It’s ironic that a grant with the gentle, nostalgia-inspiring name “Our Town” could have triggered such dissension among its administrators, but after Tuesday night’s Selectboard meeting, there can be no doubt. Long simmering issues over the administration of the NEA grant came to the fore during that meeting when past and present members of the grant management team spoke out about the process by which the grant project had been carried out.
Concerns about the project seemed to coalesce around the issues of authority and direction. With regard to authority, many questions have been raised. Does the Core Arts team, as the grant management group is called, have the authority to decide certain issues for the town, such as whether or not to form an arts/cultural district? Who does the Core Arts team report to and by what rules is it governed? Does open meeting law apply to the Core Arts team? Can members of the team appoint or remove its own members?
Even more disruptive than these structural issues was the philosophical divide between members of the team pitting Kate Anderson’s community-centered approach against the pragmatism of her teammates Zon Eastes and Planning Director Rod Francis. In the end, there was no way to meld the two points of view and the result was Anderson’s forced resignation in the late summer of 2014.
Local artists had looked to the Our Town grant as a great opportunity to strengthen the arts community, taking a collaborative approach between the Town and local arts organizations. Certainly no one expected the project team to implode as it did. Based on interviews with CoreArts team members Kate Anderson and Zon Eastes, as well as Selectboard Chair David Gartenstein, here is an attempt to unravel this story.
Getting Launched
Back in 2012, the Town of Brattleboro, with participation from the Town Arts Committee and the Arts Council of Windham County, applied for an NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) “Our Town” grant to fund planning work for the arts sector of Brattleboro. The grant project was designed in part to explore the idea of creating an arts or cultural district in Brattleboro. An arts/cultural district is largely a planning and policy label, which would be included in the Town Plan and possibly zoning ordinances.
Kate Anderson, a local artist who has worked in and with the arts community for many years, says that she became part of the CoreArts team as a result of her work on the Town Arts Committee. The committee had held two charrettes in 2010 and 2012 for local artists and citizens to come together to discuss ways to strengthen the local arts community. According to Anderson, the January 2012 charrette specifically addressed the issue of applying for the NEA grant with the intention of potentially forming a cultural district. Once the Arts Committee decided to apply for the grant, Rod Francis joined the team as the Planning liaison and Zon Eastes for his grant-writing expertise.
According to the grant narrative:
“The NEA Our Town grant of $50,000 is a matching funds grant, which means that every federal dollar of award funded must be matched locally by individual or organizational donations—either cash or in-kind. The $100,000 Brattleboro CoreArts project focuses on local arts and cultural capacity building, involving the arts and culture community in conversations about Brattleboro’s natural and cultural heritage and future visions of community.”
The project was to proceed on three tracks, with the goal of “demonstrating how the arts, at the core, can play a deciding role in the intentional creation of place and community.”
Track 1: Cultural assets mapping
Track 2: Cultural district planning
Track 3: Public art
The project was to begin in the fourth quarter of 2012, and continue through 2013, winding up with a public art project to be completed in 2014.
The budget allocated 20% of the funding to go to the cultural assets mapping track, 40% for “civic engagement in the planning and potential development of a cultural district,” and 40% for a “public process to create a work of art or arts event that will celebrate the strength of public discourse and planning.”
The NEA approved the grant, and the project kicked off late in 2012.
Off We Go In A Leaky Vessel
The language of the grant seems straightforward at first glance, but if you actually read what’s required in each track, it’s vague enough that differences of interpretation are possible. Indeed, the CoreArts team, despite being the authors of the grant, quickly learned that among their members there were differing interpretations of what was required at almost every turn.
The grant work started amiably enough with the completion, on time, of the mapping project which culminated in an Atlas containing maps of “cultural assets” (businesses and organizations affiliated with arts and culture) as well as short narratives profiling examples of different approaches within the arts sector. As Kate Anderson describes it, the goal of the narratives was “not the what but the how” of local arts endeavors.
Although Anderson describes the book as “unique and brilliant,” she didn’t think it went far enough, and continued to push for an online directory of artists and arts organizations to facilitate networking among artists and the community. Francis and Eastes disagreed and the team proceeded to Track Two.
Here again, there was a difference of interpretation. Francis and Eastes thought the intention of Track Two was to hold panel discussions in which experts from around the region would speak to the local arts community “to explore questions of place and community.” Anderson wanted to hold community discussions on the arts/cultural district. The grant itself calls for “a series of six panel (and/or roundtable) discussions designed to explore the notions of Cultural District Development and Planning, with the arts and culture sector gaining real entrance into community decision making.”
