the arts will persist with or without government support. Johanna K. Taylor is an associate professor at The Design School at Arizona State University. Mary McAvoy is an associate professor of theatre at Arizona State University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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New Jersey has a million acres filled with towering pitch pines. Its springtime and the trees stand straight, bare and bonelike, above a carpet of winter needles that worry state fire service professionals. This week, a swath of the Pine Barrens went up in flames, a stark warning of what might be a treacherous fire season. About 11,500 acres were affected by a fire that started Tuesday morning in the Greenwood Forest Wildlife Management Area of Ocean County, New Jersey Forest Fire Service said midday Wednesday. The Garden State Parkway was shut down for miles as thick smoke wafted into neighborhoods and thousands of households and businesses were evacuated for hours and had power cuts. The New Jersey Forest Fire Service said 50% of the blaze was contained by Wednesday evening. Foresters had warned in March that New Jersey was particularly vulnerable to wildfires this year because of below-average rains, near-drought conditionsand a delay in prescribed burns by authorities that have typically helped to reduce risk. A Smokey Bear sign warns against wildfire in Brendan T. Byrne State Forest in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. [Photo: Anna Mattson/Inside Climate News] The pitch pine is considered resilient to fire. Its bark is dark and scaly and can endure the periodic wildfires that are part of the natural ecological cycle. But the pinelands, the first national reserve in the country, also thrive because of forest service prescribed burns to rid brush. This year, foresters said they cut back on springtime burns because of on-the-ground conditions: It has been just too hot and dry to start prescribed fires. The Forest Fire Service typically treats 25,000 acres in central New Jersey, across seven counties, with planned burns. So far this year, forest personnel have burned only 3,320 acres, a fraction of its work in previous years. Five years ago, 26,000 acres were burned. In 2024, 15,000 were targeted. New Jersey entered fire season, from March to May, following its third driest January since records began in 1895. State fire officials are warning that a drop in rainfall and snow have made autumn leaves and winter needles ready tinder across what is called the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens. Conditions have severely hampered efforts by the Forest Fire Service to conduct prescribed fire operations that are critical to preventing wildfires, Bill Donnelly, the states fire warden and forest fire service chief, said in an email before Tuesdays flames. Donnelly and his team normally conduct prescribed operations through March 15 in the southern and central regions of New Jersey, and April 1 in the north. [Image: Paul Horn/Inside Climate News] When fire officials burn during dry conditions, theres a higher risk of burning into whats called the duff layer, which is the decomposed organic matter like leaves, twigs, and needles that sits atop the soil. If burned, Donnelly said, it could damage new growth and cause smoke that lingers, affecting communities and roadways for weeks. Not sure what the rest of the years gonna hold for us, Donnelly said in a press briefing last month. If things continue the way they are, were going to have quite a fire season on our hands. New Jersey, the countrys fourth-smallest state geographically, offers an example of Americas growing fire risk in the Northeast. The region is experiencing drier and wetter seasons, part of what is a changing and much less predictable cycle of drought and deluge. Evolving climate patterns are testing fire strategy from California to Connecticut as well as communities. Los Angeles suffered devastating fires in January, with billions of dollars in damages, and UCLA researchers, in an extensive survey, found residents reported emotional and financial loss for months after. Beautiful broadleaf deciduous trees that color the Northeast in the fall are tightly packed so that, in less trying times, when the leaves drop they often hold a lot of moisture, according to Erica Smithwick, a professor of geography and ecology at Penn State University. Not so in drier conditions. The leaves are parched for water as they fall and pose an increased fire risk. “If the leaves are dead and they dry out in the fall and they drop to the ground, all you need is ignition to get it all to burn, Smithwick said. Burns are meant to clear undergrowth safely and limit wildfire. Last fall, multiple woodland fires broke out in the Northeast including Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York. In January, firefighters from a coalition of Northeast states met to discuss the increasing unpredictability of rain and drought across the region. Record-low rainfall allowed for blazes in October and November north of Boston, in Brooklyn, and in Connecticut. On New Jerseys border with New York, fire scorched 5,000 acres of land and one volunteer firefighter died. Some experts, including Jaclyn Rhoads, executive director at Pinelands Preservation Alliance, suggest that prescribed burning should occur throughout the year. Fire personnel should be planning beyond seasons, she said, and considering month-by-month weather conditions. We need to try to mimic the wildfires in a controlled way that allows for us to receive all the benefits without necessarily the damages, Rhoads said. There are plenty of exampls, like in Florida, where their forest fire service burns all year round. Smithwick at Penn State noted that Northeast forests are close to cities and infrastructure such as roads and powerlines. Maps of wildlife urban interface (WUI)areas where wildland vegetation and man-made development intermingle and are particularly vulnerable to wildfiresshow an expansion of 2 million acres per year based on data from the U.S. Fire Administration. Even a small wildfire could have more impact in the east because of all that built infrastructure, Smithwick said. In fact, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the mid-Atlanticsome of the highest WUI in the country is in the east. Caryn Shinske, senior press officer of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, said fire teams in the past month had been staffing fire towers, staging for initial response for possible fires, and readying equipment for the summer risks. By Anna Mattson, Inside Climate News This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News. It is republished with permission. 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