CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF THE ARTS • CENTER FOR ART AND PUBLIC LIFE
Crafting a Vision for Art,
Equity and Civic Engagement:
Convening the Community Arts Field in Higher Education
Edited by Sonia BasSheva Mañjon, PhD
FUNDING PROVIDED BY
Crafting a Vision for Art,
Equity and Civic Engagement:
Convening the Community Arts Field in Higher Education
Edited by Sonia BasSheva Mañjon, PhD
Center for Art and Public Life, California College of the Arts
Co-Presented with Association of Independent Colleges of
Art and Design and Massachusetts College of Art
November 2-4, 2006
Table of Contents
Introduction
Sonia BasSheva Mañjon, PhD, Vice President Diversity & Strategic Partnerships
Wesleyan University (former Director Center for Art and Public Life) ............................................................................ iv
Welcome
Michael Roth, PhD, President Wesleyan University
(former President California College of the Arts) .............................................................................................................................. vi
Dedication
Professor Timothy John Densmore, Columbia College Chicago ........................................................................................ viii
Keynotes
Amalia Mesa-Bains, PhD, Director of the Visual and Public Art Institute of
California State University at Monterey Bay............................................................................................................................................ 2
Claudine Kinard Brown, Director of the Arts and Culture Program,
Nathan Cummings Foundation New York, New York.................................................................................................................... 11
Marcel Diallo, Chief Creative Officer, Black Dot Artists, Inc., Oakland, California ............................................... 16
Marta Moreno Vega, PhD, Founder and President of the
Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, New York ...................................................................................... 20
Selected Sessions
I, too Sing America: WritersCorps at the Symposium –
Judith Tannenbaum, Writer, San Francisco Art Commission .................................................................................................. 28
Fostering Reciprocal Relationships: Research Centers, Universities, and
Community Based Practioners – Doug Blandy, PhD, Director and Lori Hager, PhD,
Assistant Professor & Associate Director, Arts and Administration Program,
Center for Community Arts and Cultural Policy University of Oregon..........................................................................31
Breaking Tradition, Breaking Making – collaboration between Francis McIlveen,
California College of the Arts Alumni, Yuki Maruyama, Michelle Lieberman
and the students of the OBUGS (Oakland Based Urban Gardens) Program ............................................................ 36
Building Community Through the Practice of Enso – Virginia Jardim, Faculty,
Community Arts Department, California College of the Arts ............................................................................................... 38
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Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
Essays
Listening for the Lexicon of Cultural Shift – Linda Frye Burnham,
Community Art Network ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 44
A Week-Long Immersion in the Activist Theory and Practice
of Appalshop: The NYU Tisch University Scholars Travel to
Whiteburg, Kentucky – Jamie Haft, New York University Alumni..................................................................................... 49
Home, New Orleans?: Community Arts Program Post-Hurricane
Katrina – Shawn Vantree, Director Community Arts Program,
Xavier University of Louisiana Department of Art .......................................................................................................................... 55
We Interrupt Our Regular Programming (B.A. & M.F.A.) To Bring You This
Announcement: Arts Training Needs a Fixin for the 21st C. Not-So-Free
Market – Eugene Rodriguez, Visual Arts Instructor, DeAnza College ............................................................................ 57
Campus–Community Partnerships: Supporting or Destroying the Field of Community Arts?
– Sonia BasSheva Mañjon, PhD Vice President Diversity & Strategic Partnerships Wesleyan
University (former Director Center for Art and Public Life California College of the Arts)........................ 62
Students Speak
The Intergenerational Tango – MacKenzie Fegan and Jamie Haft, Alumni,
Tish School of the Arts, New York University ....................................................................................................................................... 70
Washi: Handmade Paper, Handing on Wisdom – Mia Braverman, Alumni,
Community Arts Program, California College of the Arts ......................................................................................................... 71
The Organic Process of Collaboration and Implementation of Educational
Art-Based Projects with Community – Christina Samuelson, Alumni,
Community Arts Program, California College of the Arts ........................................................................................................ 75
Reflections
Johanna Poethig, Faculty Institute for Visual and Public Art,
California State University Monterey Bay .............................................................................................................................................. 80
Deirdre Visser, Faculty California College of the Arts and Mills College, Dia Penning,
Arts Education Program Manager San Francisco Art Commission, Lott Hill and
Megan Stielstra, Center for Teaching Excellence Columbia College Chicago......................................................... 82
Attendees & Contact Information
Information List.............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 88
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
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Introduction
Sonia BasSheva Manjon, PhD
Vice President Diversity & Strategic Partnerships
Wesleyan University (Former Director Center for
Art and Public Life, Founding Chair, Community
Arts Major California College of the Arts)
“The intention was to bring together practitioners from outside the
academy so we could learn from community partners and experience
the impact that our students are having in the community.”
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement:
Convening the Community Arts Field in Higher Education was
a collective effort of higher educational institutions, their
students and community partners to share a vision of the
creative and collaborative efforts needed to link art with civic
engagement. Specifically, we attempted to create a dialogue
between academicians, students and community activists
through creative exhibits/installations and participatory
activities that focused on the following symposium topics:
democratization of art practices, community collaboration as
a means for social change, and the relationship of changing
demographics to issues of identity and representation politics
on college campuses. This endeavor brought together amazing
new voices not previously showcased at academic conferences.
The intention was to bring together practitioners from outside
the academy so we could learn from community partners and
experience the impact that our students are having in the
community. The sessions, workshops and art exhibits were
meant to elicit somatic as well as intellectual responses. This
collection of keynotes, essays, selected session descriptions and
reflections from students, faculty and community partners is
meant as a sampling of what was offered at the symposium and
also as an example and testament to what has been and can
be achieved through art and civic engagement. Embedded in
this document are photographs and a DVD that contains each
keynote and a 13-minute overview of the symposium.
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Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
About the Center for
Art and Public Life
Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts’ mission is to
educate students to shape culture through the practice and
critical study of the arts. CCA is one of the largest accredited,
independent, nonprofit schools of art and design in the United
States. Noted for the interdisciplinary nature and breadth of its
programs, the college offers undergraduate and graduate degrees
in the areas of fine arts, architecture, design and writing.
CCA explores issues at the intersection of art, education, and
community through the activities of its Center for Art and Public
Life. The Center’s mission is to create community partnerships
based on creative practice that serve the CCA community and the
diverse populations of the San Francisco Bay Area. The Center’s
commitment is to: 1) improve education at all levels—kindergarten
through college; 2) engage the creative process in teacher training
and curriculum development; 3) motivate and stimulate young
minds to shape their world through creative work; 4) challenge
CCA students and faculty to use their art to make a difference;
and 5) empower and support community activism.
About the Community
Arts Major
The Community Arts Major is an interdisciplinary, communitybased approach to creative practice. This major explores the
ways artists interact, collaborate and intervene in a variety of
social networks with the aim of building sustainable community
relationships, engaging cultural diversity and stimulating social
transformation. Students study the history of community arts
and draw from a wide range of cultural theories and practices
in art, critical studies, art education, service learning, and civic
engagement. Encouraged to experiment with new genres,
mediums and technologies, students create their own set of
hybrid practices, adding new thinking and ideas to the field of
community arts. Students can choose a specific methodology of
practice that includes: art education, studio practice, community
engagement, and/or arts management.
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
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Welcome
Michael Roth, PhD
President Wesleyan University (former
President California College of the Arts)
“…we teach our students something about justice,
about creativity, about violence and injustice.”
I want to be very brief because I know why you’re here tonight,
and it’s not to hear from the President of the college. But I would
like to say a few words about community arts and CCA. The
few words are these: We are an institution of higher education.
And we’re co-sponsoring this [symposium] with another great
educational institution and with [AICAD], the Association of
Independent Colleges of Art and Design.
Institution of higher education…what does that mean today?
Colleges and universities used to be the places where you went
in order to achieve the things that other people were keeping
you from achieving. They were the places you would go to
because social conditions or economic systems or some
combination of those things kept you from being the person
you might develop into.
That’s why we went to college and universities that was what
was so great about them for so long in this country. And now,
as you probably know, now educational institutions, as a rule,
are mechanisms for preserving privilege. That’s what they do:
they preserve privilege, which means preserving injustice.
There are vehicles within these institutions where the more
emancipatory tendencies of education can still be found.
Your work in community arts, your work with people who
are connecting their educational institutions to community
projects and aspirations—this is one of the few places left in
American higher education that has not been overtaken by
false measures of success, that is not driven by the necessity
of supporting unjust privilege in this country. It still has
emancipatory potential.
vi
Now, what we do when we engage in these activities, at least
as far as I understand them, at CCA and other places that Sonia
[Manjon] has got me to pay attention to, what we do is to create
partnerships with other sources of creativity in society. By creating
those partnerships, by working with kids, by working with people
in communities who don’t have access to the resources that
higher education institutions have access to, by creating those
partnerships, we teach our students something about justice,
about creativity, about violence and injustice.
We teach them that, and we hope we do a service in the
community; we do something of which we can be proud because
it seems to us to diminish the chances of senseless violence,
and to diminish the chances that unjust privilege will simply be
perpetuated through cultural systems that defend the status quo.
We do that; it’s very simple, right? This work is being done by
people like you, who create connections to folks in the community
who otherwise don’t have access to higher education resources, or
might not have access in the same way. You do this work in a way
that doesn’t get you a score on some commission’s assessment
exam, doesn’t increase necessarily your graduation rate, but what
it does—vand I think you see it all the time with your students—
what it does is it gives people reasons to keep hoping that change
can occur in our society in such a way as to decrease the chances
of senseless violence, decrease the opportunities for warmongers
all around us, and to increase the possibility of struggling for
democracy and justice.
Now I can say this kind of thing as a non-partisan college
president, even when I’m out there fundraising. I can say this kind
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
of thing because these are not controversial values, despite the
fact that they are so under-supported by the powers that be.
Democracy, equality, justice, fairness—it’s hard to find people who
will say they’re against them. And actually, it’s not that hard to
find people ready to invest in sustaining these values.
We just have to make this an institutional priority.
What you do in the programs you create, what we try to do
here at CCA, is to create partnerships that reveal injustice, but
not only that, we develop partnerships that create opportunities
for believing in reasonable hope. It’s so hard. You know, it’s so
hard for people, they get depressed, they get tired of struggling,
but you create the possibility that they can, that they should,
maintain social hope.
I’ve seen it, for example, in the work of my friend Roberto Bedoya
(who I see is here tonight) who was at the Getty ten years ago
or more. Some of you have been doing this work for decades. It’s
hard, and it’s easy to say, “Why am I doing this?” And the reason
you’re doing it is because when you see young people (and
sometimes old people) rediscover their capacity for hope, you
know you’re on the right track.
You’re doing the work of creativity, the work of the arts, the
work of cultural reinvigoration, and I am very grateful to you
for doing that.
What you’re doing is giving us all better reasons to be hopeful
about the possibility of creating change. I can’t think of anyone
who does that more consistently, in a more inspirational way
than our speaker tonight: Amalia Mesa-Bains. It’s not every day
I get to introduce a certified genius. Certified!
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
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Dedicated to:
Professor Timothy
John Densmore
In memory of Professor Timothy John Densmore 1963—2007
Columbia College Chicago Television Department. Studio and
Field Production Specialist. Freelance producer, consultant
and trainer for Palmer House Hilton and Hilton Corporation
in corporate production; former Media Coordinator for Illinois
Institute for Continuing Legal Education, and Northwestern
University Law Clinic; freelance cameraperson for various
corporations including Beltone Electronics, Chicago Urban
League, McDonald’s Television, and Allstate Insurance.
Instructor of Columbia College Electronic Newsletter.
Your light will always shine among us.
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Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
Keynotes
“Art is a different form of service.
Students have to have the ability to
reflect and analyze, and they have to
develop what we think of now as a set
of lifelong skills, and those lifelong
skills of social justice and service go
out with them into the world”.
Amalia Mesa Bains
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Report
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Amalia Mesa Bains, PhD
Director of the Visual and Public Art
Institute of California State University
at Monterey Bay
I know the days ahead are going to unfold, and we’re going to meet
old and new friends, and we’re going to listen to people who have
had a lifetime commitment, and we’re going to listen to people who
are starting new projects.
Through Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement,
we are convening the community arts field and higher education;
we are continuing work begun by many others. But first of all,
I want to acknowledge the audience, that all of you who have
come together today represent various roles. Some of you are
artists; some of you are students or scholars and some of you
are activists. We are really rich, both in the Bay Area and in the
national convening, to be able to look at what it is we’ve been
doing and what we will do in the future.
I want to especially thank the Center for Art and Public Life,
Sonia Manjon, the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and
Design, and Massachusetts College of Art, because it’s a wonderful
coming together of different trajectories toward the same point.
The truth of it is that the pathways that would bring those three
entities together are quite distinct, and in many ways I think
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that’s the challenge that we have ahead of us, is how to engage
these issues, the strategies, the practices, the pedagogies, and the
curriculum when we come from different points and positions
toward a common vision.
But I think the fact that we’re here means that there’s a change
afoot, and many of us have watched it over the last number of
years. Places like Chicago Art Institute, the Corcoran College of
Art and Design, various places that we never imagined would
take on the notion of community arts are slowly beginning to do
that. There have been indicators in the field for at the least the
last ten years that something is changing, that we’re recognizing
something about what we need to do and what we need to do
better. It’s a unique moment on which the partnership between
higher education and community arts can exist.
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
Sonia [Manjon] mentioned earlier our consortium, and that
consortium was really born out of funding by the Wallace
Foundation that was following some of the work that Cal Arts
had done, but I think some of us took it in a different direction.
It had to do with the idea of community arts partnerships and
how they occur. As a result of that consortium, we began to
expand our relationships with one another. For those of us
who were in the new California State University Monterey Bay
(CSUMB), which is only ten years old, we were starting on a path
completely new in respect to an art department engaging public
and community art at its core. In many ways that was difficult
because we didn’t have the history, the resources, the kind of
reputation, but on another hand, we were free to do things in a
different way because there were no established bureaucracies
in terms of art departments. So people just came together and
made a difference.
The partnerships that we’ve been talking about in the last number
of years, I believe are founded on two particularly important areas
that are not always connected to art and art-making, and those
are the areas of service learning and social justice. It was not easy
even at a new school to bring those elements together, but to try
and fuse them into traditional art schools where they may even be
antithetical has been a struggle. It has definitely been a challenge
at schools that are more established. When we started doing this
at CSUMB ten years ago, when we started doing the consortium,
we were not alone and we were not the first. I often refer to the
work of Edward Soja and other people who are theorists around
social space and social meaning. They talk about the idea that no
place is empty when you get there, that there are ghosts of those
who have come before us. That’s what I feel today in this room,
that we are here at a point along a continuum that has been
forged for us by people who came before us.
I want to do a brief capsule of history: think about the Civil
Rights Movement and the kind of sacrifice and work that was
done by people who were struggling for justice and for equity
in the most civic moment of history of our country. From the
core civil rights experience grew the cultural movements. I was a
part of the Movimiento, the Chicano Movement, but there were
movements in Black, Native American and Asian communities.
I remember that many of these movements were fraught with
crisis, and some sad moments of loss, but nonetheless they
represented the kind of cultural mix, that power of passion and
belief that we still carry forward. Then after that, we look at the
beginning of cultural centers; the Galeria de la Raza, Kearny
Street Workshop, Guadalupe Center in Texas, the Caribbean
Cultural Center in New York are just a few. You can name them,
many of whose doors are closing now, as we speak because the
funding that once sustained them in NEA [National Endowment
of the Arts] and Expansion Arts [NEA Program]—all the things
we knew through the ‘80s, the ‘70s and ‘80s—they’re gone now.
Now you have a Galeria de la Raza up against a Metropolitan
Museum of Art under the category of historical preservation at
NEA. We have to know that the footsteps we walk in are footsteps
of sacrifice, ingenuity and creativity, and I’m speaking in a very
local way, but there are places elsewhere in which this happened.
Here in San Francisco the first murals were actually done with
money from neighborhood arts, where we’d have the paint cans at
the Galeria de la Razaso artists could come and get them. People
like the Mujeres Muralistas, Ray Patlan, and other artists began
through those neighborhood arts programs. And then there came
what we like to refer to as the golden age of multiculturalism in
art. I happen to know definitively when it ended, okay? I was there,
it was in 1993, the Whitney Biennial, you could hear that door
shut, the suction goes slam, it’s closed, it was over. But before that,
it was quite fabulous and quite golden.
But it was a time also of struggle. Many of us came from
communities that have long histories in this continent, and we
came from traditions that might have been defined as folk, or
might have been defined in other ways, and we came together as
contemporary artists. I remember the first time many of us worked
with Marta Moreno Vega, who’s my mentor and my colleague
and my sister. She started the first Cultural Diversity Through
Cultural Grounding conference, which was absolutely radical in
the ‘80s. We have ancestors in ways. Many of them are still with
us, but many are not. So, this idea that we invented this field is a
fallacy. We were never the first. I was once at a place, which I shall
not name, and a person who I shall not name insisted that they
had invented community arts, and we all sat there going, “What
is that?” And so the reality is that we are here because others
have come before us, and we had a knowledge base, and that
knowledge base came from all those moments of struggle.
I think about the days when the Chicano Art Resistance and
Affirmation Exhibition went through the NEH [National Endowment
of the Humanities] panel four times, four times it was approved,
and four times it was de-funded by Madam Lynne Cheney, who
was, I believe, the head of NEH at the time. So, there have been
battlefields along the way. There has been an opening up and
closing back of our historical canons; there has been moments in
which we thought there was a revolution and it turned out to be,
well, a skirmish maybe, but certainly not the end of the road.
I often think of the words of Amiri Baraka. Amiri Baraka at
a conference at the Yerba Buena Art Center when everyone
was battling over whether we were going to be a grassroots
organization or a mainstream organizationput his hand up and
said “Hey, just remember, all of us have the right to
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
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self-determination and democracy.” Self-determination referred to
our institutions that we build, and democracy is what we pay our
taxes for, and we deserve to be in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
or the Modern, whatever it might be. So, this idea is that there are
intricacies between how we are represented in the community and
in the mainstream. I think about the whole era of civic dialogues
that was sponsored in many ways by the efforts of foundations,
and the Animating Democracy Project, which will be talked about
tomorrow, edged along by Ford.
studio. They are connected to their communities. It’s that give and
take between artist and community that is the model that many
of us have begun to think about when we talk about how to build
community partnerships in higher education.
We have some premises that we can move forward with, and
I want to talk a little bit about what we’ve been doing at CSUMB,
not because we’re the only ones doing it, but because it’s the
model that I understand the best, and it’s the model that borrows
from many people in this room, frankly.
The Pact Project that the Rockefeller [Foundation] created was
another attempt to reach out to community. Even the Community
Arts Partnership Institute and all that we went through came out
of Wallace [Foundation], and then Nathan Cummings [Foundation]
came in and also supported a community partnership model. Some
of our work was dedicated to inspiring and providing for the next
generation. The Regeneration project at Galeria de la Raza began
in 1992 and has now moved forward almost 14 years and we find
some of the young leadership of 1992 running organizations and
institutions all over the country. This was a brief, somewhat localized
history, but it supports the idea that many roads and many projects
and many people have brought us here today.
I went to San Jose State in the ‘60s,
learned to do.
We started the vision under Suzanne Lacey and Judy Baca’s
leadership, but Johanna Poethig and Stephanie Johnson had to
be on the ground to implement that first vision. I joined them
after the first year and together we crafted a model based in some
sense on the ways we had learned to live as artists in community.
We came together in various ways to try to figure out a model
for the life we have had. We tried to build a program that would
prepare them for that life in a way that we were not prepared in
our own art schooling.
So we are at this point now talking about higher education
and community partnerships. We are here to talk about the
intersection between civic life, equity and community. We know
that the work that we’re aiming for has already begun. We do
not have to invent it. We just have to expand it and to move it
forward. We already have models. This organic movement has
now reached the point at which we can begin to define the artists
who hold the highest form that we call them artist-citizens. I’m
thinking of people like Judy Baca, Suzanne Lacy, Pepon Osorio, and
Mildred Howard, who are here with us today. There are numerous
people whose work has resided both within the art world and
within a deep community of which they are a part. Of which they
are a part: that is the salient aspect—they are part of a community.
They don’t go find a community and fix it and go back to their
I went to San Jose State in the ‘60s, and let me tell you, nobody
ever talked to me about community, and I had no preparation
for what I eventually learned to do. So looked at our work in a
retrospective view. We looked at the skill sets that we all had
in combination, and then we flipped them, and we said, “Okay,
to know how to do that, what do you have to study?” And so
that began this long process of defining a new curriculum and
pedagogy. And I want to say that we were also in a university of
like-minded people. When CSUMB began in an old abandoned
military base, Fort Ord, there were 25 slots and 5,000 people
applied for them, because it was a new revolution in education.
It was the 21st campus for the 21st century, and we talked about
interdisciplinarity and the capacity to study across different
cultures, issues of globalism and the environment. All of that was
in place. So, to come in as a visual and public art department
and let me tell you, nobody ever talked
to me about community, and I had
no preparation for what I eventually
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Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
was not difficult. In fact, we have a richness of conversation with
people in humanities and ethics at various fields that affected
the way we thought about what we did. So, we developed six
outcomes, six skill areas to which we teach and the areas in which
students must master.
And then the last outcome was distribution, being responsible
for the work you did going out into that world. And in order
to develop that, we really had to create a program that was an
intersection between studio arts, arts education, public arts in
many ways, and other interdisciplinary foci.
The first one is analysis, because you have to be able to research
and analyze art historically and also in contemporary systems
of economic and social justice. But you also have to have your
own aesthetic. You have to begin someplace in yourself, so
that was the second one. The third one was learning how to
work in community. What are the skill sets that you need to go
in and out of a community respectfully and with knowledge?
The fourth one had to do with the very, very unusual aspect
that you don’t find in art departments, and that is collaboration,
So, over the years these outcomes have been the driving force
behind us. Our challenge is how to rest these skills within
what kind of a curriculum. What is it you want them to know?
So we began with what we call an assets-based model. To make
this clear I will give you an opposite example. She’s no longer
our provost, we were very successful in having her to leave, but
one of our first provosts described our students to us one day
when we were having orientation. She talked about non-white
students who are non-English speaking. And so there were all
these “nons”, and then we were thinking, “Okay, but where are
the cross-cultural students of color?” They were the “nons”.
That’s a deficit model. She described what was wrong with or
missing from our students. She could not see them with their
positive assets. We wanted an assets-based model, so we
simply turned it around and we looked at the resources that
our communities brought, their values, their knowledge, and
we looked at how to engage them in
serving others.
because we like to think that we’re the
authors, the unique geniuses and we don’t
need anybody else. But the truth of it is,
whether it’s paying somebody to fabricate
for you, or whether it’s learning to do build
curriculum for docents with someone else,
you do have to work with other people.
Collaboration is one of the most difficult
to have artists look at, but once they begin
to think and act in this way the doors open
to real change in the way they work. The next is production,
which of course is the basic studio process of learning to make
things. We believe that conceptual skill is not enough; artists
need to be able to make things. Much of our revision comes in
the moment of material creation and inevitable problem solving
through materiality. Revision—which means that if you have a
community and or peers and you were making work, and you
wanted to find out how they took it in, you might pay attention
to them, and that changes what you make—that is revision.
Serving is different than simply going to
a soup kitchen, and I want to say a few
words about that. Also, we looked at the
cross-disciplinary possibilities, that in
order for a student in our art program to
work in another community, they might
actually have to learn a second language,
or at least enough to introduce themselves.
They might have to know something about
global and social equity. The pedagogical
models that were of most value to us, that
the university itself had established, had
to do with service learning, and they call
it the prism. Our broader Service Learning
Institute has established foundations of
service learning that all major programs
extend in the upper division programs. This foundation was set by
the work of Marianne Penn and Seth Pollack and we have innovated
on this to make it more specific to the arts.
The model establishes service learning as an intersection of
reflection, compassion and analysis. We begin with compassion
because you have to have some ability to feel for others beyond
yourself and whatever comfort level you might have. The other
is the capacity to analyze. So, analysis means being able to look
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
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at systems, social systems, economic systems, and being able to
ascertain, for example, that undocumented people aren’t just
here because they like being illegal and crossing the border, that
they’re here because they’re working and there’s a labor system
that allows that to happen. This systemic analysis is part of service
learning, and also, ultimately the sense of social justice. We found
that our students had to learn to serve, and serving through art
is very different than serving in other ways. It has to do with
transformative abilities and understanding the meaning of the
images that you create, and having reciprocal dialogue with
people as you create those things.
community functions, and all that had to happen before we could
actually send them in to do projects. In this engaging with the
diverse community, we developed a diverse pedagogy. One of the
things that we’re really dealing with now is how to articulate that
in a larger area, and that’s how we came into the consortium.
We had gotten funding through Wallace to develop something
called the Reciprocal University of the Arts Project, which brought
together the music and performing arts and the visual and public
art in an interdisciplinary model.
Art is a different form of service. Students have to have the
ability to reflect and analyze, and they have to develop what we
think of now as a set of lifelong skills, and those lifelong skills of
social justice and service go out with them into the world. Our
What we discovered was that project-based learning or handson learning was the quickest way to get them engaged in the
work. The Reciprocal University of the Arts had to found itself
on a particular belief system. I want to say something about this
particular model, which is called cultural citizenship.
students have an opportunity to serve twice, once in the lower
division, where they actually have the coursework that takes them
out to communities, and again specifically in their major. Every
major in the campus has its own unique way of providing service
learning. But we discovered that even with our best efforts, when
we sent young people out into communities they were unfamiliar
with, it wasn’t easy. We once had a young woman who refused to
get out of the car in East Salinas because she had been watching
too much nighttime news, and she had seen several drive-bys,
which was a very real part of certain parts of East Salinas.
But other parts of East Salinas are like going to your mother’s
house. She didn’t know that. So, it took that experience to realize,
“Okay, we definitely haven’t provided them with enough skills.”
So, we developed ideas of community research and community
mapping. We had students come to visit in communities, observe,
meet the leaders in the community, be able to examine how a
6
If you have a chance to read on this model, there’s a book called
Latino Cultural Citizenship, and it’s written by, edited by Rina
Benmayor, and Bill Flores, and they studied under Renato Rosaldo
when he was at Stanford. We took this up almost ten years ago,
not knowing that the issues of immigration would come about as
they have now. We were also fortunate that Professor Benmayor
was teaching at CSUMB, which allowed us to collaborate with her
directly. And this has been an absolute tool for us in being able to
talk to people about these issues. I want to quote from their work:
“Cultural citizenship is the ways in which people organize their
values, their beliefs about their rights, and their practices, based
on their sense of cultural belonging, rather than their formal
status as citizens of a nation.” “Particularly important are the
struggles for space and cultural rights that shape community
identity and connect to an understanding of artistic responsibility
and problem-solving.” And that’s a long way of saying when
you’re working with community you need to know there histories
of struggle, their cultural heritage and their community values.
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
If you are looking at the exhibitions here at the conference please
look at our project called Journeys Home, that is about working
with farm workers in the Salinas Valley, specifically on the issue
of space and of having a home. This project is the story of these
farm worker families who at times had to live in their cars, who
slept in caves and who lived four families to an apartment. They
were able to build their first homes in Moro Cojo, a housing
project built through sweat equity. The project we took on was a
way of trying to communicate to people that everyone deserves
a home, and that legal status is not the only way to measure the
worth of a human being. If that human being contributes to your
life, because you have fresh strawberries, or you have wonderful
artichokes on your table, or someone cleans your toilets, then
they deserve to have the kind of citizenship we enjoy, and that
means having a driver’s license, that means being able to be safe
in a place that you have worked to build for others. The cultural
citizenship model is our way of talking about these issues of social
justice in a theoretical premise, because I have found over time
that you can’t really get people in academia, and even in politics
to really listen to another side of the story if you don’t have a
conceptual framework. So, cultural citizenship is our framework.
It’s like being on the debate team, you have to have a good
argument or you just don’t get anywhere. Human decency and
compassion simply is not enough—you’ve got to have theory.
When we came into the consortium with the other schools in
CAPI one of the things we witnessed immediately is how similar
we were. Even though Maryland Institute College of Art was
dealing with largely African-American communities in Baltimore,
Columbia College was in a huge urban setting and we were in this
rather somewhat rural setting in Salinas and Watsonville where
we seemed to be addressing very similar struggle in community
through the arts and culture. We have Monterey and Carmel,
but that’s not where the youth are that we’re primarily serving.
So, what we discovered is that all of us came at the same work
from a different position, and we began to learn from one another.
I think if you have a chance to look in your gift bag you’ll see
our casebook. The casebook is our way of telling the stories.
And I want to say that when you’re trying to work in community,
the absolute glue that sticks it all together are stories. Every
community has their stories. Our project that we are working
in, The Journeys Home, is called Reclamation, and it was about
reclaiming histories, it was about telling stories, restoring blighted
areas and innovating public space. But ultimately, it was about
telling stories. Our casebook is about telling stories, but it’s also a
way to compare our strategies, to contribute to a growing national
pedagogy, and to document the work that is being done.
In some ways the casebook references what will happen in the
next few days, that we’re going to begin to look at precedents for
practice. How is it that we determine how we do what we do? Are
there precedents that we commonly engage in when we enter into
these partnerships and encounters?
We discovered there were some. They’re beyond that sort of artistic
authorship that we know so well. I think that’s one of the dilemmas
that we’re going to face in trying to make these changes is that
many of the art schools that we know the best are predicated on
the unique and individual artist and their authorship.
When you begin to share and collaborate with people, whose art
is it? Who takes credit for it? How is it valued? Is it not valued?
So, we found, and these are really simple ones, and they’ll seem
almost silly to even say out loud, but we found that maintaining
respect and trust [is key.]. In Spanish there’s something called
confianza or trust. Ironically, it’s what keeps gangs together.
People always say, “Well, why do these kids all hang together
and get into crime and violence?” They have one thing and one
thing only, belonging. The rest of their life is alienation and
abandonment. The one thing they have in that gang is confianza,
they have trust. So, we’re not a gang, but our consortium has
confianza, we had confianza with one another.
We began to figure out how it was that we worked together. So,
we learned that you have to maintain respect and trust. You have
to acknowledge the reality of the youth you serve and the youth
that you teach. Their reality is the thing that comes in the room
first. You’ve got to know it and feel for it before you give them the
text, whatever it might be, the lesson, the book, the example, the
project, or the film, you must account for who they are. To do this
you must use the past to predict the future and see something
moving across time. We found that every community we worked
in, whether we worked in the Southwest or we’re in the middle
of Chicago, what we discovered was something that happened
before. Everyone knew it but us, and we needed to know what
that past was before we plunged ahead into something, because
sometimes you plunge ahead and you make a big mistakes.
For example you discover that these two groups have had an
animosity for 30 years, and you just made a little collaboration
where you put the two of them in the room. In our region
in Salinas there’s something called norteno-sureno, and that
means north-south, and it’s a way that youth and gangs divide
themselves. Nortenos are American-born, they identify as
Chicanos. Surenos are identified with Mexico. That’s what letter
13 and 14, all those little signs you see, and it’s all about that.
We had two partners, and we didn’t realize, because they were in
the context of community partnerships. They were community
organizations in which one dealt directly with youth violence
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
7
in gangs and the other dealt with art in the Mexican youth
community. We discovered that they couldn’t work in the same
place together. One group couldn’t go to the other person’s
building, because if they were seen going into that building, they
would be identified with it, and they were trying to work with kids
who were not in gangs. So, in those stories that come before us,
the past predicts the future, and seeing something moving across
time we must understand the lives of the youth we serve.
As we have moved through this, many of us have learned that
what we’re doing is a kind of art-plus. I don’t know if you
remember the English-only legislations that would come up
every so often, where they tried to make California an Englishspeaking place. Even though the city and road signs are all in
Spanish, in case you haven’t noticed. When they wanted to go
against that kind of very narrow, English-only, we had to devise
ways that would get people excited about it, so we called it
the planning process, and most of all—and this is the big one for
art schools—you have to include the aesthetic and cultural values
of the community in the project goals. We used to have this joke
that in America, if your ethnic identity was based on the museums,
you would only know who you were every two years, because
they would have festivals every two years. There were years in
the multicultural period where Latino art would get rediscovered
about every decade or so, now it’s down to about every five years,
because I think they’re running out of other people.