Anderson says she lost this battle too. The CoreArts team scheduled four panels of experts during the course of 2013 and early 2014, with what Anderson felt were limited Q&A sessions at the end. They were not, she says, the community discussions that she thought were needed to really fulfill the goals of Track Two, which is entitled “Cultural District Planning.”
By this time, the CoreArts team was starting to be truly dysfunctional. Eastes acknowledges that the problem within the group was as much one of “philosophy” as of personality, although he says personality was an issue too. But the greater problem for the CoreArts team as a working group was lack of concensus. Eastes says that there were a lot of 2-1 votes in which he and team member Rod Francis were on the winning side.
The problems within the group came to a head in July 2014, when Rod Francis reported at a Selectboard meeting (with Anderson sitting in the seat beside him) that the arts district was not a high priority for the grant team. According to an iBrattleboro report, Francis said that while the group had spent time “tossing around the idea,” they would “need to be more resolved about a cultural tourism strategy, then focus on a neighborhood or district.”
When Selectboard Chair David Gartenstein asked if there was a way to support the arts through zoning, Francis is reported to have said “it’s not the approach the arts community is most eager to pursue.” Anderson says that she was shocked when she heard that the cultural district, which had been at the heart of the grant from her point of view, was being put aside. She claims that the Town Arts Committee was equally shocked when they heard of Francis’ remarks.
Drama and Aftermath
It may have been her report back to the Town Arts Committee that led to the next phase in the CoreArts saga. According to Zon Eastes, he believed that Anderson was using her position as chair of that committee to “further her own agenda” with regard to the grant. This, he said, caused he and Rod Francis to “lose trust” in her and set the stage for the drama that ensued in August.
According to both Anderson and Eastes, Anderson was summoned to a meeting in a conference room in the Latchis Hotel where the door was closed (for privacy, says Eastes). Anderson was told to lay aside the meeting agenda as the only item for the meeting would be her resignation. In short, they asked her to craft her resignation on the spot. Says Anderson, “I refused.” After that, things got more “contentious,” according to Anderson and Eastes, and the result was that a few weeks later, Anderson did resign in order, she says, to prevent the story from becoming “about Kate.”
Meanwhile, the CoreArts team, now composed of Rod Francis and Zon Eastes, issued a report on the project entitled Track Two Findings, which came out in November 2014. The report lists intentions, findings, and recommendations.
Beginning with the intentions of the grant, the report lists pairs of opposing statements. For example: “to explore the relationship between arts sector/town government” and NOT “to mandate specific actions from either the arts sector or the Town.” Another reads: “to discern political will” NOT “to prescribe political direction.” In the case of the second intention, one assumes they are referring to the plan to create a cultural district.
The report goes on to list many of Anderson’s stated positions about the project and then reject them.
Track One, according to the Findings, was not intended to produce a “telephone book of existing community assets” or to “reiterate known regions of power.” Rather it was to “to engage community members to reveal networks,” among other things. Anderson says that her understanding was that the project would result in a searchable, browsable, online directory of local artists and cultural organizations, in addition to the “mapping of cultural assets.”
For Track Two, the Findings emphasize that it was about a “collective learning process” in which locals could “learn from national and regional experts.” Anderson says that she differed from her colleagues on CoreArts over this process, preferring a facilitated local discussion rather than a series of what she saw as top-down panel presentations with little real discussion among attendees. She had also expected Track Two activities to focus on creating a cultural/arts district.
The report goes on to list its general findings, among them the telling statement that “building effective community is murderous[ly] hard.” It concludes: “Whether the arts function that way or not, they are a team. Learning HOW to work as a team might create benefit.”
Under the heading “Findings: one,” the report states that the Brattleboro arts sector does “advance its sense of being” but that its “dominant arts mode is entrepreneurial, individual,” that it is “vibrant” but “not collected, clear.” The bullet list ends with “Rather than a sense of community will, the dominant culture is ‘what’s in it for me?’”
Under the second set of findings, the report states variously that the Town’s financial relationship with the Brattleboro Museum And Arts Center “has not engendered a sense of community pride” and that “TAC [the Town Arts Committee] does not speak for the community.”
The Findings report ends with a series of recommendations, among them: to “address the plumbing issues” related to opening channels of communication, to learn from other “best-practice communities,” to “think strategy” and to “commit to coaching, consultation.” Sandwiched in the middle is this unusual statement: “Agree to move. Together. Learn how to agree together.” It concludes that “learning how to agree together” might be “more important than agreeing how to move or what to affect.”
