Artography Blog

Big Changes, Easy HeARTS

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.

1. 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.
2. 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.

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