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Jumping In with Courage: An Interview with Ken KrafchekPart 1 of "A Landmark Year: Community Arts and U.S. Higher Education 2006," a CANuniversity series of timely articles, interviews, photographs and syllabi from the field. This is an interview with the first director of the new MA in Community Arts at the Maryland Institute College of Art. One of the pillars of strength in any field is the establishment of degree programs at colleges and universities. In 2006, there are at least 36 degree programs involving training in community-based art at institutions of higher learning worldwide. But Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore is the only U.S. school offering a "Master's Degree in Community Art." MICA began its journey toward that distinction in 1998 when it became part of an historic network created by an American foundation. When historians write about the field, they will come to identify the Wallace Foundation as a substantial investor in the establishment of community arts in higher education. In 1998, Wallace seeded the field with an idea that would bear prodigious fruit: The Community Arts Partnership program (CAP) and its national network, the Community Arts Partnership Institute (CAPInstitute). Responding to "diminished exposure to arts education in public schools and community-based organizations," Wallace founded CAP to avoid a crisis in the future of "arts participation." Reasoning that if kids aren't exposed to art, they won't participate in it in the future, the foundation took a "strategic opportunity" to "bolster the work of leading professional arts schools interested in developing strong arts education programs for community youth while also helping the next generation of artists develop skills in engaging audiences." Inspired by the model of the CAP program at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Wallace sank $5 million over the next five years into Community Arts Partnerships at six art colleges across the U.S:
Significantly, Wallace provided Columbia with a planning grant to create the Institute for Community Arts Partnerships (CAPInstitute), to promote "knowledge-sharing and best practice among all the participating schools and the broader field." Through the funding for CAPInstitute, the colleagues began to meet, and therein lies the birth of a movement. Not only did these CAPs eventually produce four degree programs, their founding scholars created a network of pioneers that is still leading the field. Undoubtedly strengthened by the sudden wave of activity in U.S. art schools, dozens of other institutions of higher education established strong courses, concentrations, minors and majors in community-arts-related studies and community partnerships. Though the Wallace funding ended in 2003, many of the educators and their colleagues have continued to meet informally to consider the needs of the quickly growing field. In 2005, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), California State Monterey Bay, Cooper Union, Xavier New Orleans and Columbia produced a CAP Casebook, already available on the Web (http://www.mica.edu/CAP/) and soon to appear in print. This document, by the way, begins with a strong update on the history of community arts, written by recognized authority Arlene Goldbard. This essay should be widely read. In 2006, faculty and staffers from MICA, Columbia, California College of the Arts (CCA), Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, Cal State Monterey Bay and others met in New Orleans at Xavier to discuss their needs as community-arts educators, including a professional organization and a peer-reviewed journal. Some of them are writing grants and programs together. Many of them were on an advisory committee that made heady plans for the November convergence at CCA, "Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement," November 2-4, 2006, co-presented with Massachusetts College of Art and the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. In early 2006, the rumble from the jungle led me to investigate the program at MICA. Through interviews with the inaugural class of 13 grad students, faculty and staff, and eye-witness observance of classes and projects in progress, I was able to learn a lot about what matters to these people right now. The MA in Community Arts (MACA) program, administered through MICA’s Center for Art Education, spans two summers and one academic year. Grounded in the principles of social justice, MACA features intensive, ongoing work with children and youth in community settings, including in 2006
Ken Krafchek, the program's director, gave me an inspiring interview. Also, you can view pictures of the faculty, students and their work in "Street Cred," my April 2006 review of the graduate students' Winter exhibition at MICA, "Two Way Street," in which they addressed their relationships with their community partners in Baltimore. This interview with Ken Krafchek took place February 26, 2006, at MICA. Linda Burnham: How did you become involved in creating partnerships between the MICA campus and the community? Ken Krafchek: In the beginning, I was interested in encouraging MICA students to engage community whenever and however I could – which at the time meant going to a local elementary school and drawing portraits of the kids over a three-week period. That doesn't seem like a big deal, but many MICA students come from fairly privileged backgrounds from all over the country and world. Working with youth from the inner city of Baltimore was a big deal for many of them. Also, I had noticed that some of our students felt disengaged from the typical fine-art/high-art gallery scene. They were looking for compelling ways to extend the studio experience. This was how long ago? Fifteen years ago. We did small "outreach" projects. I teamed with a handful of other teachers … sort of an unofficial service-learning program. But I never used that term (and still don't). About ten years ago the college was contacted, based on the various community projects it was supporting, to apply and participate in the Community Arts Partnership grant underwritten by Lila Wallace [then Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, now the Wallace Foundation]. Describe Wallace's CAP program. We were asked to recruit, train, place, oversee, and "grow" our students' involvement with the local Baltimore community. Geographically, MICA is located in a middle- to upper-middle-class historic community in an urban area. Like most cities, Baltimore deals with its share of poverty, drugs and other urban stresses. As MICA students become aware of these issues, it’s very hard for them not to be curious. CAP exists to help interested MICA students to move outside the "campus bubble" and engage Baltimore