In short, the language seems a bit pointed. Whether these barbs were directed at Anderson or the arts community as a whole is unclear, but the Track Two Findings betray a note of exasperation unexpected in a grant report.
After Kate left the CoreArts team in the fall of 2014, members began to come and go. Gayle Weitz, a member of the Arts Council of Windham County, joined as did Hugh Keelan. At some point, Rod Francis left the group although he remained the Planning liaison for the grant project. At some later point, the Arts Council of Windham County decided that Zon Eastes should leave as well.
Like Anderson, Gayle Weitz also had issues with the way the Core Arts team operated, most of which revolved around process: where were the group’s minutes, who did the group report to, from whence came it’s authority to decide on public questions, and the like. These issues were to re-emerge at the May 19 Selectboard meeting.
Airing The Issues
It was at the May 19 Selectboard meeting that the ongoing issues with the CoreArts team finally become public. In what appears to have been an attempt on the part of the board to get the participants together to hash it out before the next grant deadline, they were put on the agenda for a public discussion of the “Our Town” grant.
Gayle Weitz, at that moment a member of the CoreArts team, voiced a had a number of complaints about the group. As reported in iBrattleboro, she cited a lack of minutes for Core Arts team meetings, poor accounting, and “structural problems” among her concerns. With regard to the CoreArts team’s attempt to pressure Anderson into resigning, she asked, “How can that group dismiss a member?” With regard to the town planner’s role, she said that he was intended to act as a liaison, “but he [Rod Francis] became in charge.”
Turning to the grant itself, she said that it was not complete but that the Arts Council of Windham County could pitch in and help to complete the grant. She thought the project could be completed by the deadline if handled this way.
Kate Anderson spoke also, telling the story of her involvement with the grant from its inception through the time of her departure in September 2014. As most of this is presented above, I won’t repeat it here. Saying that “harmony must reconcile with dissonance to have it resolved,” Anderson thought another grant extension was needed to finish. “I’d rather do it right than just get it done,” she stated, which, in a nutshell, has been the crux of her disagreements with her teammates on CoreArts.
When the presentation by the CoreArts team ended, most of the Selectboard members declared themselves confused over this “obvious breakdown.” Gartenstein seemed undismayed however, saying that he had been hoping for a frank discussion. He went on to invite all participants to “talk it through and see if you can work it out.” It was not clear which people he was addressing at this point as the CoreArts team was down to one member as of this writing.
Looking For A Way Out
So what is this CoreArts team that’s having all this trouble? When I asked Selectboard Chair David Gartenstein this question, he said it was the “Our Town” grant management group. When asked to whom it reports, he answered that the Town Manager is responsible for the day to day operations of the town including the administration of this grant. When asked why, if the CoreArts team was administering public money, they weren’t required to operate under Open Meeting Law, Gartenstein said that he was “not prepared to answer that at this time.”
What we do know is that the CoreArts team was operating in a grey area in which specific rules of procedure and oversight were lacking. Had the team been given a more formal structure in its relationship with the Town and the public, the power struggle that played out there could not have happened. Instead, open meeting law would have applied, there would have been clear rules regarding the appointment and removal of members, and minutes and meeting warnings would have been required. As it was, there were persistent questions about the limits of the group’s authority and its own internal practices which have tainted its credibility.
Zon Eastes cites philosophical differences between Anderson and the others on the team as a big part of the problem. For her part, Anderson admits to being an artist with an artist’s temperment and world view. In the end, one is left to wonder if art and bureaucracy really mix.
Although it may be too late to save this grant, the ideas and goals it raised may still be worthwhile, there to be picked up and completed by the community, if they so choose. Freed from the constraints of “partnering” with the Town, a creative “arts sector” could make great strides on its own behalf, and achieve the project’s original goal of strengthening the arts, and by extension, the whole town. Certainly one thing the project’s midpoint findings make clear is that it takes a lot more than money to build community.
Diffusion vs Dispersion
Maybe now by way of local knowledge we get why Plato banned Arts from the Republic.
I wonder whether Arts can or should ever be commodified. My instinct says artistry is soul level expression and can be found in myriad minutia in each and every sliver of life. The more we make a “thing” of our things, and artists into supported specialists, the more that general sense is dissolved. And to the loss of us all. It’d be better to think of ourselves as all being artists, each after our own fashion, rather than a sector that requires boosting.