But nonetheless, this idea that you can do this work and not
change your aesthetic framework is impossible. Sooner or later
you have to start asking questions about art historical canons
that you ascribe to, you have to start asking questions about
what you define as expertise. You have to start asking questions
about what it takes to do this work, and how much you need
to know to do this work. Inevitably, the issues of diversity and
Witnessing community knowledge is another principle. In Spanish,
it’s called testimonios, which are witnessing. Witnessing means that
you stand up and you see what something is, and you acknowledge
in some way that you see that. And witnessing is a form of respect.
English-plus, meaning that you’d get to have more than one
language. Well, we’re in the business of art-plus. We’ve got
art, but we’re going to add something else so we can keep
expanding, and that art-plus in many ways is being able to
give them skill sets about working in community, working with
service and working for justice.
We discovered that practicing social analysis and community
research was absolute bedrock, we couldn’t do the work if they
didn’t know how to do that. They had to develop cross-cultural
skills. How do you run a meeting? Do you know that in certain
communities, when you go in, there’s something called saludos
or greeting? Which means you have to, like, say hello in a certain
way; you can’t just say, “Hey, hi,” and walk in the door. So, you
learn these things. Working with the youth in the family to design
the projects, our biggest failures have been when we did not
spend time on the front end working with the community to
find out what they wanted.
When we plopped something in there because we thought they
really needed it because we really liked it, and we thought maybe
they said they liked it, didn’t work. The period of planning and
discussion before projects are set, enhancing communication in
8
equity are addressed when you set upon this work. Equity, for
many of us, we discovered, was also financial. If we’re going in
to do a project, and we take three-quarters of the money, and
they only get a little stipend, sooner or later they figure out this
is not an equitable relationship. Power comes in many forms, not
just respect and recognition, but real financial commitment and
other kinds of resources. I have so much more to say, but I have
a feeling that maybe we need to get ourselves moving along.
So, I just want to talk very briefly at the end about what we
developed as guiding principles.
In doing the casebook, one of the things that you learn in casebased teaching is that you begin on the ground and then you
go up the ladder. You start out on something that you know
very well as a community project, but then when you go up
the ladder and you look down into that project, you see what
are the guiding principles are, what you learned? When I teach
with my students, we go up the ladder very regularly because I
don’t want them just accumulating knowledge and information.
I want them to look down and see what that means, taking out
and distilling those principles, that they can apply anywhere else
when they face similar material. So, in some sense, we really had
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
to develop guiding principles out of the work that we were doing
in CAPI. These are only a few. Others have done the same work
in developing principles for example I am sure that those who
worked in Critical Perspectives in Animating Democracy found
theirs. I think every group that’s done a project has had to find a
way to distill what they learned from their project.
Another guiding principle is acting reciprocally. That sort of
seems like going without saying, but reciprocity is the core of it.
You’ve got to ask yourself: am I being reciprocal in those projects,
in that way of working?
Witnessing community knowledge is another principle. In
Spanish, it’s called testimonios, which are witnessing. Witnessing
Our guiding principles began with thinking and working across
generations. When you work in community, even though you
may be working with youth, you’re also working with their
means that you stand up and you see what something is, and you
acknowledge in some way that you see that. And witnessing is a
form of respect.
Another principle is developing alliances. Not everybody
comes at it at the same point, but you can make targeted
alliances for one part of a project, targeted alliance for one
part of a curriculum. You don’t have to all go off singing
together happily ever after. You have these moments in
which you can build alliances.
families, and their large extended families. I used this story to
underscore cultural family differences. In Monterey we have a really
lovely shopping center called The Del Monte Shopping Center, and
then in Salinas there’s the Northridge Shopping Center. When
you go to Del Monte Shopping Center, the most you ever see is
two or three people shopping together, most of the time it’s a
single person or a pair. When you go to Northridge and people go
shopping, it’s like the paseo in Mexico. Perhaps thirteen people,
maybe, including parents and children and godparents and aunts
and uncles. It is customary to see large groups of people shopping
together. This life is an intergenerational, communal, extended life.
If you go to work there, you’ve got to be prepared for that, because
it won’t look the way it looks, well, at the Del Monte Center.
Adapting to change is also critical as a guiding principle, because
the project will change nothing you do can stop it.
And this last one is for all those art schools that are on the way
to doing this: You have to challenge your own institution. You
have to challenge the premises, the ways of working, and the
unspoken and assumed privileges. You have to ask questions about
why these programs are always add-ons. Why are they always for
work-study? Why are they always taught by adjuncts? Why do
they never change the core curriculum? Why, when the funding
ends, does the program have to end? Because there has to be
an institutional commitment, and challenging your institutions
is critical to doing this work. As long as the money’s there, you
can keep doing it, and you’re working hard, but if you can get
the institution, even in the smallest level, to make that change
with you. If this happens then you have hope that even when the
funding ends, you’ll be able to keep doing that work. We know
that fundamentally the resources and knowledge and values that
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
9
come from those communities will transform the core of your
institution in some way.
In the end, the question is, well, why should we do this work?
That maybe is one of the questions that we ask ourselves. Why
should we do it? I say just turn on your television. We have our
consortium partners here from Xavier University. Ron Bechet and
some of his students are here. Just remember Katrina.
Think about Iraq. Look at the immigration issues. Look at racial
profiling. Those all seem like political issues, they all have to do
with the ways of life of the people we serve. If you want to teach,
you have to teach with and through those current moments,
those extremities, that chaos. When we talk about communities
that we call local, they’re often global.
We have students who just came out of Darfur. This world
is spinning so fast, and the boundaries between those here
and those there are so permeable that we can’t teach art just
as though it was unchanging, because art is about life. And
ultimately, we have to find a way for art to live in the interstices
of stress and change and chaos, because that’s what it was when
artists made it even 100 years ago or 1,000 years ago. We choose
to see it differently, but they made art in a time not too different
than ours in terms of its chaotic and global meanings.
I think that the pedagogies and the practices that have been
created in these partnerships have to do with mutuality, respect
and equality of relationship. But most of all, we have to be willing
to entertain the lives of others different from ourselves. We have
to be willing to deepen the art histories that we know so well.
We have to be willing to expand the faculty expertise that come
through those interview processes that we know so well, and that
retention, tenure and promotion process. We have to be willing to
give our students and ourselves a sense that art can provoke and
inspire and renew.
CCA. I believe that to hold a vision and to move forward, you
periodically have to renew the spirit, the spirit that animates you
as creative people, as artists.
I hope that when we pass out today you will take the paper flower
I’m going to give you. It’s very ingenious. It has a little miracle, the
cempazutle or marigold, which in the Meso-American world is the
flower of the dead. Other elements in the altar include water, to
quench the thirst, candles to light the way and their favorite foods
so they know you have not forgotten them. The ofrenda outside
the hall is for Luis Jimenez, the American sculptor. For those of you
who don’t know, he died this year, a very, very important sculptor.
I simply wanted to have him as the icon of who we are as artists,
and who we are as cultural people, because we all live through
that same process of transformation from life to death.
I’m hoping that when you go outside, if you would like to
remember someone, remember an event, even a wish for your
own renewal and inspiration— please write it on the paper
marigold and then peel off and attach it to the wall. As we
go out to look at the altar and enjoy the rest of our evening,
I leave you with one of the ancient poet king Nezacoyotl’s most
important sayings. He says, “We come only to sleep, only to
dream. It is not true, it is not true that we come to live on this
earth. We become as spring weeds, we grow green, and open
the pebbles of our hearts. Our body is a plant in flower, it gives
flowers and it dies away.”
And each of us someday will reach that point, but in the
meantime, let us feel the joy of the duality of life and death.
Let us have a moment of camaraderie and esprit de corps
because the days ahead will only animate them further.
In the days ahead, that’s what we will do for ourselves, and we
have to start with ourselves in this process of inspiration and
renewal. I really believe you are just as good a teacher as you are a
person. If you’re willing to be uncomfortable sometimes, if you’re
willing to entertain something beyond your realm, then you can
get your students to do it, and you will have that capacity for new
thinking, renewed energy and the spirit of collaboration.
I want to thank you for giving me a chance to talk to you today,
and I want to remind you that today is a very special day. This
is the Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos; this is the day of the
adults. Yesterday was the children’s altars. I have been doing one
for my father, Lawrence Mesa, at the San Jose Museum of Art.
I gave a lot of my heart and memory into these other pieces that
I worked on. But I made a modest ofrenda or offering here at
10
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
Claudine K. Brown
Director of the Arts and Culture
Program, Nathan Cummings
Foundation New York, New York
I am a truly blessed person who has worked throughout my life on
projects that have captured my imagination, challenged my intellect
and reaffirmed my values. I have worked with smart people, crazy
people, brave and defiant people, insecure people who were willing
to put aside their fears for the benefit of others, shy people who
chose to assert themselves when they were most needed, and young
people who didn’t live long enough to grow old and wise, and
I learned from them all.
Building the Field: Art and Social Justice
In order to do this work that I have come to love, I first worked
for no compensation. I worked as a volunteer in a freedom
school were I taught art and jewelry making. I worked for fresh
produce at an independent nationalist school where I taught
young children about ancient Egypt. I interned at a progressive
private school and I was a CETA worker at a major museum.
Everyone of those opportunities provided me with experiences
that have shaped my values and allowed me to be consistent
in my belief that art is the spirit made manifest. Art heals, and
art creates pathways that lead to understanding. It inspires us,
transforms us and makes us hungry for more. However, today’s
talk is about you and your journey. The title of this talk could
easily be: Everything that I Know About Art and Social Justice,
I Learned From You.
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
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Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
Why Art and Social Justice? The Nathan Cummings Foundation is
a family foundation that was the dream of Nathan Cummings, the
founder of Sara Lee Foods. One of his stated reasons for creating
the foundation was to create an opportunity for his children and
grandchildren to continue to live the values that he cared deeply
about. Accordingly, the program areas that we support today are
those that he supported throughout his lifetime. He cared about
health issues, the environment and Jewish education. He was also
an important collector of art and he wanted his foundation to
make a meaningful contribution to the cultural community.
From its inception, the Arts and Culture Program supported
community-based programs; however in 2001, it was determined
that all of the foundation’s work would be implemented
through the lens of social and economic justice. We spent a
year attempting to define what we meant by “social justice” and
examining how our respective fields would implement programs
that embodied these beliefs.
Ultimately, we returned to the basic themes, which have been a
part of the Foundation’s mission statement since its inception.
Our definition of Art and Social Justice is:
The projects of artists and community members that:
programs’ successes, both were being phased out as we were
conceptualizing our program. This was not because of any failures
on the part of these programs. It was because most foundation
initiatives have a three-five year life span—which many believe is
inadequate for changing and growing fields. More often than not,
we are just refining models and generating broad interest in the
practice, when these programs end.
We then looked at arts groups that were already doing this work.
Though the field is just becoming more structured, it has been in
existence for a very long time. Many of the groups doing this
work have had difficulty getting support from arts funders
who ask: “Is this art, or is it social work?” It was important for
board and staff to understand that an invitation to groups to
apply for support under our Art and Social Justice guidelines
was encouraging them to “out” themselves as social justice
practitioners. Many of the groups that we identified had missions
that were very similar to the foundations. Our work is their work
and their primary intent—in some cases, for twenty years or
more—has been to use art to meet the needs of the underserved,
empower communities and give voice to those who are unheeded
and unheard.
Our Charge Today
• exhibit respect for diversity;
Today, I’d like to share with you what I have learned. Then I would
like to hear from you. I would like to hear your thoughts about
how we can build and sustain this community of artists who care
about transformation and change in society.
• promote understanding across cultures; and
The State of the Field
• empower communities in need.
The community of artists creating projects with, for and about
communities concerning issues of social significance has been
with us always. Author Page Dubois provides us with accounts of
citizens demanding a voice in the selection of public art in ancient
Greece and illustrative graffiti in ancient Egypt and Rome was
often a call to activism.
• show concern and give voice to the poor, disadvantaged and
underserved;
This is by no means a definitive definition. However, it embodies
a set of beliefs and values that represent the board and staff’s
understanding of the basis of the foundation’s work.
The process for creating new guidelines is about research and
development. We first looked at the state of the field. We
researched the history of the field and identified historical and
contemporary issues and challenges. We identified individuals
who have developed theories and practices that strengthen and
perpetuate the work. We looked at public polices that create
impediments or facilitate the work; and we identified institutions
in the private, public and corporate sectors that support and
sustain the work.
We looked at other Foundations whose programs addressed some
of our issues of concern. I was most impressed with the Ford
Foundation’s Animating Democracy initiative and the Rockefeller
Foundation’s project, Partnerships in Art and Community
Transformation. Though we learned important lessons from these
12
From the satirical writings of Mark Twain and Nathanial
Hawthorne to the cultural commentary of James Baldwin and
Augusto Boal, artists have been engaged with issues of social and
economic justice. The works of artists committed to social change
and economic justice include songs of protest made famous by
Peter Seager and Bernice Johnson Reagon as well as popular
artists such as Buffy Saint Marie and Marvin Gaye. Plays like
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America
have provided the citizens of this nation with an opportunity to
openly discuss issues that were once shrouded in silence.
All over America—and indeed the world—fledgling, emerging and
well-established artists grapple with issues of social and economic
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
justice. More often than not—they have no contact with
like-minded individuals outside of their age cohort, or their
geographic community. It has been the intention of the Arts
and Culture program to support and document the best practices
of artists who work with their communities to structure change
and foster cross-cultural and cross-generational discourse. The
Nathan Cummings Foundation seeks to support this work and
broadly disseminate their processes and acquired knowledge of
these artists and arts organizations.
Though artists have worked in this area unceasingly and
consistently, the very construct of the arts community has made
it difficult for artists to find and establish relationships with
like-minded peers. Artists tend to be organized around discipline
and they are usually convened by service organizations that
understand the needs and issues of their specific discipline.
Visual artists often don’t know performing artists, and they are
not acquainted with media artists in their own communities.
There was a time in the not-so- distant past when it would
have been a rare occurrence for these artists to have brokered
relationships with educators and organizers from other disciplines.
Additionally, scale is a problem. Musicians who work for
symphonies don’t come into contact with their peers who
perform in small ethnic bands; and the leaders of large museums
may not know the directors of small cultural centers. Yet they
may share the same values. An important component of our
work is cross-fertilization and considering economies of scale.
How We Have Implemented
our Guidelines
In an effort to build the field of community based art, document
the practice, and identify influential practitioners engaged in art
and social justice, we have culled from our guidelines a threepronged strategic approach to this work.
• We support the exemplary work of artists and their partners;
• We support the development of research, resources and
educational materials that inform others about the work; and
• We support policy initiatives that sustain, protect and assure
that there is access to the work.
The Art
Creating Art with Communities – The Arts and Culture Program
has supported more than a dozen organizations that have evolved
practices for communicating the conditions of underserved
Americans in plays, books and film. Collectively they have worked
with more than 1,500 partnering organizations in more than
thirty states. Media and performing artists have made some of
the greatest contributions to the art and social justice movement.
They have engaged in innovative community practices, and
their staffs create, teach, perform and share their expertise. Our
grantees are recognized as leadership organizations in this field.
We have had failures and successes. In 2001, we were committed
to working with social justice organizations that were working
with artists. However our early efforts were not successful. We
found that many groups didn’t know how to identify artists who
could meet their needs. The work was often not strong and in
some cases the process was not satisfying. We learned from these
failures and later identified partnerships that were successful.
We currently support social justice organizations that specifically
serve workers in service industries. These groups have created
literacy programs where workers’ stories are being turned into
plays, films and books. An example of this work is The Bread
and Roses Cultural Project, unseenamerica, an award winning
photography and writing program. Bread and Roses has hosted
more than 250 workshops and exhibitions, and they have directly
served more than 7,500 individuals, including hotel and hospital
workers throughout the country. The Association of Joint Labor
Management is in the process of institutionalizing a writers
program for steel workers, painters, health care workers and
corrections officers. In October, they premiered a performance at
Harlem Stage based on a series of short stories by steel workers
called, The Heat: Steelworkers Lives & Legends.
Training at Universities – The Universities that the Arts and Culture
program has supported have collectively brokered effective
partnerships that have included approximately 1,500 students,
75 partnering institutions and 2,500 community members.
The Arts and Culture Program chose to support universities
developing degree-granting programs because universities have
the resources to broker meaningful relationships between students,
faculties and communities. Universities can also stimulate a
much-needed pedagogical approach to this work. Additionally,
their willingness to cooperate and share resources strengthens all
of the communities that are being served. We believe that building
the field of community-based arts has to be an intergenerational
engagement. These programs have demonstrated that college
students have the ability to inspire their peers, teens and younger
children, and that working with those whose experiences are
different from our own can engender empathy, compassion and
a steadfast commitment to social change.
When we first heard about the cohort of universities involved
in the Community Arts Program, the Wallace Foundation was
funding them. Though many foundations seek to create brand new,
signature programs, we believed that the Wallace Foundation’s
investment could be built upon. In fact their exit created an
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
13
opportunity for us to see the project through to its next phase, and
we are hoping that when we exit, we will have identified a group of
funders who will help sustain this work over time.
Training at Arts and Media Centers – The Arts and Culture Program
acknowledges that many of the individuals who want to engage
in the work of creating art with communities to affect a positive
social outcome will not choose to attend an institution of higher
education. Artists and community members of all ages have
acquired skills in artistic technique and practice, community
organizing, leadership development, and conflict resolution at
workshops being offered by artists.
The digital age has placed a burden on the poor who need access
to technology and new skills if they are to obtain information
and tell their stories effectively. Art and community organizations
have worked with media organizations to provide communities
with skills in digital storytelling, videography and filmmaking,
website design, marketing and distributing media as well as the
development of interactive games. In many of these organizations
the trainees have become the trainers. These organizations have
also made a commitment to intergenerational work. Seniors
appreciate forming relationships with, and learning from, young
people. They want to know that the world that they leave to you
will be a better world because you are in it. Young people have
taught seniors to connect with family and friends across the globe.
Seniors have learned skills that have allowed them to tell their
stories, preserve their memories, document their art and share
their wisdom. I don’t know if there is a My Space for seniors, but
there should be one.
Media groups also have the ability to disseminate information of
significance to constituents throughout the globe and generate
acts of engagement. Collectively, our arts and media grantees have
worked with more than 1,000 partner organizations. They have
trained and taught lessons about art and social justice to more
than 1,000,000 individuals in libraries, museums, small cultural
institutions and social service agencies; and more than ten million
individuals have viewed their films, plays and performances.
Communications
Community Arts Network website is a lifeline for individuals who
are committed to a community arts practice.
We also acknowledge that sharing information has bilingual and
bicultural implications. Radio Bilingue’s digital archive of interviews
with activists and artists is one of the most comprehensive
collections of scholarly materials documenting the arts and social
justice in the Mexican American community. It is a highly valued
resource for students, scholars and listeners. Cultural history projects
that involve the documentation of Asian American Social Justice
Leaders and the Native American Arts’ database of artists, speak
to a compelling need in marginalized communities to capture
information and use it to advance the work of artists and activists.
Art and Social Justice /
A National Movement
Though we are a national foundation, we rarely receive proposals
from the deep South, rural communities, the Heartlands or the
Southwest. Service organizations enable us to reach artists in
communities that are small and have few resources. They also
convene the field, convey our messages and showcase the works
of our grantees and other exemplary artists whose works are
concerned with issues of social and economic justice. Though we
are impressed with the power and reach of new technology, we
believe that one-on-one encounters and in-person engagements
are going to be essential in building this movement.
And so I return to the question of how we grow the Art and
Social Justice movement—and to what end? After someone
comes to a program that you have designed and he or she has
had a great experience, then what? Are we doing this work to
create a memorable first encounter or are we doing it for longterm impact? What should happen as a result of these encounters?
What do we want to do to make sure that these events make
our communities feel uplifted and fulfilled? In what ways do
we, the makers, creators and teachers believe that we are making
a difference in society? And how can we share our skills with
others who value this work? How do we grow this field and make
sure hat the experiences that we value are not just our own, but
experiences that others can share throughout our society?
I believe that you have the answers.
Our grantees document the field and publish websites, handbooks
and casebooks that are being used in universities, high schools and
cultural centers across the country.
In many communities, we are facilitating opportunities for
collaboration where mechanisms have not existed in the past; and
in doing so we have created synergy and cohesion. Our grantees
collect and facilitate access to information and scholarship that
is then shared with the field. The Art and the Public Interest/
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
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Marcel Diallo
Chief Creative Officer, Black Dot Artists, Inc.,
Oakland, California
Good morning. This is icebreaker time of the day for me. I’m usually
taking my son to school right now, in a mad situation. Anyway,
like she [Sonia Manjon] said, I’m previously from the front lines,
basically over in the East Bay in West Oakland in creating a black
cultural district. West Oakland, for those of you who don’t know,
was one of the oldest black neighborhoods on the west coast. And
because of that, in the ‘80s and ‘90s, it suffered terribly at the
hands of urban blight, redlining, the taking away of resources, no
tax base, as all the white folks moved out to the suburbs, you know,
our suburbs are Pleasanton, Antioch, places like Walnut Creek—they
took the money and the tax base with them and the businesses.
16
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
So, West Oakland pretty much suffered to the point where when
we started this struggle in West Oakland over a decade ago, you
could buy property out there for like $3,000 for vacant land,
$15,000 for a house. You could literally buy it for a song. You
know how they had that saying “I bought this for a song”?
So, what I actually did at the time I was singing—I was rapping.
I had my band, you know, and I would make $500-600 here and
there, $1,000 here and there coming to conferences like this,
doing I’m about to do, rapping. So, I took my little $3,000 and
bought my first piece of land in West Oakland, at a time when the
gentrification hadn’t really started yet, from an old, old black
couple—a, black woman, she was a widow, her husband had died
and left the land, and she didn’t want it anymore.
in the next line of yuppies and the next line of developers that are
going to come take your neighborhood.
What we deal with is art for the sake of protecting our
neighborhood, art for the sake of calling on the spirits of our
ancestors. Like, say my brothers and sisters in New Orleans, we
had a thing, we did the Second Line Jazz Mardi Gras parades and
things of that nature, where the spirits are constantly walking
the street, warning the neighborhood, letting the people of the
neighborhood know from every generation what happened in
previous generations.
So, I actually bought the cornerstone of what became this
cultural district vision, which is the Village Bottoms Cultural
District. I bought it for a song. And that’s kind of the essence,
I mean, we are far away from our southern roots here in the wild,
wild west, but we attempt to embody that in the things we do
here in this outpost, you know, in the richest region in the richest
nation in the richest state in the world, this Bay Area we got,
where San Francisco, you can, you have to have $1.5 million to
get a condo, to get a space up in the sky.
to me, of what community cultural development, community
arts; community-based struggle through arts is really about.
It’s like, if this art, if this art ain’t a hammer, if this art ain’t a
Bobcat that I could dig the ground with, if this art ain’t a pen that
I can write my name on the deed for to transfer land into the
hands of my folks—I mean art’s for the art’s sake on the wall is not
doing too much for me in the community that I’m working with,
the community that I’m representing.
So, the word “art” in itself, “arts” in itself, and even the words
“community arts” in itself don’t mean too much to me unless it
gets more specific into it’s serious, you know, minutiae of what we
are as a people. Because a lot of folks in this Bay Area, where I do
most of my primary work, they come in the guise of artists, but
their art that they may be speaking about is art for the gentry’s
sake, art for the sake of gentrification, art for the sake of ushering
You know, this is a very expensive place that we’re in, attempting
to be a community, you know, a community that, quote-unquote
is “poor,” quote-unquote is “disadvantaged,” quote-unquote is
“at risk.” You know, it’s a hard thing being that in the Bay Area. It
may be a little easier to be poor where you’re surrounded by other
poor people, but to be poor here, where you’re with the masters of
society, the plantation owners of society, it’s a serious struggle.
So, when we speak about creating a black cultural district—and
when I say a black cultural district these are the descendents of
working-class black folks. Working-class black folks that came
here in the ‘30s and the ‘40s and ’50s to come work on the
shipyards out here. You understand what I’m saying?
The working-class people that came out looking for jobs, ended
up, a lot of them living in north Richmond in tents in the mudflats
of north Richmond, a lot of my great aunties and great uncles,
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
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and, you know, we’re the descendents of those folks, and we’re
here still trying to get it together 70 years later, of a promise
that was pretty much broken by all of the private sector and the
government of this place, that lured us here in the first place.
So we’re sitting here, still trying to work it out. The way I chose to
do it is through this community cultural situation. The beautiful
thing is that I actually have things to look back on in my past
that were kind of positive examples of real community-based art
centers, like I see Jordan [Simmons] in the audience from the East
Bay Center for the Performing Arts.
My uncle went there, learned how to act through O.G. Blackston.
I was there because there was a guy named Reggie, you know,
Reggie in the Wheelchair, that’s what we used to call him, you know,
but Reggie was from our neighborhood. So, Reggie was a teacher
there, and so he pulled a lot of us community kids into that.
So, that was a situation where it was actually a community arts
center being engaged with the community. On the other hand,
you’ve got the Richmond Art Center that I didn’t hear about
until I was a grown person going to JFK University in Orinda.
I never knew there was a Richmond Art Center. You understand
what I’m saying?
So, you had these two polar things that’s going on. You have
arts that usually for a community artists in more of a abstract,
I don’t even know if it’s abstract, really, it’s like they have their
own audiences, their own target audiences, and maybe that
audience wasn’t me, but I didn’t hear about it until I became
grown and started coming to conferences like this.
But it was in the neighborhood that I grew up in, right across the
street. So, there’s that dichotomy, juxtaposition thing right there.
The purpose of a real community art center I think relies on it
being driven by the people. It’s got to be driven by the people, it
can’t be driven by the academics, it can’t be driven by the 501c3
middle managers of foundation money, you understand?
It can’t be driven by the trustees of the foundations or the people
that give the foundation money. So, it has to be grown from the
people, or to me it’s kind of fake, it’s kind of paper mache, you
know what I mean? It’s kind of combustible in the true sense of
the word, because where we are, there’s a lot of these institutions
kind of fronting like they’re doing community-based arts, like
they’re there for the folks, and they get pictures of our kids.
You know, it may be 30 kids that are in the same programs, and
it’s like 300 programs. There’s 300 programs, 200 non-profit
organizations getting money from 50 foundations, and there’s
only 30 kids that they’re serving, you understand what I’m
saying? So, each one of these non-profit organizations got the
same 30 kids on their brochure, trying to get money from the
18
same, from non-profit organizations, getting money from the
same foundations.
That’s the hustle that’s going on here. So, the real people that’s
doing the real work, like myself, from like little—they used to call
us fledgling, emerging arts groups—that was us, we’re always
fledgling and emerging, even though we’ve been here for ten
years now, we’re still fledgling and emerging, you understand
what I’m saying?
It has something to do with what culture we’re from or how we’re
carrying ourselves, or what generation. I mean, what makes us
fledgling and emerging? I’ve emerged. I’m here since the beginning
of time, you know? Before a lot of these new coming ‘gentrifiers’
who just come out and get the grants outright, who come out and
get the city support outright, you understand what I’m saying?
So, there is a dynamic of racism still embedded in the way this
hustle is going down, ‘cause that’s what it is. It’s an academic
hustle; it’s a foundation hustle. Come on. Let’s be honest. So,
what it did with us as the Black Dot Artists Collective, that
was the collective I founded ten years ago, what we ended
up doing, since we could hardly get the respect from that
non-profit sector, is it forced me to be a serious, like cutthroat
capitalist on a lot of levels.
I had to go out, speculate on land, buy land; I ended up buying
a whole block. You know, I had to go out there and get in the
hustles, buy a whole block, become a bird-dog, go down to the
county, look through the records, find out which people was
about to lose their property, help them out, kept the property,
leverage that property against some other things, and start
getting in a lot of money to the point where I became a financial
person myself, and started giving money, micro-loans to my
own friends who are artists to do their own art production, buy
houses and convert those houses into galleries, you understand
what I’m saying?
And at the end of the day, and the end result, it was a lot better
because then you’re walking around as a full human being with
integrity, with, like being able to just walk into a room and
not have to beg from somebody because you have the same
resources as them.
So, the bottom line is about resources, equity, wealth building,
and access to the seats of power. So, we’re talking about this
community art thing, I mean it’s beautiful, it’s aesthetics, and talk
about beauty, but at the bottom line it’s resources and how we’re
going to split these resources up to further our culture, because if
you don’t have the resources behind your culture, somebody else’s
culture that’s heavily funded is going to pretty much wipe out
your culture.
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
That’s what we’re dealing with in West Oakland right now. Every
day there’s seven or eight new folks coming to the neighborhood,
moving in that don’t look like us, and that would be okay because
we’re not xenophobic people, but what tends to happen is these
new generation of folks who are coming, they’re coming with an
arrogance, they’re coming with a disrespect, they’re coming to run
shit, not to participate, not to collaborate in any kind of true level,
to run shit, basically.
I mean, I say that. I’ve heard it said more eloquently, like, “A new
generation of white middle-class is coming to assert itself.”
But assert itself on what? They’re not asserting themselves in
the neighborhoods of their parents. They’re asserting themselves
in the neighborhoods of my parents.
So, that’s where the [hits palm with fist] comes in, because we’re
part of this, what, 70-year conversation, I say, of, there was a
white flight, you understand what I’m saying? There was a white
flight from the urban situation, at least here where we are, and
now there’s a white return. We’re the children that was kind of
left by that white flight, abandoned.
We had to create hip-hop, things out of junk. Hip-hop was
basically a post-modern art that we created out of junk. “Oh,
records? Oh, [record scratching sound] oh,” you know? No, we
your parents, they left some unfinished business. So, the anger and
all that stuff that you’re walking back into, you’ve got to really
deal with it.
“It ain’t something that’s just coming out of nowhere.” Like,
“Why are black people so…?” No, your folks left some debris here.
So, now that you want to return with the whole gentrification
thing, it’s time to pay the piper, it’s time to figure out how to truly
collaborate, not from your position of privilege, but on a serious,
equitable level.
…at the end of the day, and the end
result, it was a lot better because then
you’re walking around as a full human
being with integrity, with, like being
able to just walk into a room and not
have to beg from somebody because
you have the same resources as them.
And that might mean giving up something. That might mean
dealing with the issue of reparations, either through community
arts and that sector, if you don’t want to deal with the whole
national issue of reparations because it’s too big; how are we
going to pay back all these black people for slavery? Well, you
can start in this world of community arts, in community cultural
development.
First of all, I mean I guess I got to speak towards here, I see a lot
of different kind of faces. So, the first thing is not to come in on
some missionary stuff, you understand what I’m saying? Because
I can’t stand missionaries. I view that as just neo-colonialism at it’s
finest. You’re coming right back in to instill the principles and the
mores of the dominant society, whether you see it or not.
didn’t have no art programs or no music programs in the schools?
We just about to do what we do. So, this hip-hop thing came
together out of like a found art, a found object art on more of a
vocal and musical landscape, and we did that because we were
abandoned by the powers that be, we were abandoned.
And so now, those, the children of those folks are coming
back, just juiced off hip-hop, though, “Oh yeah,” thinking that
everybody’s supposed to be friends. And it’s like, “Man, when you
left, there was some stuff going on here. Your grandparents and
You may be coming in thinking you’re doing the most beautiful
thing, helping plant the most beautiful gardens and doing the
most beautiful mural projects. But to a lot of us, we already know
how to do a lot of that stuff, so you need to check in and find out
what we’re already doing in our neighborhood, before you come
just project yourself in a big way with all your money that you got
behind you on it.
So, that’s a few things to just think about as we’re talking about
cultural community development, equity, art, and the like.
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
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Marta Moreno Vega, PhD
Founder and President of the
Caribbean Cultural Center African
Diaspora Institute, New York
The following is a slightly expanded version of the presentation
I made at the symposium Crafting A Vision for Art, Equity
and Civic Engagement: Convening the Community Arts Field
in Higher Education. The focus of the presentation is to
contextualize what has now developed into a field in higher
education – Community Arts.
As I attended the varied activities of the symposium it was evident
that the interest and commitment of the participants in this
growing field needed to understand the history of the emergence
of the Community Arts field. There was a disconnect between the
past experiences and that which is emerging as the Community
Arts in higher education. The necessity of envisioning the United
States in the 60’s and 70’s where the battles for desegregation,
civil rights, the end of racism and discriminatory practices
towards women, gender preferences, and cultural and economic
disenfranchisement were being challenged at all levels of society
is critical to understanding the power and continuing object of
the Community Cultural Arts Movement.
