{"id":4672,"date":"2016-09-08T23:46:48","date_gmt":"2016-09-09T03:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/?p=4672"},"modified":"2016-09-08T23:46:48","modified_gmt":"2016-09-09T03:46:48","slug":"gard-foundation-symposium-our-communities-day-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2016\/09\/gard-foundation-symposium-our-communities-day-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Gard Foundation Symposium\u2013Our Communities: Day 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GardYesterday I began my reporting from The Robert E. Gard Foundation’s Our Communities: A Symposium on the Arts <\/em>at The Johnson Foundation at Wingspread’s conference center. Today was a full day presenting the history and current status of community\/arts relationships and an introduction to thoughts about future directions.<\/p>\n

As you may well imagine, there is virtually no way to do justice to the presentations and discussion in a blog post or even a series of them. What follows are some highlights and even these are superficial and dangerously out of context. My apologies in advance to presenters whom I have shortchanged and\/or misrepresented in what follows.<\/strong> It is our hope to have the text of as many of the presentations as possible available (eventually) on the Gard Foundation website.<\/p>\n

Where We\u2019ve Been<\/b><\/span>
\n1900s Community Arts<\/b> \u2013 Maryo Ewell
\nThe Rise of the Institutions<\/b> \u2013 Diane Mataraza
\nGrowth of Community Arts<\/b> \u2013 E\u2019vonne Coleman
\nThe morning began with a review of some aspects of the history of arts\/community connections in the U.S. Maryo Gard Ewell presented an overview of community arts work from the beginning of the 20th Century up to the founding of the National Endowment for the Arts. She cited W.E.B. Du Bois’ observation that intercultural communication can be facilitated by art as an expression of those cultures, the Settlement House movement’s use of arts as a tool for expressing self- and community-identity, and early 20th-Century community pageants as examples of art serving as a tool for community improvement. She also highlighted the tension over divergent meanings of the sentence “The arts are for everyone.” As used by John D. Rockefeller, 3rd in “The Performing Arts: Problems and Practice” (1965) it placed an emphasis on elite arts for<\/em> the masses. Robert Gard, on the other hand, used the concept to mean of, by, <\/em>and about<\/em> the people.<\/p>\n

Diane Mataraza examined the origins of the National Endowment for the Arts. She discussed the inherent tension between support of large budget arts institutions (which in the 1960’s were suffering from significant debt) and the political realities that necessitated a broad-based distribution of funds. One result was the mandate that a significant portion of NEA funds be redistributed to the states (which spawned the creation of many state arts councils) and which in turn, due to state-level politics, further decentralized funding by redistributing budgets to the local\/community level.<\/p>\n

E’Vonne Coleman presented the history of the NEA’s Expansion Arts program, a vitally important 24-year program designed to support the cultural expression of artists and communities of color. EA was implemented as another response to the need to build political support for the Endowment. Staffers worked from a belief that agency funds “were their money [the communities that received it] and the NEA’s job was to give it back to them.” The closure of the program in 1996, while some elements were spun off to other efforts, resulted in the closure of a number of grassroots arts organizations serving communities of color.<\/p>\n

Where We Are<\/b><\/span>
\nDemocracy for art forms and artists<\/b> \u2013 Carlton Turner
\nSupport for and from Artists in Community Settings<\/b> \u2013 Barbara Shaffer Bacon
\nAuthentic Voices <\/b>\u2013 David O\u2019Fallon<\/p>\n

The second half of the morning focused on the current situation, especially the role of artists in community work. Carlton Turner noted that we are shaped by the cultures around us and that art is not the same thing as culture but that it is always<\/em> a reflection of the cultures out of which it arises. (In this regard, he noted that art for art’s sake is impossible because of the art cannot be separated from its underlying culture(s).) Mr. Turner also noted that artists were (and are) left out of the development of the nonprofit arts infrastructure, a particularly troubling reality since it is artists who are the visionaries who could address community needs and interests.<\/p>\n

Barbara Shaffer Bacon talked about the work of artists in community settings (as opposed to isolated studio work) and noted the need for training for these artists in how to work with communities. She pointed out that locally-focused projects can be difficult to scale due to the work being tailored to the unique interests of communities and the unique abilities of the participating artists.<\/p>\n

David O’Fallon presented some principles on which to base successful community arts work.<\/p>\n