In 1969, community-arts pioneers Robert E. Gard, Ralph Kohlhoff and Michael Warlum were at work in Wisconsin on The Arts in the Small Community, the first NEA-funded rural arts project. Gard was the author of "Grassroots Theater: A Search for Regional Arts in America" (1955), a foundational text in the field. He was also founder of the Wisconsin Idea Theater, which spread community-based grassroots theater statewide through UW Extension. The transcript of a conversation among the three recently surfaced in the UW archives, and Warlum edited it for CAN publication. The issues they discussed are still vibrant today: the intimacy of place, the position of the artist and his/her ego in community work, questions of quality, social change and more. [LINK]

Heard the one about how liberals form a firing squad? "First, we make a circle …" Seriously, though, in this politically stressful time, CAN offers some ways progressive organizations can achieve their social goals without imploding. First, we bring you consultant Arlene Goldbard's best thinking on organizational suicide prevention. "Success," says Goldbard, "depends on internal strengths, on how shrewd, resourceful and focused a nascent movement's members might be. And I haven't seen a lot lately to assure me that a U.S.-based progressive movement isn't going to commit suicide — again. You can only shoot yourself in the foot so many times before you bleed to death." She outlines four classic ways progressive organizations paralyze or destroy themselves, and seven ways to avoid it. [LINK]

Why is it important to document the events we produce and attend? First and foremost, documentation helps us collect our wisdom and learn from our mistakes. This month CAN presents a quick-and-easy documentation checklist: Linda Frye Burnham notes basic questions to ask yourself before you begin, the importance of knowing your audience, things to collect at the event, interview tips and some ways to tell the story. "Not all of these items will be pertinent to your documentation, but they are good things to think about," says Burnham. "The most important guideline of all is this: Imagine you just got back and you are telling your best friend what happened. You will automatically edit the story to its shortest and sweetest. Remember that stuff." [LINK]

Group decision-making is something with which organizations classically struggle. Consultant Sheila Kerrigan, author of "The Performer’s Guide to the Collaborative Process," suggests consensus. Here she presents a brief, accessible guide to the method. "Consensus refers to a rigorous decision-making model with specific roles and vocabulary," says Kerrigan. "In a healthy consensus group, people seek the wisdom of the group instead of pushing their personal agendas, and decisions are made through mutual consent. The course of action is something that everyone can consent to, not that everyone loves, or even agrees with, but that everyone can live with. My experience with consensus groups is that they take less time, reach better decisions and leave members happier with each other and with their decisions than voting groups." [LINK]

CAN has a new e-mail listserv, "CANuniversity," for scholars and practitioners of community arts and development to think together about the training necessary to strengthen their work and about optimum ways colleges and universities can partner with community-based artists and organizations. The group, which now has 68 members, has been discussing student practicums in the community, their advantages and disadvantages; placing student interns in the community with master artists; developing leadership in student-artist-community collaborations; producing economic and staff-training benefits in the community; finding ways for higher ed to open its doors to non-matriculating students; working election-related events into teaching and projects; and teaching students with no arts background. If you would like to join the conversation at CANu, send a blank e-mail to: canuniversity-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. [LINK]

Wireless technology is relatively inexpensive, accessible and can pack a punch, with at times just one individual at its origin. In response to the new wave of artistic projects employing wireless technology to make specific political statements, the New School hosts a panel discussion in New York City on 9/27/04, "Hot Enough? Art, Activism and Wireless Technology During the Republican National Convention." The panel will examine how artists use wireless to reach unprecedented masses, recast the concept of collaboration, redefine and politicize the urban environment and achieve new levels of immediacy. Panelists include members of The Bureau of Inverse Technology, Bikes Against Bush, neuroTransmitter and more. (It's also available as a Web cast and online discussion at the New School Online University.) [LINK]

What rights do nonprofits have when it comes to stating political beliefs? In City Limits (8/20/04), Xiaoquing Rong quotes the Lawyer's Alliance for N.Y.: Identify your organization’s position on issues, but don’t identify political candidates’ positions. When you invite candidates to events or provide mailing lists, offer them to all candidates, regardless of party. Before any candidates come to your event, write them a letter explaining that this is not campaign stop and they cannot talk about the election. While they might break their promise, this letter would save you from responsibility. Employees are allowed to work on campaigns, but only on their own time. Avoid linking your Web site to the site for a partisan issue or campaign. (Thanks, Utne Web Watch.) [LINK]