20
The Community Cultural Arts Movement is the creative narrative
in challenging inequity and motivating the creation of community
institutions to address social justice and cultural equity and
address democratic principles that our nation had yet to
address. In other words, the Community Cultural Arts Movement
is grounded in aesthetic and social justice. It is an activist
movement to make the nation see its racial and cultural diversity
as valuable assets that must be protected. As the Community Arts
Field continues to define itself it cannot be devoid of what birthed
its creation - it is and should be an extension of the activism
assuring cultural and social equity for us all.
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
Marta Moreno Vega: Buenos dias. Good Day. At the risk of being
drummed out of the auditorium, I must say I don’t talk about art.
And I know you are all “art people.” Art to me is an expression
of culture. We all have culture! In my aesthetic framework a
discussion on art must first address the cultural historical context
of the art expression being discussed. Since I have the podium
I will proceed to reframe the question posed.
In retrospect I now realize that my parents were cultural activists
and were an active part of creating and maintaining the aesthetics
of Puerto Rico in an urban New York community using their home,
as did others, as the canvas of cultural resistance.
Let me start by asking a question. You can only answer in one
sentence! What is community art? There has been a two-day
discussion on community art? What is it?
Male Voice 1: People recreating the world.
Male Voice 2: Art with shared values.
Marta Moreno Vega: And how do you do that?
Male Voice 2: That was one sentence.
Female Voice 1: Art that is easily accessible.
Male Voice 3: The beauty of everyone’s voice.
Male Voice 4: It’s a verb that imagines plurality.
Female Voice 2: People coming together to make cool stuff.
Female Voice 3: Art of, by and for the community.
Marta Moreno Vega: That’s the second question. Who’s the
community?
Female Voice 4: The community is us. It changes.
Marta Moreno Vega: Is that the same for everyone?
Female Voice 5: It’s people you have a soul connection with.
Soul!, Not sole as in one.
Marta Moreno Vega: S-O-U-L! What is this community that
you’re working with? Is it a collaboration or a partnership?
Female Voice 5: A group of people who can benefit
from art.
Marta Moreno Vega: And how do you determine that people can
benefit from art?
Female Voice 5: Ideally, they create the art and seek the art
themselves, not that it’s someone else telling them that they
need it.
Marta Moreno Vega: I like that! I grew up in El Barrio, East
Harlem, of Black Puerto Rican parents who came to New York
seeking, racial, social and cultural equity. As you may already
know, the United States invaded Puerto Rico in 1898 and it is still
a colony of the United States. The attempt by the United States
to destroy the culture of Puerto Ricans by imposing “American”
culture failed and the resistance to this imposition continues.
Growing up in El Barrio - East Harlem, the vibrant tropical colors
that I saw on my wall, the images that reflected my complexion
that looked like my people, daily embraced me. As an art student
at the public school - Music and Art High School, today La Guardia
High School—and New York University as an arts in education
major, the art history books used, rendered my history and cultural
traditions and therefore creative art expressions, invisible, nonexistent! Puerto Rico was not reflected, the Caribbean was not
reflected, the whole history of the African continent received one
class session, as did Asia. I dared to ask the question of my art
teachers “Where are the artists of Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican
Republic, West and Central Africa, China, India, etc.?” The response
was generally “Those areas are not part of the class curriculum.”
Somehow my experience was never part of the themes covered
in art history and education classes.
I was invisible throughout the “higher education” I received
at NYU and the cultural anthropological courses that I took
at Columbia University. I reasoned that cultural anthropology
certainly had to talk about the history and cultures of people of
color. Therefore I decided to make cultural anthropology my area
of study. I looked forward to learning more about the experiences
of my people. What did happen when a class focused on the
Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, Asia and other geographic areas
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
21
populated by people of color? I became the “target” of questions
that reflected an ignorant bias that viewed all cultures of color as
one and as the “exotic primitive other.”
Being the only one of color in the room, everyone would turn
to me expecting me to response to the professor’s presentations.
I was supposed to be an expert on Native American, African,
Caribbean, Latin American, Asian and all the diversity of cultures
that were “shades of brown, amber and terracotta.” After a year
of study it became clear to me that the Eurocentric dominant
aesthetic paradigm was forced onto the creative expressions of
I was assigned the “problem class” the one that students were
considered to be behavior problems. My lack of success with
the students almost convinced me that they had been correctly
labeled. After two weeks, I would come home crying because the
students didn’t understand what I was talking about. Some flew
paper airplanes in class, ignored what I said and pulled out comic
books. Most didn’t understand English, the rest were bored by the
lessons. The principal had given me an art handbook with lesson
plans that focused on lines, forms and spatial relationships. The
lessons led to abstract designs as a result which had no meaning
to the students. The resulting designs had no connection to
anything with meaning for the students. I knew that I was a total
failure as a teacher and wanted to quit.
Being the first college graduate in my family the pride of having
a teacher in the family was a source of tremendous pride. My
mother was in shock when I said that I would quit.
“What is wrong?” she asked.
“I’m the worst teacher in the world. The students don’t
understand me.”
“Why don’t they understand you?” She asked.
others, disregarding the meanings and criteria their traditions
and art forms represented. I realized that imperialistic colonial
cultural frameworks are imposed through systems of education by
eradicating the existence of the “other” and creating a history that
praises that of the imposing culture.
This was also true when I became a public school junior high
school teacher. When I started teaching, the first instruction I got
from the principal spoke to my subordinating my cultural being. In
a confrontational tone I was asked,
I said, “Most of my students speak Spanish. The majority
of my class don’t understand English. Since they don’t
understand, boredom quickly sets in and they pull out
comics.”
“What are you teaching them?” She asked.
I showed her the lesson plan book. She said, “You’re
teaching them about boxes and lines? What’s wrong
with you?”
“That’s what I’m supposed to teach. They said to follow
this, this is the curriculum.” I responded with much
irritation.
“Yes, I responded.”
Mami said, with a disapproving, special “are you crazy
look?” that sent chills down by spine. “Do you have a
door in your room?”
“You can speak Spanish?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Do you know how to close that door? My mother’s remark
still questioning my sanity. “Close the door and talk to
your students in Spanish. Tell them that when they see the
principal, you will switch to English. Talk to your students;
make a pact with your students so they can learn. Most
important let them know and feel you are them.”
“Are you Puerto Rican?”
“We want the students to learn English. Don’t speak
Spanish to them! Do you understand?”
His voice got louder with the last question as if I didn’t understand
English. I guessed the principal felt that by raising his voice
somehow I would more clearly comprehend his message.
“Okay.” I whispered.
22
My mother had a high school education, my father a third-grade
education; however their intelligence and common sense broke
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
the misguided, so called, higher education I had received and
re-centered my cultural self and sensibilities. My mother with
her intelligence and wit insisted that I understand and respect
my cultural foundation and incorporate it into my teaching
practice. She understood that it is essential to share with others
the fundamental elements that make you see the world through
particular lenses.
Instinctively I knew my mother was right and the next day
followed her advice.
“Who wants to learn?” I asked the students in Spanish.
“Students who don’t want to learn to the right of the
classroom. Those that do want to learn to the left of
the room.”
The students sat wide-eyed as my words swept over
them, healing the weeks of havoc that incomprehension
had created.
“She speaks Spanish just like us” one student remarked.
“I told you she was Puerto Rican” another remarked.
When the initial excitement came to an end, the
students sat eagerly awaiting. All of them wanted
to learn!
“I’ll speak in Spanish, but when you see somebody at the
door, give me a high sign, and we’ll switch to English.”
They loved it! What did we talk about? We talked about art as lived
experience. We talked about art that they lived with every day. We
talked about their homes and their Mamas and their Grandmothers,
their Fathers, Uncles and Grandfather’s creative work. How the
bondillo bobbin weaving techniques of their aunts created the
beautiful doilies that covered their sofas. The woodcarving of their
fathers gave us the santos de palos that were honored in our homes.
The joy in the eyes of my students soon translated to a classroom
buzzing with creativity that spoke to the creative aesthetic forces
that make the art of the Caribbean what it is. The cultures of the
Caribbean, the cultures of Africa, the cultures of Central and Latin
America and Asia, Native American cultures, and any group that is
grounded in their own cultural traditions, regardless of where you
come from, understand that there are creative expressions, cultural
expressions that you call art in academia, but are lived aesthetics
expressions and art history of a people that are contributors to
world cultures. The stories of a people are their history, the record
that they have a past that contributes to their present lives. What is
called art by most is simply that—creative cultural spirit actualized,
vibrating from the past to the present.
An immediate example is Amalia Mesa Baines’ altar that is in
the outside gallery. In an “art context would be viewed as an
installation. It is an altar that is similar to the altar that lives in
our homes. Altars are a vital force when activated to talk about
the past, the present and the future of that family, the friends
and the community. In the private context, that altar represents
spirit, represents art of meaning, in a public context it is often
viewed as “art.” An art terminology is applied it is considered an
art installation.
I came to this understanding when I had the good fortune of
being hired by parents to run a State Arts Program part of the
public school system entitled El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem.
I was honored because the parents had asked me to develop
an institution that made their history and culture visible to
their children. They fully understood the power of culture and
creative expressions as an empowering vehicle to maintain
the arts of the community as the cultural foundation for their
young. They wanted a neighborhood? arts institution that directly
connected to the history and the traditions of their community.
The empowering vision of the parents was directly connected to
the advent of the Civil Rights, Black Power, Feminist, Gay, Latino,
movements the swept the United States in the 60’s and 70’s that
spoke to the empowerment of communities that had historically
been rendered invisible and marginal within the nation.
The rights of communities became a priority issue as we sought
to receive equitable resources to strengthen our communities by
demanding improved educational systems, housing and health
resources, job opportunities etc. The community arts movement
is a direct result of the struggle for equal rights in all sectors of
our lives. Our parents and general community understood that
the children needed to be part of the time clock of history, had to
understand their place in the globe so that they could look at the
world through their experience not anyone else’s location.
For those of us in the cultural movement it was important to
build community arts institutions that reflect our people, our
communities that for too long had been ignored. This is how the
community arts concept and term evolved. In the ‘90s the concept
is more clearly articulated in the essays that formed the publication
Voices From the Battlefront: Achieving Cultural Equity, which is a
book that the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Instituted
published in collaboration with Africa World Press.
I was so naïve that I never asked to see this museum. And when
I was given the job and showed up to work, a closet was opened
and there were three boxes, and they said, “This is the museum,
go ahead.” The wonderful part is that the museum was created
by the parents as a result of the Civil Rights, Black Power, Latino,
Native America, Chicano, Women’s Movement, and Gay Movement,
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
23
all of the movements that were spurred by the Civil Rights
Movement. The movement gave voice to the invisible. They gave a
space for people to articulate what they were not able to publicly
articulate, and the media didn’t pick it up. But the opportunity for
parents to get resources from the State Education Department to
develop a project called the Museo – the museum was a dream
come true.
The problem envisioning what it should be was difficult; they had
not a clue, because they lived art. When we started talking about
the museum with the parents, they said, “Well, we know nothing
about art, we know nothing about art, but my grandmother did
bondillo. My father carved santos de palos, etc. I said, “But that
can go into the museum,” they said, “Oh no, that can’t go into
a real museum.” “Yes, it can go into the museum because they
already are in a museum – your home
museum.” When we went to the Museum
of Natural History to borrow Taino objects
we were shocked to find them stockpiled
mislabeled in the basement because the
curators knew little about the collection.
We were dismayed when we learned that
we could not borrow the objects that they
had piled on top of each other, because
we were not a legal museum. The whole
process of getting the cultural arts of
our communities recognized by other
institutions, the National Endowment of
the Arts, the National Endowment for the
Humanities, was almost impossible. At that
time, the New York State Council of the
Arts had a division we was designed for
institutions like ours called Ghetto Arts. This
is why I started with the question, “What is
community arts?” When we started it was
termed “Ghetto Arts.”
Ghetto Arts identified us until we protested and had the name
changed. So, thanks to the movement, thanks to a consciousness
across the country that received significant media coverage we were
able to open the door of resources slightly to have funding directed
to art expressions that spoke to our cultural communities. Art that
defined a history showcased the present and looked to the future.
It was the activism of many that opened possibilities and created
community relevant cultural institutions across the country.
It was in England that I met Amalia [Mesa Bains]. I was
consistently told that there’s was a sister on the other West Coast
that was similar to me in her perspectives. When I met Amalia
she said that people spoke to her about me. We met in England
24
in a cultural diversity conference where the three visitors from
the United States were of color, and represented the diversity. The
second day of the conference artists of color from London raised
the money to attend. And a young man by the name of David
Ryan, who contributed an essay to Voices from the Battlefront,
was the only Afro-Briton in the room. We later learned that about
ten people had gotten together to pay his admission ticket, which
was about $350, an amount that most people could not afford.
The conference was dedicated to talking about “the Other”
without the Other being present, to discuss cultural diversity
without the input of anyone from the varied immigrant
communities that reflected the changing demographics. Amalia
and I would look at each other from across the room, and then
AB Spellman, then with Expansion Arts [National Endowment
of the Arts] – another term that defined
us – said, “Well, this is just impossible.” We
were viewed as outsiders from the United
States being rowdy, and belligerent and
not understanding what cultural diversity
meant in England. We were clear what
the issues were since we were living the
reality of exclusion in the United States, the
exclusion of our experience, the exclusion
of the creative expressions that made us
part of the global cultural world.
As activists we understood that our struggle
was not only about culture, or art, but one
of racial and social justice, of civil rights
and human rights, of cultural rights. We
used the UNESCO model and declaration to
form a position paper that was presented
and sent to then-President Clinton, because
in these United States we realized in not
having a cultural ministry by default the
National Endowment became the articulators of what was/is Art.
The United States does not have a cultural policy. This absence of
a cultural policy that defines what is the United States and the
multiplicity of cultures and racial groups that make up the United
States, allows the space for Eurocentric dominance to continue
dominating, although the country’s demographics speaks to
diversity. The lack of a cultural policy allows that immigrants be
viewed as the Other and undesirable, ignoring the fact that the
country is an immigrant nation since its inception. We understood
that the First Nation communities are the original American, the
ordinary experience so that then you can pass it on to others
in the framework that it should be passed on. Color is not color.
Dance is not only dance, music is not only music. For some groups,
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
it is more than music. Because if you’re looking at the Caribbean,
Latin America, Africa, it is a way of calling spirit.
And when you talk about Tito Puente, when you talk about Dizzy
Gillespie, if you don’t understand that he had Aruba rhythms in jazz
and influenced jazz with “ding-ding-dayo Manteca”, right? There
was a marriage between the Aruba traditions, African-American
traditions that come together, right? In an Afro-Cuban context.
That if you understand the music of Tito Puente and Pedro
Coval, you see that multiplicity of influences that are African
native, European, right? Cultural expression, popular expressions,
but they’re all grounded in the spiritual context, coming from
indigenous, traditional cultures. So that if you’re going to
understand going into the public schools with the diversity
that’s there, and talk about a creative expression that hits home,
that relates to the young people’s experience, then you have to
understand that experience. And that experience is not only one
based on economic differences, because we also have to talk about
the economic differences that exist in this country, and what
dominates, right? But it is grounded in the experience that these
young people have had, and are having. And how those experience
of the past connect to them now, living in the United States. And
what is that art of meaning, and what is that culture of meaning
that they bring with them, and their parents bring with them, and
their grandparents bring with them? It’s one that speaks, and the
issue here is do you speak, listen and understand the language
that is being spoken by our young people? And I don’t mean
Spanish to English. I mean that experience and that history and
that dislocation that they have had, being torn out of their native
traditions into another tradition, and how that translates. And it
seems to me that my training, at least, at NYU and at Columbia
didn’t prepare me to do that.
So it’s not an issue of color; I want to be very clear. It’s not
an issue of color. It is an issue of how we define and “see
and understand creative expressions.” I was always confused
throughout my educational art experience that divided what
should be naturally connected. We departmentalize experiences
that are holistic. And if we understand that the division is a false
one that someone created, I don’t know why, maybe to have a
proliferation of job opportunities that separate an art teacher,
from a cultural worker, and artists and humanist. In my world they
are all connected, interrelated and are one.
When cultural arts institutions in the community arts movement
came together we saw ourselves reflected in each other. The range
of racial and cultural experiences united us rather than divided
us because we all understood that our role was to be facilitators
for the creative manifestations present in our communities. That
our institutions were the vehicles that helped make visible what
too often was unseen by broader communities. We understood
that scholarship and expertise was present beyond academic
walls that the keepers of our traditions were community scholars
and community artists that were immersed in the living of their
art forms. The interaction, exchange of community experts with
academic experts provided the programming that our institutions
organized. The exchanges gave birth to new thinking, new ways of
understanding and presenting. It is critical to have as many voices
in the room as possible contributing to the articulation of what
best reflects the expressions of a particular community. This is the
foundation of the community arts movement.
These collaborations and these connections are the electricity that
ignites creativity. In my opinion it is not possible for an academic
experience devoid of direct community involvement over time to
provide this vision and approach. It is an issue of how you learn
and the context in which you learn. And you cannot pass on that
information and that reality; it must be experienced.
I would propose that in establishing programs that have to do
with the communities that comprise this nation, as we go out into
public education and cultural centers and other places, that we are
very clear, that we go as learners, that we don’t go as the experts.
Because culture is constantly shifting, realities are constantly
shifting. For different groups, different realities exist. The challenge
is to be present, is to be in the moment of understanding that
shift. Because rather than developing artifact, you want to
develop fluidity; what one group labels as art doesn’t necessary
define art for another group. If we’re going to positively influence
lives, then we have to change ourselves, because my mama told
me you can’t give what you don’t have.
If you have something to offer, you have to assume that others
have something to offer. So, it’s an exchange, it’s always an
exchange of experiences and information. It’s never a top-down or,
“I’ve gotten the degree and she or he doesn’t.” These approaches
reflect what many of us understood as community grounding
and community arts. In fact I would propose that we need to
expand the notion of community arts – because we have always
understood that the cultural element is central to the work. The
term should be Community Cultural Arts.
It is important that as a result of this conference we take the
opportunity to examine the development of this movement,
where it is today and where we are going. It is important that
the academic institutionalization of community arts does not
decontextualize the essence and purpose of its creation. We must
understand that the interest in community arts must carry with it
an understanding of racial, social justice and cultural equity. We
are involved in work that transforms this nation making it live up
to its promise to us all.
Thank you for listening.
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
25
Selected
Sessions
“The Community Cultural Arts Movement is
the creative narrative in challenging inequity
and motivating the creation of community
institutions to address social justice and cultural
equity and address democratic principles that
our nation had yet to address. In other words,
the Community Cultural Arts Movement is
grounded in aesthetic and social justice. It is
an activist movement to make the nation see its
racial and cultural diversity as valuable assets
that must be protected.”
Marta Moreno Vega
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Report
27
I, Too, Sing America
“WritersCorps – a project of the San Francisco Arts Commission –
has for twelve years worked with youth throughout San Francisco.
Our model is long-term/in-depth, and allows for building the
relationships that sustain deep development and growth for our
youth and our communities.”
WritersCorps at the Symposium – Judith Tannenbaum, Writer,
San Francisco Art Commission
We called our symposium presentation “I, Too, Sing America”
in order to highlight the expanded notion of democracy and
participation that lies at the heart of community arts work in
general, and our program in specific. The most accurate way to
share WritersCorps’ work is through poems by the young people
we work with, so our presentation description began with the
following poem written by T.J. Williams when he was thirteen
and a student at San Francisco’s Everett Middle School:
I, Too, Sing America
I, too, sing America
I, too, hear gunshots each night
I, too, hear police sirens in my neighborhood
I, too, see candles, flowers and balloons on my block
where people died
I, too, touch my family members that died on my block
I, too, smell McDonald’s/Chinese food in Fillmore
I, too, wish that they didn’t shoot Ray Bass
I, too, like living in Fillmoe even though there’s
violence and drugs
I, too, wish that everyone can live and not die
I, too, am America
28
T.J.’s well-worded insistence on inclusion includes: detailed
description, a tribute to the Langston Hughes’ poem that served
as its model, and the young poet’s ability to both praise and
express pain. Developing such vision and skill most often takes
time and the opportunities time gives to go deep. WritersCorps –
a project of the San Francisco Arts Commission – has for twelve
years worked with youth throughout San Francisco (in public
schools, afterschool programs, affordable housing projects,
libraries and juvenile lockup). Our model is long-term/in-depth,
and our symposium presentation focused on this aspect of our
vision and practice.
WritersCorps teachers Mahru Elahi and Gloria Yamato; young
poets Andreya Dodson, Eric Foster, and Indiana Pehlivanova;
project manager Janet Heller, and myself (training coordinator)
demonstrated and detailed the specific ways our model allows
for building the relationships that sustain deep development
and growth for our youth and our communities. Joining us were
conference participants Linda Burnham from Community Arts
Network; Don Adams, director of Arts & Humanities Programs
for UC Santa Cruz Extension; Olivia Gude, community artist
and educator at University of Illinois; and a wonderful group of
university students from Minnesota and elsewhere.
We began, as we at WritersCorps most often do, with poems. This
reading showed the range of the young poets’ interests and styles.
Mahru and Gloria then talked about their work as WritersCorps
teaching artists, and Andreya, Eric and Indiana talked about their
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
experiences: with their specific WritersCorps teachers, with the
program, and with writing itself.
We shared the specifics of our program model in which teaching
artists work at least 25 hours each week, at one or two sites, for
eight or nine months of the year, sometimes for multiple years.
Teachers work with each student a minimum of ten sessions,
and most often for much longer. Most of our sites have had
a WritersCorps teacher for many years, so in addition to the
relationship between each current teacher and his or her site
liaison, there is often a longer historical relationship between
that site rep and the program.
work and journals. If they forget, I show their own work to them.
In some instances belief in oneself can be established in three
or four workshops, in others it takes three or four years, but the
outcome has always been well worth the wait. I think the most
important thing is that long-term/in-depth allows me to provide
continuity in the midst of the constant upheaval that my students
often experience.
In practice, many youth work with a WritersCorps teacher for
more than one year, and many young people have worked with
one teaching artist at their middle school and another at their
high school, or one at Newcomer High School and another
when they move on, or one in school and one at an after-school
program. Many youth also have a multi-year relationship with
WritersCorps as a program through our publications, readings,
special events, internship program, and media attention.
“WritersCorps allows me the
opportunity to develop small
communities of young writers
with whom I can share skills
and information, but equally
important, whom I can teach to be
a community of consciousness.”
As Gloria Yamato described in our symposium presentation,
“WritersCorps allows me the opportunity to develop small
communities of young writers with whom I can share skills and
information, but equally important, whom I can teach to be a
community of consciousness. I work to encourage young writers
to recognize one another’s skills, and to encourage and support
one another’s growth as writers. I couldn’t do that in a day or
two nearly as well and as deeply as I might over the course of an
entire school year, or in many cases, over a number of years. I get
to remind the young writers I work with that they can write. I get
to insist that I remember their skills when they forget they have
them. I have the proof: copies of art, and in some cases original
“Over the course of a nine month period, I have an opportunity to
work with a consistent group of young people. We have time to
get to know one another, I have time to really understand each
young writer’s strengths and interests, and where each needs
reinforcement. I have the luxury of being able to tailor exercises
to build confidence and skills for each of my young friends. I have
had the pleasure of seeing young writers blossom, sometimes even
a young person who previously indicated that she had no desire
whatsoever to share her thoughts with others.
“With Sistahs 4Life, I was able to expand our activities as the
writing relationship matured. I took small groups of girls with
me to dance and drumming classes, to the symphony, the
beach. Encouraging them to take risks, and make real things
they dreamed of starting by writing them down and making
that writing as powerful as possible, resulted in one of the most
valuable teaching tools I have at my disposal: trust. With students
who are typically running into problems with ‘authority’ the fact
that I have an extended period of time to work with them allows
us to build trust.”
Gloria and Mahru, in conversation with Andreya and Eric,
discussed and demonstrated mentor/mentee relationships
that have been built over years. Indiana talked about her own
work with teaching artist, Chad Sweeney. Taken together, these
conversations showed qualities both of each specific relationship,
and also how these relationships differ from each other depending
on individual teachers and students.
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
29
We made clear that our teaching artists are independent at their
sites. They design a program that addresses the needs and realities
of the particular youth and staff they work with, as well as their
own teaching style and intentions. WritersCorps teachers come to
the program with experience, and are not asked to teach from a
predetermined curriculum or to submit lesson plans for approval.
They have time – each week and over the year – to get to know
many of their students as people and artists. From this solid base,
WritersCorps teachers are able to become real mentors to the
youth that they work with.
works. San Francisco’s Aunt Lute Books published City of One, an
anthology of poems WritersCorps youth wrote on the theme of
peace, in 2004, and Solid Ground at the time of the centennial of
San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake. Jossey-Bass published our book
of lessons, Jump Write In!: Creative Writing Exercises for Diverse
Communities, Grades 6-12, in 2005.
WritersCorps’ community of youth and adults – at the sites
with which we partner, in the audiences for our performances,
on our email poem-a-month list, as visitors to our website, as
readers of our publications – are always involved in what we
do. Of course, WritersCorps is one in a field of programs – run
But our teachers are not only independent. They are also part of
by non-profits, universities, and governmental agencies – that
a group (one that includes other teachers and WritersCorps staff),
spring from a vision of art as an activity that belongs to all of
and this whole group meets frequently. Our bi-weekly meetings
us, an activity that is a human birthright. Many such programs
help develop the relationships that allow teachers – and teachers
were represented at the symposium, and it was a true gift
and staff – to work as a team. The knowledge is definitely in the
room, and as training coordinator, to the extent that I can, I design to be able to hear about all the good work being done, the
variety of models, and issues current in the field. I found it very
the meetings so that teachers share what they know with each
encouraging that – whatever has necessarily changed over time
other. Meetings also allow us a brief glimpse of each teacher’s
– in new programs, too, university students or practicing artists
students, classroom, and neighborhood, thereby giving us a
go to the places in our communities where people are already
window in which we can see the WritersCorps whole we’re each
gathered. I was encouraged, also, to note that the belief that
working individually to create.
each of us is the expert about our own life and story remains
A lot is asked of our teachers. In turn, they are given what’s
central to this work.
required to do their job. Elements include:
• Adequate pay for all hours worked, including the nonclassroom work necessary to program success: preparation
(class prep, reading and responding to student writing,
preparation of material for publications and events,
research, etc.); one-on-one mentoring with individual
students; meetings with staff on site, WritersCorps trainings,
consultation with program staff and other teachers;
evaluation and paperwork;
• Funds for materials, supplies, and guest artists;
• Funds, program support, and group knowledge to create both
site and program wide publications and events;
• Recognition of teachers’ lives as practicing artists, including a
small stipend to allow time for their own writing;
• Health care.
As is true for most community-based literary arts programs,
WritersCorps is committed to putting student writing into the
world. We publish site publications and program anthologies, and
have also partnered with publishing houses who have wanted
to share our work with a larger audience, and we shared these
publications during our symposium presentation. In 2003 Harper/
Collins published Paint Me Like I Am, an anthology of work
from all three WritersCorps cities, and a second volume is in the
30
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
Fostering Reciprocal Relationships
“Curriculum is based on the importance of community arts to civil
society and the corresponding belief that community arts workers
must be familiar with the aesthetic, social, cultural, economic,
political, technical and ethical contexts of the arts.”
Research Centers, Universities, and Community Based Practioners –
Doug Blandy, PhD, Director and Lori Hager, PhD, Assistant Professor
& Associate Director, with Sterling Israel, Rachel Johnson, Reed Davaz
McGowen, Thea Vandervoort Arts and Administration Program,
Center for Community Arts and Cultural Policy University of Oregon
The Arts and Administration Program (AAD) at the University
of Oregon (UO) is built upon over three decades of academic
programming, research and publication in the areas of cultural
policy and community arts services. Constituents served
by the Arts and Administration Program includes graduate
students in arts management with a community arts focus and
undergraduate community arts minors. Curriculum is based
on the importance of community arts to civil society and the
corresponding belief that community arts workers must be
familiar with the aesthetic, social, cultural, economic, political,
technical and ethical contexts of the arts.
Community arts programs located within Research I public
universities, like the UO, require that students and faculty be
involved in research that adds significantly to the body of
knowledge associated with the field. This essay will focus on the
research center that is associated with AAD, activities and research
generated by faculty and graduate students associated with the
center, and conclude with questions raised and discussed about
the relationship of research to community arts practice at the
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity, and Civic Engagement conference
that were a part of our session.
The UO Center for Community
Arts and Cultural Policy (CCACP)
The University of Oregon’s Institute for Community Arts Studies
(ICAS) was established in 1965 by a founding gift from the Lila
Wallace Foundation as a research and public service organization
within the School of Architecture and Allied Arts. ICAS exists
to promote and implement research, professional education,
and community programs concerned with public participation,
appreciation, and understanding of the arts. Toward this end, ICAS
has supported such statewide research projects as the Community
Arts Study Program (1966-1968), and the Study of Arts Education
in the Community (1984-1986). In 1995, the Institute established
a renewed focus on community arts and cultural policy, in
collaboration with the newly formed arts management graduate
degree of the Arts and Administration Program (AAD). ICAS
On-line, which consists of an electronic forum for discussion and
dissemination of current community arts and cultural policy issues,
CultureWork, a periodic broadside, as well as an Institute archive,
were created. In 2005 Doug Blandy, Patricia Dewey, and Lori Hager
identified opportunities to re-envision ICAS as the Center for
Community Arts and Cultural Policy (CCACP) – an interdisciplinary,
regional research and development center dedicated to sustaining
and strengthening the arts, culture, and heritage sectors of the
West. What follows is drawn from a concept paper authored
by Blandy, Dewey, and Hager (2005) that describes the mission,
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
31
purpose, and organization of CCACP. Also following will be an
excerpt from CCACP’s most recent annual report that details
accomplishments and activities for 2005 and 2006
CCACP Mission and Concept
With an interest in and commitment to cultural resource
development throughout the American West, CCACP focuses
on the Pacific Northwest region. The Pacific Northwest of North
America is comprised of the major urban centers of Portland,
Seattle, and Vancouver – in addition to innumerable, diverse
communities throughout the vast geographic area of Oregon,
Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia. Although cultural
policy centers exist in the Midwest, South, and Northeast, no
academic research centers with a focus on regional arts and
cultural policy and heritage issues currently exists in the West.
The Center is modeled after cultural policy research centers
currently flourishing at Princeton, Vanderbilt, and the University
of Chicago, Columbia College, Maryland Institute College of Art,
and California College of the Arts.
Center faculty, students, and affiliate members conduct and
disseminate policy-relevant research, and create and provide
professional development opportunities to address the needs of
current and future leaders in a broadly defined cultural sector.
Activities in Research, Education,
and Community Engagement
CCACP’s activities focus on three broad areas of activity:
Community Arts, Cultural Heritage, and Cultural Policy. Within
each area, activities of research interest groups continue to reflect
the original mission of ICAS: to promote and implement research,
professional education, and community programs concerned with
public participation, appreciation, and understanding of the arts.
Each area of activity includes research, educational initiatives, and
community engagement as determined by each area’s respective
research interest group members.
Overview of 2005-2006
Accomplishments for CCACP
• We hosted the 31st annual international conference on
Social Theory, Politics and the Arts (STP&A) from October
6 to 8, 2005, which involved presentations of 88 research
papers and the participation of approximately 140 attendees,
representing 10 countries and 20 U.S. states. We launched the
“revitalization” process of the Institute for Community Arts
Studies at the opening reception of the conference.
• We launched research initiatives in four major project areas:
Community Youth Arts, Cultural Development in the Pacific
Northwest, E-Portfolios, and European Union Cultural Policy.
• Our commitment to integrating teaching, research, and
community engagement was exemplified through extensive
visiting scholar participation in two graduate-level courses:
Community Arts, Education and Partnerships and Cultural Policy.
Mission Statement
The University of Oregon Center for Community Arts and Cultural
Policy (CCACP) sustains and strengthens arts, culture and heritage
in the American West through research, policy, education, and
community engagement.
In its main objective to foster civic engagement and cultural
resource development in the American West, CCACP, through
research and education, supports policymakers and cultural sector
professionals to:
•
•
•
•
Cultivate public participation in the arts
Foster creative activities
Preserve cultural heritage
Develop sustainable community cultural development
32
• Two Fulbright research awards (one faculty, one student)
were granted for research in international cultural policy, to
commence in fall 2006.
