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I’m Andrew Bird and I’m a songwriter, violinist.
My name is Alexis Immarino and I’m a community artist based in East Baltimore.
I’m Jim Ballinger, Director of the Phoenix Art Museum.
My name is Barbara Ernst Prey. I am a painter. I paint large watercolors.
My name is Mike Weber and I’m a mixed-media artist in Washington, DC.
To borrow from the great writer down in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, Ernest Gaines,
says if you want to study human society, you don’t pickup nonfiction, you pick up fiction.
And if you really want to get to know the essence of people, fiction allows enough flexibility
for us to really discuss what the characters were thinking and why they were doing what
they were doing. Truly - intent. So I think when we think about beauty, we think about
imagination - we can’t get to these truths of the human race without really leaving enough
flexibility in our existence and that would be art and I think that’s the role of artists
in society today. The artist’s role in community is a role
that assumes that you’re a part of a greater context of reality which is beyond the self
referential idea that you create work to solely share with the world like what is important
to you. And while this is a really important thing to own as an artist, I think the artist’s
role in community is to strengthen the way that you interpret your surroundings and choose
to make meaning as sort of a cultural maker of art...[Andrew Bird begins whistling in background]
The activity of going to some sort of artistic
event, that being an option is incredibly valuable for a community. I mean, sure
there’s sporting events that do that, but maybe they don’t leave you with much beyond
the event itself. Whereas I think the arts can really change you.
As an artist I think my job is to inspire, provide hope, help people look at things differently,
you know, encourage. I’ve been very involved and helping and working with many dirrerent organizations
to really make the community and our world a better place. And I can really look back in my life
and say that I feel that I have made a difference and that’s something that’s very exciting and
I’ve been able to use the gifts that I’ve been given. Over the last 10 years or so what we've seen
is a tremendous burgeoning, finally, of downtown and it's with First Fridays, which is a very
large coming together in neighborhoods around the museum of artists opening their studios,
have started shops, pop-up galleries, and we've had as many as 10,000 people on an event.
And just at the museum alone we opened that night for free and it welcomes, particularly,
young people, young creative people, to the museum. We're averaging only over 2,000 to
2500 people each and every month. Artists living in your communities actually
creates a sense of community. For example, in Washington, DC, we have a group called the
Mid City Artists and when I first moved to Washington about nine years ago I had a very
hard time finding other artists. It was very rare or seemed rare to me for artists to get
together and paint or draw which should be a very normal every day thing. And a couple
of artists and I got together and started talking about building more of an artists'
colony. And, so, we don’t have a centralized area where we can all hang out and paint and
draw together so we decided what we would do is open up our homes twice a year - our
homes or our studios - and allow the community to go on a walking tour, come into our homes
and experience the environments where we work, see the pieces that we’re creating and see
the process and learn how the process of creating or how it’s involved in our lives. I think
that brings people together and creates more of a community feel when you know who’s
living and working in your community. The first opportunity that an artist has in
community is to ask people what they know and to not assume that what you have and what
you know best is going to be applicable in a new setting. So that seems at the core
of the artist’s role in the community is to really work with what exists before you show up.
Because that’s - I think if more artists would assume that their vision is
a little less myopic you would have this understanding that, I don’t know, you just share the power
in this way that I think is also really important right now with young people is like sharing
with young people that they have the capacity to show their strengths and not necessarily
in a way that someone has taught them before. You see it more acutely in places like Chattanooga
or Dubuque, Iowa. Places that you can see the community. A lot of, like, towns in New England
or the southeast where they’ve saved the local theater from the wrecking ball and there’s
much more apparent because it’s a more finite populace and you can see the effects of community
action and everything. And in those smaller places there’s a more of a passionate intensity
about the arts sometimes. And I can really, really see how it makes that community so
much, the quality of life of that community, so much better. So much better. Especially
when you’re up against strip malls and sprawl and development and fluorescent-lit nightmares,
warehouse shopping. They can really bleed you dry. You need that human experience.
It’smore important now than ever.
[whistling, strummed guitar]