I do support the idea of people coming together organically to facilitate sharing their goods. I guess I don’t fundamentally agree that splitting with the NEA spells a death knell for Brattleboro. If nothing else, consider this heresy a prompt for the sake of discussion.
Spinoza's commenta
Some useful points I think, and certainly a prompt for the sake of discussion.
The Threefold Nature of Societies
Rudolf Steiner, the 18/19th century spiritual philosopher and founder of biodynamics and Waldorf schools (and much more), said that for a society to be healthy it needs to divide authority along three autonomous realms: economics, culture/arts, and governance or policy. As a contemporary example of this kind of thinking, look to the separation of church and state in America now. It is imperfect and violated, to be sure, but few would argue that it serves a vital purpose in the life of our society.
The corollary to Steiner’s treatise says that the more these three spheres are intertwined, the unhealthier a society becomes. Art becomes commodified. Politicians are bought. Books are banned.
I wonder if what we see happening at the Core Arts committee is an unhealthy mixing of politics or governance and art.
Arts / Creative / Cultral District. OUR TOWN grant
I’d like to add one word to this thorough effort ‘to see the forest’. In the section Getting Launched, “According to Anderson …. …applying for the NEA Grant with the intention of (potentially [insert]) forming a cultural district”. While I felt the arts community’s planning charrettes of the previous three years did indicate a clear coalescing around the concept of a district, adding the word “potentially”to Lise’s report conforms to what I understood our task to be. In other words, it was up to the community — arts sector plus larger community — to both decide if there was reason to form or district-Ize and, if so, how that might function. Brattleboro, of all places, would be able to pioneer valuable thinking as to what a 2014 Creative industries Headquarters/District/etc might look like. Yes, I’m using different placeholder descriptives… Creative District, Arts District, Creative Industry Cluster. This thinking is all so very fluid in the Placemaking field. It is not yet fully defined (though there are examples of very effective efforts.)
The Track 2 Panelists brought a wealth of insights, concepts, and, importantly, observations. To a person they were impressed with the richness of the arts in Brattleboro, to a person they advocated taking the next steps. Those next steps would, could be articulated most usefully by those wishing to step forward and work through the potentialities.
"Cultural District"
I remember coming onto the Town Arts Committee in mid-2014 and encountering the debate about the notion of a ‘cultural district’. At the time, I didn’t know what all the fuss was about. But I also encountered an article about Burlington, which had made a similar decision to draw lines around what they felt was a “cultural district” for their city. Controversy was unfolding there because within the “district” property values were going up, to the point where artists were having to move out. Here is the Burlington cultural district resolution:
http://www.burlingtonnj.us/docs/04_2014_CREATING_AN_ART_DISTRICT.pdf
Now check this article from Seven Days:
http://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/consultant-susan-silberberg-helps-artists-re-envision-burlingtons-south-end/Content?oid=2478345
An excerpt:
“By now, a certain pattern of urban development has become all too familiar in American cities. Struggling artists, musicians, designers and other creative types move into an old industrial district, which offers cheap rents and large warehouse spaces where they can set up shop. Then, once they’ve transformed the neighborhood into a hip, vibrant and colorful place to work and live, gentrification prices those artists out of the market.”
Local journalist Joyce Marcel anticipated the gentrification issue years ago. Noting the rise in promotion of the arts, and of Brattleboro as an ‘arts town’, she worried publicly that not only young, starving artists, but our longer-standing lower income groups might find it difficult to remain in the community. Joyce’s more recent writings have applauded our ‘artsy’ development lines, but the issue is still very much alive to many.
At this juncture, I have a suggestion. Originally I had suggested that we designate all of Brattleboro as an ‘arts and cultural district’. Yet I have come to see and understand that as a small town, our needs and possibilities in that direction are different than in cities, where this is more traditionally done. Not only that … we also face a considerable hurdle in making public policy in many areas owing to the fact that we are an ‘economic hub’ town for a wider population area estimated at 30-45,000.
So my suggestion would be that we designate a ‘cultural district’ that is wider and larger than the borders of ‘Our Town’ of Brattleboro … that our designated ‘cultural district’ should extend, say, 20 miles in any and every direction from our downtown. In this way, larger projects, such as festivals, which need and require efforts from many organizations in the surrounding areas could, and would, become firmly integrated in the “Brattleboro arts community”. We would no longer have to pretend that, say, Friends of Music at Guilford, the Marlboro Music festival, and Yellow Barn weren’t part of the Brattleboro arts scene.