• Faculty and graduate students associated with ICAS received
national and international recognition throughout the year
through presenting research at conferences and through their
publications.
• We established essential basic infrastructure support systems
and communications vehicles to be able to leverage the ICAS
structure for continued research, professional development,
and fundraising initiatives. (Blandy, Dewey, Hager, Heath, &
Young, 2006)
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
Overview of Community
Arts Research
Community Arts and Best Practices in
Environmental Resource Management
CCACP Community Arts research and programs include three
initiatives: Community Youth Arts, Arts-in-Education, and
Intermedia. Each area is linked to course development, and
student professional and academic preparation in the various arts
areas related to each initiative area. Areas also have associated
initiatives, which include opportunities for external funding, and
long-term interdisciplinary collaboration potential.
BY STERLING ISRAEL
Community Youth Arts (CYA)
This initiative has two broad goals: to work in conjunction with
state and regional partners to develop research agendas and
related policy priorities in community youth arts; and, to establish
a baseline and needs analysis of teaching artists as a model for
research in the rest of the state.
Arts-in-Education
In the area of arts education, professional development workshops
were introduced through the office of Continuing Education,
including a curriculum development workshop offered by Dr. Greg
Gurley addressing the U.S. Department of Education initiative in
Character Education.
Intermedia
The ePortfolio project was piloted in AAD through linking the
internship course series with the course series in Informational
Technology, and is currently in its second year of funding.
ePortfolio seeks to serve as a communication hub between
students in the academic environment and the professional arts
fields. During the second year, the project will work other AAA
departments and across academic departments to serve students’
professional and academic development through providing
workshops, tutoring, and a dedicated ePortfolio server and website.
http://ePortfolio.uoregon.edu.
Graduate Student Research
Associated with CCACP
All graduate students enrolled in AAD are required to complete a
research project. Research projects are distributed evenly across
the four areas of concentration associated with the program
with approximately four to five students each year completing
community arts oriented research. All research, when complete, is
disseminated through CCACP. It is not unusual for such research
to be published in CultureWork. Abstracts for four research
projects currently underway follow.
Environmental issues are complex and the arts are adept
at imagination and invention. Artists are visionaries whose
participation in the democratic process can lead to creative
solutions. Art embodies public hopes, vision, and dreams. The
eco-art movement is thriving, and has a noticeable role in
contemporary artwork. I believe that community art reuse centers
are vital respondents to environmental challenges.
My research project is the facilitation and critical analyses of
a community art exhibit for the March 2007 Public Interest
Environmental Law Conference in Eugene, Oregon.) I am working
with artists and law students to design an exhibit that provides a
space for visitors to interact with art objects and concepts reflecting
the environment. The value of the art experience in this context is
that visitors have an opportunity to debrief some of their intensive
workshop activities by an exchange with visual art. The exhibit will
provide conference attendees an opportunity to learn about Eugene’s
environmental art scene through a multi-sensory experience
complementary to the conference’s workshop programming.
Increasing artist participation in the format of this national
conference is significant and appropriate. There is a growing
presence of four hundred creative reuse centers internationally.
There are also over a dozen centers within the US that focus on
providing low cost art materials to the public. Including Eugene’s
Materials Exchange Center for Community Arts (Mecca for short),
these arts organizations are cutting edge participants in reuse
and recycling practices as part of conservation and economically
sound resource management.
Independent Artists and the Web
BY RACHEL JOHNSON
There are many online resources that independent artists and
crafters can utilize to promote and market their businesses. This
proposal describes how the researcher will explore these resources,
as well as interview and observe artists who already use the
Internet successfully, in order to gain a deep understanding of
this phenomenon. The final result will be a project, in the form
of a handbook, which will aim to help artists and craft persons
by making suggestions, based on the research, for how to use the
Internet effectively to grow an art or craft business.
The purpose of my study of independent artists and crafters is to
fill the gap in research regarding the Internet marketing strategies
of this niche group. I also hope to synthesize the information I
gather in order to make suggestions for how artists and crafters
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
33
can successfully use the Internet to grow their businesses. I would
like to incorporate the most salient information and suggestions
into a final project in the form of a handbook that could be
distributed to independent artists and crafters interested in using
the Internet to promote their business.
Youth Volunteer Service in the Arts
My research includes a survey and analysis of the administrative
strengths and weakness of the program using the twenty-two
university ArtsBridge sites. The outcome of this research will be a
handbook for model program directors addressing strengths and
weaknesses; also containing recommendations for improvement
and increased longevity
BY REED DAVAZ MCGOWEN
Conclusion
The intent of this research is to determine what types of benefits
result from youth volunteer service in the arts, as well as the
motives of youth for choosing service in the arts. Youth volunteer
service will be assessed both within and outside of mandated
educational service requirements, focusing specifically on
volunteers aged 14-19 years. Interpretive, qualitative research will
be conducted through case studies followed by questionnaires,
interviews, and field observation of youth volunteers. An initial
literature review drawing from related fields will introduce available
scholarly research on youth volunteerism to the project. However,
there exists a gap in the research area of youth volunteerism in the
arts. Therefore, the outcome of this research will be a project in the
form of a handbook for arts organizations to better understand and
develop youth specific arts volunteer programs
At the conclusion of our conference presentation we discussed
with session participants four questions that arise regarding the
relationship between research and community arts. Questions
were considered in pairs within two groups with approximately
twelve members each. What follows are those questions with
selected quotes from participants as recorded in the notes taken
by Sterling Israel, Rachel Johnson, Reed McGowan, Sterling
Israel, and Thea Vandervort. The range of concerns raised by
the participants impressed us as well as the significance of the
questions raised in relationship to the questions that we presented.
This was particularly true in relation to those questions that dealt
with the research priorities.
University-School Arts Education
Partnerships and Curriculum-Based
Model Programs
BY THEA VANDERVOORT
The development of reciprocal approaches to curricular and
community building through the arts is facilitated through
university-school partnerships and collaboration with the
K-12 education system. Current trends and models indicate
the importance of shared leadership, parent and community
involvement, and programs that are responsive to the needs of
the community. Increased implementation of school-based and
curriculum-related model arts education programs that can be
easily replicated is of paramount importance. There is a gap in
the research regarding financial and longitudinal sustainability
of model programs. Elements of sustainability include strong
program evaluation, effective training methods for teachingartists, and long term funding solutions.
ArtsBridge America is an example of a research-based model
program. This program is responsive to the needs of individual
K-12 schools and provides a service-learning opportunity for
university students. Research into the effectiveness of training
methods, consortia funding opportunities that facilitate growth
and stability, and assessment of program evaluation techniques
is necessary.
34
What is the role of an academic center [proliferation of centers] in
facilitating communication between academic and professional
sectors, between research and practice? How should we do it?
What would the role of a professional organization for the CA/
CCD field be? Where would it exist? Who would its membership
be? What would be its purpose? How would we identify who
would be essential in its start-up?
• Develop toolkit for leadership/research skills
• Arts managers are intermediaries between different sectors
• Recognize importance of participatory action research
• Academic training should take place while doing the work
(ongoing training)
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
• Academy/codification vs. real world community experience?
• Society seems to require quantitative research to prove /
confirm benefits of the arts
• What are students learning through practicum and
internships?
• Interrogation of essential terms used in research
• Necessity to identify and join together available resources
• The university should not appropriate community arts voice?
• Instead of policy being top down, is there anything we can do
as community arts leaders to really change and affect policy
from the bottom up?
• Administrators need to be at the policy-making table locally
• Interrogate every term you use
• Multiplicity of voices should be cultivated
• Learning how to ask the right questions comes with
experience
REFERENCES
Blandy, D., Dewey, P., Hager, L. (2005). University of
Oregon Center for Community Arts and Cultural Policy:
Concept paper. Eugene, OR: University of Oregon
Blandy, D. Dewey, P., Hager, L., Heath, K., & Young, L.
(2006). Institute for Community Arts Studies (ICAS): A
Center for Community Arts and Cultural Policy: Annual
report 2005-2006. Eugene, OR: University of Oregon.
• A dichotomy exists between academic and the public/
community artist
• Be aware of the standards of your community, be respectful,
honor and engage in the needs/culture/standards of
community
Given the current state of community arts activities within the
United States, what specific research is needed to sustain and
strengthen public access to the arts?
Given the breadth and depth of community arts oriented research
that could occur, should the field identify priorities and through
what process should those priorities be identified?
• Discover the means to bring about economic sustainability for
community arts programs.
• What things prevent effective community artwork?
• What are the regional differences in community arts?
• “To what end?” should be community arts workers be aiming?
• How should community arts workers use the mass media?
• How can community arts workers collaborate with
professionals in other fields? What collaborations are
occurring?
• What is the impact of coalition building?
• What other ways do community artists inform and interact
with their community?
• What good and positive things are happening in community
arts?
• How can we promote and gain followers? Critical Mass!
• Need analysis and explanation of public policy
• What is the shadow of community arts, or the unseen part?
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
35
Breaking Tradition,
Breaking Making
Collaboration between Francis
McIlveen, California College of
the Arts Alumni, Yuki Maruyama,
Michelle Lieberman and the
students of the OBUGS (Oakland
Based Urban Gardens) Program
collective effort. The creation and
destruction of the game grows out of
the perennial, yet radical, concern of
contemporary art with the idea of art
as a means of revising life.
Breaking Making
Lead artists, Francis McIlveen
and Yuki Maruyama, met with
students from OBUGS over a
three week period to create
symbolic bowling pins from
clay, functioning as fetishes for
elements of their lives that they
would like to break down or change. Students also built trophies to
themselves, or to things in their life which they felt deserved one.
Their work ranged from figurative/symbolic to completely abstract.
The project culminated in a ceramic bowling tournament during
the symposium’s plenary session, with the students bowling, and
thus obliterating the pins, which they had made. After all the pins
were completely destroyed, the students awarded each other the
trophies they had made.
The driving motivation of the project was to create a communal
spectacle, which seeks through its own destruction to evoke
an awareness of the power and agency of individuals and their
36
Since 1998, OBUGS, a grassroots
nonprofit in West Oakland, California,
has been working to build healthy
communities through programs for
children, youth, and families in a
network of neighborhood gardens,
green spaces, and farmers’ markets.
OBUGS has built, and maintains, four
food-producing gardens in West
Oakland, which are used primarily for hands-on, educational
activities with children and youth. During the 2006-2007 school
year, 400 students from four West Oakland elementary and middle
schools are attending OBUGS programs each week.
OBUGS educates these children from low-income families about
nutrition, health, and life-sciences, and ecology starting at a
young age, while: 1) providing safe venues for physical activity;
2) growing fresh produce for the community and teaching
children how to cook healthy meals using what they grow; and
3) helping participants excel academically and become leaders
in their community.
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
MAKING BREAKING:
Some Thoughts on Catharsis
Destruction is the unsung hero of the creative
process—not just of artistic creative processes,
but of the process of creating life itself, perhaps,
because we so often fail to connect it to the
rest of the transformative process. The unborn
fetus wreaks havoc upon the mother’s body by
leaching her very bones of essential nutrients
and minerals; plants, fungi and insects destroy
and feast upon the bodies of others and
in the process re-create life. It’s a cycle so
primordial that humans, thousands of years
ago, recognized and canonized in such tropes
as Shiva’s dance of simultaneous destruction
and creation.
In education, and particularly in pedagogic models concerned
with enlightened social practices and engagement, there is
an important emphasis on empathy, on cooperation, and
discouragement of negativity. However, what is often lacking
in this model is a way to help students integrate their negative
feelings (of frustration, of being overwhelmed, of despondency)
and to come to productive terms with them. We are teaching
our young to behave, to fit in, to find a niche, when perhaps we
ought to also be teaching them productive ways to honor their
anger and disgust. Perhaps we are afraid of the potential for
true, fundamental change, or perhaps we have forgotten the art
of destroying society to make way for new worlds. You, reading
this, might even mistake this plea as a call for violent force
when it really is a call for subtle and sophisticated strategies,
tactics, subterfuge, monkey-wrenching—a plea for the
evolution of a full repertoire of end-run-arounds to outmoded,
totalitarian social models.
One start for re-learning our forgotten capacity to tear
down social structures, is to personalize a moment of crisis
(or ‘dangerous opportunity’), thereby testing the limits of an
individual’s own concept of her or his capacity to take action.
Destruction is a sort of catharsis, which is itself an emotional
venue for not only venting and moving beyond frustration, but
also for clearing the mind and setting the stage for action, for
stepping over apathy and numbness. With cathartic mental
clarity, there is room for imagining constructive channels for new
social modes, for new interpersonal strategies. It is, in short, an
opportunity to engender the somatic experience of shifting from
spectator to instigator.
activities. When a participant
is ‘on stage’ in front of
spectators, there is the
opportunity to step outside
of oneself and become a
different person, to explore
alternative personalities,
emotions and ways of
thinking. Such exploration
is critical to personal
development within nontraditional society, where
people grow up within a
state of permanent crisis of
social meaning. Children (and
adults) must either regress
to a rigid moral stasis or
they must navigate a constant conflict of competing values and
social forces (peer pressure, models of gender, economic stressors)
and the conflict between seeking to find one’s own voice versus
wanting a community and wanting to fit in and belong.
On the social level, we have a tremendous treasure trove of
traditions, rituals and games to mine for inspiration. Just as in
nature (where matter is neither created or destroyed, but rather
transformed) so too in social structures our human processes of
cultural transformation dictate the recycling of bits and pieces of
cultural detritus in fashioning new rituals and traditions which
give meaning to our coming together in community. There is a
plethora of examples of communal events in which the personal
moment of a psychic or spiritual breakthrough is channeled
into a cathartic ritual. Through destruction, a group reinforces
interpersonal connection. And through appropriation, we too
can re-invent the language of our social rituals. There is power
in the realization that one can create and re-create—that through
destruction, by ‘wiping the slate clean,’ one can completely
re-invent and re-image the world through the microcosm of art.
Artistic practice is a laboratory for experiments with revolution,
annihilation and utopia.
To destroy one’s own creation is to experience on a corporeal
level the temporality of existence. There is a sweet poignancy
to intentionally destroying something one has made: a hint of
liberation from material possessions; of unburdening oneself
from attachments to things, and liberation from the tyranny of
the extant (and of all that precedes this moment). It is the great
possibility of starting anew with agile mind and alert creativity.
On the personal level, there are tremendous possibilities for the
‘theater of art’, i.e. the inherent theatricality of performative
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
37
Building Community
Through the Practice of Enso
“The youth come to our college campus to make art and explore their
individuality in a new, challenging context. They get to experiment
with new artistic techniques and learn to successfully collaborate on
a community art project.”
Virginia Jardim, Faculty, Community Arts Department, California
College of the Arts
“Ensos are easy, but hard.” Dejanee Boyd, Emery school youth
participant.
The “Building Community Through The Practice of Enso” workshop
was attended by ten Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic
Engagement conference participants and five local youth from the
Emery Middle School in Emeryville, California.1 The purpose of the
workshop was to share a successful community building activity
based on an adaptation of the ancient Japanese spiritual practice
of making Enso circles. This article will cover the content of
workshop as well as a how-to approach so readers can successfully
use Ensos in their classrooms.
Virginia Jardim, Community Arts Faculty, and Minette Mangahas,
artist and former Center for Art in Public Life staff member, have
collaborated on mentorship classes over the last five years. Enso
has become their guiding metaphor for the act of mentoring:
It takes two
It has a beginning, but no end
1 The youth participants were students in the Athena Project, Fall 2005.
38
Movement goes forward, not backward
It is an act of negotiation, collaboration, joy and beauty
It is an expression of the moment that one has shared
with another
The Enso activity is successful with any age group because it
so simple – participants need no previous training and there is
low risk for failure. The activity is a unique, socially engaging
yet meditative approach to art. The quiet focus during the act
of making Enso creates a calm environment conducive to clear
communication and learning.
THE ENSO WORKSHOP:
Background Context: Athena Project /
Mentorship Studio Class
The workshop began with a power point presentation that provided
an overview of the curriculum of the Mentorship Studio class taught
by Virginia and Minette. The class is part of the new Community Arts
major at the California College of the Arts and provides a context for
college students to learn to teach and develop a creative relationship
with youth. Much thought and preparation goes into creating a safe
space for both college students and youth to grow beyond their
comfort zones into more a mature comprehension of the complexity
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
Virginia Jardim is a memoirist and documentarian who teaches in CCA’s
Community Arts and Writing & Literature programs.
of the world in which they live. Readings and discussions on human
development, pedagogy, gender, race and cultural sensitivity
prepare the college students to become mentors. In addition, they
write lesson plans, keep a journal and write a self-assessment paper.
Using the California State Standards for Visual Arts as a guide, they
design community art projects with their protégés. For example,
in the Athena Project, mentors and protégés
get to know residents of the Matilda Brown
Home for Elderly Women, a facility devoted
to Alzheimer’s patients. The Athena art
THE DEMONSTRATION:
Presenters model how to make an Enso
After the above background information, Virginia and Minette
gave a demonstration of how to make an Enso as follows:
• They taped their paper to the table so it would not move.
• They chose a brush.
pieces are inspired by the interactions with the elderly women and
created for their enjoyment. The Matilda Brown Home keeps the art
on display in their facility. Mentors and their protégés brainstorm to
come up with a project, assemble the materials, plan out how much
time it will take to make sure the scope of their project will fit into
the amount of time allotted, figure out the sequence of who will do
what and when, make the piece of art and finally, learn how to hang
and display it for the exhibit.
CCA students learn to listen deeply, give meaningful feedback
to their protégés, develop collaboration skills, techniques
of professional practice and a new understanding of our
multicultural society. The youth come to our college campus to
make art and explore their individuality in a new, challenging
context. They get to experiment with new artistic techniques
and learn to successfully collaborate on a community art project.
Students from this class often continue their association with
CCA by enrolling in summer classes for youth. Eventually, some
of them might choose to attend CCA as undergraduates.2
2 For further information on The Athena Project and mentorship techniques
Virginia and Minette developed, visit the Community Arts Network
(www.communityarts.net). In the Reading Room you will find an article
40
• They chose three colors of acrylic paint.
• They took turns squeezing small amounts of acrylic paint
directly onto the paper, forming the shape of a circle.
• They carefully held the brush together (four hands on the
brush).
• They swept the brush slowly and intentionally around the
paper through the blobs of paint until they closed their circle
with a flourish.
• They then took a few moments to talk and reflect.
• Then, each wrote a word that represented the moment in
sumi ink using a brush.
After the demonstration, participants were asked to choose their
own partners. Half partnered with youth participants and the
rest with each other. Once they got to know each other a bit,
they followed the same simple routine as outlined above. When
everyone had finished making several Ensos, they hung their work
on the wall to dry and took turns talking about the process of
working together.
Written by Minette Lee Mangahas: “The Athena Project: Refining the
Practice of Mentorship in Community Art.”
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
The atmosphere in the room became one of intense conversations
while partners engaged in making mutually acceptable decisions
(which colors? which brush?). As they placed their chosen colors
and took up the brush, they bonded through the act of creation.
Delight in the unpredictable spontaneity of the experience
pervaded the room as they stood back and admired their Ensos.
round or flat, 1”, 2”or 3” brushes for making enso. Round
pointed brushes for the Sumi ink
Paper: 18” x 24” or larger
Hanging: Tape or push pins
TIPS:
• Start with a minute or two of meditation or quiet with eyes
closed and guided imagery to calm down and center the
energy before you break into partners.
GROUP DISCUSSION:
Reflections on the dynamism
of Enso collaboration
After each Enso was taped on the wall, the participants were
able to see the enormous variety of expression in the Enso colors,
shapes and sizes as well as the associated words. A member of
each pair stood beside their creations and shared their process. The
youth stepped forward with ease and eloquently described how
moving the brush in a circle created a dynamic tension as both
sets of muscles and minds guided it somewhat differently. Some
people realized they had used too much paint which dripped as it
hung on the wall and changed the shape of their Enso.
• You may prefer to assign partners in your classroom.
The final group discussion about the process added awareness
of the artistic and community building value of this exercise,
fulfilling the mission of the conference to craft a vision of art,
social equity and civic awareness in the following manner:
• An Enso can be made on any scale. For this activity, we
encourage students to make a large circle that takes up the
whole page.
ART:
• Provide smocks or old t-shirts to protect clothing from paint.
• You don’t need as much paint as you think! Paint can be
squirted directly from the tube or bottle of acrylic paint onto
the paper. One teaspoon per color is enough.
• Some people dot their colors around in several key points
on the trajectory of their circle. However, you can also place
them all at the start of the circle.
• You can start your circle anywhere, but traditional Enso
begins in the lower left quadrant (7 or 8 o’clock)
• Participants learned of the ancient Japanese art practice
used as a form of meditation to focus the mind. (Art history,
cultural awareness)
• Circles are done in a clockwise direction
• They made art!
• You’ll need a sink to rinse brushes after each Enso or else have
lots of brushes!
EQUITY:
• Partners knew their task was to make equitable decisions so
that both would feel equally invested in co-creating the Enso.
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT:
• Young artists from Emery School District were invited
to attend the Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic
Engagement conference on the Oakland CCA campus. Each
made art with an adult conference attendee. Conference
attendees from all over the country had the chance to meet
and talk to local youth of color interested in the arts.
IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON TRYING THIS
IN YOUR CLASSROOM:
MATERIALS:
Media: 3-8 colors of acrylic paint including gold and
Sumi ink.
Brushes: If money is no object, Japanese Calligraphy
brushes. Otherwise, inexpensive nylon, bristle or foam,
• People usually want to make more than one, so be prepared
for each pair to do at least three.
• Sumi ink is not necessary for brushing the words onto paper.
Diluted acrylic works fine, too.
• The purpose of the reflection is to bring to the surface
a positive feeling or concept that was inspired by the
experience, such as joy, fullness, thought, peacefulness, etc.
• Although this exercise takes a small amount of time, it is very
gratifying for the participants and can certainly be used more
than once in a semester.
Please let us know if you use the Enso activity in your classroom.
We’d love to know how it went and if you added any adaptations
of your own. In addition, if you have questions, feel free to contact
Virginia Jardim (510) 594-3756 or vjardim@cca.edu.
Acknowledgments: This work was inspiring by the work of artist
and world peace activitist, Kazuaki Tanahashi. His artwork and
publications can be viewed at www.brushmind.com
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
41
Essays
“When you’re trying to work in
community, the…glue that sticks it all
together is stories. Every community
has its stories…those stories that come
before us, the past predicts the future,
and seeing something moving across
time, and understanding the lives of
the youth we serve.”
Amaila Mesa-Bains
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Report
43
Listening for the Lexicon
of Cultural Shift
“They are a circle of colleagues who honor each other and see the field
as a continuum of those who have gone before, negotiating constant,
massive cultural shift – the people of the Civil Rights Movement, the
Movimiento or Chicano Movement, the American Indian Movement,
the Feminist Movement.”
Linda Frye Burnham, Community Art Network
“Rather than developing artifact, you want to develop fluidity …
what is possible today may not be possible tomorrow, and that’s
good.” Marta Moreno Vega
Amalia Mesa-Bains called it “a moment of camaraderie and
esprit de corps.” Marta Moreno Vega called it “a family reunion.”
And they were right. “Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic
Engagement” was an arts gathering like no other.
With Sonia BasSheva Manjon at the helm, “Crafting” felt
different right from the get-go because the keynote addresses
were all delivered by women grounded in communities of color,
women who view culture from a specific angle. Their experience
has taught them a lot about something we all need a better
understanding of: cultural shift.
The gathering kicked off with keynotes by Mesa-Bains, Moreno Vega
and Claudine Brown, people Manjon identified as her professional
role models, mentors and dear personal friends. The affection
among them was tangible and it warmed the theater where we met.
They come from communities that have long histories on the North
American continent, where “community art” is “lived experience,” art
that is lived every day. As Moreno Vega put it:
44
..…anyone that knows about the cultures of the
Caribbean, the cultures of Africa, the cultures of Central
and Latin America and Asia, Native American cultures,
and everyone that is grounded in their own culture,
regardless of where you come from, understands that
there are expressions, cultural expressions that you call
“art” in academia, but are lived expressions, that are the
history of a people, the stories of a people, that ground
them in the experience that they’re in today.
They are a circle of colleagues who honor each other and see the
field as a continuum of those who have gone before, negotiating
constant, massive cultural shift – the people of the Civil Rights
Movement, the Movimiento or Chicano Movement, the American
Indian Movement, the Feminist Movement. That perspective leaves
them heavily invested in issues of social justice, civil rights, and
cultural rights.
For them, the busy intersection of civic life, equity and community
is a familiar crossroads with many trajectories. They consider it
their obligation to present their observations at the crossroads to
the people who will come after them – the cultural leaders of the
next generation. They told us they are now at a place where they
can begin to identify artists who can be held up as role models
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
in the field of community arts: the “artist-citizens.” And they are
artists, as Mesa-Bains said:
…whose work has resided both within the art world and
within a deep community of which they are a part. That’s
the deal: of which they are a part. They don’t go find a
community and fix it and go back to their studio. They
live in that place…
Mesa-Bains explained that when she sat down with her colleagues
to plan the community-art curriculum at California State University
at Monterey Bay (CSUMB), they modeled it on what they had
learned from those artist-citizens and from their own work –
from their lived experience.
We sort of took it backwards. We looked at the skill sets that we
all had in combination, and then we flipped them, and
we said, “Okay, to know how to do that, what do you have
to study?” And so that began this long process of defining a
new curriculum
and pedagogy.
words like minority, mainstream, academic, amateur, professional,
fine, informal, ethnic, folk, traditional, contemporary, classical, selftaught. For the 21st century, community art history – no, art history
– must become more like a history of lived experience, more of a
family reunion, more of a crossroads where we come together from
many trajectories, where we are aware of the necessity to give and
take from each other along a continuum of camaraderie and esprit
de corps.
And in that spirit I present an expanded lexicon drawn from the
“Crafting” keynote addresses of these three wise, innovative and
generous women. I take these terms, with fresh definitions, from
their own words – with apologies for yanking them out of context.
You are fortunate to have their addresses transcribed in full as part
of the conference report you hold in your hands, so you will be
able to find these terms in context.
And when I walked away from that keynote session I realized that
the history of community art as we know it has to be rewritten.
We have learned a great deal about the “grassroots” history of the
“community arts movement,” going back to the 19th Century and
linking it with feminist pageants, union
organizing, the WPA, the Wisconsin Idea,
A Lexicon of Cultural Shift
Artistic authorship: The uniqueness of the individual artist and
what s/he creates; what many art schools are predicated on,
mistakenly valued higher than what is created in partnership with
others. “When you begin to share and collaborate with people,
whose art is it? Who takes credit for it? How is it valued? Is it not
valued?” (Mesa-Bains)
CETA, and so on. But I don’t believe a holistic, fundamental history
of this field has yet been published – one that integrates the cultural
expression in all of our communities. That history is still bifurcated,
still stratified, still segregated into compartments labeled with
Art-plus: How to educate students in community arts. “We’re in
the business of art-plus, okay? We’ve got art, but we’re going to
add something else so we can keep expanding, and that art-plus,
I think, in many ways is being able to give them skill sets. We
discovered that practicing social analysis and community research
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was an absolute bedrock, we couldn’t do the work if they didn’t
know how to do that. They had to develop cross-cultural skills.”
(Mesa-Bains)
Bifurcation/stratification: “One of the impediments for this
community is the way that the art community itself is structured.
We are a very bifurcated community, and … we find ourselves
organized around our disciplines. … The other kind of stratification,
which I find very interesting, is one of scale. … So, one of the
challenges for us is helping people who have these values and
these kinds of concerns get to know each other and know that
they can work collaboratively on issues that mean something to
them.” (Brown) “Somehow academia tries to divide what should
be naturally connected. We departmentalize experiences that are
holistic. … You have to have a lot of people in the room in order
to do the work that you do. Not only do you include scholars who
are expert in the tradition, you include community scholars that
are expert in their own traditions. You include traditional leaders,
you include people who are interested, and these conversation
and these focus groups is that you can develop an exhibition. It
is through these focus groups that dance performance can come
out.” (Moreno Vega)
Calling Spirit: “Color’s not color. Dance is not only dance, music is
not only music. For some groups, it is more than music. Because if
you’re looking at the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, it is a way
of calling spirit. … popular expressions, they’re all grounded in the
spiritual context, coming from indigenous, traditional cultures.”
(Moreno Vega)
Challenging institutional commitment: “You have to challenge
your own institution. You have to challenge them. You have to
ask questions about why these programs are always add-ons.
Why are they always for work-study? Why are they always taught
by adjuncts? Why do they never change the core curriculum?
And why, when the funding ends, does the program end?
Because there has to be an institutional commitment, and
challenging your institutions is at the bedrock of doing this
work. Because otherwise you’re alone, and then as long as the
money’s there, you can keep doing it, and you’re working hard,
but if you can get the institution, even in the smallest level, to
make that change with you, then you have hope that even when
the funding ends, you’ll be able to keep doing that work, and that
fundamentally those resources and knowledge and values that
come from those communities will transform the core of your
institution in some way.” (Mesa-Bains)
Community aesthetics: “This idea that you can do this work and
not change your aesthetic framework— Sooner or later you have to
start asking questions about art historical canons that you ascribe
to, you have to start asking questions about what you define as
46
expertise.” (Mesa Bains) “Growing up in East Harlem, the colors
that I saw on my wall, the images that I saw on my wall reflected
who I was, who my people were and are. And when I went to
school … Puerto Rico was not reflected, the Caribbean was not
reflected, Africa was not reflected, Asia, very little. So I was invisible
throughout the education that I received. … So, when I started
teaching … we talked about art as lived experience. We talked
about art that they lived every day. We talked about their homes
and their mamas and their grandmamas.” (Moreno Vega)
Community research/community mapping: “We had students
come to visit in communities, observe, meet the leaders in the
community, be able to examine how a community functions, and
all that had to happen before we could actually send them in to
do projects.” (Mesa-Bains)
Convergence: “We believe that online communities are really
interesting, but we think that world change happens face-toface with each other. We think that the great asset of the artand-social-justice movement is the people in it. And we think
that when you meet each other, you have an opportunity not
just to hear about stuff that an article was written about, but
you really have a chance to engage. You have a chance
to see the work of students and artists who care about these
issues, you have the opportunity to find out if something can
be used in your own communities. We think that one-on-one
encounters, in-person engagements are going to be the heart
of this movement.” (Brown)
Cultural citizenship: “‘The ways in which people organize their
values, their beliefs about their rights, and their practices, based
on their sense of cultural belonging, rather than their formal
status as citizens of a nation. Particularly important are the
struggles for space and cultural rights that shape community
identity and connect to an understanding of artistic responsibility
and problem-solving.’” (Mesa-Bains quoting Rita Ben Major and
Bill Flores’ “Latino Cultural Citizenship”) “If that human being
contributes to your life, because you have fresh strawberries, or
you have wonderful artichokes on your table, or someone cleans
your toilets, then they deserve to have the kind of citizenship
we enjoy, and that means having a driver’s license, that means
being able to be safe in a place that you have worked to build for
others.” (Mesa-Bains)
Cultural grounding: Having a place in history; understanding your
location so you can look at the world from there. (Moreno Vega)
Cultural policy: “In these United States we do not have a
cultural policy. And without a cultural policy, to understand
and define what is the United States and the multiplicity of
cultures and racial groups that make up the United States, allows
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
the space for Eurocentric visions to dominate and continue
dominating, although the country is rapidly changing. And it
allows a conversation of immigrants being the ‘Other’ and being
undesirable, when in fact, if you understood the cultural history of
the United States, you understand that immigration is what makes
the United States.” (Moreno Vega)
Exclusion/inclusion: Communities of color being left out of
discussions of cultural policy, especially discussion of “diversity.”
“The exclusion of our experience. The exclusion of the expressions
that define our communities. …The conversation [has] to include
issues, not only of culture, of art, but social justice, issues of civil
rights and issue of cultural rights.” (Moreno Vega)
Cultural shift: “Culture is constantly shifting, realities are
constantly shifting. And for different groups, different realities
exist. And the challenge is to be present, is to be in the moment
of understanding that shift.” (Moreno Vega)
Cultural theory: What you need to “get people in academia,
and even in politics to really listen to another side of the story.
… It’s like being on the debate team, you have to have a good
argument or you just don’t get anywhere. Human decency and
compassion simply is not enough, okay?
