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Let Us Now Praise the Artists Among Us The Culture of Community
Robert MacDonald The Okanagan Institute
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m This essay was delivered in a public presentation at the Okanagan Arts Awards in Kelowna BC on Saturday March 2 2013. Published by the Okanagan Institute, and copyright under Creative Commons. The text type is Chaparral.
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m Every society clings to a myth by which it lives. Ours is the myth of economic growth. For the last five decades the pursuit of growth has been the single most important policy goal across the world. We are reliant on it for stability. When growth falters – as it has done recently – politicians panic, businesses struggle, people lose their jobs, and a downward spiral toward depression looms. Questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists, revolutionaries and artists. What’s the alternative? An economy where resources are valued not wasted, where food is grown sustainably and goods are built to last. Where energy security is based on the use of renewable sources, and communities are valued as a country’s strongest hedge against social, economic and environmental instability. It operates at the human scale, and above all it recognizes nature’s limits. Our future depends on it.
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We need the future in the same way that we need air, food, and water – other resources threatened by our habits and indifference. Not just any future, but a future in which tomorrow is better than today. We need to know that our actions in the present will count toward something, will be meaningful. The future belongs to everyone, and anyone can access or use it, through the power of imagination. A commons is anything that no one owns but everyone can access and use. The Internet is a commons, at least for now. So are the oceans and our atmosphere. The radio spectrum is a commons. So are our streets, parks and water delivery systems. So is our culture. All of these things require intention and cooperation to maintain, lest we use them up. In other words, all the commons need people to care for and cultivate them. So does the commons we call the future. We don’t cultivate the future with shovels or software, but through stories. Stories told through painting, sculpture, through plays and music, through novels and poems, through dance and clay and movement. The future is, in fact, just a collection of sto-
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ries that we tell each other. The more and the better stories we tell – and the more people we share them with – the more we strengthen the commons of the future. It’s time for us to take back the future from our old bad-habit selves, and give it new life. It’s time for us to praise and encourage the storytellers among us, and in us. The poets and playwrights, the musicians and curators, the painters and sculptors, the animators and illustrators, the singers and dancers and all the other creative people. It is time to praise and embrace the arts and culture of our community, for without them we are bereft of a future. Creative activities – like painting, dancing, playing music, or writing – induce states of being that, once engaged, seem to take us over, to transport us effortlessly into another state of being in which our capacity to experience and express our human identity and potential is profoundly intensified, expanded, and illuminated. Though we may end up with some kind of a finished product, such as an artwork, a book, poem, song, or performance piece, the essential aspect of the activity involves a creative, or
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otherwise unnamable, transformation in the interior quality of our state of being, which then becomes manifest as an external accomplishment. It is one of the most powerful, and beautiful, human experiences. If you haven’t had one, start now. Our communities are changing, and becoming more complex. In every sector of society traditions are collapsing, jobs are changing or disappearing, and there is growing skepticism about our institutions. At the same time there are growing numbers of people engaged in creating better futures, and more vibrant engagements with their communities. None more than the legions of artists of all kinds among us. Culture is a set of social and artistic skills, practices and competencies supported by a history, a body of theory, and a delivery infrastructure. Cultural workers and institutions bring the community together. When communities participate in creative activity the experience is different from merely consuming creative work.
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We start thinking and feeling in new ways. Culture grows through sharing knowledge and capacities, through defining and renewing purposes, through making vibrant connections with the community, and through interactions with organizations in healthcare, education, social services, government and the private sectors. Culture provides opportunities and resources, and encourages interactions among artists and arts groups of all sizes and orientations, including community and professional arts organizations, arts practitioners and advocates. Culture also provides opportunities for everyone to participate in the arts, to develop cultural literacy and to speak directly and profoundly of their own experiences. Culture includes community processes and projects where artists are integrated as equal partners, as illustrators and animators, as interpreters and storytellers. What do art galleries share with libraries, museums, historical societies, schools, colleges, orchestras, and arts organizations? They are the cultural infrastructure of the community they serve.
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When one of these organizations does well, the interests of that organization and its community are served. When all of them do well together, though, the community is even better served, because their combined effect is a sense of overall cultural vitality. That’s not just a feel-good benefit for residents; it’s an economic benefit that makes it easier for the community to attract new residents and businesses and engage young and old alike. The arts are the key to a progressive community. They enable us to communicate effectively within and between generations, making sense of and reconciling life experiences, understanding and celebrating the present, and creating a legacy for the future. The arts also allow us to experiment without fear of failing – to be challenged – and to succeed in learning new skills and discovering latent ones. Strengthening connections among children and adults, family, friends, residents, and caregivers, the arts create a sense of community
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in which each person’s contribution is respected. In sum, the arts enhance the quality of our lives, no matter how we intersect with them. Why are we here on this planet? We are here to witness the creation and abet it. We are here to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but, especially, we notice the beautiful faces and complex natures of each other. We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are around us and to praise the people who are here with us. We witness our generation and our times. We watch the weather. We grow food and wine, and share the bounty. We join together in play and praise. Otherwise, creation would be playing to an empty house. According to the second law of thermodynamics, things fall apart. Structures disintegrate. There is a reason we are here: By creating things, by thinking up new combinations, we counteract this flow of entropy. We make new structures, new wholeness, so the universe comes out even. When we stand on a hilltop and look at a mess of stars and think,
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“there’s a hunter, a plow, a fish,” we’re making mental connections that have as much real force in the universe as the very fires in those distant and beautiful stars themselves. Our culture defines us, and we define our present and our future through the culture we share and we create. Let us now praise the artists among us, and let us all become artists ourselves.
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m A typographer by trade, the professional career of Robert MacDonald has spanned a broad range of activities: publisher, producer, director, contributor, creator, mentor and information outfitter. He has consulted at a senior level, and provided creative and management services to a wide variety of commercial and cultural organizations. He has beeen directly involved in the launch or repositioning of newspaper, magazine and book publishing, interactive media, and software companies. He has delivered a wide range of training and professional development programs. He was the Director of the Publishing Workshop at the University of Toronto and the Banff Centre for fifteen years, the founding Director of the Arts Journalism program at the Banff Centre, and the Media Studio at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Robert has been in the Okanagan Valley for 15 years. He is an active community volunteer, and has served as a board member of the Central Okanagan Hospice Association, Vision North Okanagan, Okanagan Network for the Environment, and Society for Learning Resources. He is the Publisher in Residence at Okanagan College, and the founding director of the Okanagan Institute, Okanagan Media Alliance and the CoCo Laboratory. He publishes Freshsheet, a weekly online newsletter, at www.freshsheet.ca
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m It’s time for us to praise and encourage the storytellers among us, and in us. The poets and playwrights, the musicians and curators, the painters and sculptors, the animators and illustrators, the singers and dancers and all the other creative people. It is time to praise and embrace the arts and culture of our community, for without them we are bereft of a future.
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