In other words, our ‘cultural district’ would become contiguous with the actual geographic population that we serve! What do you think?
Artsploitation
I was living in NYC during the era of Times Square’s transformation from international ark of human diversity, to a Disneyfied Broadway tourist magnet. So it follows the idea of a ‘cultural zone’ per se does not excite me. I watched the machete of ‘vitalization’ clear cut some majestic original growths, much in the name of ‘cleaning up’ the mess.
Far more enticing to me, and I think healthier overall, is the concept evoked by writer Hakim Bey of the TAZ…the temporary autonomous zone. In that view, shared spaces are dedicated liminal spaces, used when needed for exploration or enlivenment. Otherwise, the commons we cherish remain vibrantly fallow, easily receding, [reseeding], becoming again and again reserves for restoration and gestation. In a TAZ the onus of ownership is shunted, the ethos of organic and ephemeral creativity embraced. The steady and productive transience of nature is the template.
It sometimes seems the ‘one and only’ persona of Brattleboro tilts towards a ‘Rock Ridge’. In other words, More Hat Than Cattle. In case anyone misses the reference, that Blazing Saddleboro outpost was heavy on the frontage, a decoy doppelganger…made to lure the marks. The real people lived elsewhere.
I feel feisty on this topic, it hits close to home. I like artists, some I adore and feely deeply indebted to. But I don’t drool over ‘the Arts.’ Art should not have to be leveraged in order to be honored. Besides the presentational, art must encompass the latent, and the destructive state. These are vital components too, and will not be zoned or district-able. Saul Bellow or Solzhenitzen were off the grid in Vermont for a reason.
When I moved here over twenty five years ago, the town was more artful in my opinion, or at least artier. I know these adjectives are kind of slippery, descriptors that bristle with over-description. I think the strenuous fronting that has gone down in recent times has come at a price. And seeing how our economy and ‘value quotients’, and overall sustainability have not prospered under this Art-gasmic focus, (not that in any way Art is all to blame) I’m not inclined to say ‘all hands on deck, let’s really ramp up the Art Deal now.’
Personally, I’d rather float on the meadow, hike mountain trails, play in streams. I live here, my needs are different from those of a visitor. I still see widespread poverty in this county, a library too often closed, a skatepark beached in dreamland. If people want to make something, exhibit something, I’m psyched for them. If citizens want to walk the walk, organize, fund truly dynamic projects and enterprises that better the lives of all residents first-off, I’m even happier.
Even if only for the sake of discussion it feels worth saying; county wide Art markers have a whiff of appropriation. Something as valuable and enduring as creative expression shouldn’t have to win the market sweepstakes to assure its place.
Thank you so much for so
Thank you so much for so eloquently hitting the nail right smack on the dangdab head!
Ditto Rosa
Out of this entire thread of comments to Lise’s article, one can only hope that the Selectboard, Town Arts Committee and the Arts Council of Windham County read the very appropriate counsel of Artsploitation.
arts promotion and management
Lise, thank you for trying to unravel this story… and here I was – a local artist – completely unaware that all this was going on in our little hamlet.
I do not doubt that everyone named in this drama is a good person trying to do something good for our community. However, I can easily imagine this type of intrigue going on in behind the scenes in producing works of socialist realism in the USSR of old. Is art something that can be managed by arts managers? Can public monies be effectively directed in ways that actually benefit artists?. If the ultimate point of injecting public grant money is economic development why not leave that to the pros in that field?
I hear a lot about “the arts economy” around here. I would put just about everything in the category “cultural assets”. Is a fabric store a “cultural asset”? How about a bakery? An expertly made loaf of bread is as much an expression of “culture” as an oil painting or a handmade musical instrument. When I was a student at SIT I remember learning one definition of culture: “How we do things around here.” Making quality maple syrup is clearly an art.
This town was the home of Estey Organs for many years – a major employer AND a major “cultural asset”. I live in a house built by Swedish immigrants who came here to carve wooden decorations for Estey. Why is a decorative potter an artist and yet a potter who makes everyday utensils is not? Is a chain saw sculptor an artist? If not, why not? Ballet is clearly an “art’. How about morris dancing? square dancing? I guess it’s in the eye of the beholder.
Before mass production clothing, housing, and other areas of daily life had elements of authentic artistry and design. These things were mostly handmade by people who knew the people who used them. Even today a well designed house or garden, shoe or canoe, can be called “a work of art.”
