The Matthews Opera House and Arts Center
Report date
September 2019
What has been most instrumental to your progress?
Creating a variety of inclusive, community-based arts engagement projects was a fundamental aspect of our innovation process and became key to our grant project success. Through these projects, almost every member of our community had the opportunity to participate in artist-led residencies, workshops, or events that then became a part of larger art installations, artistic presentations, or community discussions on inclusion. Our community discovered that the process of making art together is as important as the artistic outcome because of the discussions and interactions that can occur as a part of the process. As a result of these projects and the accompanying discussions, creative and social bonds were developed across our community with groups who often don't have the opportunity to engage together in these types of programs, such as residents in assisted living facilities, school children, university students, and people with disabilities. These projects increased the community's awareness of the impact of the arts on their quality of life, which has already generated support for further creative collaborations throughout our community.
Working collaboratively with our cohort, artists, and community arts leaders/instigators has been of critical importance to the process and to the arts projects themselves. Initially, we anticipated that the first stages of the grant would be spent on educating and building capacity through cohort meetings and training. What we discovered was that the collective understanding of community issues and and addressing those issues through the arts actually came about more successfully through implementing the community arts projects together. As the initial projects were planned and completed, they developed further ideas and opportunities for achieving our project goals and expanding the reach and impact of the subsequent projects. Our community artists, many of whom had not participated in community-based arts engagement projects before, gained experience in planning successful residency and workshop engagements, as well as better understanding the timetables and resources that go into larger art installations or performances. This propagation of artistic capacity, as well as the public nature of the projects, resulted in several projects being expanded beyond our innovation project.
Many of our public art installations occurred on city or school district property - fences, streets, and recreation centers. Both of these institutions were willing to support trying new techniques and committed to designating space without having final visuals prior to approval of the projects. They also embraced the idea of semi-permanent art installations that could last only a few years or even just a few seasons before the art began to fade or wear from the weather elements. In the case of the City, equipment was purchased to further the installation process for some projects. The public support and participation in these public art projects, as well as the successful collaborations with local artists and arts organizations, has resulted in increased City support for continuing these types of projects in the future including an additional community mural project. In addition, one of the initial grant art installation projects has been incorporated into a major expansion of our community recreation path system, with matching funds and resources approved by the City. Without this willingness to give different art installs a try, the grant would not have been as successful.
Key lessons learned
We learned that adaptability is important in the process. Because we are a small community, we expected that many of our cohort participants would already know each other or would have worked together before; this was not the case and we were surprised since, as an arts center, we had already engaged with all of them in the past. Therefore, more time was required at the start of the project for cohort members to get to know each other and learn to work together. We also discovered that our cohort size was too large to be effective for meeting scheduling and taking ownership; sustaining attendance and involvement became too challenging. It wasn't until we moved forward with several of the art projects that we were able to identify the cohort participants or organizations that were committed to the process and to future projects; initially we viewed this as a process failure, but, as the grant art projects moved forward, we realized that more artistic leadership was coming from the community or through introductions made by cohort members. Ultimately, this led to better quality projects, resulting in improved viability after the grant period.
We learned that there is great community enthusiasm for free arts programming with a social purpose: residencies, workshops, and art installations that have intense community interaction. Creating a sustainable method for organizing and financing this type of arts outreach is far more challenging than the general public understands. Throughout the grant period, we tried to create projects that would have some aspect of sustainability or capacity building outside of the arts center; in many respects we achieved this. Several of our artists or community participants took the initiative to continue or expand the projects they were engaged with to incorporate other communities, additional events, new arts space, and additional supporting grants. The process for this extended support was more organic than we expected; we envisioned a more structured model for community arts planning to result from this process. Instead, we found that those who found deep value in specific types of project engagements were committed to continuing those projects independently. As we finish our grant period, we hope that this enthusiasm will continue to move these initiatives forward.
Reflections on the community innovation process
The scope and scale of the projects that were completed through our grant process required developing collaborative relationships to propagate ideas, identify and acquire the resources and expertise needed to execute the projects successfully, and share learning across projects. Eventually, this skill acquisition and building of trust resulted in additional projects being developed or projects being sustained across a longer time period or with more interactions - as an example, our Linking Fences project was sustained for three years and expanded to two additional communities. As different artists and organizations began to work together, projects independent of our grant were also created or identified for future engagement. The process of being a part of projects also taught our artists and community organizations to be more resourceful using available materials and skills - that all arts programming does not have large budgets. Several of our projects incorporated recycled materials as the primary art mediums, which allowed us to offer more engagements and develop collaborations with sustainability programs in our area.
Progress toward an innovation
Our community, institutions, and arts center have definitely made innovative breakthroughs in the way in which community arts projects are being planned and evaluated - both for resources, as well as for social impact. There is an increased awareness of inclusive community participation and the highlighting of local artists as a part of this process. Our grant application identified eight key outcomes that we anticipated by the end of the grant period: six of them have been achieved and the remaining two have been partly achieved. The network of community arts advocates has been greatly expanded, especially with the arts as a tool for inclusion and belonging. Deeper, trusting relationships have been created through the grant projects.Community members' involvement and appreciation for our artists and arts impact has been increased and we were able to highlight emerging cultural groups in our project discussions. Expertise has been developed among our local artists, particularly with our college arts students through participating in grant projects. The arts have significantly more influence as a mechanism for improved community equity with our city leaders because of ArtCentral.
What's next?
Certain aspects of this project are already continuing forward. Several of the programs that were developed have spawned additional arts resources or projects in our community. A new makerspace was created directly as a result of our Re:Create project; this space is shared with a local bicycle coop as the organization's programming needs are counter-seasonal to each other. An additional mural project is in process with the City; Linking Fences has an artist champion who is dedicated to expanding the reach of the program, as well as a rec center director who envisions continuing the expansion of the decorated fences through our summer rec program; further discussion-based film series are being incorporated into program planning at the arts center; Spearfish Songbook as a concert is in active discussion for this next year; the rec path art installation may be expanded through additional grant funding being sought by the City. As a new ED at the arts center in September, he will be encouraged by leaders in our partnering institutions to further the longer-term arts planning process with them; orientations to this work are already planned.
One last thought
Although this process required so much passion and energy from our organization, as well as our cohort, artists, and partnering organizations, our community's vocal appreciation for the opportunities these project residencies, workshops, and arts engagements offered to them was heart-warming and profound. Although challenging subjects were often discussed, the artistic aspect of each engagement or project resulted in more respect and better listening to differing points of view. Our project participants who live in residential facilities or have developmental disabilities appreciated the efforts made to make projects accessible by either bringing the workshop to their residential locations or adapting it to align with their capabilities. The majority of the work of this grant incorporated enjoyment, respect, education, and community bonding; that shows in the artistry of the completed projects.