as both artists and citizens. I directed the CAP program for 7-8 years. What was your office called? The Office of Community Arts Partnerships. At one point CAP was placing roughly 90 students a semester, 130 different students a year in projects and programs around Baltimore. Most of these experiences lasted a semester, twice a week for ten weeks working in local communities – usually teaching youth, but not exclusively. So, based on the enthusiasm and interest of our students and the support and encouragement of the other CAP schools, MICA pursued an academic program in community arts. For MICA that meant a graduate program; we weren't really positioned to pursue an undergraduate degree program for a variety of reasons. The planning stage lasted two years, partially funded by Packard [David and Lucile Packard Foundation] and OSI [Open Society] and others. Two years planning. Does that seem short or long? I was doubling as CAP Director along with teaching four courses a year. So, it seemed like a short period to me! But, you can develop a program forever. There comes a point where you've just got to do it, and learn from doing it. Did you have good models to look to for planning? The Community Arts Network and the other CAP schools were all instrumental to MACA's development. But, as the first visual community-arts program in the U.S. – it was difficult to locate tangible models. That said, we are our own particular institution in our own particular city with a particularly unique set of relationships, interests, needs and resources. The MACA program is philosophically wedded to the idea of change and adaptation. Therefore, we aren't interested in becoming a rigid pedagogical model that tries to cram everybody and everything into a narrowly focused curriculum. We want to be fluid enough to facilitate the ever-changing dynamics of the City, institution and students. How did you decide to call this a major in community arts? As opposed to community-based art, or community cultural development, or – This was a huge debate on campus involving a number of vice presidents and deans. Admissions was interested in language that was recognizable without cutting off perceived options. At one point I was pushing for community arts in youth and community development. I think we ultimately decided that community arts was a term that piqued people's interest and was reasonably understandable, knowing that there wasn't any one term that really described the field's rather expansive identity and definition. What kind of help and what kind of obstacles did you run into at MICA in establishing this major? The administration and the president, Fred Lazarus, have been 110% supportive. The only thing we had to figure out was how we should describe the program. It doesn't exist anywhere, so what do you call it? How do you promote it? Where and how do you market it? Also, we were looking for an academic home for the program. The community arts was a new enough concept that none of the undergraduate departments were really able to latch onto its essence. Nobody was ever against it. It was more like: What is it? Why was Fred Lazarus into it? Was he impressed with what you'd done with CAP? The MACA program is a natural extension of CAP. Before Fred Lazarus became president of MICA, he was a Peace Corps volunteer. He has also worked with a number of community development projects. He's always been very interested in MICA's relationship to the community. And of course he's committed to our students' broad-based education. He's been quoted any number of times as saying, "As Baltimore goes, so goes MICA." So, he sees a complete 100% linkage to our surroundings. Regarding your mission and how it is formulated: In your early recruiting documents, you said MACA "positions the arts as a mediating force that celebrates difference and supports cross-cultural dialogue, understanding and reconciliation." Looks like you've couched this in language of social justice and cultural democracy. We're structured around three main concepts. We are part of the Center for Art Education. So, our primary (but not exclusive) means of engaging community is via youth-based arts programming. Second, we're invested in community building and matters related to community organizing. I can't say to what degree our students will become real community activists, but they certainly need to be sensitive to what's going on in their surroundings. And our students are active, practicing artists. Their artmaking sensibilities are greatly informed by and impact the communities they work in and for. Have the students articulated their own personal missions?
We badger the MACA students about their own personal vision, mission, goals and objectives. The students have to come to understand that they have to start with a sense of what they’re trying to do, the big picture. What drives your decision-making process? In between the stuff that you do, what are your values and beliefs and how do they inform your actions? As community artists, what are your goals? When they applied did they have to write an essay? They had to write a couple essays: who they are as an artist and how their artistic sensibilities relate to community and community arts. Also, they had to submit a portfolio of their own artwork. And if they had documentation of their work in community, we encouraged them to turn that in also. In the MACA program, we do real work in community with real consequences – it's not a theoretical study of community arts. What do you remember from the applications? Were you surprised at anything or thrilled or disappointed or horrified? I was touched by the applicants' compassion and interest in helping others. Where I come from, the "big question" often revolves around the "me." But, the MACA applicants focused on the "we." That was touching. I find that whenever I get together with community artists the world seems like a much better, loving place. The applicants had varying degrees of experience, but they had the courage and the will to delve into the unknown – driven by their desire to connect. What are the influences in this program? What were your concerns when you were planning the syllabus and what did you put into it? Students come in for one week’s intensive training before moving into a community-based internship. I wanted the MACA students to hit the ground running really fast, to be tested immediately, to become truly comfortable with the unknown. I wanted them to think on their feet and learn that there are real consequences attached to this work. Training is very important, but MACA students are artmakers, and artists learn by making. Of course, artists "need" theory – but they prefer to construct theory from their own lived experiences. And they need quality time to reflect – in order to make and learn anew.