You’ve got to have theory.” (Mesa-Bains)
Fluidity: “Rather than developing artifact, you want to develop
fluidity … what is possible today may not be possible tomorrow,
and that’s good. And that if we’re going to change and influence
lives, that we have to change ourselves, because my mama told
me you can’t give what you don’t have.” (Moreno Vega)
Funder envy: Funding officers who “really wish that they were
doing what you’re [practitioners are] doing, instead of sitting
behind a desk in an office.” (Brown)
Ghetto Arts: What the New York State Council on the Arts once
called the arts of minority communities. “And Ghetto Arts meant
us.” (Moreno Vega)
Equity: “Inevitably the issues of diversity and equity are addressed
when you set upon this work. Equity, for many of us, we
discovered, was also financial. … Power comes in many forms, not
just respect and recognition, but real financial and other kinds of
resources.” (Mesa-Bains)
Exchange: “If you have something to offer, you have to assume that
others have something to offer. So, it’s an exchange, it’s always an
exchange of information. It’s never a top-down or, ‘I got the degree
and she or he doesn’t.’” (Moreno Vega) “Acting reciprocally. It sort
of seems like going without saying, but reciprocity is the core of it.
You’ve got to ask yourself are you being reciprocal in those projects,
in that way of working.” (Mesa-Bains)
Going Up The Ladder: “You start out on something that you know
very well as a project, but then when you go up the ladder and
you look down into that project, you see what are the guiding
principles, what did you learn? When I teach with my students,
we go up the ladder very regularly because I don’t want them just
accumulating knowledge and information. I want them to look
down and see what that means, taking out and distilling those
principles, that they can apply anywhere else when they face
similar material.” (Mesa-Bains)
Growing the movement: “What do we do to grow this field,
and to make sure that the experiences we have are not [just]
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our own, but experiences that others can have throughout
our society?” (Brown)
Interdisciplinarity: The capacity to study not only across different
arts and humanities disciplines, but also “across different cultures,
issues of globalism and the environment. … in order for a student
in our art program to work in another community, they might
actually have to learn a second language, or at least enough to
introduce themselves. They might have to know something about
global and social equity.” (Mesa-Bains)
Intergenerational: “This life is an intergenerational, communal,
extended life.” (Mesa-Bains) “We really believe that there are a
group of people who really want to learn from their children and
their grandchildren. … Young people have stepped into the fray
and are teaching middle-aged, their peers and older people how
to use [media] technology in a meaningful way.” (Brown)
Learning communities: “I would propose that in establishing
programs that have to do with the various communities that
comprise this nation, as we go out into public education and
cultural centers and other places, that we are very clear, that we
go as learners, that we don’t go as the expert.” (Moreno Vega)
Legacy: What has been left to us is just as important as what we
leave behind. “This is not new work. We stand on the shoulders
of many people, and it goes back very, very far back. I mean
in Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece, graffiti was often a call
to activism. So, this notion of doing art that deals with issues
of social justice is not brand new, it is centuries old. So we are
continuing a legacy that many other artists have been engaged
in for a very long time.” (Brown)
New thinking: “If you’re willing to be uncomfortable sometimes,
if you’re willing to entertain something beyond your realm, then
you can get them [the institutions] to do it, and you will have that
capacity for what we call new thinking, renewed energy and the
spirit of collaboration.” (Mesa-Bains)
Norteño-sueño: “That means north-south, and it’s a way that
youth and gangs divide themselves. Norteños are American-born,
they identify as Chicanos. Sueños are identified with Mexico.” An
example of a reality in a community that was there before you
were. “You have to acknowledge the reality of the youth you serve
and the youth that you teach. Their reality is the thing that comes
in the room first. You’ve got to know it and feel for it before you
give them the text, whatever it might be, the lesson, the book, the
example, the project, the film. You have to know who they are
first. Using the past to predict the future and seeing something
moving across time. We found that every community we worked
in, whether we work in the southwest or we’re in the middle
of Chicago, what we discovered was something that happened
48
before, and everyone knew it but us, and we needed to know
what that past was before we plunged ahead into something,
because sometimes you plunge ahead and you make a big
mistake.” (Mesa-Bains)
Saludos: “Do you know that in certain communities, when you go
in, there’s something called saludos? Which means you have to, like,
say hello in a certain way, you can’t just say, ‘Hey, hi,’ you know, and
walk in the door. … You have to include the aesthetic and cultural
values of the community in the project goals.” (Mesa-Bains)
Service learning: Learning to serve by working in the community,
and more — “an intersection of compassion, because you have to
have some ability to feel for others beyond yourself and whatever
comfort level you might have.” (Mesa-Bains)
Social-justice art: “The projects of artists and community members
that, one, show concern and give voice to the poor, disadvantaged
and underserved, two, exhibit respectful diversity, three, promote
understanding across cultures, and four, empower communities in
need.” (Brown)
Stories: “When you’re trying to work in community, the … glue
that sticks it all together is stories. Every community has its stories
… those stories that come before us, the past predicts the future,
and seeing something moving across time, and understanding
the lives of the youth we serve.” (Mesa-Bains) “A lot of us live
in situations where we believe that whatever our situation is, it
is the norm. And it’s really important that we hear about the
people whose stories are not told on sitcoms. … The bottom line
is that if we’re going to do art and social justice, we need to know
about the stories of all of the people living in this country. We
need to have a sense of what life is like in this country, because
if we don’t, we will allow policies to take place that will damage
people who are, in many ways, powerless.” (Brown) “Witnessing
means that you stand up and you see what something is, and you
acknowledge in some way that you see that. And witnessing is a
form of respect. (Mesa-Bains)
Linda Frye Burnham is a writer who specializes in communitybased arts. She is co-director (with Steven Durland) of Art in
the Public Interest, in North Carolina, and the Community Arts
Network, on the Web. She was founder of High Performance
magazine and co-founder of the 18th Street Arts complex and
Highways Performance Space, in California.
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
A Week-Long Immersion in the Activist
Theory and Practice of Appalshop
This essay is drawn from the California College of the Arts’ Conference
session, “Appalshop: A Student Intensive Model in CommunityBased Art,” co-facilitated by MacKenzie Fegan. In 2003, Professor
Jan Cohen-Cruz and Appalshop’s Dudley Cocke created the NYU/
Appalshop immersion program, and they have continued to mentor
its participants. Special thanks to Dudley Cocke for the conversations
about Appalshop’s history and about his own theory of social justice
which informed both the conference’s session and this essay. The
quotations cited in this article are from the final March 18th, 2006
reflection circle at the most recent NYU/Appalshop immersion.
The NYU Tisch University Scholars Travel to Whiteburg, Kentucky –
Jamie Haft, New York University Tish School of the Arts Alumni
The Scholars
Prologue
University as a recruitment tool. Students accepted into the program
When excitedly preparing for our session at the California
College of Arts’ conference, MacKenzie and I noticed a
contradiction. The theme of the conference was “Creating a
Vision for Art, Equity, and Civic Engagement,” and our case
study was the Tisch University Scholars Program’s weeklong
immersion at the activist Appalachian arts and humanities
center, Appalshop. Given the theme of the conference, it became
clear that the underlying theme of our presentation would be
the tension between an elite university program and the social
justice principles of our immersion host, Appalshop.
The Tisch University Scholars Program began in 1965 at New York
received a full scholarship and a free international vacation each year.
Administrators believed that admittance into this prestigious program
could be the decisive factor in a student’s decision to attend NYU.
By 2002, it had become clear that NYU no longer needed such
a recruitment tool. The university was celebrating a steady rise
in applications, despite September 11th, and Newsweek was
consistently ranking it the #1 dream school of high school
students. NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts had become the premier
undergraduate arts program in the nation; its alumni included
stars like Chris Columbus, Spike Lee, and Martin Scorsese. Tuition
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hikes accompanied Tisch’s rising reputation; this year, the annual
cost of attending Tisch is $50,000 plus.
No longer needed to woo the best and the brightest,
administrators and deans at Tisch began to ask, what purpose
should the Scholars Program now serve? And how could it be
restructured so participants shed the sense of entitlement that the
program once intentionally engendered? In the past five years, the
Tisch Scholars Program has been refocusing on leadership training,
and the annual freshman class trip to Appalshop has become one
of the most successful ways this refocusing has occurred.
and collective learning process is multiplied, a national movement
for reform will develop and change society. This theory of change
holds that such a movement can only be sustained when this
grassroots process of individual and collective learning continues
to inspire awareness and shape the plan of action. This bottom-up
theory of change emphasizes that those who directly experience
a problem must make up the generative base for devising and
enacting the problem’s solution.
The Immersion
For the past three years, during the NYU spring break in March, a
group of students and faculty from the Tisch Scholars Program
have traveled to Whitesburg, Kentucky to participate in a five-day
immersion in the activist theory and practice of Appalshop. The
preparation for the immersion begins at NYU months before the
trip when Appalshop’s Dudley Cocke facilitates a story circle in one
of the Scholars’ weekly meetings. Cocke’s goal is to get students
and faculty to think about their own cultural roots and identity.
The Activists
Appalshop, from Appalachian Workshop, began in 1969 when a
handful of young people – some still in high school – secured
funding from the federal “War on Poverty” to set up a filmmaking
program to help their working-class and poor families and
neighbors grapple with their region’s poverty. Through the 1980s
and 90s, Appalshop connected the struggle of Appalachia to the
struggles of other poor and marginalized communities across the
United States, confronting a range of issues including race and
class: cultural, gender, and sexual bias and stereotypes; human
rights violations in the criminal justice system; and immigrants
rights and citizenship. The young activists’ passion for social,
economic, and cultural justice expanded to other artistic forms,
resulting in the creation of hundreds of community-centered plays
and numerous new grassroots theater groups, the production of
over two hundred documentary films and community-initiated
radio projects; and the launching of programs to stimulate citizen
participation in social reform and policy change.
Appalshop believes that effective grassroots organizing for social
justice begins small, with the individual. First, one discovers his
or her own truth of an issue, and then tests and develops that
truth in dialogue with others. It is believed that if this individual
50
Appalshop filmmaker Elizabeth Barrett’s Stranger with a Camera
is screened and discussed at another Scholars meeting prior to
visiting Kentucky. The documentary investigates the circumstances
around a cold-blooded murder in Letcher County, Eastern
Kentucky in 1967, when a famous Canadian filmmaker, Hugh
O’Connor, was shot by a local man while he, an outsider, was
filming the region’s poverty. Students are shaken by Barret’s stark
narration in the film, in which she asks: “Can filmmakers show
poverty without shaming the people we portray? I came to see
that there was a complex relationship between social action and
social embarrassment. As a local filmmaker, I live every day with
the implications of what happened.”
Students are also asked to study the Appalshop website
(www.appalshop.org) and to formulate several questions that
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
the site’s content raises about their own future careers as artists.
Questions from last year include:
• What is it like to be part of an intimate, creative
environment so far from the main, widely known
urban centers of artistic activity?
staff and local folks. A majority of the meals during the immersion
will be at the Café, which is a delight to most participants who
can’t get enough of the homemade Tanglewood Pie! After
supper, the group goes to Appalshop, for the first time, to get an
introduction to Appalachian culture on the Roadside Theater stage
with singer-songer-playwright Ron Short.
• Can community-based work become too insular?
• How do others describe Appalshop’s place in the national
arts community?
• Have their been any negative reactions to Appalshop?
If so, why?
Finally by way of preparation, students and faculty are asked to
select a personally meaningful song or spoken word recording
to play and discuss on Appalshop’s radio station, WWMT, which
broadcasts to parts of five states and streams live on the Internet.
The trip to Kentucky begins before sunrise, when everyone travels
together to JFK airport, takes an airplane to Atlanta, and then
transfers to a small propjet bound for Tri-Cities, Tennessee. From
Tennessee, the group caravans for several hours through the
mountainous coal fields of southwest Virginia before reaching
“A lot of people have been saying that
they liked the sense of community,
and that’s my favorite thing about
this week, too.”
Whitesburg’s Super 8 Motel. Freshmen Scholars quickly learn
that Whitesburg is a dry town in a dry country, which adds an
immediate disappointing twist to their first college spring break.
But because the Appalshop immersion is built around engagement,
the experience will bond students more than any week of drinking
in Cancun.
NATE JONES, CLASS OF 2009:
A lot of people have been saying that they liked the sense
of community, and that’s my favorite thing about this
week, too. I went to a high school where we had a strong
sense of community, so one of the things I don’t like about
NYU is that we don’t have one. But here, when you’re out
on the street, people say hi to you. And this week, we even
became a community within ourselves.
Soon after settling into the Super 8, everyone heads to the
Courthouse Café to break bread for the first time with Appalshop
LUCIA GRAHAMJONES, CLASS OF 2009:
I remember the first night when we watched Ron Short.
I never really liked bluegrass at all – I hated it. I was just
really glad to get to watch that performance, because it
gave me a greater appreciation for it.
Before drifting off to sleep, students head to Food City, the
grocery store behind the motel. Marveling at how much more
reasonably priced the food is than in New York City, they stock up
on all kinds of goodies for the upcoming nights of friend-making
and philosophizing.
ERICA TACHOIR, CLASS OF 2009:
Thursday night we had been up really late working on our
projects, and everyone decided that it was sleep night,
and that we’d hang out tomorrow. We had this really long
day, so we were drained. I went back to the room with
Lipica and Rochelle, physically exhausted and determined
to go to bed… but then, we started to talk about what
this experience meant to us. We sat there so fired up. It
wasn’t girl talk about boys or anything. We were talking
about how this place inspired us and how we want to do
something with this experience back at NYU.
On the second day, before the sun has dried the dew, Herbie
Smith, who joined Appalshop in 1969 as a teenager, takes a
group in his van for a tour of the region, stopping for pictures
and to relate historical details about the coal mines and the
tightly-packed coal camps where the miners lived. The group
also visits the very place where the 1967 murder documented by
Stranger with a Camera occurred.
While Herbie’s tour is happening, another group of students and
faculty is broadcasting on the radio, sharing their favorite songs
and swapping stories with the Appalshop DJ. Upon learning that
two of his guests are musical theater majors, DJ Dee Davis calls
for a song. Never shy about an opportunity to get discovered, the
two students burst into a beautiful two-part harmony from one of
their favorite Broadway shows.
Still a third group is participating in story circle training. The
methodology of a story circle, which keys off the power of
traditional Appalachian and Scotch-Irish storytelling, was created
by Appalshop’s theater wing, Roadside Theater. The rules of the
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story circle are simple. The group sits in a circle, and each person
tells a personal story based on a mutually agreed upon theme,
such as experience with race or class. One person volunteers
to begin, and the circle moves to the right. You can pass if you
aren’t ready to tell a story, and the opportunity to speak will
come back to you. Stories should have a beginning, middle and
end, characters, and maybe even conflict. No one can join the
story circle late, and everyone must participate. Even if someone
tells a controversial story, there is no cross-talking to respond;
participants must wait to respond through their own story.
admire how everyone here embraces their community.
It makes me want to go back to my home and do that.
The immersion’s interlacing activity revolves around trips to
the Courthouse Café and meals prepared by Appalshop staff
Story circles have the immediate grounding effect of personalizing
something abstract. For example, I have trouble imagining what
residents in New Orleans felt like during Hurricane Katrina, but
I could tell a story about a moment when I felt displaced from my
home or comfort zone. Through telling a personal story, I am able
to better understand the stories of New Orleans residents.
“I’m thankful for my experience here
because I feel like I got to slow down
and think about my life, in ways that I
and community cooks. Imagine this: Beans – cooked in a big
pot, transformed into soup – with cornbread for dipping – and
homemade fudge for dessert, all enjoyed in folding chairs and tables
in a make-shift mess hall in the lobby of Appalshop. The burning
question the local cooks have for their New York dinner guests:
Why in the world would anyone request vegetarian soup beans?
seldom find time to do in New York.”
Midway through the third day, the immersion moves into an
intense 24-hour production phase.
The exploration of one’s personal narrative is important in
grassroots work for several other reasons. It helps students to
value their own identities more, and taking turns listening and
sharing builds compassion for those who are different, helping
each participant better understand his or her relative position
in society.
Students and faculty divide into groups based on their interests.
In the most recent immersion, students had three options:
To team with Herbie Smith and Robert Salyer to make a video
biography about James Caudill, a much respected preacher and
singer in the Old Regular Baptist Church; to collaborate with
local youth in the Appalachian Media Institute to create two
video and two audio public service announcements – one to
encourage young Appalachians to vote in the upcoming local
elections, and the other to confront the rise in deadly drug use
among local youth; or to work with Roadside Theater artists
to devise a performance piece based on story circles. After
the groups pull an all-nighter to complete their projects, the
production phase ends in a celebratory showing of the new work
for all Appalshop staff and community participants.
SARITH DEMUNI, CLASS OF 2008:
In terms of what this place is doing with the tradition of
the area, it got me thinking about my roots. I was born in
Sri Lanka, and I’m pretty far removed from that. I think I
should really start thinking about where I come from, my
people. I really don’t know much about it, and I’ve never
cared to learn until now.
ALICIA MATUSHESKI, CLASS OF 2007:
SEAN CALDER, CLASS OF 2008:
I’m thankful for my experience here because I feel like I
got to slow down and think about my life, in ways that
I seldom find time to do in New York. I put this pressure
on myself when I’m at school to reject my community
and my home. When I have the chance to write about
it, I think, oh it’s not good enough for this class. I really
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It’s a weird thing being from New York ... everyone thinks
identity is an individual thing, and if you’re not blazing
your own path, tearing down traditions and creating
something new, then it’s not worthwhile. Even people
who have influences try to like, claim it as their own. It’s
this shameful thing to be a part of something, especially
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
at Tisch. It’s nice to see artists who are just naturally
following in the tradition and in others’ footsteps.
SHAINA TAUB, CLASS OF 2009:
I think that what Appalshop does is beautiful. Being a
young artist in New York, in an environment such as we
are in at NYU, it can become very … the social lifestyle
can become very judgmental, petty, material, very quickly.
In that environment a lot of the joy falls out of the work.
Appalshop really reminds me that the joy coming out of
doing the work is why we do it in the first place.
they are now ahead of their institution, and they quickly discover
that the environment at NYU doesn’t nurture this kind of work. As
sadly noted by the conference’s opening keynote speaker Michael
Roth, President of California College of Arts: “The university is no
longer a place where one goes to access opportunity, but rather, is
just a mechanism for preserving privilege.”
Dudley Cocke believes that universities can change in two ways:
from the top-down, with a dean, president, or provost committed
to social justice; or from the bottom-up, with students demanding
they get a different, more socially-responsible education. Those
working at the top of any hierarchy have the highest stake in
preserving the hierarchy’s privilege, so the change may not easily
occur from the top-down.
The immersion, which by now also become an exchange, closes
with the most popular event of the week: the potluck supper and
square dance at the Cowan Creek Community Center, which is
If doing social justice work was a priority for students, they
naturally right beside a bubbling creek. At Cowan, community
actually would be in a position to demand such change. In our
members of all ages are present, and students and faculty delight
consumer society, students, as “buyers” of expensive university
in having the opportunity to cook and share one of their favorite
degrees, could in theory purchase change – and the university, as
dishes made from ingredients bought at Food City. As the Old Time
“seller,” would have to adapt its product to the market. However, it
band swells to as many as fifteen – including Tisch students and
is psychologically difficult for students to be active in university
faculty – the crowd goes wild with two-stepping and storytelling.
politics. Many have had to take out large loans to attend school
In one corner, NYU students are recounting tales from their
and get their degree, which doesn’t even guarantee a job, so their
exciting city lives to bright-eyed local teenagers; in another corner, minds are often narrowly focused on just getting the training
Kentuckians under the age of eight are teaching NYU students the necessary to have some chance of success in the marketplace.
dance steps they can do in their sleep, rolling their eyes in disbelief
There is one huge problem, however, that the present status
that university students can’t figure out
quo is not taking into account: Outside the university, there
how to do the Virginia Reel.
is an impending crisis. This crisis takes many forms, including
gentrification, the rising cost of real estate, environmental
ANITA GUPTA, DIRECTOR OF THE
TISCH SCHOLARS PROGRAM:
degradation, racism, stark economic inequality, pandemic
I had shared with some of you in one of our story
disease, and global terrorism. For the arts, the specific crisis is
circles about how uncomfortable I felt when I first got
elitism, which prevents artists from playing their historically
here, thinking that my Indian-ness didn’t belong in
important role of holding up a mirror to all of society. For the
arts, it is a silent crisis, as no one, including those affiliated
Whitesburg. I didn’t know how the week was going to
with
university training programs, is acknowledging it as such.
evolve for me. But each day parts of me have opened up.
For my art form, theater, the evidence of this elitism is found
I had the opportunity to share so much with the people
in
audience surveys which consistently report that both the
here, and had so many people take interest in who I am.
nonprofit and commercial theater audience is 80% white and
That all culminated in last night’s square dance – there
overwhelmingly
from the wealthiest 15% of the population.
were so many complete strangers who just came over
Not only are universities ignoring this rampant elitism, their
and talked to me! I felt like, wow, I guess in my own way
practices are perpetuating it. If the gateway to becoming an
I do belong here. I also just want to say to the Scholars –
artist is now through a very expensive university degree, art
I’ve had the chance to work with you in different subsets,
will
become increasingly exclusionary.
story circles and projects, even just being in the van
together! It’s been incredible. I have so much respect and
regard for each of you. I honor you, and I’m going take
that back to New York with me.
The Implications:
The Tisch Scholars return from Appalshop enthused, ready to take
on the world with their newly developed activist spirits. However,
Elitism not only greatly reduces the talent pool upon which artistic
excellence depends; it cripples the formidable role the arts can
play in a pluralistic society. The effects of elitism in the arts are
especially poignant now when we are fighting global terrorism,
because the only credible path to world peace is through
increasing our tolerance and compassion for one another. It is a
role of the arts to help us find this compassion within ourselves.
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
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For the well being of humankind, the 21st century university
must address the role it is playing in preserving and perpetuating
elitism. Mindful of Appalshop’s theory of change, it is we who
are affiliated with universities who must implicate ourselves
in this problem and begin devising and enacting solutions. For
my student peers, we must become active in university politics,
knowing our tuition is the fuel that the university runs on.
I find hope in the democratizing efforts being spearheaded
by some inspired faculty and students at universities. At NYU,
the Tisch Drama Department offers a Minor in Applied Theater,
conceived and directed by Professor Jan Cohen-Cruz, who is
currently working to transform it into a major. The major would
include a studio specifically designed to train theater artists
committed to using their skills to further justice. Cohen-Cruz
also runs the Office of Community Connections, a clearinghouse,
which helps connect Tisch students to community engagement
opportunities in the city. In the past five years, the Tisch
Department of Art and Public Policy was formed, and it recently
created a socially-relevant core curriculum for all freshmen
undergraduate arts students: “Art and the World” and “The World
through Art.” In fall 2007, the Department will also launch a
Graduate Program in Arts Politics. And then, of course, there is the
ever-evolving Tisch Scholars Program. This year’s weekly sessions
are framed by the theme, “Paradigms of Privilege.” In retrospect,
had I not encountered such socially conscious curricula, I may not
have gained awareness of my own level of privilege, nor would I
have understood the opportunity my privilege offers me to fight
for social, economic, and cultural justice.
DUDLEY COCKE, INTERIM DIRECTOR OF APPALSHOP,
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF ROADSIDE THEATER:
There’s a phrase down here in the mountains that
goes, “Don’t get above your raisin’.” You can imagine
that in planning this NYU immersion some friends and
neighbors have said, “Why are you messing around with
an elite university in New York City? You know that a
large part of our poverty here was caused by just such
privileged institutions. Looks to me, son, that you’re
trying to get above your raisin’.” I’ve responded, “Right,
NYU is an elite institution with privilege, but that doesn’t
mean that the people there have completely bought into
that privilege. In fact, we often find that the students
and faculty who visit us here care deeply about justice.”
I think this weeklong immersion and exchange is
evidence that this is not about copping to some sort of
elitism. It’s not what you’ve come here for, and we at
Appalshop thank you for that.”
Home, New Orleans?: Community
Arts Program Post-Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina exposed, for the world to see, the limitations of
established institutions – governmental and nonprofit – in responding
immediately and effectively to community needs. What is less well
known are the ways in which individuals organized at the grassroots
level to help themselves where those institutions failed.
Shawn Vantree, Director Community Arts Program, Xavier
University of Louisiana Department of Art
coming. In the interim, individuals and churches organized to feed,
clothe, and shelter people the Red Cross refused to help.
Hurricane Katrina exposed, for the world to see, the
limitations of established institutions – governmental and
nonprofit – in responding immediately and effectively to
community needs. What is less well known are the ways in
which individuals organized at the grassroots level to help
themselves where those institutions failed.
Even now, after Katrina, the most immediate and effective work in
rebuilding New Orleans seems to be happening at the grassroots
level. Bureaucracy and sloth – primarily at the institutional
level – are slowing the pace of recovery. What role, then, is left
for an established institution like Xavier University to play in the
restoration of New Orleans?
For instance, long before the National Guard began its
rescue operations, Louisianans took to the floodwaters in
every bass boat, speedboat, and rowboat they could find to
start helping their fellow citizens in New Orleans. For several
weeks following Katrina, the Red Cross maintained a policy
of denying assistance to evacuees who were not staying in
one of its shelters. This meant that anyone staying in a hotel,
with family members – even in shelters that were not official
Red Cross shelters – could not get the help they thought
they would be getting from the Red Cross. The Red Cross
eventually reversed its policy, but that reversal was slow in
For its part, Xavier’s Department of Art, through its Community
Arts Program, is assessing the way it works in community to
ensure that it is able to respond to community needs in ways
that are effective in light of New Orleans’ new reality. We have
had to come to terms with the fact that immediacy is not our
strong suit. Universities are not built for speed. Typically, several
layers of administration must approve projects before they are
implemented. What we do well, instead, is share funding (obtained
in part because of our standing as a respected university), labor,
and creativity with artists and organizations already working in
the community.
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
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To illustrate, we began working this spring with the New Orleans
Kid Camera Project, which was created by two local artists, Cat
Malovic and Joanna Rosenthal, to address the psychological and
emotional impacts of Hurricane Katrina on children returning
home to New Orleans. Through the use of photography, creative
writing and mixed media, children from flooded neighborhoods
explore their environment and express themselves, their stories
and feelings with their friends. Cat and Joanna, as individual,
concerned artists, started this project at a time when Xavier’s
campus was closed for repairs and all but its basic operations
suspended. We were not in a position to act as quickly as the
founders of Kid Camera, but we have since committed, at their
request, to helping them sustain the good work they started.
Specifically, Kid Camera came to us seeking resources to ensure
that their work with youth in Gert Town, the neighborhood
where Xavier is located, would always be supported. In response,
we have developed an Advanced Photography service-learning
course to be offered each year in which Xavier students teach
basic photography and darkroom skills to Kid Camera youth.
importance of home and communities coming together to build
a stronger New Orleans. Neighborhood collaborators include the
NENA (Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association) Center,
Martin Luther King Elementary School, Lakeview Baptist Church,
Ashe Cultural Center, the Economic Opportunity Center, and The
Porch. Plans are to offer this course each spring.
We are still working out the logistics of our collaboration, but
the course and its related projects are generating excitement
in the local community arts field. All who are involved with the
project are committed to the idea that we can find new ways of
working together – institutions, artists, and community-based
organizations – to effect change. In New Orleans, our survival and
recovery depend upon our willingness to do just that.
“All who are involved with the project
are committed to the idea that
we can find new ways of working
In fact, we are increasing our involvement in service-learning
because it offers, not only meaningful learning opportunities for
our students, but also opportunities to provide community arts
initiatives with the kind of stability that large institutions (despite
whatever short comings they may have) are able to give. Precisely
because universities have tremendous resources which they can
use in support of community work, Xavier has partnered with
three other schools, Tulane, Dillard, and New York Universities, to
co-offer and co-teach ART 2600 Building Community Through
the Arts, a service-learning course with projects taking place
simultaneously in four New Orleans neighborhoods under the
umbrella title Home, New Orleans?. Students are working with
residents in the 7th and 9th Wards, Lakeview, and Central City to
create public art, installations, and performances to reflect the
56
together – institutions, artists, and
community-based organizations – to
effect change.”
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
We Interrupt Our Regular Programming (B.A. & M.F.A.) To Bring You This Announcement:
Arts Training Needs a Fixin
for the 21st C. Not-So-Free Market
“I wasn’t quite sure what I would encounter but the title was
right in line with my own interests concerning arts education,
who is (not) trained as an artist, and the function of art in
contemporary society.”
Eugene Rodriguez, Visual Arts Instructor DeAnza College
November 2006 I attended the symposium, “Crafting A Vision
for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement: Convening the Community
Arts Field in Higher Education”, hosted by the Center for Art
and Public Life at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.
I wasn’t quite sure what i would encounter but the title was right
in line with my own interests concerning arts education, who is
(not) trained as an artist, and the function of art in contemporary
society. The morning started off with an invigorating and sobering
plenary by Claudine Kinnard Brown and Marcel Diallo as well as
a performance by Unity Lewis. Then came the workshops, which
focused on the mission of the Center for Public Art and Life and
then jumped off from there. All the sessions I attended were so
inspiring and creative in the ways they elaborated on the topic of
the symposium. From Art in the Market to The Working Artist to
then to New Collaborations, it was exciting to see so many people
redefining “artist” and not “ostrich-izing” themselves off from the
larger world. At the end of the symposium i was encouraged by
all the people I met, the conversations and the work being done.
It also brought to mind a paper I delivered at the School of Visual
Arts Annual Conference, “In the Global World: American Art and
Art Education” in New York in 2005. The paper was titled, “We
Interrupt Our Regular Programming (B.A. & M.F.A.) To Bring You
This Announcement: Arts Training Needs a Fixin” for the 21st C.
Not So Free Market”. The following is an excerpt.
In these Dickensian times, half the population of the world lives
on less than $2 a day, and most of the art looks like moribund
exercises from an expiring empire. Nearly half of all Latinos and
more than half of African Americans don’t even graduate from
high school. Who gets to be an artist and who doesn’t because
art programs have been eliminated so that many young people
don’t have any idea of what it means to be an artist. This is
my concern and my fear. And what about the training that
does occur? Is it too instep with the “free market”? I believe
so. This paper is not meant to be a fix-all but more to act as a
wake up call with the intention of jump-starting conversations
about how to rethink arts training in the United States, from
the community college to graduate school, with a focus on
promoting greater cultural democracy.
Criticism
It seems peculiar that I’ve just recently fallen in love with art and
now it’s over. There has been a great deal written about the “end
of art” from Arthur Danto to Donald Kuspit and more recently,
John Updike, just to name a few. One of the first things that
strikes me about this phenomenon is that they’re all men and
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
57
all white. Now part of me knows that it is a generational thing
to decry anything that the succeeding generations create as not
as good as the previous one. How could it be, right? But while
there are some points I tend to agree on with all of these critics,
one thing they never approach is the subject of class. And while
a few, such as Robert Hughes, Julian Stallabrass, or Peter Timms
do mention work outside the European canon, most of these
men rarely include critiques about art making practices by critics
such as Mari Carmen Ramirez from MFAH who is doing a lot of
writing about Latin@ and Latin American Art or George Yudice
or bell hooks (who has written extensively on art) or Elaine
Kim, Margo Machida and Sharon Mizota, whose book on Asian
American art is groundbreaking. Mostly we get Lucy Lippard,
whose work I respect a great deal, but I wish the men would
broaden their horizons as well as begin to offer up critiques of
their own positions of power. Another fact that these men never
touch upon, because they only grumble about the sad state
of art in galleries or museums and only in large metropolitan
centers, is the disconnect between how art is taught (when
it is taught at all and increasingly not at all) in K-12 and the
difference of how it is taught in college. This means community
college, four-year schools and graduate schools, public or private.
I have had the privilege of attending all of these.
Early Training
If we begin to look back at how our artists are trained we need
to go back to K-12. In looking back at my own public schooling
in Oxnard, which at the time was a small farming community
in southern California in the 60’s, I would say I had an okay
education. I remember finger painting in kindergarten, the men’s
chorus in seventh and eighth grades and drama in the ninth.
