New Hampshire is a wonderful place, full of summer theatre, music, artists, dancers, poets, and writers – for a small place, our cultural legacy is as bright as our future. But as we look at how to invest in the artistic and cultural fabric of New Hampshire, we cannot help but sense the profound sadness this week as a human masterpiece, the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, was consumed by fire. People stopped, the media focused in, and we all felt as if something that belongs to humanity had been taken away. Culture does that to you, and in its fragility, it also survives.
While so many of us are saddened by what happened in Paris, we know that it focused us on the true value of human expression. And here in the Granite State, we cannot take our creative economy for granted. From 19thcentury paintings of the White Mountains to theater in the Monadnock Region, to music festivals in the Lakes Region and public art in our cities – we need to invest in who are, and better yet, who we hope to be.