Community Artists Bring Lessons About Creativity and Learning in Difficult Times

"Beginner’s Guide to Community-Based Arts: Ten Graphic Stories about Artists, Educators & Activists Across the U.S." by Keith Knight and Mat Schwarzman (Oakland, Calif.: New Village Press, October 2005, 200 pp.)

“Beginner’s Guide to Community-Based Arts” is a rich combination of life stories, curriculum ideas and insights about the importance of nurturing creativity to confront the difficult circumstances many people find themselves living in these days. Cartoonist Keith Knight (The “K” Chronicles” and “(th)ink”) and author Mat Schwarzman (Crossroads Project for Art, Learning and Community of New Orleans) crisscross the country profiling ten community-based arts projects that encourage people with little recognized power to share their perspectives, ideas and images with broader publics to effect change. Through the Village of Arts and Humanities in Northern Philadelphia, “Big Man” Maxton discovers his ability to make beautiful mosaic sculptures and kicks a 22-year addiction to drugs and alcohol. Big Man’s personal recovery and public art inspire old timers and young children to collectively join the Village’s efforts to transform their struggling neighborhood. The women of Mujer Artes in San Antonio, Texas, make ceramic altars to honor and raise awareness about the women murdered at the U.S.-Mexico border. Together the women of Mujer Artes build a valuable intergenerational learning community while bringing national attention to an issue often untouched by the media and public officials. While in college, Tom Hansell sees an Appalshop (Appalachian multimedia cultural organization) film about the people who live in coal mining regions. To him, "the film was like a good punk song — raw, strong and from the heart.” Shortly thereafter, Hansell moved to Whitesburg, Kentucky, to join Appalshop’s staff and made an award-winning documentary about the challenges and dangers of coal-haul trucking through narrow mountain hollers.
 
One of the things I love most about this untraditional comic-styled book is the message that anyone can and should be creative. Too many times I’ve heard students, teachers and professionals of all sorts say, “I’ve just never been that creative,” as if it were a biological trait or skill you acquire by a certain age or lose forever. Asking us to put on  “conceptual glasses” that allow us to consider creativity just a "muscle" that some exercise more than others, Knight and Schwarzman urge us to suspend our disbelief surrounding the limits of human creativity. The ten stories of artists, educators and activists from across the country reiterate the importance of flexing this creative muscle. By example we learn how creativity is powerful information, can unite a community across generations, and helps build skills, confidence and even incomes. At a time when many people are less sure of our ability to confront what seem like "all-powerful" corporate, media and governmental institutions Knight, Schwarzman and the project participants remind us to "unleash our social imaginations" to envision the world differently. And many of the stories show us how to turn visions into action.
 
Organized around an overarching method of Contact, Research, Action, Feedback and Teaching (CRAFT), each section ends with a set of practical activities, projects and teaching techniques to start a community-based art process. For example, a technique called "Community Sounding" (p. 41-42) can be used to help participants “listen, observe, question, absorb raw material from the community, filter it through (your own) experiences and then give it back.” The authors clearly lay out directions for conducting a three-hour, multiple-session "Community Sounding" lesson that engages community members in listening to the perspectives of a community and presenting them to broader publics. The "Ripple Effect" activity (p.127-129) goes a step further, framing the 360 Degrees project — which uses the Internet as an interactive communication, advocacy and organizing vehicle — as a model for groups to think about how to reach new audiences, more broadly distribute their work and create a "ripple effect." This practical activity outlines a way to engage participants in creating "Who Cares" maps, which represent who cares most about the issues or concerns of the project, moving from the center outward to audiences most and least affected.
 
By the end of the book the message that everyone can and should be creative is deepened by the conclusion that teaching is also something everyone, old and young, should and can do. Matt, the narrator, reminds us, “Teaching is not a selfless act. It is insurance, survival. It is a means for turning something temporary into something long lasting.” This is one of the few educational books I’ve read in recent years that remain hopeful and idealistic about the power of teaching and also shows us how it has been and can be done.
 
While the “Beginner’s Guide to Community-Based Arts” is primarily directed at youth leaders and organizations, many of the insights and examples involve difficult, long-term organizing processes to address complex societal problems. To facilitate an effective, broad-based community effort, like some of the activities proposed in the book, is not easy. And tackling the difficult issues that emerge, such as juvenile incarceration, adult-onset diabetes in Native communities and the enduring struggle for worker rights, will not be achieved overnight. So don’t let the short, inspiring comic-book style and accessible language fool you. This is a book that should be taken seriously by anyone interested in doing the kind of social-change work previewed from the "roadside" in this guide.

Erica Kohl is a teacher, writer and researcher with several years of experience in community development and organizing. She has worked on diverse projects ranging from oral history to school reform, neighborhood-asset mapping, immigrant and refugee community organizing, and cultural performance and the arts. She is currently working on a book about how people teach and pass on their craft outside of the formal classroom and is also pursuing a Doctoral degree at UC Berkeley.

Original CAN/API publication: November 2005