And I would say that having David Penhallow as a teacher saved
my life. Not only did he teach drama but he also taught Film
Criticism, which was when the idea of film as an art form was
first planted in my mind. In that class we viewed films such as
Stagecoach, Patch of Blue, Citizen Kane, The Pawnbroker and
others. However, we didn’t just watch them. We studied them
for point of view, framing, director’s voice, genres and why
Hollywood found them important to keep making. I would later
come to recognize Sergei Eisenstein’s theories on film in his
teaching. Wow! School finally had a purpose. Just as crucial here
was also the way Mr. Penhallow taught-he treated us like adults
not children. He never condescended to us; never spoke to us as
though we didn’t understand concepts. He had a way – he was
a teacher. And his aim was to make us come alive and perhaps
fall in love with, what he loved about theater and film. It
worked. I now make films and paintings based around the ideas
Mr. Penhallow planted as seeds in our young minds. I was only
twelve years old.
58
Access
Unfortunately this is not to be for young people in Oxnard, whose
public schools are roughly 90% a combination of MexicanAmerican, Chicano and Mexicano. Or for that matter, many other
public schools in this country. Jonathon Kozol’s latest book, The
Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling
in America, paints a very grim picture for K-12 public education
where the No Child Left Behind Act, with its emphasis on testing
and underfunding, seems intent on churning out automatons.
I believe this “blind vision” with the stated goals of students upon
graduation being able to “compete globally”, is no real vision at
all, just plain blind. And while I am not a conspiracy theorist,
I do think it is an attempt to dismantle public education and dare
I say it , art programs. Since art cannot be scientifically “tested
and proven” to benefit society in “market” terms, it must go. Even
though studies have shown that when art is used in education it
not only benefits the person but the many adjacent communities
that the artist comes in contact with. But more threatening
I believe is that art teaches us to see differently, can broaden vistas
for young people, and can create dissent. But this does not happen
for all children enrolled in public schools in this country. In an
article in the October issue of Harper’s by Eilene Zimmerman titled,
“Class Participation”, the author points out the inequalities in our
public schools to levels almost equal to pre-1954 Brown vs. Board
of Education, the law that did away with the “separate but equal”
discriminatory practices in schools. She also points to the archaic
practice of relying on property taxes for school funding as a major
cause for inequities in education. What has this got do with the
arts? Well since art is one of the subjects along with music and
sports, that seems dispensable and not really necessary, one would
think that all children would suffer equally. Not so. Enter your
Local Education Foundations or LEF’s. These are privately operated
non-profits with the sole aim of assisting a school, several schools,
or an entire school district. In California, where I come from,
Proposition 13 passed in 1978, capped property taxes at
1 percent and within a year cut tax revenues by 53 percent literally
decimating art and music programs, physical education and new
textbooks. Originally the LEF’s were started to aid poorer districts
but wealthier communities, particularly in the suburbs quickly
began using the model to aid their own districts. You know where
this is heading-the inequalities have become more pronounced
and the wealthier districts have art and music and sports. I see
this disadvantage in my own school, De Anza College situated in
the Silicon Valley. The school is in Cupertino, ten minutes from
Stanford and mostly upper middle class white and asian. But more
and more students are coming from the east side of San Jose,
which is primarily working class, and poor Latino. The students
from the immediate area are better prepared than those with
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
no arts training. Now this isn’t to say that the San Jose students
won’t step up to the bar but in a country that praises “equality for
all”, wouldn’t it be great if it were true.
Current College Arts Education
This brings me to speak of the current situation for the training
of artists at the college level. Whether it is the community
college or a four year institution, I think it is safe to say that in
the visual arts the training begins with drawing, 2-D Design, 3-D
Design, Painting, Photography and Sculpture (variations on the
Bauhaus and 19th C. education). Art history is also part of this
picture—Intro to the visual arts (also known as visual culture
in some schools), early art from “Prehistory” through early
Christianity, Europe during the middle ages and the Renaissance,
This question is not new. Almost immediately after the passing
of the Morrill Act of 1862, whose mandate was “to promote
the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes
in the several pursuits and professions of life” there arose a
schism between how and who should be taught art and for
what purposes. Liberal arts education held that “the promise of
knowledge, because it is shared, will unify both individual and
culture: it will become understanding.” If the study of art was
to be deemed liberal for those who could attend these schools,
it would have to be taught as history and never for the use of
working or commercial purposes but merely for the purpose
of enlightening patrons. By 1893, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard,
Princeton and Yale all offered graduate courses in the fine arts.
The argument between whether an artist should be trained in
isolation or exposed to the society around him continued into the
twentieth century. With the end of WWII, soldiers returned home,
took advantage of the G.I. Bill and went on to study art. This
definitely increased the number of artists trained and who later
went on to become teachers.
But how did artists go from starving to being celebrities with
their homes on the cover of Architectural Digest? Which brings
us up to the present moment. At last count there were 375
global biennials in the month of September alone. Of course
this is sarcasm and not irony. But while it sounds preposterous,
it does convey my sentiments about the current situation in
Europe from the Baroque through Impressionism, Europe and
the U.S. from Post-Impressionism to the Present, and then
something like Contemporary Issues in Art. At my school we also
offer multicultural art history classes, but here African American
Art, Latino/Chicano Art, Native American and Asian American Art
have all been lumped together. I should say that we also have a
few classes such as Arts of Asia, Women in the Arts, and Public
Places/Private Spaces in American Art. Our Art History program is
actually quite strong for a community college due to two fantastic
people, Elizabeth Mjelde and Catie Cadge-Moore. In the studio
classes, “the Fine Arts”, the emphasis is placed on originality and
the individual. Rarely mentioned is the subject of where this
training will be put to use. In addition to this, our school has a
large majority of “graphic design” majors. And here is the “pyramid
scheme” as termed by Karen Kitchel in a 1998 article in Art Papers.
Where will all of these artists find employment?
the arts. Everybody wants to be a star, from curators, galleries,
and collectors and of course, artists who sometimes are also
“teachers”. My question is “When all of the above are only
concerned about being famous and will do anything do achieve
it, doesn’t that sound like prostitution”? Daniel Boorstin in
his pathbreaking book, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo Events
in America, puts forth the idea, among many, of “the blurring
of reality with fiction” and also the idea of a celebrity as a
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
59
person “ being known for his well known-ness”. Jump forward
and translated in today’s jargon—Bling, Bling! Today we can
see each other immediately on the Internet. We can take a
picture of something and send it to the other side of the world.
We can play the video game, Halo 2, with someone else in the
world while sitting in our living room. The world has definitely
changed. And it would be easy to blame it all on a degenerate
contemporary culture. Not so fast. I would put forth that
“globalization” and its effects are a result of neoliberalism. Lisa
Duggan, author of The Twilight of Equality?: Neoliberalism,
effort bridging disciplines. This year Brian Murphy, the president
of De Anza College, has initiated a campus-wide project that aims
to foster “excellence, equity and enrollment” at our college. I am
fortunate to be part of this task force (along with many other
dedicated faculty, staff and students) titled, “Civic and Community
Engagement”. The project builds on programs that have been
ten years in the making and have worked to produce equity
among our student body regarding proficiency in all subjects,
transfer numbers, and support services for all our students, but
in particular our first generation college students. In our art
“Now I don’t want to slide off the cliff of rationality into the abyss of
cynicism but I do worry about what we are modeling for our students
and demonstrating to society as people in the arts.”
Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy, illuminates this
subject more clearly than anyone I’ve read. She states in short “
the pro-business activism of the late twentieth century aims to
dismantle the limited welfare state (shaped by the New Deal)
in order to enhance corporate profits”. She continues, “from
the 1970’s this project further developed and reconstructed
the everyday life of capitalism, in ways supportive of upward
redistribution of a range of resources, and tolerant of widening
inequalities of many kinds”. I would add that the side effects of
these policies, with their unrealistic model of the individual as
paramount, actually coerce a society into believing that there
is no need for a safety net thereby exacerbating the effects of
alienation and isolation. The current biennial spectacles which
stress celebrity, is just one way to put a nice veneer on all of
this and make it sexy for the general public but especially young
artists in school. More Bling-bling! Now I don’t want to slide off
the cliff of rationality into the abyss of cynicism but I do worry
about what we are modeling for our students and demonstrating
to society as people in the arts. How can we continue to delude
ourselves that what we see in art magazines, pick any of them,
don’t really address our age of uncertainty and turmoil. I repeat,
half the population of the world lives on less than $2 a day. Do
we really believe that by deeming some artists as superstars and
having them globetrot to another biennale actually accomplishes
something related to artmaking? I think not. But how do we go
about remedying this situation?
Art Ain’t What It Used To Be – But It Still Has
The Power To Transform
These are big challenges and if major changes in the training and
education of artists is to occur they must be institutional. I believe
these shifts in thinking must also be part of a larger concerted
60
department, we have worked hard to bring a “multicultural-global
perspective” to the curriculum. This has not been easy. Change is
hard especially when it involves re-thinking worldviews and how
our own positions and professions relate to them. I want to share
with you two courses from our department that address these
topics. The first is “The Artist in Contemporary Society: Connecting
Theory and Practice”, that my colleague, Elizabeth, and I developed
together. It challenges the students to think about the world and
their place in it and then asks the question of what kind of artist
will they be? The students read about art, write on art, and have
small and large discussions on art as well. They also make art in
a group, with a community and solo to acquaint them with the
different roles assigned to an artist in society. For this class I have
drawn on the writings of Mary Jane Jacob, Carol Becker, Howard
Singerman, Karen Mary Davalos, Tricia Rose, and Joost Smiers to
name a few. All of these people are critiquing the current state
of the arts but are also putting forth ideas to re-invigorate how
art can make a difference. The second class, which I am currently
developing, is “Art and Community: Democracy in Action”. This
course will prepare students for civic engagement through the
traditional art practice of mural making. Throughout the process
of researching and creating the mural, I and the De Anza students
will serve as mentors to a nearby high school that has a large
Latino population and provide a positive introduction to the
college experience. Later we plan to develop projects involving
digital photography, film, theater, and dance. Now I realize that
neither of these classes is groundbreaking. The School at the Art
Institute of Chicago and the California College of the Arts in
Oakland as well as others have similar offerings. But I think a big
difference (along with tuition costs) is that in many schools the
emphasis is still put on the gallery/museum path as the ultimate
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
for a “real artist”. After all who wouldn’t want to be famous—but
at what price?
I now return to the “end of art”. What it looks like may have
changed but the machine that promotes it hasn’t. The first
example I would cite is Eli Broad’s, a housing developer magnate,
donation of his art collection to LACMA and his commitment
to build a new contemporary wing with the stipulation that the
building don his name. The second example is Mr. Brioda’s, also
a housing developer magnate, donation of his art collection to
New York’s MoMA. There will be an exhibit of the collection in
2007. What are the rules for tax deductions pertaining to art?
And whom did the two moguls consult with regarding their art
purchases? Doesn’t all of this seem like insider trading? Here
I would cite Chin-tao Wu’s, Privatizing Culture: Corporate Art
Intervention since the 1980’s as essential reading on the subject.
In the book, Wu states that “since the 1980’s, corporate art
collections have been set up with increasing frequency on both
sides of the Atlantic.” She goes on to say that “They have also
successfully transformed art museums and galleries into their
and political spectrum are trapped together in a lifeboat after
a Nazi U-boat attack. The scene which comes to mind is one
in which Tallulah Bankhead, who plays a sophisticated writer,
seems more interested in keeping her mink and lipstick fresh.
Begrudgingly she offers up her expensive gem studded bracelet,
given to her by a gentleman friend, as a lure in hopes of catching
a fish for all of them to eat. Unfortunately the bracelet falls into
the ocean and her first reaction is shock and then horror. However,
she slowly comes to realize that they are all in the same boat
together and material things don’t really matter at that point.
I think we all need to take a long look at ourselves in the mirror,
check our values, then offer up our “gem studded bracelets” and
get to work. The lifeboat is taking on water and it will sink if we
do not act fast. Thank you.
own public-relations vehicles, by taking over the function, and
by exploiting the social status, that cultural institutions enjoy in
our society.” I think we are at a moment when we need to decide
which is more important—to have our 15 minutes of fame (which
some people have had 15 hours) or work to assure that being an
artist and the ability to re-envisage it, is open to as many people
as possible. I do believe art has the power to transform lives and
communities, but only when the definition is broadened beyond
the confines of corporations looking to appear altruistic in the
public’s eyes.
In closing, I am reminded of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1944 film, Lifeboat,
based on a story by John Steinbeck. It is an allegory of the world
conflict in which a group of people representing a wide cultural
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
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Campus–Community Partnerships:
Supporting or Destroying
the Field of Community Arts?
Sonia BasSheva Mañjon, PhD, Vice President Diversity &
Strategic Partnerships Wesleyan University (former Director
Center for Art and Public Life
Community Arts as a practicing field of community-based
organizations working with artists has existed independently of
higher education but not without impact to or from the academy.
Art movements have influenced the development of art schools
and colleges, supported the efforts of social movements, and
illustrated civil- and humanrights activities. Through critical and
thorough examination of the Arts and Crafts Movement, the
Harlem Renaissance, the Black and Chicano Arts Movements and
currently the Hip Hop Movement, one can witness how artists
and community activists have collaborated in ways that connect
social justice, equity and diversity to ideologies and identity
representation that are profound and revealing.
Financial resources have always lagged behind these movements.
Artists have been and continue to be incredibly resourceful when
it comes to mounting an exhibit, installing public art, publishing,
or producing a performance. They lead philanthropic efforts by
producing the new avant-garde, delivering the next contemporary
aesthetic, and creating pop culture icons that subsequently
become corporatized and comodified. Once artists create the
next new best thing, funding agencies launch new initiatives
and philanthropers allocate funding. The next phase becomes the
expectation that the artists/arts organizations will sustain the level
of financial support without continued funding or resources from
funders by building internal capacity.
Campus-community partnerships gained recognition with the
emergence of the servicelearning field of study. The 1960s and
early ‘70s gave rise to the Civil Rights Movement, the War on
Poverty and the antiwar movement. Both the community and
academy were stages for protest, civil disobedience and radical
ideologies about how to make change. Community activist and
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educators were drawn together around the idea of action in
community or civic engagement combined with reflective learning
practices. In the academy we witnessed these movements through
Ethnic Studies, African American Studies, Chicano Studies and
Asian Studies departments. The combination of community action
with learning connected service in communities to social justice
and transformation. Also known as civic engagement, action
inquiry and community-based learning, this new pedagogy drew
in higher-educational institutions through the stimulus of federal,
state and local funding to colleges and universities engaging in
this work.
The Corporation for National Community Service, a federal
funding agency in Washington D.C., has a mission to improve lives,
strengthen communities and foster civic engagement through
service and volunteering. This is done through specific programs
Senior Corps, AmeriCorps and Learn and Service America. Learn
and Serve America provides grants to schools, higher-education
institutions and community-based organizations that engage
students, their teachers and others in service to meet community
needs. Multi-year funding from this program supports campuscommunity partnerships nationally. California College of the
Arts benefited from Learn and Serve America through sequential
funding to establish the Center for Art and Public Life as a local
convener of campus-community partnerships using a servicelearning pedagogy and civic-engagement framework. The
Corporation also connected many institutions to local Campus
Compact organizations. Campus Compact is a national coalition of
college and university presidents committed to the civic purposes
of higher education. To support this civic mission, Campus
Compact promotes community service that develops students’
citizenship skills and values, encourages collaborative partnerships
between campuses and communities, and assists faculty who
seek to integrate public and community engagement into their
teaching and research.
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
In 1999, the Lilia Wallace Foundation funded a consortium of six
art colleges and their community partners who serve youth. This
consortium became identified as the Community Arts Partnership
Institute (CAPI) and the partnerships were known as the
Community Arts Partnerships (CAP). CAPI facilitated the sharing
of successful strategies and supported the work through annual
convenings and workshops, technical assistance, sponsorship
of site visits and peer mentoring, Web site development and
maintenance, and publications. The institutions involved in this
partnership included: Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA),
Columbia College Chicago, California State University Monterey
Bay, Xavier University of Louisiana, Cooper Union and Institute for
American Indian Arts.
This began a new initiative in funding community-campus
partnerships whose work was not only with community socialservice agencies, but who also worked with art organizations.
Nathan Cummings Foundation, National Endowment for the
Arts, Irvine Foundation and others continue to support this
work. One problem with this new model can be seen as college
and universities increase their funding to work with community
organizations, specifically cultural art organizations, there is also
a simultaneous decrease in funding for cultural art organizations.
It is conjecture on my part to say that funding for communitybased activity is being diverted to the academy through service
learning and campus-community partnerships that are initiated by
the academy. As we [higher education] train our students to work
in the community, we have to bear witness to our community
partners experiencing funding setbacks and, in some cases, closure.
Three Major Initiatives
I will discuss three major initiatives that I participate in that
examine and critique campus community partnerships on three
levels, local, state and national/international. The local initiative,
100 Families Oakland: Art & Social Change, originated in Oakland,
California, in 2004 to engage families and neighbors in the
process of making art to encourage human engagement and civic
participation. In 2002, I became an active participant in California
Campus Compact, a membership organization of colleges and
universities who utilize service learning in supporting community
service through partnerships and collaborations. The national/
international initiative is Voices from the Cultural Battlefront:
Organizing for Equity, a 20-year conversation through conferences,
meetings and a publication, about the role of art and culture in
the struggle for human rights, social justice, cultural equity and
policy, and for a healthy natural environment. My participation in
this dialogue began in 1991 and continues through the present.
All of these initiatives have shaped my politics and core values
about art, education, community and civic engagement.
100 FAMILIES OAKLAND:
Art & Social Change
In 2004, F. Noel Perry, founder of 100 Families Oakland: Art &
Social Change, and the California College of the Arts Center
for Art and Public Life (Center) partnered to launch the 100
Families Oakland Project. The mission of 100 Families Oakland
is to enliven the creative spirit and celebrate the power of
families and neighborhoods in Oakland through the inspiring
and transformative process of making art. This is done by
engaging families in making art and sculpture centered on the
theme of family in order to achieve a better understanding of
self, family and community. Through involvement in a creative
and imaginative process, participants have the opportunity to
envision possibilities, environments and types of relationships not
previously considered. In the long term, through involvement in
a common project where new possibilities are envisioned, diverse
groups around the city can build stronger connections among
themselves and with community leaders, increasing the capacity
of these groups to jointly solve problems facing their communities.
The pilot year of the project, January 2005 through April 2006,
brought together 25 to 30 families per site at the East Oakland
Youth Development Center, Oakland Asian Cultural Center, Unity
Council’s Fruitvale Transit Village and the M. Robinson Baker YMCA,
hosted by the Attitudinal Healing Connection in West Oakland
to take art classes and create paintings, drawings and sculptures
centered on themes and issues of importance to each family.
There was a curricular component in which artists were selected
to develop art workshops that would engage families, encourage
collaboration between family members and neighbors, and create
art works that could be shown in exhibitions in various venues
in Oakland. The exhibitions celebrated the power of family, the
creative spirit of Oakland, and what art can mean to a community
in terms of connecting families and neighborhoods.
Building Collaborations from the Ground Up
During the 100 Families pilot year, the major task was to create
a collaborative process with organizations and agencies that had
not previously worked together. This situation warranted the
commitment and cooperation of many individuals collaborating
to achieve a common goal and to accommodate the needs of
100 families and more than 500 individuals. While, the process
of implementing the 100 Families Oakland project was daunting
at times, a core team of individuals worked extraordinarily well
together due to sound knowledge, insights and connections,
which resulted in a firm platform to build the project and
move it forward.
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There were various leadership components, individuals and
organizations that participated to ensure the success of the project.
The primary project team consisted of three individuals — founder
F. Noel Perry; myself, project manager; and exhibition manager
Cherie Newell — who collaborated on every aspect of the project
and brought together additional individuals and organizations
during planning and implementation phases. A planning group was
assembled by the founder to assist in developing the foundation
and initial template for the project. A leadership council was invited
to assist in fundraising and act in an advisory capacity. A halfday planning charrette was hosted at the Oakland Museum to
introduce the project to community artists and activists who
would focus the planning process on real issues affecting Oakland
residents and neighborhoods. Host sites were selected that
represented diverse constituents in Oakland and had expertise
in developing and implementing community activities with art
components. A group of artists were hired to work with the families
to create artwork and build social networks. Finally, a group of
individuals with expertise in design, photography, filmmaking,
marketing and public relations, fundraising and exhibit installation
added the missing components needed in professionalizing and
sustaining the project.
New partnerships with the City of Oakland Office of Parks and
Recreation, United Way of the Bay Area, the Annie E. Casey
Foundation’s Making Connections and Alameda County Office
of Education Arts Active Parents Project have engaged new
participants by bringing the 100 Families Oakland Project to
recreation centers, schools and additional community-based
organizations throughout the City of Oakland. The Center
also strives to engage past participants in order to deepen its
relationships with neighborhoods and sustain art making among
these families.
64
It is the goal of the 100 Families Oakland Project through the
Center for Art and Public Life to continue the work in subsequent
years with the same Oakland neighborhoods, while adding new
communities, leading to sustained art making and community
involvement among families, neighborhoods and communities.
However, building partnerships is easier than sustaining them,
especially if the funding is going to and through the college.
While all the partners benefited financially during the 100 Families
implementation phase, the program has yet to show an impact on
community institution building and sustainability. As community
organizational sustainability was not an initial objective for the
program, it has become an issue as the collaboration relies on
community-based art organizations. The leadership council is
now examining how the program can be sustained within the
community incorporating the college as a partner, not necessarily
as the main partner. Some funders have agreed to continue support
for the program whether or not the college is the anchor partner.
The group is currently examining how to integrate 100 Families
Oakland into a comprehensive citywide arteducation model that
would use collaboration as the overall leadership model.
California Campus Compact
In order to assess and understand the needs of community
partners and the impact of service learning on the relationship
between university and community, the Center for Art and Public
Life participated in Community Voices: A California Campus
Compact Study on Partnerships (April 2007). California Campus
Compact, formed in 1988 as an association of colleges and
university leaders in California, supports more than 60 member
institutions of higher education as they develop strategies to
integrate community service learning and academic study. In
December 2004, I participated in a two-day retreat with eight
other universities to assess our community-partnership structure
and develop tools to address how to better provide services
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
in an equitable and collaborative way. What was realized at
the retreat was that our conversation was void of a critical
component – partner input. None of the partners were a part
of the conversation, so the information was “one-sided.” One of
the next steps identified was to create a process for communitypartner input.
Spring 2005 provided this opportunity. Sponsored by the
California Campus Compact, 99 community partners in California
participated in 15 focus groups to examine their understanding
of service learning, mutual benefits and reciprocity of benefits for
the community partner. Eighteen of CCA’s community partners
participated in the focus groups. The feedback that pertains to the
Center for Art and Public Life is summarized as follows:
The community partner participants in the focus group
at CCA demonstrated a tremendously deep commitment
to and practice of co-educating college students and
the potential for creating a more just society through
campus-community partnerships. Because most of these
partners are directly involved with cultivating the arts
through education in society as well as furthering arts
education for the purposes of social transformation,
they come to the partnership table in solidarity with the
goals of California College of the Arts. Most participants
expressed that both sides of the partnership – community
and campus -- are all working for the same goal, rather
than each party seeking institutional self-interests that
are separate. The theme of social justice and individual
and societal transformation through the arts and
education was particularly strong. Many expressed the
desire that college students will be inspired to be lifelong
learners, activists and artists and that participating in
campus-community partnerships is a way for them to
contribute to the cause of social justice as well.
The heart of the partnership experience is the
relationships that are cultivated through open
communication and friendship. A hallmark of “getting
the partnership started” is taking the time to learn one
another’s work cultures, strengths, weaknesses and
institutional constraints, and developing a sensitivity to
“institutional equity,” particularly when larger and smaller
organizations partner together. They reflected that
there are many personal benefits for their involvement
in the campus partnership, including personal growth,
developing satisfying personal relationships with
staff, faculty and students, and strengthening the arts
network and “social capital” in general. They stressed
that characteristics of healthy partnerships include room
for feedback, reflection, appreciation and evaluation,
and that evaluation should be built in at the inception
of partnership projects. Successful partnerships that
are sustained over time are effective – at a time when
resources are scarce, it is important that partnerships
get “twice the work done in half the time” rather than
creating twice the work. Learning to navigate the various
bureaucratic structures of the partner organizations
involved can be challenging.
Because of their commitment to participating in the
education of college students, some partners wish to
participate more fully in orchestrating the learning
experience in the future. They would especially
appreciate more feedback on what students have learned
through their service experience. The college may also
wish to strengthen the important role they play in acting
as a convener of arts partners, to continue to deepen
the many relationships they have already cultivated
with them, and to consider together how the group
might build on effective characteristics of partnerships
community partners outlined. While the heart of a
good partnership is based on informal relationships,
these partners indicate that written agreements, MOUs
[memoranda of understanding] and other “paper
infrastructure” are helpful as guides. It may be important
for this campus to note that while they expressed a deep
commitment to the goals of service learning the term
“service learning” did not resonate particularly strongly
with this group.
The focus groups yielded valuable comments that included
our partners’ experience and perspective on motivations and
benefits of the community-campus partnership. While partner
organizations agreed that doors were opened providing new
resources, opportunities and access to new information and
future trends in industry, they also examined the challenges such
as partner equity and contested the meaning of service learning.
Promoting equity and social justice was of major importance.
I do believe education is one of the major inroads to
try to create that equity. And I would say that it is
imperative that campus-community partnerships are
about that goal. Yeah, everybody. Higher-education
organizations should have that public education facility
to the community in a way that allows that this is a
model. In our case, we had high school students or
kids that are planning to drop out or have dropped
out or are drug dealers or are rehab people, and they
may not even live [in the target neighborhood] but are
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
65
being recommended to come and participate [in this
university-sponsored program]. It is an opportunity for
them to be able to enter a system that they might not
be able to enter, period. But until these partnerships
continue to happen, we won’t be able to scale that
change. It can create the equity that we hope will
happen. We’re investing in the equity that we hope
we’ll see happen.
– CCA Partner
The published report of the California Campus Compact,
“Community Voices,” was released in April 2007. Of notable
importance to the Center was the recognition of characteristics
of effective partnerships, and benefits for community partners
and student. The process of community-campus partnerships that
began in 2004 in part led to the development of the Community
Arts BFA at the California College of the Arts. The Community
Arts major is an interdisciplinary, community-based approach
to creative practice. This major explores ways artists interact,
collaborate and intervene in a variety of social networks with the
aim of building sustainable community relationships, engaging
cultural diversity and stimulating social transformation. Students
study the history of community arts and draw from a wide
range of cultural theories and practices in art, critical studies, art
education, service learning and civic engagement. Encouraged to
experiment with new genres, mediums and technologies, students
create their own set of hybrid practices, adding new thinking
and ideas to the field of community arts. Students can choose
a specific methodology of practice that includes: art education,
studio practice, community engagement and/or arts management.
VOICES FROM THE CULTURAL BATTLEFRONT:
Organizing for Equity
The final initiative that has provided me with the most consistent
and longstanding engagement in the area of civic engagement is
Voices from the Cultural Battlefront: Organizing for Equity. Voices
is an ongoing 20-year national and international conversation
about the role of art and culture within the struggle for human
rights, social justice, cultural equity and, most recently, for a
healthy natural environment. Hundreds of activists grounded in the
cultural life of their communities from all seven continents have
participated in these conversations. Joining together to address the
right to culture and the impact of global free-market capitalism
on this right, participants have represented a variety of disciplines,
including art, youth services, education, health and more.
The forums have been convened by a core group of U.S. artists
and community organizers, including Marta Moreno Vega,
Caribbean Cultural Center, N.Y.; Dudley Cocke, Roadside Theater,
66
Ky.; Olga Garay, Department of Cultural Affairs Los Angeles,
Calif.; Kalamu ya Salaam, Listen to the People Project, New
Orleans, La.; Sonia BasSheva Mañjon, Center for Art and Public
Life, Oakland, Calif.; Bernice Johnson Reagon, founder, Sweet
Honey in the Rock, Washington, D.C.; Amalia Mesa-Bains,
California State University Monterey Bay, Calif.; Tonya Gonnella
Frichner, American Indian Law Alliance, N.Y.; Peter Pennekamp,
Humboldt Area Foundation, Calif.; Claudine Brown, Nathan
Cummings Foundation, N.Y.; E’Vonne Coleman-Cook, Duke
University, N.C.; Caron Atlas, Center for Civic Participation, N.Y.;
and John Kuo-Wei (Jack) Tchen, New York University, N.Y. Recent
conveners of the dialogue include Marinieves Alba, International
Hip-Hop Exchange (IHX), N.Y.; Jamie Haft, Imagining America,
N.Y.; Maurice Turner, Highlander Center, Tenn.; Carlton Turner,
Alternate ROOTS, Miss.; Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Third World
Majority, Calif.; and Nick Szuberla, Appalshop, Ky.
A result of an earlier dialogue was a publication, “Voices from the
Battlefront: Achieving Cultural Equity” (1993), which documented
the spirit and thinking of the early convenings, especially two
international conferences, “Cultural Diversity Based on Cultural
Grounding,” hosted by the Caribbean Cultural Center: Africa
Diaspora Institute in New York City in 1989 and 1991. The book
is a collective call to action by African American, Latino, Asian
and Native American cultural workers, scholars, activists and
artists towards political, social, economic and cultural equity and
community change.
This political and cultural dialogue was initially conceived of and
hosted by Marta Moreno Vega, founder and president of the board
for The Franklin H. Williams Caribbean Cultural Center in New York.
The momentum gained through this ongoing conversation has
produced forums and meetings in various cities in the U.S. and
abroad. Most important, it has elevated the discourse on cultural
policy and equity in disenfranchised communities using cultural
organizing as the framework.
Voices from the Cultural Battlefront represents artists and
community activists who are locally based and who examine how
global developments impact local community issues. Organizing for
cultural equity is the thread that represents joint commonalities
in spite of obvious differences, i.e., language, social structures,
religion and political beliefs. An outcome of the organizing effort
is the development of the Cultural Equity Group (CEG), a coalition
of cultural arts organizations and artists working for the equitable
distribution of funds and resources to assure that under-resourced
and under-served emerging and mid-sized organizations grounded
in the culture and arts of their communities are fairly funded. The
objective of the CEG is to stabilize the field, providing necessary
technical assistance and program management resources to assure
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
the continued growth of the cultural arts field. Marta Moreno Vega,
Caribbean Cultural Center, is using the Voices economic analysis to
propel this effort forward.
The Caribbean Cultural Center (CCC), founded 30 years ago as
part of an extraordinary period of social, political and cultural
development that took place in the United States, and which
directly led to the founding of a number of community-grounded
cultural organizations, is and has been at the forefront of this
movement toward cultural equity. CCC has laid a foundation
based in the Civil Rights Movement, which brought a heightened
consciousness to African Americans, Latinos/Chicanos, Asian/
Pacific Islanders and Native Americans, as well as cultural workers
and artists who saw the value of knowing and owning one’s
own culture as an affirmation of group identity and worth. This
movement extends to organizations across the United States
including but not limited to San Francisco’s Galeria de la
Raza, Berkeley’s La Pena Cultural Center, Los Angeles’ Japanese
American Cultural and Community Center, Inner City Cultural
Center, The Watts Towers Cultural Center, San Antonio’s Carver
Cultural Center, Kentucky’s Appalshop and Roadside Theater,
In 2007, Voices from the Cultural Battlefront forums were
held at New York University, June 8-9, as part of the 30th
anniversary celebration of the Caribbean Cultural Center,
and in New Orleans, December 6-7, as part of the National
Performance Network’s national
conference. These forums focused on the impact of global
free-market capitalism on human rights, local community life
and the natural environment. In 2008, the dialogue continues
at Maryland Institute College of Arts in Baltimore, Md., as part
of the Community Arts Convening & Research Project, March
16-18; Intersections V in Amherst, Mass. at Creative UpRising(s),
April 4-6; and will continue at Alternative ROOTS Annual
Meeting in Arden, N.C., August 5-10; and Imagining America in
Los Angeles, Calif., October 2-4.
Conclusion
all of which grew out of communitygrounded ideals and socialjustice movements, resulting in pioneering groups that are now
reaching their 30th year anniversaries. Simultaneously, there exists
a younger group of cultural organizations that are rooted in their
communities and continuing the struggle for cultural equity and
self-determination. These organizations are between 10 and 25
years old. Equally important is the recognition of the culturally
grounded arts and cultural organizations that were not able to
sustain operations due to decreased government and foundation
funding, conservative environments, the NEA cultural wars, and
infringement of freedom of expression imposed by U.S. Senators
with conservative ideologies.