During the first summer session, the new MACA students come in for one week's training in preparation for immediately designing curriculum and implementing a three-day-a-week, four-week arts program for children. Some of the faculty questioned how fast and furiously we hit the ground. But, overall, MACA students did great. They surprised themselves. They jumped in with true undaunted courage. We are of course re-tooling some things. We're learning how best to tease out the experiential learning process and make the doing/reflection/learning process go more smoothly. How do the students spend their time? During the fall and spring, they're on campus in class all day Monday and Tuesday until noon. The rest of the week they spend 32 hours at their residency site in the community. And this is teaching at the site where they're doing their residencies? Yes. Their first semester on-site, MACA students serve as either a lead teacher twice a week or assist professionals who are more experienced. At the same time they might perform volunteer recruitment, arts management, community organizing or other duties. One MACA student in particular is very interested in open-space development. What's open-space development? In Baltimore, there are burned out row houses that, when torn down, result in trashed and overgrown lots. Part of the strategy for helping to revitalize a community is to reclaim these blighted corners or open spaces. In many cases, this reclamation process serves as a rallying point for the community to define its identity and (re)instill pride and hope for the future. What teaching model do you use to start them off? We encourage MACA students to learn from the holistic educational models supported by MICA's Center for Art Education and adapt them to fit the needs of a community-based learning environment. Also, we are very invested in Freirian and other social-justice educational models. Did you already have a roster of community organizations that they could consider working with? Yes. We have relationships with more sites than we actually have students. Many result from relationships I had developed through CAP over the years. Each site is positioned to provide the MACA students with an impressive learning environment. About three weeks into the summer, the various site supervisors present who they are to the MACA students. On the same day, the MACA students present who they think they are, or might become. It's something like a dating ritual, matching up everybody. How many sites? Maybe 16-17 total. Was it up to the students to choose? The students and community organizations chose by mutual consent. Everyone seems to have gotten what they wanted. What was involved in the dating ritual? Did they visit the sites? Almost everyone met privately with the director of the host organization to talk through details and negotiate their relationship. Did these marriages all last? Yes. We did lose one student, though, due to evolving career aspirations (rather than the MACA program or host organization). You don't have a placement program for your graduates, do you? We are moving toward that reality. MICA is actively promoting an ongoing local and national conversation promoting the community arts and their importance to the health and well-being of communities everywhere. What are your political connections? Who's interested in the program from outside the school? Any number of politicians, funders, and nonprofit leaders from across the City, state and nation are very interested in the program and how its graduates might impact their own constituencies. In fact, community-based programming during MACA's summer session is located in one City Council District – born from MICA's long-term relationship with local council member, Mary Pat Clarke. For this generation of students, is there something glamorous about community work to them, instead of just staying in the studio? I wouldn't attach glamour to the work. But the MACA students are compelled to create new kinds of meaning in new kinds of ways. That's special. We seem to be in a time when people feel so paralyzed to do anything to change the way things are going, especially in this country. Seems like the Right has a stranglehold on everything. I'm interested that there are still people who feel motivated. I do see a change from when I started teaching 20 years ago. In general, MICA's undergraduate students are much more aware of what's going on in the world. They have a much broader, more global perspective. And 9/11 got a lot of people's attention. This is the community arts training program I have visited that is for visual artists. Visual artists spend more time working alone than, say, theater artists. Do you see these students struggling with themselves as artists while they are learning to work in the community?
Sometimes we have to remind the students to incorporate their own artistic voice into their community work. They are powerful agents of change because they are artists. So, is there some kind of line in the sand where visual artists distinguish between being a community or studio-based artmaker? In my mind, artists are trained to make connections between the seemingly disparate, build harmonious relationships and lift up hidden meaning. If we pull away the painter's canvas and look at the world as a whole – the community as the artist's canvas – imagine what we can do! Many of our students are open to the possibilities. If they're painting at the end of their journey, that's great. If they're not and they're happy and vital, that's great, too. That's interesting. Maybe they'll turn out to be painters. And they may be making artwork that no one's seen before because their motivations are completely new and different. Ken Krafchek has been a member of the MICA faculty since 1985. He supervised the creation and design of MICA's new MA in Community Arts and serves as its first Graduate Director. As former director of MICA's Office of Community Arts Partnerships (CAP), he supervised its creation in 1998 and led its expansion, developing programs, and initiating relationships at convenings of the national CAPInstitute and numerous local convocations of youth-serving organizations. A fine artist and freelance illustrator specializing in magazine and newspaper illustration, Krafchek was a 1978 honors graduate of Carnegie Mellon University with a BFA in Illustration; he received his MFA in art education from MICA in 1995. Linda Frye Burnham is co-director of Art in the Public Interest and the community Arts Network. NOTE: This story is accompanied by two syllabi from the MACA program:
Original CAN/API publication: September 2006 CommentsPost a comment Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out) (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.) |
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