I guess I have a problem with a group of people making decisions about a large sum of public money for the purpose of promoting such a subjective area of human endeavor as “art”. The incomprehensibility of many of the issues and concepts quoted from these grant documents indicates the difficulty of doing something clear and purposeful within the strictures of a federal “arts” grant. I agree with Lise: “In the end, one is left to wonder if art and bureaucracy really mix.”
I think if we could make the local economy more responsive to local needs – and tackle the affordability issue of life in Brattleboro – maybe the arts could take care of themselves… and ultimately contribute to taking care of us.
Andy
Different Worlds
A few years ago, a local artist tired to convince me that purchasing his paintings would be a profitable investment, as they would surely increase in value. He regularly travels to NYC to make a name for himself and promote his art.
A neighbor of mine regularly travels to the Brattleboro Senior Center, also to pursue her art. Her painting are also an investment: An investment in her fulfillment.
She is excited by experimenting with different blues for the sky. She is fascinated to observe that when she changes the blue for the sky, the painting looks better if she adjusts the green of the mountains to a shade that is more compatible with that particular blue. No one is thinking of her paintings as an engine of “the arts economy.” But their value is incalculable.
My neighbor recently retired, after decades of long hours and hard work at a not-so-glamorous job. After a life in which she endured tragedy and hardship, protecting and nurturing her children: Her long-dormant artistic talent is now flourishing. I have observed her develop a sense of perspective and proportion. I have seen the miracle of paint embodying soul. Colors burst from the page, not as hews but as vital manifestations of life.
In this case, art and bureaucracy are mixing quite well, if by “bureaucracy” we mean the administrative functions which bring a teacher and students together, and provide a safe space for these classes.
Some Art Thoughts
Can their be a gov’t-arts partnership? I think so. Other places have successfully bridged this divide.
In a very general sense, government can tap the arts community to make any utilitarian project look (or sound or smell or feel) better.
Any public works project can also have an artistic component.
I’ve seen sidewalks edged with colorful tiles, sculptures installed near buildings, mini-parks put into small spots, and so on. Poles can be decorated. Space for art can be incorporated. The town can continue to do the structural basics (the cake) and make room for artists to provide ornament (the frosting).
To get there, our process of doing each project would need to change. Artists would need to bid on the artistic component to public works projects, there would need to be an approval process, and a way for the art to happen. It’s not impossible – it just needs to be an ever-present goal.
Not everything needs art, but the opportunity to explore if there’s a good fit should be present at every possible juncture. It would be an attitude shift.
…
In terms of this grant, my read of it is that it was a grant to set up a cultural district, and the three tracks were to support it.
Long before this grant, arts organizations in town have talked about the area from BMAC to the Latchis, to NEYT as an arts corridor – and for those following along for years prior, the grant looked like the big step necessary to tie it all together and make it really work for artists and arts organizations. To see the plan falter now is disappointing. This was the opportunity.
Can it be saved? The Arts Atlas could be revised and adapted to be an ongoing, updateable online directory that is actually useful – as part of a future project. The Town could commit to a more serious attempt at forming the cultural district – but this would likely need to be redone in the future.
That leaves the big arts project – to celebrate the collection of artists and new arts district that were the result of tracks 1 and 2. The reason we seem to be stuck here is that tracks 1 and 2 really weren’t fulfilled in a manner that allowed for a smooth track 3.
If we had had the online Atlas and the formation of a cultural district, there would be a reason to celebrate, and a location to aim the funds.
So, I’d suggest that for track 3, those in charge imagine that a cultural district will indeed be formed in the area of Flat street, someday, and put the money toward adding to that area of town. If we add sculptures, let’s add them there. If we have a big outdoor celebration of arts, let’s have it there. Put the focus on where it would have been had tracks 1 and 2 led to the district.
It may be that a cultural district needs to force itself on the town (like Delta Campus) to force the issue and change perceptions and underlying zoning. It would be great if it could be better planned.
'Staging' ... three "Districts"?
The Flat Street point of reference is something I have more often heard referred to as an ‘Arts Campus’.
The Fine Arts Center project which I was part of years ago (and which eventually bought the Latchis) decided that the immediate downtown area would become the Fine Arts Center.