The simultaneity and force of these initiatives convinces me
to commit further to the integration of community, education
and the arts. In establishing the Center for Art and Public Life
at the California College of the Arts from 2000 to 2008, my
focus has been to continually challenge both the institution
and the community in defining what enables transformative
change and how education integrates with art and community
in producing and sustaining that change. The Center’s mission
is to create community partnerships based on creative practice
that serve the college and the diverse populations of Oakland
and San Francisco. The programs of the Center are now woven
across disciplines into the structure of the college and delivered
through a variety of academic, professional, extracurricular, and
experimental approaches.
Simultaneously, with an internal focus on the San Francisco Bay
Area through partnerships and collaborations, the Center has also
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
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participated in a national consortium of universities and colleges
that are also committed to sustained educational practices
through the arts with identified community partnerships.
California College of the Arts Center for Art and Public Life
and Maryland Institute College of Arts, Columbia College
Chicago Office of Community Art Partnerships, California State
University Monterey Bay, Xavier University of Louisiana Art
Department, Massachusetts College of Art and Cooper Union
are hosting a series of national convening and discussions to
initiate and support the following: 1) to provide students, faculty
and community partners a variety of experiences through
different types of exchanges; 2) to broadly recognize the field of
community arts for its contribution to the promotion of healthy
communities, engaging in work that builds on social justice and
equity, and links communities with artists and arts resources; 3) to
build the capacity of community nonprofit organizations working
with artists, art institutions and diverse populations including
youth, elders and families; and 4) to develop and implement a
peer review process that critically examines curriculum,pedagogy,
practices, theories and projects of academic partners that support
community arts.
Toward these goals, national consortiums of colleges and
universities have successfully engaged in continuous gatherings
beginning with the Wallace Foundation funded Community Arts
Partnership (CAP) Institute 1999 – 2003 which produced two
publications: “p{art}ners Successful Strategies for Developing
Artists and Youth” (2003), and “Art/Vision/Voice: Cultural
Conversations in Community” (2005) a book of cases from CAP.
The subsequent consortium, of which CCA’s Center for Art and
Public Life is a participant, has convened to continue the work
supported by earlier Wallace Foundation support, and is currently
supported by the Nathan Cummings Foundation. These convening
have included “Community Arts at a Crossroads: Where Do We
Go From Here?” which took place in New Orleans, La., June 2-3,
2006, hosted by Xavier University of Louisiana; “Crafting a Vision
for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement: Convening the Community
Arts Field in Higher Education” in Oakland and San Francisco,
Calif., November 2-4, 2006, hosted by the California College of
the Arts; the Community Arts Partnership Institute in Chicago, Ill.,
October 20-25, 2007 hosted by Columbia College Chicago; and
The National Community Arts Convening and Research Project in
Baltimore, Md., March 16–18, 2008, hosted by Maryland Institute
College of Arts.
examine and critique the service-learning pedagogy used in the
academy and question the benefits and reciprocity to and for the
community. In collaborations with the community, how are we
cognizant of equitable distribution of funds, resources and capacity
building between the academy and the community in planning,
developing and implementing these partnerships? How do we
ensure the long-term commitment of the academy in sustaining
these partnerships and not just using them for the semester that
the classes are offered or until the funding is depleted?
As educational institutions train and educate students for public
life and endeavors in art, culture, politics, community building,
health and economics, we must incorporate a pedagogy that
is inclusive of social justice, equity, other ways of knowing and
mutual respect for communities that have been disenfranchised
and silenced by mainstream dominate culture upon which the
Western Academy has been built.
REFERENCES
CAP Institute (2005). Art/Vision/Voice Cultural Conversations in Community.
Chicago, Ill: Columbia College of Chicago & Maryland Institute College of the Arts
Cruz, N., Dwight, G. & Stanton, T (1999). Service-Learning A Movement’s
PioneersReflect on Its Origins, Practice, and Future. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
Manjon, S. (2007). 100 Families Oakland: Art & Social Change. San Francisco, CA:
California College of the Arts
Sandy, M. (2007). Community Voices: A California Campus Compact Study on
Partnerships Final Report. San Francisco, CA: Campus Compact
Spitz, J.A, & Thom, M. (2003). P{ART}NERS Successful Strategies for Developing
Artists and Youth. Chicago, Ill: Columbia College Chicago
Vega, M. M & Greene, C.Y. (1993). Voices from the Battlefront: Achieving Cultural
Equity. New York: Africa World Press
As we continue the dialogue through cultural activism and art
production, we must also support community arts not only as a
field of study, but also as a call to activism through community
engagement and campus-community partnerships. We must
68
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
Students
Speak
“I came to California College of the Arts
(CCA) with no intention to work as an
artist, much less a community artist.
I was going to be an arts historian, a
curator, a dealer in the arts, an arts
lobbyist. I was interested in learning
how history through the arts brought
it to life; it provided a window into the
emotional struggles and celebrations of
past civilizations.”
Mia Braverman
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Report
69
The Intergenerational Tango
“As the conference opened with cocktails, for a moment we found
ourselves star-struck. Excited to be clinking glasses with the big “who’s
who” of community arts, we nearly got out our autograph books, until
we realized – wait! We have a lot to offer this field, too!”
MacKenzie Fegan and Jamie Haft, Alumni, Tish School of the Arts,
New York University
It’s a simple principle learned in kindergarten and one inherent
in community arts theory and practice: taking turns. We take
turns leading and following, teaching and learning. It’s a principle
recently evidenced by the fact that we, two college seniors, had
the opportunity to lead a session for well-respected members of
our field – many of whom, were we back at our universities, would
be teaching us!
As the conference opened with cocktails, for a moment we found
ourselves star-struck. Excited to be clinking glasses with the big
“who’s who” of community arts, we nearly got out our autograph
books, until we realized – wait! We have a lot to offer this field,
too! I mean, sure, we don’t have 35 years of activist experience in
our back pockets, but surely – somehow – two 21 year-olds with
sharp generational perspectives and quick-working minds can
participate as equals!
One hitch in the intergenerational tango stems from the
hierarchical nature of higher education. Typically, the
community-based arts programs at our universities are
formulated by administrators, taught by faculty, and supervised
by TAs – all to be consumed by the students whose tuition is
paying for the entire affair. Even if our professors subscribe to
70
Freireian teaching methods, students still must satisfy deans by
taking tests and submitting academic essays, and they rarely
have a say in the types of curricula they are offered.
The problem with this hierarchy becomes apparent when
answering the provocative question Dr. Marta Vega posed in her
keynote address: “What exactly is community arts?” The NYU/
Appalshop immersion, the subject of our conference session,
provides an answer: Community arts is when artists use their
skills to help the entire community pursue social, economic, and
cultural justice. Because universities operate in a market economy,
their practice becomes that of presuming authority over a subject
and delivering knowledge to student-consumers. This hierarchical
pedagogy does not adequately support collective learning, and
because justice is an ideal yet to be enacted – of which no one
has presumed authority – the search for it will be most effective
as a collective endeavor, in which each person’s knowledge and
experience is valued.
Both of us, as students, appreciate the important opportunity we
were given to design and lead a conference session. At the next
conference, we would like to see an equitable mix of students,
faculty, and community activists involved in all conference
activities, from the initial planning to the delivery of keynote
addresses. Here’s to the next conference being the occasion for an
even more passionate intergenerational tango!
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
Washi: Handmade Paper,
Handing on Wisdom
Mia Braverman, Alumni Community Arts Program,
California College of the Arts
Coming Home
I am learning that you must take advantage of what
is given to you. You must. It is your responsibility.
Responsibility does not have to be a burden…you can
transform it into a rich purpose…meaning, goals,
passion, TRUTH.
-Journal entry, September 2006
From the support of my family to the conversations I have with
my friends, I am always trying to take advantage of what I have
been given. I feel that each experience you have in life is part
of a greater lesson in discovering your role in the world. The
more attention you pay to every experience, the more tools you
acquire in playing that role. As I begin to discover my role as a
community artist, I realize that my tool box is far from full, but
as I fall into character, I find meaning and passion—I find my
truth. It’s a scary place to be, to feel like you are beginning to
really know who you are, who you are going to be and how you
are going get there, because now, you have to go and do it. Now
is the time to take action.
When you have been moved, you must take action. It is a
lift off moment, a point of departure.
From an art history major, to a fine arts major, and finally to a
community arts major, I feel like I have returned home from a
long trip and am now ready to start my life. From the people that
I have met to the passion I have for the work I have been involved
in, I know I am in the right place. But knowing came from not
knowing, from a constant state of inquiry, from taking advantage
of the opportunities I have been given.
Theory and Practice
I came to CCA with no intention to work as an artist, much less a
community artist. I was going to be an arts historian, a curator, a
dealer in the arts, an arts lobbyist. I was interested in learning how
history through the arts brought it to life; it provided a window
into the emotional struggles and celebrations of past civilizations.
This was how I was introduced to the power of art as influence,
but learning how to talk about it and who was talking about left
me feeling unsatisfied. I felt as if I was walking around in a world
with my hands tied behind my back and all I had to defend myself
were words and they didn’t even seem to be my own. I needed
more, I needed to express my own struggles and celebrations—I
needed my hands. It was after taking 3-D with Kevin Elston, that I
began to investigate my role as an artist.
“Mr. Elston, I think I have fallen in love with the
wood-burning tool.”
“Mia, you can call me Kevin.”
-Journal entry December 2006
“Of course Mr.…I mean Kevin.”
And where do I see myself going? What have I been packing
for the trip?
I am going home.
Taking Kevin’s class introduced me to the thinking process in
creating as well as the importance of craft and a respect for
your materials. I had never made anything with my hands with
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
71
the kind of intention that Kevin pushed us to deliver. I was used
to following a list of requirements when it came to completing
assignments. I was used to handing in piles of paper that I had no
relationship to other than the fact that I had written them. Now
it was personal. Now I had to push myself by pulling from within
myself. I took my time with each project, finding myself drawn to
linier materials and pattern, and the following semester, I decided
to take on the title as a textile major.
I became engrossed with the intricate process of pattern printing. I
loved the perfection it required, from pining the fabric tightly on to
the table, mixing the dyes to exact proportions, printing a pattern
with crisp registration, to washing and ironing the final product.
Beyond printing, I took classes in weaving and fiber sculpture to
broaden my textiles vocabulary. But as my skills began to develop
the purpose of my making became unclear. What was I making?
Who was I making for? Why was I making? Did I want to make work
to be shown in a gallery? Why or why not?
Sometimes I don’t see my purpose. What is the point of
a two-hour conversation about plastic? “It makes me
feel happy.” “I like the sound it makes in the wind.” Am
I copping out? I’m here. They’re all here…having these
long conversations about latex rubber and pig gut.
What’s the point? How the hell am I going to use this?
How do you make something of yourself? Am I worthy?
- Note from a sketchbook,
written during a fiber sculpture critique
The DNA double helix represents the biology of our being.
It is the code that unlocks our every breath. We inhale
experience; we feed our bodies with knowledge; we
search for meaning. It is in our ability to keep breathing
that allows us to keep searching. It is in the care of our
body that we may be able to find purpose. But beyond
our own bodies, we must respect the bodies of others. In
respecting outside of yourself, you are given access to
greater experience. You become part of a vast ocean of
information, whose currents flow in discourse.
- From junior review artist statement
“Call me a Japanophile (individual
obsessed with everything Japanese)
call me what you will, but I am in
love with Japanese culture. Being
half Japanese, my mother being from
Japan, is something that I am truly
proud to be, but my relationship to
My hands became confused as my heart became confused.
I still felt so new to making art that the pressure to master so
many techniques and develop strong concepts behind my work
left me lost and uncertain of where I was going. I continued to
push myself, trying to make meaning of my making, trying to
take advantage of the opportunity to investigate my abilities
in self-expression. The content of most of my work revolved
around identity, heritage, delicacy, patience, time and
authenticity. But something was missing—I was still not
satisfied, and it would take the questioning of the work I had
done thus far, the introduction of a new medium and
an introduction to a new way of seeing and using art.
The Art of Inquiry
The big questions surfaced during my junior review: the test of
your ability in articulating yourself as an artist. I had three pieces
up: a weaving, a book and an installation piece. Here I was, in
front of a panel of smart artists/art critics, presenting my “work”
as an “artist.” To say the least, I was intimidated about the whole
ordeal. But it pushed me to question my content; it pushed me to
72
deliver some answers. The installation piece was referencing DNA
and its relationship to human identity.
my heritage is one that I am still
investigating.”
Experience. Knowledge. Meaning. Searching. Purpose. Hmm…
I wonder what I was thinking about, my own struggles
perhaps? Yes. But besides my personal struggle, my desire to
address community was clear. My concepts concerning biology
and culture came also from a humanities class to took with
Almudena Ortiz:
I don’t see biology as separate from our culturally
constructed identities—I see identity as a conversation
between the two. One must take care of the other; one
depends on the other; one celebrates the other. I feed my
body and I feed my soul. But it is also about balance—
they require equal nourishment.
When we do separate the two, we begin building
invisible boundaries between one another. These
boundaries can be seen as the segregation of races,
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
religions, genders and social classes—all are culturally
manifest. In defining who’s walls are highest, strongest,
and thickest, we are denying a validity for the other. And
behind every rock thrown, every gunshot and every curse
declared is a steadily beating heart. And their target? A
heart just the same. It is a battle of heart against heart,
blood against blood, gene against gene—it is a civil war
within nature.
-Reading response, DNA and Identity, November 2005
Not too long later, I was introduced to a new medium
that deepened my relationship to art: traditional Japanese
papermaking.
It was Spring semester, 2006, I was taking Nance O’Banion’s class,
Papermaking and the Book. While I fell in love with the clean and
intricate nature of book arts, it was the papermaking that stole
my heart. Nance took the entire class on a slide lecture journey to
Japan, teaching us about the traditional process of papermaking.
It was a ritual, it was sacred and it was apart of my heritage.
Call me a Japanophile,1 call me what you will, but I am in love
with Japanese culture. Being half Japanese, my mother being
from Japan, is something that I am truly proud to be, but my
relationship to my heritage is one that I am still investigating.
When Nance introduced me to papermaking with kozo,2 I saw an
opportunity to further that investigation. But it was more than
a research assignment—it was also the process of washi3 that
intrigued me. It was a methodical process that has endured for
nearly 1,500 years. Preparation of the fibers alone takes several
months. With my interest in heritage, history, and identity, it was
an easy addition to my trunk of techniques.
The final experience that guided me to community arts was my
involvement in art education with Ann Wettrich, Jen Stewart
and MOCHA (Museum of Children’s Art) through the Center
for Art and Public Life Community Student Fellow program.
My classes with Ann and Jen mirrored my experience in the
arts: one semester was focused on the theory and history of art
education and the following semester we had the opportunity
to have hands-on experience and work with students of Far
West High School. I was introduced to a number of teachers and
philosophers— Jonathan Kazol, Elliot Eisner and Paulo Freire—
Paulo particularly hitting home in his discussions of culture
and the “biology of our being.”
1 My own term meaning “individual obsessed with everything Japanese.”
2 Mulberry bark, the most common of the three primary fibers traditionally used to
make paper in Japan. The others being Mitsumata and Gampi.
3 The art of traditional Japanese papermaking. If washi is ever referred to as “rice
paper,” it is considered very disrespectful. Rice is only used to make gules, not paper.
The importance of the identity of each one of us as
an agent, educator or learner, of the educational
practice is clear, as is the importance of our identity
as a product of a tension filled relationship between
what we inherit and what we acquire. At times in this
relationship, what we acquire ideologically in our social
and cultural experiences of class interferes vigorously in
the hereditary structures through the power of interest,
of emotions, feelings, and desires, of what one usually
calls “the strength of the heart.” Thus we are not only
one thing or another, neither solely what is innate nor
solely what is acquired.4
This so called strength of the blood…exists but is not a
determining factor. Just as the presence of the cultural factor
alone, does not explain every thing.
In truth, freedom, like a creative deed of human beings, like
an adventure, like an experience of risk and of creation, has a
lot to do with the relationship between what we inherit and
what we acquire.
From my new-found interest in Japanese papermaking to my
conceptual work concerning DNA, I was beginning to see a new
way to work as an artist, new way too apply my passions and
goals so that they may help me to pack my bags and fill my tool
box. What finally tipped the scale was when I was able transform
the concepts of my DNA project into a lesson plan. I worked
collaboratively with two other students, Bri Naiman and Hiba
Kabal. I was extremely nervous the night before our lesson, staying
up late, writing a script for myself (You can never be too prepared,
I thought).
So here we are sitting in our chairs, feeling okay about
life, and all the while we have 100’s of trillions of cells
in our bodies busy at work: digesting food, and growing
nails and hair etc… All of these cells have particular jobs
to keep our bodies happy and healthy…
- From DNA lesson script, March 2006
Now, I did not follow the scrip directly, but it helped me find my
role as a teacher, similar to my experience working in MOCHA.
It has been dubbed, “The Nave”—the central corridor at the
Museum of Children’s Art (MOCHA). Its white walls elegantly
display masterpieces by artists between the ages of 2 to 10 years
old. These artists have quite a way with colors—I have never
seen so many shades of brown. Their compositions rage from
figurative to fantasy, literal to abstract, and simple to complex—
4 Paulo Freire, Teachers as Cultural Workers (Boulder, Colorado:
Westview Press, 1998), 70.
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
73
their imaginative vocabulary is endless. When asked why
he chose to paint his elephant pink, Bobby confidently
replied, “Because it looks pretty.” Bobby, no doubt, had it
all planned out.
I walk down the nave every week admiring the works of
these children. I look over their little shoulders as they
avidly paint pink elephants and brown blobs in MOCHA’s
kids’ studio. We sit for hours in miniature red plastic chairs
making blueberry pasta out of play dough (blue play dough,
respectively). I love being there.
I love wandering about with the free spirits of children.
Their uninhibited questioning of the world is
contagious and humbling. Everything is simple and
everything is important. “Why is pink pretty, “
I ask. “Because pink is pretty.” I should have known
that. They are so receptive. They seem to be on a
quest of collecting all answers of the “whys” of
the world. All the questioning, all the discovery,
becomes a part of who they will become—apart
of their identity.
-Excerpt of mid-term paper, The Beauty of
Perception
How I was communicating and who I was communicating
with became the hands that untied the knot that had before
been locked behind my back. I became more comfortable
through these experiences and my goals, my passions and
my meaning began to take shape. I was able to speak my
truth in front of a panel of the best critics in town: the panel
of hungry minds. It’s not to say it would be ideal at all times,
but I felt that I was now communicating in a language
I understood and could speak from authentically—to speak
with from my heart.
I knew what I had to do. I had to take action. I had to
push myself further. I pushed myself all the way to Sonia
Manjon’s desk, the community arts academic advisor. I
laid down my story, I laid down my academic records and
I asked her what it would take to switch from textiles to
community arts major.
One more year.
I knocked on the door. I was coming home.
74
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
The Organic Process of Collaboration
and Implementation of Educational
Art-Based Projects with Community
“Community Art classes at California College of the Arts (CCA) are powerful
and relevant because they highlight a humanitarian ideology experienced
through collaborative creative processes. As an artist I came to CCA to
develop my knowledge and ability in artistic techniques.”
Christina Samuelson, Alumni Community Arts Program, California
College of the Arts
Since we are in an age of contradictions there are oppressing
and innovating things happening all at once. That I see as a
blessing – a positive opportunity - for both Oakland and CCA,
the development of an extension of CCA: The Center for Art
and Public Life (CAPL). Directed by Dr. Sonia Manjon, this center
creates opportunities for relationships between artists at CCA
and the larger Bay Area communities through collaborations
with community-based organizations like schools, hospitals,
non-profits, and study abroad programs. CAPL also encompasses
program development for Diversity Studies, Art Education
and the Community Arts Major (COMA) offered as part of the
curriculum at CCA. These programs emphasize the intersection
of art, education and awareness, actively engaging people to
collaborate within the realm of art making while simultaneously
creating community building and social justice—a very nontraditional art practice when compared to the [conventional]
western art world and market.
COMA classes at CCA are powerful and relevant because
they highlight a humanitarian ideology experienced through
collaborative creative processes. As an artist I came to CCA to
develop my knowledge and ability in artistic techniques. The
creation of space was always an interest of mine, so I started my
first year in the interior architecture program. I soon found myself
struggling. I had no sense of community from my teachers or
classmates. Projects were competitive and felt irrelevant to me.
I would take my assignments into directions that were more about
the freedom of creativity rather than ownership or hierarchy of
what art is, what it is meant to do and whom it is for. As I received
harsh criticism and I felt I was not understood I began to realize
that the art world in many ways is about ego, fame, and money.
Yet art for me intrinsically had always been about expression,
healing and communication.
My 2nd semester sophomore year in spring 2004 is when I took
my first COMA class, ‘Art in the Public Interest.’ This was my
introduction to West Oakland and where the realization of my
journey began. Dr. Sonia Manjon taught this studio class 6 hours
a week, and delicately, yet strategically, she began to open our
young minds to our history, our current societal dynamics, and
what we might do to evolve and create a better world. Three
hours a week we would focus in class discussions around readings
including the following: the experiences of African Americans
throughout times of slavery, emancipation, Harlem Renaissance,
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
75
segregation and integration, Civil Rights Movement, Black Arts
Movement, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, multiculturalism, and
current conditions for African American and urban communities
regarding education and culture. We discussed how all of these
issues are connected to a larger political agenda supported by a
conditioned mentality of fear around race that is sadly yet heavily
still present in our society. Our work in the classroom was linked
to a 3-hour a week internship working as art-instructor assistants
for ArtEsteem, an in-school and after-school art and social justice
program for the youth in Oakland.
As CCA students, the majority of our time is spent on campus,
in studios, or in critiques influenced by a largely mono-cultural,
Eurocentric perspective. This was the first class I experienced at
CCA where we were looking at society in a different and deep way.
Reassessing history, we discussed the complexities of a society
founded on the enslavement of a people based on skin color and
how, 500 years later, we still live in environments, communities,
and mentalities that are disconnected and not fully healed from
the corruptness of this kind of inhumane treatment. Interning
with ArtEsteem we learned by leaving the ‘sheltered campus’
students in the after-school programs. But when I first met the
girls, we bonded quickly. I am the oldest of six children, and have
always been a strong leader, taking care of my siblings. It was
natural for me to work with young ones, as I knew how to support
their development in a positive way. Yet, these young girls were
coming to the table with conditions rooted in our oppressive
past. West Oakland has suffered the severe blows of racism,
gentrification, police brutality, drug epidemics, violence, broken
families and a system of failing public education. A culture of
frustration, rebellion, and internalized self-neglect has been the
result. Yet among these detrimental factors is a chord of strength
and spirituality that exists in the people of West Oakland. Through
the suffering of this community, people have found hope in one
another; their bonds cannot be broken and their growth is the
conviction of endurance among the people. One must not forget
this is a community where the Black Panther Party was born;
historically this area has been one of survival ‘by any
means necessary’.
of CCA, going down the street to West Oakland and began to
understand that we live in a time of great contradictions.
I interned in the ArtEsteem after- school fashion design class
at Lowell Middle School. Lowell, on West and 14, has since been
shut down, along with many others schools in Oakland that were
negatively affected by the relationship of low-test scores and lack
of funding. The fashion class instructor was a woman named Nan,
an employee of Attitudinal Healing Connection/ArtEsteem. The
class was small, usually from 3 – 6 girls. ArtEsteem was having a
hard time recruiting and retaining students because the afterschool coordinator at the time had started half way through the
year and thus there had been no consistent system to engage
76
Following my first semester at Lowell, I was moved and
committed to return the following year in the fall. I received a
work-study job through CALP to be an Art Instructor assistant for
ArtESteem and got placed again at Lowell because I had already
begun to develop relationships there and understood the climate
of the school. I spent the next two full school years at Lowell
working in the after school programs.
The following year (2005-2006) I continued to work at Lowell
but by this time it was only 8th grade left as each year prior a
grade was weeded out, slowly bringing the school to an end. The
students were very aware of what was happening—they made
art pieces about how the school needed more books and supplies,
they had marches to try to stop the school from shutting down,
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
but as money dried up, the students began to realize their school
was closing.
While I was at CCA I would hear people talk about Oakland like
they knew the ins and outs of this city. They would call West
Oakland “the ghetto” while never having taken step into that
area of town. How do you know a place is “ghetto” if you ain’t
never been there? How can you judge a people if you ain’t never
talked to them? This ignorance extended to CCA’s neighboring
schools, like Far West. A clear line divided the campuses, and
most people at CCA kept to their privileged selves, making their
art and going to galleries, never really stopping to talk to the
youth across the street to see if they had an interest in art, or
needed a mentor. The only students at CCA that actually did
engage with youth across the street were students from either
the community arts or art education programs. What an ironic
contradiction is CCA, filled with creative, intelligent minds, yet
so blind and insensitive at the same time. CCA students make
art that is highly conceptual and talk about their ability to
influence others with the power of art. While CCA students
made anti-war pieces that were more self-righteous in concept
than affective in intent, they ignored the very realities of their
own community—the fact that our school was a little ‘white
haven’ covered by trees, and segregated from the real people of
Oakland, directly across the street.
When I walked across the street to Far West and experienced the
culture and energy there compared to self-interested makings of
the artists at CCA, I saw a clear line between community and ego.
The art that I have made with Oakland youth is more powerful,
more real, more expressive than any work that I have seen come
out of CCA. While there are many talented artists at CCA, I see that
their concept generally lacks any motive of social betterment or
critical commentary. No doubt, there are some CCA students doing
this, so I do not mean to generalize. It was just hard for me to
stomach critiques where people talked about color and lines, while
sipping on $4 lattes, and eating $12 dollar lunches daily. “Where’s
the truth at?” I would think. “Do people even have their eyes open,
or are they so privileged they can ignore the people around them,
the struggles and circumstances of their neighbors?”
So how does the power of art relate to the movement towards
healing and social justice? At CCA, the only structure that
consistently combined these forces was the Center through
their Art Education and Community Arts programs. In essence,
this major [Community Art] is to inspire consciousness, relate to
community, and heal hearts through expression.
Community Arts is essentially about collaboration: the act of
working together with one or more people in order to achieve
a common goal. What makes this kind of collaboration special
is that it is about creativity, and when the creative energy of
multiples comes together, very powerful movements begin to
happen. When this creativity is fostered within an environment
of support, learning and openness, then the ability for growth is
manifested. There are differences between being an artist solely
for the self and being an artist in collaboration. Both are valid,
and having the experiences in both of these realms contributes
to the development of each other.
“It’s not about good art vs. bad art, but
about creativity and how every single
person contains creative energy within
them…t’s about encouraging people’s
journey into artistic expression.”
Where Community Arts finds itself in this unlimited realm of
creation is the space of advocating for voice. Community artists
find many projects to partake in, facilitate, promote and produce.
The most fundamental importance of this task is to remember
that this process is about exchange. When working in
collaboration it is not about a single voice, it is a about the
validation, appreciation and space creation for all voices to be
heard. Many times some one may come into an environment
that is new to them, whether it be within a school, a hospital,
in prison or in a shelter. What is important to remember is that
this is about service: if you have a certain technique or skill, say
painting, and you are planning to work with a group of adults
in an AIDS shelter that have never painted before, there may
be some apprehension at first by the participants. Many times
people don’t think that they are artists or they never had the
exposure, so they are timid to begin expressing themselves.
When facilitating, it is important to first develop relationships,
get to know the people you are working with, be open-minded
to their experiences, and create avenues that are relevant to their
wants and intents in terms of expression. It’s not about good
art vs. bad art, but about creativity and how every single person
contains creative energy within them. It’s about setting up a space
where people get to explore themselves and their experiences,
express themselves through a medium they are comfortable
with, and grow from that process. It’s about encouraging people’s
journey into artistic expression.
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
77
Reflections
“If you ask me, did the symposium
address issues of equity? I have to
say yes, it did, in a number of ways,
but it did so in the only ways it could:
in relation to and in reference of the
specific communities that we have come
from, and engaged with, which each
have unique issues and challenges.”
Lott Hill
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Report
79
Johanna Poethig
Faculty Institute for Visual and
Public Art, California State
University Monterey Bay
“Collaborative art practices build our understanding of what
democracy truly is through reciprocity and creative improvisations.
This exchange between artists and communities dismantles hierarchies
while at the same time focuses the group on a mutual goal – the
creation of powerful art.”
As the field of community collaborative art grows there needs
to be a greater awareness of the tactics, strategies, skills and
specialized training that this type of socially interactive art work
demands and a recognition of the artists who lead these processes.
The more freedom, support and trust that is given to artists to
develop innovative approaches and projects the stronger the
results will be. Collaborative art practices build our understanding
of what democracy truly is through reciprocity and creative
improvisations. This exchange between artists and communities
dismantles hierarchies while at the same time focuses the group
on a mutual goal – the creation of powerful art.
Making successful works of art requires rigor, skill, critical
thinking and the freedom to turn mistakes into solutions.
Through creative interactions we learn to overcome our fears
and cross the boundaries of our assumptions, insecurities and
80
differences. The arts of collaboration in the 21st century have a
history and purpose that has grown out of the work of artists and
cultural activists who are committed to and thrive in a creative
environment that is diverse, inclusive and provides an alternative
to the single mindedness of the consumerist marketplace. The
work that comes out of this artistic social dialogue is richly
textured and transformative. The strength of the artwork depends
greatly on the practitioners, their experience and training. Artist
led collaborative public and community art projects are part of
the life work and portfolio of lead artists who carry the vision
and are ultimately responsible for implementing the project and
contributing to the field. By giving proper recognition to this
specific professional role we can inspire emerging artists to be
trained in the arts of creative civic engagement and encourage
institutions to build comprehensive programs that provide critical
and practical tools for the study and development of this art form.
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
Deirdre Visser
Faculty California College of the Arts
and Mills College
Dia Penning
Arts Education Program Manager
San Francisco Art Commission
Lott Hill and
Megan Stielstra
Center for Teaching Excellence
Columbia College Chicago
Following the symposium, conference coordinator Deirdre Visser set
up a blog for these four symposium participants to open a dialogue
about what impact the convening had on their lives and their
continuing work in the field of community arts. Please note that
this is an ongoing discussion and we invite you to participate in it
by going to: www.communityarts4.blogspot.com
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Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
Together Dia and Deirdre posed the following five questions as a
way to frame the discussion:
not only makes community accessible to higher ed but also makes
higher education available to community?
1. PREPARATION
Lott—The relationship between community and higher education is
constantly being defined and should be as fluid as possible to meet
the felt-needs of a community or the learning needs of a constantly
changing student population. The simple fact of the matter is that
there are usually as many agendas as there are participants in any
given partnership, so the real question is, what can the relationship
be between community and higher education?
Why is it important to have a convening like this? What does it do
for the field of community arts? What do you think the challenges
are in preparing for this, or other similar conferences? Please
consider the challenges and opportunities of establishing content
and context, and identifying and marketing to your audience.
2. LEARNING
Since all of us are somewhat new to community arts, is there
something that you learned during the conference that changed
your relationship to the profession? What did you take away from
the conference?
3. EQUITY
One of the main aims of the conference was to address equity in
higher education, but does community arts address equity? Can
it? If it does, how does it? And if it doesn’t, how do we structure/
build our conversations with our students and each other so that
we really do address equity?
4. CHALLENGES
What do you view as the challenges in community arts? Do
the multiple perspectives afforded by bringing large numbers
together for a conference like this address some of those
challenges? Please consider, among other things, the challenges
intrinsic to honest collaboration, the relationship of community
arts to the rest of the contemporary art world, and the very
definition of community arts.
5. HIGHER EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY
What is the real relationship between community and higher
education? Does the field of community arts really address it?
Or transform it if we believe it should be transformed? What are
the differences between the aims and the ends?
Dia—Lott and Megan, you both have a great deal of experience
negotiating the relationship between higher education and
community arts organizations, and have seen first hand some of
the challenges that can arise in collaborations. If we’re willing to
agree that there are real problems of cultural equity that exist
in institutions of higher education, how do we believe that the
field of community arts addresses them? Can community arts
help to offset these inequalities of access and opportunity and
under what circumstances? Does the creative dialogue intrinsic
to community arts really challenge these issues? How do we talk
about the agendas, the differences of opinion, and the challenges
in the realm of community arts and discuss how community arts
Dia—I agree that the agenda/participants ratio is similar, but I am
starting to wonder if all the agendas are truly laid out on the table.
