Naomi Even-Aberle introduces us to her community: her gym. She shares how impactful it can be to take part in the successes, failures, and challenges of her students and peers as well as their extending support systems. … [Read more...]
Part of Something Bigger
Jaclyn Roessel reflects on the first time she felt like a part of a community, when she was 12 years old and had her Kinaaldá ceremony, in which she became a woman and felt the kinship of not only her nuclear family, but a larger tapestry of community members. … [Read more...]
A Real Community Will Stretch You
What are the qualities of a rubber band? Flexibility: the ability to bend without breaking. Clinnesha Sibley shares a reflection on the first time she felt the power of community as a teacher at Piney Woods School, and shares a list of guidelines for how to find community. A spiritual leader once gave me a rubber band to wear on my wrist to remind me that God will constantly stretch me toward my purpose. When I went to work for The Piney Woods School in Mississippi, I wore a rubber band. Whenever I felt that I was being tested, I tugged on it. … [Read more...]
Finding Magic in Community
Sometimes joining a new community can open up new, magical worlds that you never imagined were possible. This was Quentin Turner’s experience when he gained a new set of friends, teammates and community through Muggle Quidditch. It begins in 2010, during the spring of my third year in college at Eastern Michigan University. Over the holiday break, I was visiting with one of my best friends who just returned home to Detroit from his East Coast liberal arts school. He told me that he had begun playing a weird sport that was getting big in the … [Read more...]
Welcome to the Community
We are all a part of communities of many different shapes and sizes. Large or small, local to our region or universal, communities offer connection, purpose and a sense of belonging to a group larger than our individual selves. Creative Community Fellows is a nine-month fellowship for cultural entrepreneurs working uniquely at the intersection of culture and community. When Fellows apply to the program, we don’t define what community means. Rather, we ask that they tell us what community means in their context - whether it is geographic, … [Read more...]
The love of community
This Arts Advocacy Day, the stakes are much higher. As we work to make the case for the arts, we wonder, is our data keeping pace? We're using love (or breakup) letters as a creative and fun design research method to get powerful insight into the perceptions of our stakeholders. We invite you to join us in this discovery. Nina Simon is Executive Director of the Museum of Art & History (MAH) in Santa Cruz, CA and the author of The Participatory Museum and The Art of Relevance. Nina designs and researches participatory museum experiences. … [Read more...]
I know you won’t judge me
This Arts Advocacy Day, the stakes are much higher. As we work to make the case for the arts, we wonder, is our data keeping pace? We're using love (or breakup) letters as a creative and fun design research method to get powerful insight into the perceptions of our stakeholders. We invite you to join us in this discovery. Rev. Erik Martinez Resly is an artist, community organizer, and ordained Unitarian Universalist minister living in Washington, DC. Erik is the founder of The Sanctuaries, one of the first interfaith arts communities in the … [Read more...]
You’re the best
This Arts Advocacy Day, the stakes are much higher. As we work to make the case for the arts, we wonder, is our data keeping pace? We're using love (or breakup) letters as a creative and fun design research method to get powerful insight into the perceptions of our stakeholders. We invite you to join us in this discovery. Anne Katz is the Executive Director of Arts Wisconsin, an organization that serves as the voice for the arts throughout the state. Arts Wisconsin believes that everyone, everywhere in Wisconsin should have the opportunity to … [Read more...]
I am still feeling the same glow
This Arts Advocacy Day, the stakes are much higher. As we work to make the case for the arts, we wonder, is our data keeping pace? We're using love (or breakup) letters as a creative and fun design research method to get powerful insight into the perceptions of our stakeholders. We invite you to join us in this discovery. Laura Ritchie is Co-founder of The Carrack, a zero-commission gallery and performance venue in Durham, North Carolina. The Carrack provides professional space at no cost to artists and fosters connections between artists and … [Read more...]
Dear, Bench Diary
This Arts Advocacy Day, the stakes are much higher. As we work to make the case for the arts, we wonder, is our data keeping pace? We're using love (or breakup) letters as a creative and fun design research method to get powerful insight into the perceptions of our stakeholders. We invite you to join us in this discovery. Dessa Lohrey is the Founder of Bench Diary, an experiment-turned global storytelling project. A diary is tied to a bench for one day and invites those who happen upon it to write an anonymous entry. Dessa has collaborators in … [Read more...]
Love, Hate and Design Research
Sigh. We live in interesting times. Increasingly folks are driven further apart, retreating into factions that love one thing/person or hate another. Naturally, we are right and they are wrong. What to do? My wife works for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (At least she did as of the writing of this post.) Despite being great at her job and doing incredible work cleaning up the planet, her job… in fact her entire department… is in danger of being cut. So too the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the … [Read more...]
Winter is Coming: What the Culture Sector Needs to Worry About Now
I. Predicting the Unpredictable The former NEA Chair Rocco Landesman says he doesn’t see anything “apocalyptic” for the arts in a Trump presidency. Robert Lynch, the President of Americans for the Arts and a top advocate for the nonprofit arts sector, is more cautious and says Trump’s election “brings some uncertainty in terms of federal support for the arts.” Van Jones, the CNN pundit is blunt: Trump, he says, “is going to start a war.” If nothing else the recent election cycle has taught us to be very skeptical of those who say they can … [Read more...]
Community of place
When I think about what community means to me, I return to the definition set forth by the organization Alternate ROOTS. ROOTS defines community as communities of place, tradition, and spirit. The root of this definition for me is community of place, because it is in these specific geographical areas that our traditions are created. It is in these places that one encounters the spirit of the community, that intangible thing that makes them unique. I recently moved away from my home town of Knoxville, Tennessee to New York City for graduate … [Read more...]
Liberty
In Todd, NC in the month of June, community means preparing for the annual "Liberty Parade" held on July 4. Every year, hundreds of people gather for this parade in our unincorporated community, expecting it to happen rain or shine. The costumes, props, and puppets worn or held in the parade were made by community members over the past 12 years and every year, we invite the public to participate for free. As the new director at Elkland Art Center, the parade "host," this was my first time directing the parade effort. Sitting in the distant … [Read more...]
The duty of community
Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be”. This comes from one of the greatest men of the 20th century, a personal role model and someone who used his God-given gifts as a catalyst for change during a time when many had already lost hope. In this day and age, … [Read more...]