"I wasn’t out to do political art. And what I do is not really about art for art’s sake. … I really explore that territory in-between. I hope that my work sets a tension between the inner world and outer world that rings the truth. In Arkansas, I think it did." Stephen Glassman, Sculptor, Millennium Artist working in Arkansas ONCE UPON A TIME Early in 1998, the National Endowment for the Arts began to plan how it would help the Nation commemorate the dawn of the Third Millennium of the Modern Era. Earlier in 1997 the White House had described its goals for the millennial mission in this way: “Our economy is measured in numbers and statistics...But the enduring worth of our nation lies in our shared values and our soaring spirit... We should make the year 2000 a national celebration of our spirit in every community—a celebration of our common culture in the century that has passed, and in the new one to come in a new millennium, so that we can remain the world’s beacon not only of liberty, but of creativity, long after the fireworks have faded.” Given these sentiments, it is not surprising that the millennial role played by the National Endowment for the Arts was multi-faceted and varied. NEA-sponsored millennium programs included Millennium Trails in conjunction with the US Forest Service; a partnership with NASA called the Mars Millennium Project; and, of course, the Gala Celebration in the nation’s capitol. But the defining element of the Endowment’s involvement was its investment in long-term creative partnerships between artists and communities across the country. The largest of these programs—Mid Atlantic Arts Foundations’ Artists & Communities program—is commemorated in this book. As you will see, the resulting fusion of voices and stories reflects the striking complexity of America’s cultural geography as the country crossed the millennial threshold. PRECURSORS In many ways, the artist residencies sponsored by Artists & Communities were unprecedented. This was certainly true in terms of the precipitating event, America’s first millennium. While the idea of using the arts to mark a significant moment in history was not new, the community based nature of Artists & Communities was quite unique. By way of comparison, America’s toast to the passing of the Nineteenth Century—the Pan-American Exposition, in Buffalo, New York—used the arts as decorative support for an extravagant celebration of the Americas (North, Central and South) and the era’s next new thing—electricity. The best examples of Federal investment in community-based arts projects are actually associated more with hard times than celebration. During the Depression, thousands of unemployed performers, writers, and visual artists found full-time work first through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) arts programs. Much of this creative labor was dedicated to documenting and celebrating the history and cultural life of hundreds of American communities. At its peak in the mid-Thirties, the WPA employed over 40,000 artists in community-based arts initiatives. These included the Federal Art Project (FAP), Federal Music Project (FMP), Federal Theatre Project (FTP), the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), and the Historical Records Survey (HRS). More recently, during the economic downturn of the late 1970’s, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) also placed unemployed artists in public service positions with government and community based agencies. As a result, many artists found themselves with full-time jobs making art in hospitals, prisons, public housing, senior centers and the like. So many, in fact, that by the end of 1979 CETA had become the largest Federal arts program in history. CETA introduced a generation of artists to the notion that good art, public service and community development are not mutually exclusive. For thousands of artists and arts administrators, the program also expanded the dictionary of American culture beyond the realms of decoration, entertainment and investment. It showed that artists and communities could partner to serve the public good and, most importantly, that the arts could be a powerful agent of personal, institutional and community change. CETA also laid the foundation for the distinctive mix of intentions and outcomes that characterize the Artists & Communities residencies profiled in this book. ARTISTS CELEBRATE THE MILLENNIUM “The local history group…the best group of people in the whole world, included a professional historian [from] the local college…the head of the Chamber of Commerce…a Chicano woman who moved there about twenty years ago…a very recent transplant…two more were third generation farmers, meaning that their grandparents started Twin Falls…the top lawyer in town…All came from profoundly different backgrounds…When you start to do that with a variety of people, that has waves and echoes that go way out into the community…” —Ted Clausen, Sculptor, Millennium Artist working in Idaho In mid-1998, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation put out a nationwide call for artists and communities to participate as collaborators in the program Artists & Communities: America Creates for the Millennium. One of the unique elements of this invitation was its emphasis on providing “opportunities for community residents to participate” and on “demonstrating…the relevance that artists have to building and sustaining healthy communities.” A similar proviso was made for Continental Harmony, a comparable program for composer residencies also sponsored by the NEA along with the American Composer’s Forum. To place this in a historical perspective, these aims would have been utterly incomprehensible to potential participants