INTRODUCTION

The role of the arts in the social structure follows the need of the changing times:
In time of social stasis: to activate
In time of germination: to invent fertile new forms
In time of revolution: to extend the possibilities of peace and freedom
In time of violence: to make peace
In time of despair: to give hope
In time of silence: to sing out

—Judith Malina, Founder, The Living Theatre

In 1997, the National Endowment for the Arts funded a collaborative, regional project proposed by the state arts agencies of Idaho, Washington and Oregon: The Spirit of the Northwest: Regaining Community Identity Through the Arts.

In the original application, the project was summarized as "a three year demo project to establish/document a process by which arts organizations can collaborate with federal, state and local partners to generate/maintain an array of services for community development that can be adapted across geographical and cultural borders."

Six rural communities, each struggling with long-standing, significant local issues, were selected to develop arts-based efforts to help regain community identity. The six communities selected were: Forks and Newport, Washington; Kamiah and Driggs, Idaho; White City and Joseph, Oregon. During initial community planning, Forks was unable to generate the long-term leadership commitment needed, and was replaced by Republic, Washington.

During planning, half of the Spirit of the Northwest communities chose to define community identity within a larger local geographic boundary. The Newport project changed to the Pend Oreille County project. Driggs team members quickly identified their effort as a Teton Valley project. The Joseph project became the Wallowa County project.

In all six communities, the information collection and planning process was as important as the output of the effort. While every participating community generated an arts product, the true impact on community identity can only be realized when both process and product are considered.

Why "Spirit of the Northwest"?

The Spirit of the Northwest project was grounded in a belief shared by the three state arts agencies that specific, regional issues can shred the fabric of rural community identity.

The Spirit of the Northwest is adventurous, self-reliant, pioneering. Since the first white settlers came rolling across the Oregon Trail, this spirit has echoed across the decades. The Northwest holds high deserts, lush forests and soaring mountains, and is rooted with an identity of rugged individualism responding to abundant natural resources. It is the birthplace of the Nez Perce and many other tribes, the land of Lewis and Clark, of fishing and backpacking and logging, of orchards, of mines, of love for the land.

Increasingly in the late 20th century, the Pacific Northwest's rural communities (as in much of the western United States) have faced a plethora of common challenges:

• Natural resources can no longer sustain local economies.
• Tourism is on the rise, bringing at times vast numbers of "others" to rural areas, especially during warmer months.
• The cultural and political issues of the region's indigenous peoples increase in visibility or draw new scrutiny.
• Rapidly developing communications technology brings the outside world to the doorstep of even the most isolated towns.
• Land is increasingly used, in isolated and beautiful areas, as a precious commodity for second homes for the wealthy. Land values rise, taxes increase.
• The divisions between newcomer and old-timer create radical differences of opinion about current choices and future possibilities.

The Spirit of the Northwest is a spirit under siege.

What Is Community Identity?

"Community identity is hearing and knowing the people around you; it is being with them, thinking: 'I am of these people'."

Project member, Pend Oreille County

The core of the Spirit of the Northwest project was:

• What is community identity?
• Why is community identity important, particularly in rural communities?
• Can community identity be regained?
• How can the arts be part of helping to build, strengthen or even change community identity?

Project leaders, and hundreds of citizen-leaders in all six participating communities, wrestled with these questions over the three years of the Spirit of the Northwest project. The questions about community identity were approached philosophically and sociologically, were answered with tangible, physical demonstrations, were explored through local history and geography. Some communities found theoretical answers: "Our community identity is about unity." Some communities found answers that were more concrete: "Our community identity is our new Memorial Day parade."

The success of the project was described in the original grant proposal as "dependent upon understanding that no formula exists for success from the outset ­ that solutions will come from the communities themselves in collaboration with the partners."

The original grant title, The Spirit of the Northwest: Regaining Community Identity, seemed apt when coined. But as the work proceeded, project leaders were told by the communities that their identity was not lost, and therefore could not be regained. The communities said: Even if the identity is not all positive, or even if a previous sense of identity has shattered, we still have one!

Definitions

Project leaders learned that the title of our project could have been more accurately stated: "Claiming Our Identity as a Community."

This new title synthesizes learning from the three years' work on the Spirit of the Northwest. Understanding the difference between the word "claim" and "regain" is important to this learning.

We define "Community" as:
"a common place, with common stories and connections between people."

We define our shared "Identity" as:
"how we know and claim who we are together."

We define "To claim" as:
"to recognize and take responsibility for something."

The Choice to Claim Identity as a Community

The Spirit of the Northwest project learning suggests that people cannot regain lost community identity. Together they can make ongoing choices to claim their current identity as a community. The verb "to claim" requires action.

In healthy community life, there is commitment to togetherness. But the urge and drive to claim identity as a community is cyclical, unpredictably influenced by a myriad of factors that impact community life. Sometimes crisis or disaster coalesces identity - sometimes it is destroyed. Sometimes radical economic change accelerates evolution, sometimes a ghost town results.

Our world often confuses identity with image. "Image" can be packaged or manufactured through advertising or public relations strategies, usually to accomplish economic or political ends. A community's image can link to a community's identity, but they are not necessarily the same thing.

Community identity is a by-product, a symbolic, tangible or mythological representation. Community identity represents the collective response of a group of people to forces and factors which impact community life and force change to occur.

Community identity has a ring of authenticity, a truth that is absent in even the most carefully arrayed billboard or brochure.

The Role of the Arts

Since the first cave paintings expressed the life of the tribe, the arts have spoken the feelings and realities of community life.

"You know artists being in the room can make all the difference in the energy of the story-telling".

Tony Douglass, playwright, "Down River"

In the Spirit of the Northwest community projects, the arts supported, enhanced or accelerated the claiming of community identity:

• The arts brought communities together to work on common projects. The arts brought people out of isolation and into engagement with one another, accelerating the progression of claiming community identity.
• The arts expressed shared community response to disturbing ­ or exciting — forces and factors that impact community life.
• The arts encouraged expression of divergent responses ­ and stimulated community dialogue.

Key Learnings: A Cycle to Consider

We have come to understand that the cycle of community change leads to a cycle of claiming community identity, and that the arts can play a myriad of roles at each stage of this cycle.

This cycle is a "test model" which links together some of what was observed in the six Spirit project communities. Other communities and/or projects may extrapolate from this cycle, but need to consider these six communities were similar in these ways:

• Population 1,000-5,000
• Overlapping leadership of most community-based projects
• A significant change, or series of changes, is impacting long-held community identity
• A leadership group decided that changing community identity was a significant issue and applied to participate in the Spirit of the Northwest

Our understanding, synthesized from the experiences with these six community projects, suggests a pattern of cyclical community change related to shifting community identity.

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The Spirit of the Northwest is a regional partnership project of the Idaho Commission on the Arts, the Oregon Arts Commission and the Washington State Arts Commission, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal Agency. It is made available on the Web as a courtesy by the Community Arts Network. Questions or comments regarding this project can be addressed to Bitsy Bidwell, Community Arts Development Manager, Washington State Arts Commission, P.O. Box 42675, Olympia, WA, 98504-2675, (360) 586-2421 or email bitsyb@arts.wa.gov.