{"id":589,"date":"2012-03-06T22:41:29","date_gmt":"2012-03-07T05:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/?p=589"},"modified":"2012-03-06T22:41:29","modified_gmt":"2012-03-07T05:41:29","slug":"defining-a-great-arts-cultural-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/2012\/03\/defining-a-great-arts-cultural-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Defining a &#8220;Great&#8221; Arts &#038; Cultural Community"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/2012\/03\/defining-a-great-arts-cultural-community\/great_community\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-630\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-630\" title=\"great_community\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/great_community-300x104.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"104\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/great_community-300x104.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/great_community-500x173.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/great_community.jpg 1047w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Imagine two communities:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>One is widely regarded for its high-quality theaters and museums &#8211;<em> <strong>but very few of its residents participate,<\/strong><\/em><\/li>\n<li>The other is undistinguished nationally for its theaters and museums &#8211; <em><strong>except for the fact that very many of its residents participate frequently.<\/strong><\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;m not asking in which community you&#8217;d rather live or visit. \u00a0One suspects that the readers of Arts Journal blogs are routinely drawn to communities whose arts &amp; cultural venues explore new ideas, seek out new expressions and boldly pursue ambitious agendas.<\/p>\n<p><strong>But which is closer to being considered a &#8220;great&#8221; arts &amp; cultural community?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Is it the one that creates great &#8220;art&#8221;? \u00a0Surely, there&#8217;s a lot to be said for a community that produces cutting edge work or gathers a critical mass of creative folk\u00a0superbly\u00a0skilled in the exploration of new ideas &#8211; even if that accomplishment is only appreciated by a relative few.<\/p>\n<p>Or is it the community for whom &#8220;arts &amp; cultural participation&#8221; is the routine way by which its people consider new perspectives, conduct dialogue and enjoy spending time together.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What do YOU think?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Should &#8220;greatness&#8221; in art only be defined as referring to the object or experience created by an artist?<\/p>\n<p>Or is there room for &#8220;greatness&#8221; to be recognized based on the quality of participation, appreciation and meaning to people&#8217;s lives?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<\/p>\n<p><strong>PS:<\/strong> \u00a0The graphic featured with this blog comes from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dentonarts.com\/subsite2\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Greater Denton (Texas) Arts Counci<\/strong>l<\/a>. \u00a0I don&#8217;t know the city (located North of Dallas\/Fort Worth) and mean them no disrespect by associating them with the content of this post. \u00a0Their graphic appeared when I googled\u00a0images for &#8220;Great Communities&#8221; &#8211; and, at least from the promise of their graphic &amp; website, it sure looks like a place with the potential to be a great arts &amp; cultural community.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Imagine two communities: One is widely regarded for its high-quality theaters and museums &#8211; but very few of its residents participate, The other is undistinguished nationally for its theaters and museums &#8211; except for the fact that very many of its residents participate frequently. I&#8217;m not asking in which community you&#8217;d rather live or visit. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,34],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-best-practices","7":"category-marketing","8":"entry","9":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}