Due to the high increase of prices for art materials, Eric Moore, head of the Portsmouth High School’s art department and art teacher, is asking the school for a 5% increase in spending for the art department’s budget.  

Inflation rates have only increased the past few years, causing almost everything to be more expensive, things including raw materials, metals, oils, and agricultural products have gone up in price by over 6.5%.  All of these things make up what is needed to produce art supplies such as: paints, pencils, markers, paper, and clay.  

The art department in the PHS offers many art programs.  This includes drawing classes, painting classes, mixed media classes, ceramics classes, and photography classes.  All of these classes are separate but require to share the same budget because they are under the art department.  This causes a few of the classes to have a lot less funding than they need due to other classes having more expensive materials, such as camera equipment for photography or clay for ceramics.  

According to Eric Moore, the prices of clay for ceramics “went from around $30 a box to $52 a box over the past year”,  which is over a 6% increase in expenses for just the clay alone.  He also says that “shipping is also very expensive for ceramics”.  

This raises the question of if we should be cutting out any of the art departments programs due to the cost of the supplies needed in some of the classes.  However, Eric Moore does not think that any of the classes will be cut from the curriculum because “Portsmouth values the arts” and that “the art teachers will find a way to work things out.”