Now, as part of the Our Town project, I am putting forward the idea that the Brattleboro ‘Arts District’ would actually extend beyond our town line all around; that it would break through existing borders … perhaps to a distance of 20 miles on all sides, even across the Connecticut River. Why? Well, to start with, Brattleboro, the area’s town lines, and the Connecticut River as a border are essentially arbitrary and artificial, and there is no reason to limit the arts the same way we limit the purview of property taxes, municipal elections, Town Meetings, essential public services, etc.
I’m in my 5th year now on the Town’s Finance Committee. Every year, the ‘Elephant in the Living Room’ is the Town of Brattleboro’s limited resources. We tax ourselves 3x higher than the surrounding towns on all sides of us, and more, to pay for a very much higher level of municipal services than they do. This means that when people from those towns come into Brattleboro, which they do quite regularly, and especially when they enjoy our very special downtown, shopping, and commons areas, Brattleboro residents foot the bill for the attendant municipal services which serve many more people than just ourselves.
The Arts & Culture doesn’t only include visual arts and performance art forms — they include our wonderful Library, and the Brattleboro Museum and Arts Center (of regional importance and benefiting from around $20,000 in the Town budget per year squirreled away under ‘Human Services’). They include everything cultural that goes on in our public schools; all of which have real costs and many of which serve surrounding areas. They include wonderful events and exhibits held in our area colleges (we pretty much have the equivalent of a university here now, a fact which has only just begun to be explored). They include a plethora of assets both public and private, but the most compelling case for most of them is public: the fact that the arts and culture benefit everyone — they beautify our town and our commons and our public areas, they provide rallying points for human activities both commercial and altruistic, and they long ago reached a ‘quickening’, a ‘chain-reaction’ phase that has since made them much greater in every way than the sum of their parts.
When I combined (merged) the database directories of the Town’s business license offices and the New England Foundation for the Arts in the Summer of 2013 (as part of the Our Town project), I discovered that approximately 25% of all economic activity in our Town has the arts at its center — arts organizations and artists doing their ‘things’, plus the stores and businesses that supply them with materials, consult to them, and give them other important services that all businesses need, etc., etc. In other words, the arts and culture are ‘big business’ in Brattleboro. And I did not even count the hotel and restaurant industries, of which there are many, and which also help make ‘Our Town’ what it is … one of the finest places to live in the Nation, and a regional, if not national, destination for reasons that most certainly include the arts, education, and culture.
And here’s the kicker: we in the Town Finance Committee are aware that in rough terms, while Brattleboro has somewhere around $1 billion in on-the-books commerce every year, there is a total of around twenty times that much that moves through and around ‘Our Town’, owing not only to the commerce that takes place in or transits the surrounding towns, but also to the fact that it is difficult to track (and thus to tax) commercial activities in areas such as ‘working under the table’ (sometimes called the ‘informal’ economy), internet sales and purchases, yard sales, spontaneous transactions of every kind that can occur just about everywhere, and even in illegal recreational drugs.
Because of this, I personally believe that while many other types of economic development are possible here (and I am personally exploring at least two other major possibilities that have real promise), our future as an extremely beautiful and multi-faceted jewel of a community will be permeated through and through by culture and the arts.
I thought that if we lost the
I thought that if we lost the NEA Grant the town would cease to exist, would wither and die. What a relief to know that our future is that of an extremely beautiful and multi-faceted jewel of a community. Shine on little Brattleboro, shine on. Jeeeeeeesh.
You make me chuckle pretty
You make me chuckle pretty often, Rosa. I, too, am relieved to know that our jewel- tarnished and in need of a good polishing though it is- will still be around.
I've often heard Asheville NC
I’ve often heard Asheville NC held up as a similar model for Brattleboro. What I find fascinating is that looking into Asheville’s economy you’ll find that even with a major university (Chapel Hill, a major university) nearby as well as being centered in a viable working tech zone, Asheville itself suffers from many of the same issues Brattleboro does. The economy there isn’t doing all that well, people hold 2 or 3 part time jobs to survive. People are sort of getting by like they do here.
My question is this. If in fact, “Brattleboro has somewhere around $1 billion in on-the-books commerce every year, there is a total of around twenty times that much that moves through and around ‘Our Town’, owing not only to the commerce that takes place in or transits the surrounding towns, but also to the fact that it is difficult to track (and thus to tax) commercial activities in areas such as ‘working under the table’ (sometimes called the ‘informal’ economy), internet sales and purchases, yard sales, spontaneous transactions of every kind that can occur just about everywhere, and even in illegal recreational drugs.”
then why isn’t this town doing better economically? Why isn’t there more employment around? Why does it feel like the town is going through a bit of a slump? If we have around $1 billion in commerce every year why are there so many empty store fronts downtown?
