‘Art is essential’: Art advocates from across the state go to the Capitol
Each year, artists, arts administrators, community members, nonprofit leaders and more come to the Capitol from around the state for Arts Advocacy Day, a lobbying event for the arts hosted by Minnesota Citizens for the Arts. Executive director Sarah Fossen says 400 arts advocates showed up Tuesday to speak to their representatives.
Antonio Espinosa was at the Capitol representing his nonprofit Art From The Inside, which he started after a 20-year career as a correctional officer at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Stillwater.
“Art is a tool that could be used for healing and transformation in all of us,” Espinosa.
The nonprofit provides a platform for incarcerated artists, including exhibitions such as “Spoken Heart,” which opens April 19 at Westminster Church in Minneapolis.
“I’m advocating for our senators and representatives to work together and look at the fact that art is important for all of us,” Espinosa says. “My thing is with incarcerated people, but art in our schools, art and in our communities, art in all our state, is important and so we have to work together.”