Citizen Artist!

While browsing the Community Arts Network website (pretty much the best resource there is on socially-minded and interactive art), I found a syllabus for a class called Citizen Artist. The collaboration between high school and college students reminded me so much of Transforming Race, a project I posted on earlier, I couldn't wait to get a link to the syllabus up on the blog.

Alternate ROOTS Annual Meeting in NC!

Alternative ROOTS Annual Meeting Website: Click Above

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Remember the ARRA and the promise of arts funding? A lot of funding from the ARRA has gone to sustaining existing arts education. However, there were also new opportunities in this act. Although this website from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies is a bit wordy, it may be worth an artist or arts organization's time to scan through this stuff. The page outlines different areas of government funding and how some of that money could be used for the arts. Here are a couple blurbs from the page that seemed especially promising to me:

Transportation Enhancements: States have different emphases with these projects, but they can include "landscaping design, street furniture, lighting, public art, historic preservation, and gateways. State arts agencies have developed experience working in partnership with state departments of transportation on joint projects funded by the TE program."

Elementary and Secondary Education: "These funds can always be used to support arts education."

Young Americans: The Performance

I headed on over to the Anderson Center this weekend for Young Americans: The Performance. Andre Minkins has written a play, which he also directed over the weekend, inspired by the photographs of Sheila Pree Bright. The play was performed by WSSU and high school students as well as adult volunteers. It was so heartening to see members of our community working with local students to elaborate and expand upon work from a nationally renown artist.

Another great feature of the matinee performance was the collaborative effort of a few key community organizations to get the news out there and show their relevance to the project. The performance Young Americans was not only inspired by the exhibit but also the writings of students involved with Authoring Action, a youth authors institute cofounded by Nathan Ross Freeman and Lynn Rhoades. StoryLine was also out showcasing the bus and providing support for the event. And of course, Diggs Gallery's exhibit served as inspiration.

I haven't had a chance to check out the exhibit yet at Diggs but from the few photographs I've seen, it seems to portray a subtly strong message that America's youth are mature in their expression of who they are and understand well their relationship to America, however varied it may be from young person to young person. The actors in Young Americans: The Performance seem to have also better shaped their understanding of what America is, and will be, as they become adult leaders.

Mark Your Calendars!

For those interested in creating community arts projects, mark your calendars for the first ever Amnesty International Human Rights Arts Festival! Scheduled for April 23-25 in Silver Spring, Maryland (right outside D.C.), this is a rare opportunity to view work by over 90 artists and 50 arts organizations in theater, film, dance, visual arts, and music who all are presenting work related to human rights.

You really must check out the list of participants, as many of the organizations and artists are well known for their socially-minded art. Who is up for caravaning to D.C. for the event?

Social Innovation Fund: Matching Grants

The Social Innovation Fund, a new public-private collaboration created by the 2009 Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, is designed to create new knowledge about how to solve social challenges in the areas of economic opportunity, youth development and school support, and healthy futures, and to improve our nation’s problem-solving infrastructure in low-income communities.

Community organizations will receive financial support from intermediaries on the order of no less than $100,000 per year for three to five years, as well as strategic support in areas such as management, and evaluation. Community organizations must also provide a 1:1 cash match for the total amount—Federal and private dollars—they receive from the intermediaries.

The Notice of Funds Available is scheduled to release in February 2010.

What an excellent opportunity to venture into a well-funded project that solves community issues through the arts. Not too many details are available right now on the Corporation for National & Community Service website, but be sure to check back in February.

GUMBO To Be Held Weekly at Central Library

In the last edition of The Chronicle, local artist Derrick Monk was profiled for his many socially entreprenerial activities across the Triad. Derrick has a number of programs to his name, including United Creations Support Services, the Come-Unity Mural program, Greensboro public art, etc.

Coming up next: Derrick's GUMBO program (Group Unification Movement while Bridging Opportunities), which partners an artist painting live while local musicians, poets, or other artists perform simultaenously, will be held weekly at the Central Library in Winston-Salem. Check with the library for more information.

UC Support Services at the 2008 Juneteenth Festival. From UC Support Services website, 1/4/10.

