Big Changes, Easy HeARTS

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:14:34 GMT

During the first week of April 2008, I had the fortune of sitting in on the convening that LINC had organized as it began the process of evaluating the ARTOGRAPHY program and thinking about its future. I had only recently started working at LINC after more than four years in the nonprofit labor sector, and had very little sense of how the nonprofit arts world functioned or how to go about discovering the information necessary to make the transition as I began settling into this new field. That convening in New Orleans was just the place to start my exploration.

The discussions that took place over two days (interspersed with some truly extraordinary gastronomic experiences—even for a vegetarian!) were the perfect introduction to begin building my arts world vocabulary. Taking into account what ARTOGRAPHY is about, it also made evident the intersection of my previous experience reaching out to underrepresented and underserved communities and my new dictate creating key opportunities for artists and cultural innovators.

This came more sharply into focus as I visited several organizations engaged in their own artistic work around New Orleans. These represent precisely the kinds of organizations that ARTOGRAPHY profiles and attempts to engage in the conversation of the role the arts play in our changing society. Allow me to expand on a couple of my visits.

Something I didn’t know before visiting the New Orleans Creative Glass Institute (www.nocgi.org) is that the city of New Orleans, prior to the devastation of Katrina, was host to one of the largest and most vibrant glass artists communities in the country. As with much of its overall population, a large portion of this community—sadly, yet understandably—has not returned to the city, diminishing the vitality of this practice. The Creative Glass Institute is attempting to reestablish the energy of this scene, offering a place in the community where artists, many of whom lost their space, can practice their art, and where a new generation can learn this craft.
The arts don’t get more community-based than Hot Iron Press (www.hotironpress.com). It is a printing shop run by a young married artist couple—Jenny Leblanc and Kyle Bravo—out of their own garage in one of the neighborhoods that was most badly damaged by Katrina. They’ve marked the height around the entire space where the water settled after the levees broke (somewhere above five feet). Still, they consider themselves lucky. When their network of friends, family, and colleagues offered their support, they couldn’t in good conscience take the resources being offered to them and not use them to help rebuild their community. Jenny and Kyle told the story of how they began collecting funds from their very generous network and giving out small amounts to New Orleans artists—amounts too small for artists to access through other channels (grants, loans, etc.), but with an immeasurable and immediate impact . Hot Iron Press now also offers a residency that brings interested artists to learn the process of print making in their home.

Coping with immense changes that can redefine what you do on a daily basis and how you do it is never simple. But people adapt and they thrive.

How are artists and the arts addressing changes, small and large, in each of our communities? I encourage everyone to share their stories about how they carry on creating art in a society that experiences constant transformation.

America's Diverse Majority by 2042

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:21:21 GMT

This month the Census Bureau released new figures* that continues to underline the significant shift towards increasing diversity in the country’s make-up. It is projected that ethnic and racial minorities will comprise a majority of the nation’s population in a little more than a generation. It was previously thought that this change, of Hispanic, black, Asian, American Indian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders outnumbering non-Hispanic whites, would occur by 2050 – but this recent study is now predicting that the demographic shift will happen sooner, by the year 2042.

These accelerating changes, no doubt, will have an important impact on all sectors of society. For us at Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), these kinds of reports and figures are closely tied to the ebb and flow in the cultural field and we are dedicated to examining the potential ramifications of these kinds of widespread changes on artistic practice.

Artography’s mission emerged out of early indications of these facts. If these new statistical findings underscore a sea change in the diversity of the nation, affecting the way in which we identify and describe our communities, then how do we understand and subsequently articulate the changing arts that exist in this context?

I open up the topic of exploring diverse arts organizations and artistic practices for all of us invested in our cultural communities to share – for all of us to offer up experiences, thoughts, feedback on this issue – and suggest that we begin by jumping into the discussion wherever this intersects or speaks to you.

* Census Bureau, “An Older and More Diverse Nation by Midcentury” (August 14, 2008)

Artography Blog

Big Changes, Easy HeARTS

America's Diverse Majority by 2042