"The nation's morals are like teeth. The more decayed they are, the more it hurts to touch them," says Celia Wren, quoting George Bernard Shaw in the introduction to her American Theatre magazine (9/04) survey of current U.S. political theater around the coming elections. This is one of the more stunning AT editorial ideas, tapping the progressive thinking of 16 theaters in San Francisco, Portland, Fairfax (Va.), New York City, Chicago, San Jose, Washington D.C., Minneapolis, Cleveland, Reno and Los Angeles. Jack Reuler of Minneapolis' Mixed Blood, says of their fall production "Flags," about a Vietnam vet whose son is killed in Iraq, "'Flags' can, I contend, change minds – minds that can sway votes, which can lead to new leadership, which can save lives." It's online. [LINK]

With Joan Kroc's $236-million endowment burning a hole in its pocket, National Public Radio is expanding — and making member stations nervous, says Lynette Clemetson in the N.Y. Times (8/30/04). At an August meeting in Los Angeles, NPR executives faced a flurry of pointed questions from station managers about their long-term intentions. Managers wanted to know whether NPR would share the Kroc donation or instead try to woo stations' local donors, and asked about rumors that NPR was considering taking its top-rated shows to satellite radio. "The local stations created NPR as a newsgathering organization for us," said Alan Chartock of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. "If the tail is now wagging the dog to literally compete with us, then we have to protect ourselves." [LINK]

Imagining America is a national consortium furthering links between universities and the communities they serve — what members call "public scholarship" or "a true partnership between town and gown." Director Julie Ellison writes in AI's Summer 2004 newsletter about why it's important to address academic tenure ("the reward system" for university faculty) as a public matter. If tenure depended more on the quality of public scholarship, she says, the flow of knowledge between campuses and communities would improve, as would the critical examination of campus-community projects and the strength of alliances between campuses and other knowledge-making institutions like museums, libraries, public radio, etc. And tenure is a measure of how much scholarship "counts"; including public scholarship in tenure policies will help build more diverse faculties. [LINK]

After more than 15 years of planning, raising money and construction, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian is set to open September 21, 2004, in Washington, D.C., says Kate Ackerman on the Cox News Service (8/15/04). The 250,000-square-foot museum, situated on the National Mall, is the result of years of collaboration with Native American communities. Director W. Richard West Jr., a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma and a peace chief of the Southern Cheyenne, said recently that in museum activities no topic "would be dodged," from the "efforts of the federal government to eliminate native people" to questions about casinos on Indian reservations. The museum's design is unique, employing many significant native materials. (Thanks, NASAA.) [LINK]

San Francisco Bay Area bus driver Oscar Melara and S.F. City College librarian Kate Connell have created "Our Work Life: 3 Generations of Bay Area Work and Workers," a mobile mural telling workers' personal stories and calling attention to the rich diversity of the local labor force. The mural, 56' x 11", is being exhibited on the interior advertising panels of five San Mateo County Transit District buses serving the peninsula, coast and downtown San Francisco, September 6 - November 7, 2004. Riders/viewers can collect “transfers” leading them to Web sites on labor and transit art and inviting them to share personal stories of their own work lives. The project's opening celebration was on Labor Day at the Ships Clerks Local Union Hall. [LINK]

An abandoned arms factory has become the symbol of the new avant-garde in Beijing, China, as the city government supports the Dashanzi International Art Festival in Space 798, says Craig Symons in the N.Y. Times (9/1/04). The festival is a collaboration among 74 galleries and private art studios in a refurbished 1950s-era weapons factory. Two years ago artists and musicians began moving into the empty building, which was slated for demolition. Artist Xu Yong appealed to officials, who supported the artists on the chance that a flourishing art scene would help Beijing become a vibrant city. Now the government plans to protect the area so it can establish an art district similar to SoHo in New York in time for the 2008 Olympics. [LINK]