New Faces: Immigrants and Refugees in NC

Monday, November 16, 3 pm.
Diggs Gallery- WSSU - Winston-Salem
Presented by the Center for New North Carolinians at UNC-Greensboro
Sponsored by The Office of International Programs and Club Latino

Focus on education and community outreach programs for youth and children, and opportunitiesfor internships and service learning.

Young Americans by Sheila Pree Bright

In Conjunction with:
YOUNG AMERICANS: Photographs by Sheila Pree Bright
This dynamic new series of photographs by Atlanta-based photographer Sheila Pree Bright explores the identities of U. S. citizens and immigrants pursuing citizenship by presenting portraits of Americans aged 18- 25, each posing with the American flag. The exhibition features 49 large format chromogenic prints, several accompanied by statements from the subjects revealing their unique conceptions of patriotism. The project began in 2006 and features 15 WSSU participants.
Young Americans: Photographs by Sheila Pree Bright is organized by The Amistad Center for Art & Culture, Inc., Hartford, Connecticut, in collaboration with the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia. Made possible by generous grants from Aetna and the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources and the WSSU Office of Student Affairs.

Elsewhere's SEA program preserves and connects South Elm Street neighborhood

Over the course of this year, Elsewhere Artist Collaborative--a living museum set within a former thrift store in downtown Greensboro--has been creating connections within its growing downtown urban neighborhood. With the new Mellow Mushroom and advancing economic development in our downtown "arts and antiques" district, Elsewhere wanted to ensure that neighbors who live, work, and use the South Elm neighborhood had a forum for discussing the growth of their city and transformations of their urban surroundings. We have always been especially interested in our neighborhood's ability to link people across generations, ethnic backgrounds, race, and economic status--from the diverse businesses on our block, to its historic aesthetic character, to a playful culture of passer-bys and players. We set out to create a way to converse and explore these unique connections of the fabulous people who compose our city character.

This spring, with the help of the United Arts Council's PTICA initiative and The Building Stronger Neighborhoods of the Community Foundation of Greensboro, Elsewhere set out to strengthen our neighborhood community while preserving the unique diversity of our downtown district. We launched an ongoing project called SEA (the South Elm Alliance) which hosted and continues to host various events that provide create forums for community exchange (check out the blog here). We held two town hall meetings about the development of our neighborhood, investigated our neighborhood through a mapping photo project and posted on Googlemaps, joined Charlie and Ruth Jones of Greensboro Grub in producing a neighborhood dinner, enjoyed an evening of a free coffee cafe on our block for our neighbors and passerbys, and offered a street screen-printing event so that neighbors could wear the SEA logo around town. We have also held monthly episodes of our performance game CITY, which re-imagines our museum as a pretend city. Participants given visas and are invited to play a variety of characters, run CITY institutions like the library, bank, department store, skyscraper, motel, and more, and generally explore a collaborative game of pretend. We are interested in how this shared story, or fiction, can examine and expose real issues in our surrounding neighborhood. Anyone can play, even if you've never performed before. This year, we've been opening CITY up to many more participants, while continuing to film each event and transform them into movies on youtube.

We have two more events planned before Elsewhere goes on hiatus for the winter (we close the museum from november to march due to lack of heat in our very old building). The first is our living room lecture series on friday october 9th. Anyone is invited to give a 20 minute lecture on something they know anything about. Then the next friday, october 16th, we'll have the finale of our CITY games for the season. Come over and play. Be a farmer a baker a tourist, anyone really. Hope to see you here!

Serve America Act

Community Arts Supporters-

Earlier this year, Obama signed the Serve America Act, which will expand service opportunities primarily through Americorps and focus on such targeted areas as veterans services, the environment, disaster relief, and education.

The Education Corps includes programs that provide “skilled artists to promote greater community unity through the use of music and arts education and engagement through work in low-income communities, and education, health care, and therapeutic settings, and other work in the public domain.”

Our job now is to lobby Americorps and the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) to fully support and roll out this program. There are five potential specialized service corps, and only two can be supported at a time, so please visit the CNCS website to vocalize why you believe the arts are important to education.

There are many strong local and national examples of how the arts create a more fulfilling learning experience and an active environment for students. If you would like to check out a couple to get some inspiration for your suggestions, visit the following organizations.

Manchester Craftsmen's Guild in Pittsburgh

Arts-Based Elementary School (W-S)