For the English-American visual artist, poet and author, art has never been a private pursuit. It’s a force she believes can reshape how people understand themselves and each other, and that conviction has led her to make some of the most significant investments in arts education in the United States in recent years.

Working across abstract and figurative styles in painting, drawing and mixed media, Kleefeld’s creative philosophy is rooted in intuition, symbolism and a deep belief in the power of self-expression. Her books have been translated into more than 10 languages and distributed internationally. A retrospective of her work was featured at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University, and her pieces are held in museum and institutional collections across the country.

But her commitment to arts education isn’t incidental to her identity as an artist. It’s inseparable from it. The same intuitive, open-ended creativity that defines her studio practice is what she’s trying to protect and expand for the next generation of students, especially those who might never have access to it otherwise.

A New Kind of Cultural Actor

Arts education has been losing ground in American schools for decades. As institutions have shifted resources toward standardized testing and STEM subjects, arts programs have frequently been among the first casualties of budget cuts. The consequences for students are well-documented.

Research consistently shows that access to arts education produces outcomes that extend far beyond the studio or the stage. According to a study published by Education Next, students at schools with expanded arts programming were 20.7% less likely to have a disciplinary infraction, and school engagement rose by 8% of a standard deviation. Emotional and cognitive empathy also increased significantly, which are outcomes that no standardized test can manufacture.

The academic benefits are just as compelling. Data from the National Endowment for the Arts found that high school participation in arts activities was associated with higher GPAs, higher graduation rates and stronger college outcomes. Students who completed fine arts credits showed higher cumulative GPAs across core subjects including English language arts, math, science and social studies.

The stakes are particularly high for students from low-income households. According to Americans for the Arts, students from low-income backgrounds who had arts-rich instruction in school were five times less likely to drop out. That’s a disparity that underscores just how profoundly unequal access to arts education has become across American communities.

This is the landscape Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld has chosen to invest in.