as recently as two decades ago. In fact, the idea of integrating artistic and community development goals is only just beginning to emerge in many areas of the country. This has been spurred by an increased emphasis on cross-sector collaboration by both funders and community planners. Another stimulus has been the dramatic expansion of the traditional role the arts have played in programming for children and teens. Unfortunately, a further impetus for the growing interest in community-based arts activity is rooted in the “culture wars” of the past decade. Too often, funders have regarded community-based art making as a “safer alternative” to direct support for individual artists. Another interesting characteristic shared by both Artists & Communities and Continental Harmony was a return to a more traditional definition of the artist in residence. In recent years, as nonprofit arts organizations have attempted to pick up the slack for shrinking school arts budgets, the term “residency” has been applied to arts workshops as short as an hour or two. In contrast, both millennial residency programs placed artists as actual residents in participating communities for extended periods, ranging from a few weeks to several months. This expanded commitment to local participation and community building is a critical distinction. Not surprisingly, current community arts research shows a strong correlation between program duration and project success, as defined by artists and community members alike. SPAWNING CREATIVE RELATIONSHIPS "If there was a lesson that I learned, it was how important it was for me to listen to what they wanted out of this, and to build off of that initial seed idea that was theirs…There were moments during this process where decisions I would have made as an independent artist shifted because I was more interested in the participatory element of the project…I made decisions based on my interaction with the seniors, and let them guide me in a new direction…" —Elizabeth Miller, Media artist, Millennium Artist working in Connecticut Defining success in the arts has always been a highly speculative, if not perilous, endeavor. Trying to arrive at a verdict in the realm of community arts can be even more confounding. Nevertheless, an increasing number of community arts programs are being studied to better understand their impact. Both of the millennial residency initiatives devoted significant time and resources to documentation and research. Having worked with both, I know that a key research objective was to gather the hundreds of inspiring and surprising stories that came from the participating communities. This site is one venue where these stories will live on. Another aim was to document and, hopefully, learn from the behaviors that advanced and/or limited each community as they moved forward in their projects. So, what have we learned that might be useful to others that follow? This forward is not the place to summarize the multitude of “findings” produced by the research, but there are a few overarching lessons that speak volumes about the worthiness of the millennial arts investment and the potential value of community arts residencies in general. As the field has expanded we have learned that artists who are committed to, and capable of doing this work are hard to come by. Many have come with good intentions, but very little experience. The truth is that the skill set needed to forge successful community arts partnerships is daunting. Not only must artists be technically proficient, they also need to bring community organizing and partnership skills to the table. Patience, optimism and a sense of humor come in handy as well. But, probably the most important prerequisite for this work is a love for the messy, unpredictable and confounding nature of community engagement. The millennium projects have also reinforced our understandings about the intensely collaborative nature of community engagement. The successful partnerships that emerged through Artists & Communities were built on trust and many, many hours of volunteer labor. The trust was forged on deeds and practice, not words. The community ownership evolved through the continuity, regularity, and consistency of citizen commitment and hard work over time. The benefits have been great. The trust and sharing of responsibility, even among people from different walks of life, has, in many instances persisted beyond the life of the project. For some of these communities this has proven to be one of the most valuable outcomes of the project. Many have found that the vitality of the accumulated relationships and trust must be put to use or it will dissipate quickly. The payoff, of course, has been the often unanticipated power of both the art making and community building that took place. As you read through this site, you will find that there was an abundance of both rising up in the Artists & Communities residencies. This did not happen just because the artists came to town. Most of these creators treated the community’s voice as their palette, the environment as their creative domain. They listened, they borrowed, and they synthesized. Some took the old and new and linked them. Others celebrated the common threads or the dissonance, reflecting their host communities’ triumphs, their follies, even their pain. The results were complex, creative and surprising. The program’s legacy is a creative amalgam of fifty-four American communities forged over the course of America’s millennial year. Enjoy! WILLIAM CLEVELAND, Executive Director Center for the Study of Art and Community "If you don’t tell your own story, somebody will tell it for you." —Jean St. John, Project Coordinator in Kentucky, quoting storyteller Mitch Barrett