Imaginative Sewage Disposal?

By Jessie Roberts

Former NEA chair Bill Ivey raises an interesting policy proposal:

To start with, we need to have artists working on important nuts-and-bolts projects in their communities. If we’re talking about a new sewage disposal system, there should be an artist on that panel; there should be artists on school boards and neighborhood commissions, not to make the project look pretty, but to bring a unique approach. Artists are very good at metaphor, at seeing less-obvious links, at right-brain thinking that might not be linear but that gets you to a good result by making an imaginative leap.