On Back Stage.com (8/20/04), Leonard Jacobs reviews "Cultural Policy at the Grassroots," a report from Washington, D.C.'s Center for Arts and Culture based on seminars in 2003 in Nashville, Los Angeles and New Orleans examining "how government policies affect community-based cultural organizations." Among the report's findings Jacobs called "prescient": "Demographics are changing the nature of cultural activities and participation"; "Small organizations feel they do not have the resources, time or clout to be part of policy making or discussion"; and "For the younger generation of artists and arts leaders, the distinction between for-profit and nonprofit is beginning to fade. Understanding and integrating this system may help commercial artists and creators overcome barriers to government resources." (The report is downloadable as a .pdf.) [LINK]

P.O.V., public television's annual showcase for independent nonfiction films, will hold its third Youth Views Institute November 5-7, 2004, at Project Reach in New York City. The institute will bring together 20 young community leaders, ages 16-20, for training in how to use independent documentaries and nonfiction storytelling as tools for creating positive social change with their community work. It will feature documentary screenings and workshops on critical thinking and media literacy, diversity training, community organizing, outreach methods and event planning and promotion. And, for the first time, this year P.O.V. partners with the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival High School Program to add teacher training for public-high-school and after-school educators (November 20). Application deadline: 9/15/04. [LINK]

The Public Art Network is seeking session proposals for its June 9-10, 2005, conference in Austin, Tex., a preconference to the annual American for the Arts convention. The conference committee is looking for sessions in any format relating to these topics: "Land, Space and Art: Land Art Revisited," "Public Art Within the Political and Social Landscape," "Public Art Administration Topic Workshops" and "Experimental and Innovative Public Art Approaches," as well as the relationship of public art with the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, sociology and anthropology. Deadline for submission is October 1, 2004. Details are on the PAN Web site. The conference committee is looking for sessions in any format relating to these topics: "Land, Space and Art: Land Art Revisited," "Public Art Within the Political and Social Landscape," "Public Art Administration Topic Workshops" and "Experimental and Innovative Public Art Approaches," as well as the relationship of public art with the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, sociology and anthropology. Deadline for submission is October 1, 2004. Details are on the PAN Web site. [LINK]

During August, a number of creative writers stepped up to the plate politically. Novelist Arundhati Roy, in a notable San Francisco speech (8/16/04), said: "If we want to reclaim the space for civil disobedience, we will have to liberate ourselves from the tyranny of crisis reportage and its fear of the mundane. We have to use our experience, our imagination, and our art to interrogate the instruments of [the] state that ensure that 'normality' remains what it is: cruel, unjust, unacceptable. We have to expose the policies and processes that make ordinary things — food, water, shelter and dignity — such a distant dream for ordinary people. Real pre-emptive strike is to understand that wars are the end result of flawed and unjust peace." (Thanks Beverly Naidus.) [LINK]

Another novelist (and critic), John Berger, weighed in on Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11" in the Guardian (8/24/04), calling it a rare success by an artist at intervention in world politics and an interruption of the "prepared, prevaricating statements of politicians." Launched in an atmosphere saturated with propaganda, which "requires a permanent network of communication so that it can systematically stifle reflection with emotive or utopian slogans" and serves the long-term interests of an elite, says Berger, this "single maverick film" is an appeal to people to think for themselves and make connections. Its aim, he says, is to "stop Bush fixing the next election as he fixed the last." But its real value is in asking how much longer the poor will be asked to make the most sacrifices. (Thanks, Beverly Naidus.) [LINK]

And yet another novelist (and columnist), Anna Quindlen, responded to Barak Obama's speech at the Democratic Convention with a celebration of liberalism (Newsweek, 8/9/04): "It's worth remembering that today's moderate values were the liberal notions of yesteryear. Social Security. Integrated schools. … We liberals have been shamed into thinking our vision failed, when in fact it has simply been absorbed into the national self-portrait. From the idea that a woman ought to have the same legal rights as her male counterparts to the belief that workers should count on being safe from hazardous conditions, formerly liberal principles have become bedrock democracy. …I've always seen it [liberalism] as an ethos in which possibility gets way out in front of reality and takes a flying leap." [LINK]

And finally, writer Garrison Keillor rants (in these times, 8/26/04): "The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk." [LINK]

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