Lott—In my perfect world the relationship between these two
amorphous entities, “community” and “higher education,” can
be an adaptable space of dialogue, learning, shared resources
and responsibility to creatively address the unique issues that are
present at a given time/place. When I was working on a regular
basis with the Office of Community Arts Partnerships (now CCAP)
at Columbia College Chicago, we had regular meetings between
community and college representatives and each month, we
held our meetings in a different location. Sometimes we met on
campus, but more often, our dialogue was held on site at the
organizations with which we were working. The conditions were
sometimes uncomfortable, the travel sometimes difficult, and the
organizations could not stop all of their regular functions to make
space for our conversations; but it was critical for us to leave our
institution and find common ground on someone else’s turf. I use
this imperfect example to illustrate an imperfect and central fact
of Community Arts.
Deirdre—You point to two areas that seem critical to me, Lott,
site specificity and space. Clearly there can’t be a prescriptive
approach. The needs and concerns of a community and those of
a student population are temporally and spatially specific and
that requires really listening on everyone’s part to understand
those nuances. And then there’s space. Space matters—it really
does. Alternating where you have the meetings, when, and on
whose terrain is a great beginning and can disrupt the power
dynamic built into the very architecture of institutions of
higher education.
Power, or perceived power imbalances can undermine the very
core of collaboration. Would you agree that in a successful
collaboration between higher education and community
members everyone comes to the table with their talents asking
what is best for the community and best for the students and
together negotiates a middle ground where everyone learns
and benefits? That sounds great, but how do you change up the
power relationships such that real collaboration can happen?
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
83
Megan—A couple of years ago, Lott and I presented a panel at
AWP about the nature of collaborative teaching and the first thing
we said was, “Spend TIME with your collaborators. You have to
hang out together! Find your common language, the angles of
experience with which you connect!”
The key ingredient, I think, is LISTENING. LISTENING. Call me
crazy, but I try to imagine that word in a flashing neon sign
above my head. It makes me a better educator, a better writer—
and, for that matter, a better wife and friend—if I’m truly and
honestly engaged in active listening: be it to someone with more
experience who can guide me to be better at what I do, or to
someone with less experience to not only learn from their new
energy and ideas but also find the common ground we both
share in order to work collaboratively.
Deirdre—I think you’re right, Megan, that listening is probably
the most critical element in a successful collaboration of any
kind, let alone between partners with institutional affiliations
and historical inequities. As a teacher I think all the time about
the skills we teach in arts programs and how they overlap or are
distinct from the skills required in community arts. How do we
teach listening?
Dia—This is THE question. You have to be willing to put yourself
aside in the beginning to see what the needs are, on both sides.
You have to be willing to not talk back, to really hear what the
other person has to say, to wait, and think, and analyze, and
trust. You teach listening by being a good listener, by asking good
questions and reflecting back the answers that are given to you.
Listeners support in finding the answers, they don’t “tell” what
the answers are.
Ya know, there was this woman in the 2nd story Workshop that
really wanted us to acknowledge the contributions of our elders—
84
to recognize the history of community practice. In preparation
for the symposium I did so much research about how the field
came to be and I think that this woman was trying to get to the
core of that, she didn’t hear that we were bowing because we did
not overtly say it. Sometimes we have to be willing to say what
seems obvious. We all work in these isolated bubbles but if the
end goal is “revolution”, there seem to be a lot of paths to the
end, and maybe instead of reinventing things every time a new
program or project or class is developed we can really think about
the trajectory and take that into consideration. This could be a
space for small organizations and new practitioners to “hook up”
with higher ed and established organizations to provide support,
continuity and ideological structure.
Deirdre—I came to Crafting a Vision from a conference called
Making Art, Making Change – which was an effort by the Greater
Bay Area Arts Education Network to celebrate the role of art as
a catalyst for social change. We’re envisioning building it into
an organization with an ongoing role in expanding the place
of the arts in larger community-building efforts within the city
of San Francisco, building new, strategic partnerships between
teachers (not necessarily in higher education), artists and social
justice organizations. In the city there are a lot of wonderful
individual efforts, but nothing yet to create linkages and establish
connections and continuity while building visibility –which is
what I hear you talking about, Dia. Conferences seem to function
slightly differently, but I was really struck by the challenges of
identifying and understanding the limitations of who would and
could come to each event – and how to get the word out to those
communities, once identified.
Dia—We really wrestled with the question of inclusion due to
the price of the conference. We offered scholarships but many of
them went either to college students or community partners that
were already a part of the educational structure. How do we begin
to address those community artists that perceive they are not
invited to the table because of financial and “cultural” divide?
Lott—To take the time to travel to and participate in a conference
of any length is always a strain on resources and may mean that
a CBO closes its doors for a few days, and for many organizations,
that is not a viable option. Ironically, these smaller organizations
are often those that can benefit the most from the kinds of
connections and ideas that are stimulated by a symposium like
this though there are seldom enough staff members to keep
things going if anyone is “away” at a conference.
I don’t know if there is a way to get Everyone (capital E) into
the conversation at any one time, which is something that We,
the representatives of the academy constantly have to remind
ourselves. Any meeting, such as the symposium, will physically
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
occur in a place, and by the very nature of holding the meeting
in one place (as opposed to all of the other potential places)
certain people will not be able to be present or participate. There
are multiple factors that include, but are not limited to, financial
conditions that enable people to participate in such a dialogue
and prevent others from engaging.
If you ask me, did the symposium address issues of equity? I
have to say yes, it did, in a number of ways, but it did so in the
only ways it could: in relation to and in reference of the specific
communities that we have come from, and engaged with, which
each have unique issues and challenges. Again, I will claim that
though I’m not certain we can ever fully address these issues, it is
important that they are always a part of the conversation and that
we always attempt to think about and pursue the questions that
surround these issues.
Dia—I know a lot of my personal evolution in Community Arts
came from collaborating with communities that were so different
from the ones that I grew up in. Working with CCAP and CAPL has
given me the opportunity to interact with children and adults who
not only have differing points of reference but also have different
ways in addressing them. It is always such a gift to me that we can
facilitate the creative process as a way to open up conversations
that would remain cloaked. What specifically did you take away
from the symposium, or what did you hope to give to others?
Megan—What Lott and I tried to bring to the Symposium through
the Binary Opposites Workshop (thank you, thank you, thank you
to the inspiring Guillermo Gomez Pena for guiding the workshop
that first opened our eyes to this activity!) was a forum for
listening: an activity which allowed not only for people to take a
stand for their beliefs but also to explain why they feel as they do.
I just go back to listening; if you hear what people say then you
get it and you are able to get it done.
Lott—This was an opportunity for me to put into context much
of the work that I do, and it enhanced the vocabulary with which
I can discuss and articulate my own experiences and through
which I can engage students. I was able to hear what has been
happening at other institutions such as CSUMB, and I was able to
view this work through the lens of a cultural perspective that is
not my own. I was able to understand a different language.
Megan—Language is always a challenge for me. As with most
fields, Community Arts has its own vocabulary, and finding the
commonalities of experience and expression is a necessity. I can
talk about the teaching of writing for the next twenty hours,
throwing around all of the pedagogical lingo we use, because
that’s my field. That’s where I’ve put in my time. There’s a natural
crossover there into the Community Arts—I’ve been lucky
enough to work with many organizations through Columbia
College’s CCAP, the Fiction Writing Department’s outreach
programs and directing writing workshops for the Serendipity
Theater Collective—but the vocabulary is still new to me and I’m
trying to find my place. Sometimes, be it at conferences such as
the Symposium or even hanging out with my good friends who
are so connected to the Community Arts (wink, wink, Lott and
Dia!), I have to say, “Okay! Okay! Let’s all slow down for a minute,
what do you mean exactly?
Lott—One of the most important reasons to have a convening like
this is because it gives us time to do what we never have time to
do: reflect upon our work, learn about what our colleagues across
the field are doing, and share information about our work with
others. The very nature of “Community Arts” (with a capital C
and a capital A) is that it exists in that space of tension between
what has gone before and what is happening in the moment of
the here and now…
Dia—It also gives us an opportunity to address how we support
our students in this amazing, challenging work and assist them in
developing the skills they will need to really face hard questions
about race, privilege and social change, to listen to others stories
while telling their own.
Megan—Listening is a challenge in and of itself: sometimes it’s
easier to use the time someone else is speaking to come up with
what we’re going to say next. Sometimes we assume that our
ideas are unpopular, so we have to be on defense. Whenever I’m
playing defense, I’m not listening. But in the end, it’s those stories
that mean so much to me and, hopefully, help me understand this
world a little better by allowing me to see both the unexpected
similarities and the beautiful differences in people.
Lott—That being said, conversations like this one or the ones that
happen at such a symposium can be hugely valuable for a number
of reasons. Simply sharing our stories and hearing what others
are doing can be a source of encouragement in this work (which
can at times be hugely discouraging). The symposium was both a
reminder of why I am compelled to engage with Community Arts
and a rejuvenation of my commitment to creating and supporting
Community Arts programs, projects, and partnerships.
Deirdre—Whether we teach in the community arts area or not, the
field intrinsically suggests an expansive role for the arts and artists
in society. This opens up possible answers to one of my challenges
when I’m teaching in any medium at the college level: five years
out of school most of my students will no longer be making art.
So integrating the questions that drive community practice while
teaching photography, for example, may leave my students with
more ways of thinking about a creative practice in the world.
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
85
Attendees &
Contact
Information
“So, that’s a few things to just think
about as we’re talking about cultural
community development, equity, art,
and the like.”
Marcel Diallo
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Report
87
LAST NAME
FIRST NAME
ORGANIZATION
ADDRESS
PHONE
E-MAIL
Adams
Don
Mid-America Arts Alliance
2018 Baltimore
Kansas City, MO 64108
816-421-1388
x226
don@maaa.org
Amaral
Megan
Community Development
SID:993223965
University of CA, Davis
2516 Temple Drive
Davis, CA 95616
831-334-4422
maamaral@ucdavis.edu
Anderson
Hope
Institute of Visual and Public Art
Project Manager, RUAP, California
State University Monterey Bay
100 Campus Center
Seaside, CA 93955
831-582-4330
hope_anderson@csumb.edu
Asher
Stacy
Pink Dot Experiment
97 Hamilton Place,
Oakland, CA 94612
937-469-5245
stacyasher@earthlink.net
Bains
Richard
CSUMB faculty and staff
100 Campus Center
Seaside, CA 93955
831-582-4330
richard_bains@csumb.edu
Bar
Robert
Barret
Bill
Executive Director AICAD
3957 22nd St.
San Francisco, CA 94114
Bastos
Flavia
Associate Professor of Art
Education, School of Art
4343 Haight Ave.
Cincinnati, OH 45223
Baumlier
Kristen
Cleveland Institute of Art
11141 East Blvd.
Cleveland, OH 44106
Beal
Steve
Provost, California
College of the Arts
5212 Broadway
Oakland, CA 94618
sbeal@cca.edu
Bechet
Ron
Xavier University
3824 Gentilly Blvd.
New Orleans, LA 70122
rbechet@xula.edu
Bedaya
Roberto
Adjunct Faculty, CCA
Bechstein
Christina
Sculpture/Art Ed/Service
Learning Assistant Professor,
Maine College of Art
44 Park Ave
Portland, ME 04101
207-899-0509
cbechstein@gmail.com
Blandy
Doug
Center for Community Arts
and Cultural Policy
5249 University of
Oregon Eugene, OR 97403
wk 541-686-2657
hm 541-346-3639
dblandy@uoregon.edu
Bonillo
Jaren
Artists in Education Program
Manager, Southern Exposure
2901 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-863-2141
aie@soex.org
Branson
Johanna
Academic Affairs VP of
Academic Affairs Massachusetts
College of Art
621 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115
617-879-7367
rbattaglia@massart.edu
831-521-2147
88
415-642-8595
bill@aicad.org
flavia.bastos@uc.edu
216-533-1755
kbarmlia@cia.edu
rebedaya@earthlink.net
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
LAST NAME
FIRST NAME
ORGANIZATION
ADDRESS
PHONE
E-MAIL
Braverman
Mia
CCA Alumni
Brown
Claudine
Program Director, Arts and Culture
Nathan Cummings Foundation
475 10th Ave., 14th Floor
New York, NY 10018
212-787-7300
karen.garrett@
nathancummings.org
Burnham
Linda
Art In The Public Interest
PO Box 68
Saxapahaw NC 27340
336-376-8404
burnham@apioline.org
Caldwell
Caroline
Cedarleaf-Dahl
Elissa
Academic Affairs Minneapolis
College of Art and Design
2501 Stevens Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55404
612-874-3858
mselissa@gmail.com
Chovanec
Nora
Tisch College of Citizenship and
Public Service Program Manager
Tufts University
10 Upper Campus Rd.
Medford, MA 02155 USA
617-627-4159
mindy.nierenberg@tufts.edu
Collins
Kate
Dept of Theatre & Film/ Chapman
Learning Community Instructor
Bowling Green State University
338 1/2 Wallace Ave.
Bowling Green, OH 43402
419-372-9448
katec@bgsu.edu
Cocke
Dudley
Roadside Theater/Appalshop
PO Box 771
Norton, VA 24273
Cuellar
Vicki
Development Associate,
Assistant to the Artistic Director
East Bay Center for the
Performing Arts
339 11th Street
Richmond, CA 94801
Daniel
Tracy
Xavier University (Crossroads)
Dankmeyer
Samantha
CCA Alumni
Daystar
Michaela
Volunteer
mdaystar@mills.edu
Deboy
Kathy
CCA Alumni
kdeboy@cca.edu
Delheimer
Amanda
Literary Manager
Serendipity Theatre Collective
1444 W. Rascher #2
Chicago, IL 60640
312-331-0425
adelheimer@gmail.com
Densmore
Tim
Television Dept
Columbia College Chicago
600 S. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL 60605
312-344-8861
jgomez@colum.edu
DeVargas
Desepe
School Age/ Youth Development
Director, CentroNia
1420 Columbia Road NW
Washington, DC 20009
202-332-4200
x164
dvargas@centronia.org
miareiko@gmail.com
3222 Bishop St. 3
Cincinnati, OH 45220
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
caldwece@email.uc.edu
roadsidetheater@verizon.net
510-234-5624
www.eastbaycenter.org
831- 227-9761
liquid_mobia@yahoo.com
89
LAST NAME
FIRST NAME
ORGANIZATION
ADDRESS
PHONE
E-MAIL
Dowling
Amie
Department of Performing Arts
University of San Francisco
2130 Fulton St .
San Francisco, CA 94117
USA
415-422-5374
asdowling@usfca.edu
Dutta
Jayeesha
Arts Education consultant
jayeesha@gmail.com
Engelund
Jason
Media and Marketing Associate
CCA, CAPL
jengelund@cca.edu
Etheridge
Woodson
Stephanie
School of Theatre and Film
Associate Professor
Arizona State University
Feganjengelund@
cca.edu
McKenzie
NYU
Flatley
David
CCAP Executive Director
Columbia College Chicago
Gaos
Ashlie
57 Gladys St.
San Francisco, CA 94110
ashliegaos@yahoo.com
Gardner
Mari
2407 E. Fairmount Ave.
Baltimore, MD 21224
marinngardner@yahoo.com
Garrett
Karen
Arts and Culture, Senior Program
Assistant and Exhibit Coordinator,
Nathan Cummings Foundation
475 10th Ave., 14th Floor
New York, NY 10018
212-787-7300
x206
karen.garrett@
nathancummings.org
Gelarden
Martha
Fine Art Artist-In-Residence
Moore College of Art and Design
P.O. Box 453
Collingswood, NJ 08108
856-858-9506
mgelarden@moore.edu
Giordano
John
Center for Art and Community
Partnerships at the Massachusetts
College of Art
621 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115
617-879-7367
rbattaglia@massart.edu
Green
Perrin
Xavier University
Grimm
Joice
Gude
Olivia
Chicago Public Art Group,
University of Illinois at Chicago
312-427-2724
gude@uic.edu
Haft
Jamie
Imagining America
Syracuse University
Hager
Lori
Arts & Administration Program
Assistant Professor
University of Oregon
480-965-5214
swoodson@asu.edu
hybrid@nyu.edu
600 S. Michigan Ave
Chicago, IL 60605
312-344-8861
jgomez@colum.edu
2211 Mission St. Apt. C
San Francisco, CA 94110
90
3226 S. Aberdeer
Chicago, IL 60608
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
jamie385@aol.com
541-346-2469
lhager@uoregon.edu
LAST NAME
FIRST NAME
ORGANIZATION
ADDRESS
PHONE
E-MAIL
Heikes
Chelsea
volunteer
510-708 6202
cheikes@cca.edu
Herman
Amanda
Artonomics
217 Clipper Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
Hernandez-Clarke
Georgina
Institute for Diversity in the Arts
Executive Director
Stanford University
375 Santa Teresa Street,
Room #5
Stanford, CA 94305
650-724-3657
ghclarke@stanford.edu
Hess Dammer
Laura
University of MN Action Project
345 Fraser Hall
106 Pleasant St. SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
612-625-3314
ldammer@class.cla.umn.edu
Higuera Zapel
Kerry
Hill
Lott
Columbia College Chicago
Hoffman
Camille
Student CCA
Holtz
Allyson
The Center for Restorative Justice
and Community Arts
5544 Beverly Place
Pittsburgh, PA 15206
USA
Israel
Sterling
Arts & Administration Program
Assistant Professor
University of Oregon
5249 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403
Jaller
Kathy
Jardim
Virginia
Faculty and Staff, CCA
Jaspersen
Barbara
Visual Arts
Program Coordinator
University of San Francisco
2130 Fulton Street
San Francisco, CA 94117
415-422-5553
jaspersenb@usfca.edu
Johnson
Rachel
Arts & Administration Program
Assistant Professor
University of Oregon
5249 University of
Oregon Eugene, OR 97403
541-346-3989
trinaldi@uoregon.edu
Johnson
Stephanie
CSUMB faculty and staff
100 Campus Center
Seaside, CA 93955
831-582-4330
stephanie_johnson@csumb.edu
Jones
Morris
Crossroads
Jones
Jamie
Xavier University
aherman@cca.edu
1129 Ranleigh Way
Piedmont, CA 94610
600 S. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL 60605
kerrryzap@gmail.com
773-818-5243 or
312-344-7350
lhill@colum.edu
480-820-4664
choffman@cca.edu
allysonjholtz@msn.com
www.restorativejustice
communityarts.org
541-346-3989
trinaldi@uoregon.edu
410-353-8893
kjaller@artspan.org
vjardim@cca.edu
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
ramonejones@msn.com
91
LAST NAME
FIRST NAME
ORGANIZATION
ADDRESS
PHONE
E-MAIL
Kagan
Rebecca
Metropolitan Museum of ArtCommunications
1000 Fifth Ave.
New York City, NY 10028
hm 818-384-3099
wk 212-396-5311
rebecca.kagan@metmuseum.org
Kent
Caroline
Kessler
Joyce
11141 East Blvd.
Cleveland, OH 44106
216-421-7411
jkessler@cia.edu
Khasawnih
Alma
150 Eastlawn St.
Detroit, MI 48215
401-282-0051
akhasawn@risd.edu
Kinnord-Payton
MaPo
Art Asst. Professor of
Art Xavier University
218 North Rocheblave
New Orleans, LA 70119
504 481-5846
mkinnord@xula.edu
Knight
Keith
Crossroads
Korza
Pam
Animating Democracy,
Americans for the Arts
47 Jeffery Lane,
Amherst, MA 01002
413-256-1260
pkorza@artsusa.org
Krafchek
Ken
Maryland Institute College of Art
1300 W. Mount Royal Ave.
Baltimore, MD 21217
410-225-2289
khorton@mica.edu
Kruper
Todd
CSUMB faculty and staff
100 Campus Center
Seaside, CA 93955
831-582-4330
todd_kruper@csumb.edu
Lantz
Dona
Academic Affairs Academic Dean
Moore College of Art & Design
20th Street & the Parkway
Philadelphia, PA 19103
215-965-4012
dlantz@moore.edu
Linde
Ann
University of Minnesota (Twin
Cities) and Franklin Learning Center
2443 3rd Ave. S. #C15
Minneapolis, MN 55404
612-871-8333
lind0754@umn.edu
Music
Louise
Alameda County
Office of Education
Mackey
Fletcher
Maryland Institute College of Art
Maidinbey
Sharon
Mangahas
Minette
Manjon
Sonia
1000 W. Franklin Avenue
Apartment #307
Minneapolis, MN 55405
Academic Affairs, Dean of Faculty
The Cleveland Institute of Art
Vice President Diversity and
Strategic Partnerships
Wesleyan University
92
lmusic@acoe.k12.ca.us
1300 W. Mount Royal Ave.
Baltimore, MD 21217
410-225-2289
khorton@mica.edu
701 Mission St. SF
415-321-1340
irodriguez@ybca.org
510-821-2242
minette.mangahas@gmail.com
860-685-3927
smanjon@wesleyan.edu
237 High Street,
North College 3rd Floor
Middletown, CT 06459
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
LAST NAME
FIRST NAME
ORGANIZATION
Martinez
Julian
Marshall
Julia
San Francisco State University
McDonagh
Kara
Center for Art Education
Coordinator, Community Art Corps
Maryland Institute College of Art
McGowan
Reed
McIlveen
ADDRESS
PHONE
E-MAIL
415-239-8353
jmarsh@sfsu.edu
2103 Dobler Ave.
Baltimore, MD 21218
410-225-2254
kmcdonagh@mica.edu
Arts & Administration Program,
Assistant Professor,
University of Oregon
5249 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403
541-346-3989
trinaldi@uoregon.edu
Francis
Breaking Traditions
1521 Verdi St #2,
Alameda, CA 94501
fmcilveen@yahoo.com
McNally-Murphy
Kaitlin
Performing Arts Workshop
Fort Mason Center C-265
San Francisco, CA 94123
kaitlin@
performingartsworkshop.org
Mejia
Chris
Mele
Jessica
Program Coordinator
Performing Arts Workshop
Fort Mason Center C-265
San Francisco, CA 94123
415-673-2634
jessica@
performingartsworkshop.org
Melhorn
Charlene
Community Arts Program Director
BuildaBridge International
205 W. Tulpehocken St #5
Philadelphia, PA 19144
215-842-0428
cmelhorn@buildabridge.org
Murdoch
Bonnie
Extended Studies Director
Alberta College of Art + Design
1407 14 Avenue NW
Calgary, AB T2N 4R3
Canada
403-338-5554
bonnie.murdoch@acad.ca
Naema
Ray
CCA Student
925.812.2522
nray@cca.edu
Nierenberg
Mindy
Tisch College of Citizenship and
Public Service Program Manager
Tufts University
10 Upper Campus Rd
Medford, MA 02155
617-627-4159
mindy.nierenberg@tufts.edu
Ohm
Melanie
Cultural Arts Coalition
1944 E Oxford Drive
Tempe, AZ 85283
480-580-6257
modinha@cox.net
Padilla
Roman
Pate
Denise
Development Specialist, CAPL
510-543-6728
dlprsn@aol.com
Penning
Arts Education
Program Manager
Arts Education Program
Manager San Francisco Art
Commission, CAPL
415-252-2597
dia.penning@sfgov.org
415-354-2425
25 Van Ness Avenue,
Suite 240
San Francisco, CA 94102
Callifornia College of the Arts • Symposium Publication
93
LAST NAME
FIRST NAME
ORGANIZATION
ADDRESS
PHONE
E-MAIL
Phillips
San Francisco Art
Commission
Maryland Institute College of Art
1300 W. Mount Royal Ave.
Baltimore, MD 21217
410-225-2289
khorton@mica.edu
Poethig
Johanna
CSUMB faculty and staff
100 Campus Center
Seaside, CA 93955
831-582-4330
johanna_poethig@csumb.edu
Punt
Nathan
510-594-9084
Nathan@maheartnow.org
Quaid
Allison
Executive Director Creative
Community Catalysts
415-748-1315
aquaid@gmail.com
Rand
Cara
Administrative Assistant CCA, CAPL
510-594-3757
crand@cca.edu
Rankow
Liza
Director, OneLife Institute
1966 Manzanita Drive
Oakland, CA 94611
510-595-5598
rankow@onelifeinstitute.org
Robinson
Tammy Ko
City Studio Assistant Professor
800 Chestnut St
San Francisco, CA 94133
415.351.3530
tkrobinson@sfai.edu
Robinson
Jessica
Executive Director / Adjunct
Instructor, CounterPULSE /
New College of CA
1310 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-626-2060
jessica@counterpulse.org
Rodriguez
Isaiah
701 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-321-1340
irodriguez@ybca.org
Ruskin
Karen
Academic Affairs Associate Vice
President, Minneapolis College of
Arts & design
2501 Stevens Ave. S
Minneapolis, MN 55404
612-874-3858
karen _ruskin@mcad.edu
Samuelson
Christina
CCA Alumni
415-648-6436
artcreator@comcast.net
Schwarzman
Mat
CrossRoads Project
831 Elysian Fields, New
Orleans, LA 70125
Seville
Michele
Arts & Culture division Arts &
Culture Manager City of Richmond
3230 Macdonald Avenue
Richmond, CA 94804
510-620-6952
michele_seville@
ci.richmond.ca.us
Shanker
Jennie
Interim Chair, Tyler School of Art
of Temple University
7725 Penrose Avenue
Elkins Park, PA 19027 USA
215 782 2894
Shanker@temple.edu
Sills
Patricia
Art Assistant Professor of
Graphic Design and Photo Xavier
University of Louisiana
1022 Crete St New
Orleans, LA 70119 USA
504-458-5970
pksills@xula.edu
Simmons
Jordan
Artistic Director East Bay Center
for the Performing Arts
339 11th Street
Richmond, CA 94801
510-234-5624
www.eastbaycenter.org
94
553 Wisconsin Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
schwarzman@xroadsproject.org
LAST NAME
FIRST NAME
ORGANIZATION
ADDRESS
PHONE
E-MAIL
Sinchcomb
Jan
Maryland Institute College of Art
1300 W. Mount Royal
Avenue Maryland 21217
410-225-2289
khorton@mica.edu
jstinchcomb@mica.edu
Skyes
Ginny
Chicago Public Art Group,
University of Illinois at Chicago
4520 N. Dover
Chicago, IL 60640
312-427-2724
gbetskyes@aol.com
Sjoholm
Karen
5525 Miles Ave.
Oakland, CA 94618
510-654-9749
kjoholm@jfku.edu
Smith
Anne
Vice President,
Arts Consulting Group
232 Precita
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-515-9268
asmith@ggu.edu
Smith
Judith
Axis Dance
1428 Alice Street #201
Oakland, CA 94612
Stielstra
Megan
2nd Story
3336 W. Pierce #3
Chicago, IL 60651
773-895-9664
megan@mygreenlife.org
Stuart
Jennifer
Manager, Art Education
CCA, CAPL
5212 Broadway
Oakland, CA 94618
510 594 3768
jstuart@cca.edu
Swann
Carla
Moving ON Center
1029 Stannage Ave.
Oakland, CA 94706
510-524-5013
carlaswann@aol.com
Sweed
Cicely
Community Engagement
Center for Community
Life Manager, Yerba Buena
Center for the Arts
170 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-321-1311
csweed@ybca.org
Szudy
Barbara
Tannenbaum
Judith
Training Coordinator WriterCorps
Teresa
Brazen
Student, CCA
Teruel
Paul
Director of Community Partnerships,
Columbia College Chicago
Vandervoort
Thea
Vantree
Visser
axisdance@comcast.net
barbara@calbird.org
3120 Yosemite Ave.
El Cerrito, CA 94530
510-526-3735
jtannen@earthlink.net
917-292-0190
info@brazenart.com
600 S. Michigan Ave
Chicago, IL 60605
312-344-8861
jgomez@colum.edu
Arts & Administration Program
Assistant Professor,
University of Oregon
5249 University of
Oregon Eugene, OR 97403
541-346-3989
trinaldi@uoregon.edu
Shawn
Xavier University, Community
Arts Program Manager
1 Drexel Dr., Box 137
New Orleans, LA 70125
504-481-5977
svantree@xula.edu
Deirdre
Symposium Coordinator
CCA, CAPL
1350 Guerro St #4
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-647-0370
dbvisser@yahoo.com
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LAST NAME
FIRST NAME
ORGANIZATION
ADDRESS
PHONE
E-MAIL
Wakmonski
Amy
University of Minnesota,
Action group
2014 S. 2nd Ave. Apt 203
Minneapolis, MN 55404
612-226-3092
waks0006@umn.edu
Watkiss
Samara
Tisch College of Citizenship
and Public Service Program
Manager, Tufts University
10 Upper Campus Rd
Medford, MA 02155
617-627-4159
mindy.nierenberg@tufts.edu
Weisman
Sandy
Center for Art and Community
Partnerships at the Massachusetts
College of Art
621 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115
617-879-7367
rbattaglia@massart.edu
Westburg
Amy
PO Box 501
Woods Hole, MA 02543
508-566-1193
amyleighwest@hotmail.com
Wettrich
Ann
CoDirector, Center for Art and
Public Life CCA, CAPL
5212 Broadway
Oakland, CA 94618
510-594-3769
awettrich@cca.edu
White
Elena
Artist’s Resource Center Program
Coordinator, School of the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
230 The Fenway
Boston, MA 02115
617-369-3636
x3636
ewhite@smfa.edu
Wirth
Karen
Fine Arts Dep. Chair Minneapolis
College of Arts & design
2501 Stevens Ave. S
Minneapolis, MN 55404
612-874-3700
kwirth@mcad.edu
Wong
Rita
Critical + Cultural Studies
Assistant Professor, Emily Carr
Institute of Art + Design
19C, 7620 SW 54 Court
Miami, FL 33143
305-665-2238
rwong@eciad.ca
Wood
Anne
Paw Fort Mason
415-673-2634
anne-ewperforming@
workshop.org
Yalowitz
Billy
Arts in Community Program
Co-Director, Asst. Prof
Temple University
215-849-4822
byalowitz@dca.net
6445 Greene St., #B404
Philadelphia, PA 19119
Special Thanks: To the hard working staff of the Center for Art and Public Life for their
dedication and undying perseverance to diversity, social justice, and community and for daring
to be different; Melinda deJesus, faculty at the California College of the Arts for final edits and
support; Gino Squadrito and Jennifer Forester at LaserCom Design for their creative talents and
magic in the design of this publication – thank you for your patience always.
96
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement
Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement:
Convening the Community Arts Field in Higher Education
Edited by Dr. Sonia BasSheva Mañjon,
Former Director Center for Art and Public Life California College of the Arts
Video produced by the Center for Art and Public Life
On November 2, 3, and 4, 2006 the California College of the Arts Center
for Art and Public Life, together with the Association of Independent
Colleges of Art and Design and Massachusetts College of Art brought
together artists, students, scholars, and community activists to experience
r
a Vision fo
Crafting
lity and
Art, Equa
gement
Civic Enga
the
Convening
ld
ity Arts Fie
Commun
Education
in Higher
06
r 2–4, 20
Novembe
and exchange best practices in the field of community arts. The symposium
included performances, spoken word, installations, exhibitions, sessions,
and workshops addressing service-learning pedagogies, civic engagement,
identity and representation, and community partnerships. Included in
the documentation is a 106 min symposium video with keynotes, and
a publication that includes selected sessions, essays, student articles,
conference reflections, photographs and attendees contact information.
Look for Symposium DVD inside.
For more information visit
www.center.cca.edu
ABOUT CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF THE ARTS, CENTER FOR ART AND PUBLIC LIFE
Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts (CCA) is the largest regionally accredited, independent school of art and design
in the western United States. CCA educates students to shape culture through the practice and critical study of the arts.
The college prepares its students for lifelong creative work and service to their communities through a curriculum in art,
architecture, design, and writing.
The Center for Art and Public Life’s programming is woven across disciplines into the structure of the college and delivered
through a variety of academic, professional, extracurricular, and experimental approaches. The Center’s mission is to
create community partnerships based on creative practice that serve the college and the diverse population of Oakland,
San Francisco, and beyond. The Center focuses on important issues in community development, service learning in arts
education, new models of practice in community-based arts, and cultural diversity and youth development through the arts.
Center for Art and Public Life, California College of the Arts, 5212 Broadway, Oakland, CA 94618