If there is really 20 times that $1 billion figure moving through and around “Our Town” it must be the illegal drugs because I sure don’t see where the yard sales, art sales and internet sales are amounting to $20 billion. The drugs are the only commerce I see listed there that could possibly create that kind of money flow but you know what, I kinda doubt it.
Personally I think the elephant in the room is that we need some real numbers people with their feet on the ground on some of these finance committees. Something’s just not working with these numbers. And we really need to really know if pushing for all this arts town economy is working all that well. Heck, if it is, let’s just make the whole damn state the Art Zone or Art Area or whatever you want to call it. We can have every Sunday painter out there hawking their goods on the highways every weekend.
You know what. This kind of stuff is exactly why I hate most public art.
Go to Portland, Oregon, they’ve actually been successful at this but Portland is also a very big city compared to our little town.
Just never mind me today, I’m just really pissed because Scott Walker referred today to forced sonograms for women seeking abortions as a “really cool thing.” So maybe I’m taking it out on the art zone idea. But I’m not so sure this is really a cool thing either, probably a cooler thing than forced sonograms but maybe not by that much.
And a little FYI, fine arts degree plus advanced studies in this corner.
Not only does he think that
Not only does he think that forced ultrasounds are a “very cool thing”- he thinks they are a “lovely thing”. So, yes..not a good day for women everywhere.
That’s not to say that talk of millions of dollars of commerce moving on very quiet feet through our town or expanding art zones to neighboring states isn’t enough to set one’s nerves on edge.
I guess one of my questions
I guess one of my questions is what constitutes “pretty near have the equivalent of a university here now”? We don’t have anything close to a university in this town. If we were a “college town” local businesses wouldn’t be shutting g their doors month after month.
Is Burlington "pretty
Is Burlington “pretty near?”
Oh I wish you hadn’t told me about the lovely, now my teeth are really on edge.
Hmmm...maybe SIT and the
Hmmm…maybe SIT and the community college together make up something ” pretty near” the equivalent of a university? Naahhh….
Way Out, Or Way Forward?
I’d like to congratulate Lise for doing her best to summarize here. We each have to offer what we can into Our Town’s ‘information marketplace’.
There is a slight mis-quote of Kate Anderson … what she said was “harmony must reconcile with dissonance for the chord to be resolved’. Remember, both our backgrounds are music. In fact, a chord can be whole and still include dissonant notes … not all chords have to resolve toward a perfect ‘major’ or ‘minor’ with no dissonance.
Lise’s quote of David Gartenstein is apropos … the Town Manager may have a role to play. He is out of town, so I met briefly with his Assistant, Patrick Moreland, two days ago. As far as I know, all the people responsible on the Town government’s behalf and elsewhere are listening and watching with eyes and ears wide open.
I think there is a little too much concentration on “confusion” and “controversy” here. The way I’m tracking things, a lot has already been done to fulfill the Our Town grant. “It may be too late to save this grant” is much too strong a statement.
Woulda, shoulda, coulda … if you, the reader (or even the anonymous or pseudonymous snipers here want to affect the denouement and conclusion of this grant’s work, you can still get involved. The Selectboard notes that there are at least four (4) Arts Committee slots open or about to open at this time. How many of the ‘snipers’ do you think will step forward and offer their time and efforts to this enterprise? And how many of those who have contributed here will actually bother to find out when the next Finance Committee meeting is, or when the Selectboard will next discuss the Our Town grant?
“Rosa Bonheur” I have you in mind as I write this, with your Fine Arts background.
I have no interest or
I have no interest or inclination to get involved. But heh thanks for the offer.
Having volunteered a lot in my past life, one tip. If you’re going to volunteer for committees and organizations with no looking forward to your own benefit, then don’t get all upset if you get some critical comments (your interpretation, not mine). Always remember that one man’s sniping is another woman’s constructive criticism. And if you have four empty slots on that Arts Committee in a town that is apparently teeming with artists perhaps a little contemplating why would be in order.
Back to your kind offer to get involved, in fact I would probably be a liability as I’m not a big fan of public art unless it’s extremely well done. Granted that well done is also a subjective expression.
Not to mention that I think that the Finance Committee, as I said, needs some money people who will look beyond the warm feeling of being tagged an “art town” and look into what we need to do to really get this locally economy a bit of a boost. Because from the little bit of research I’ve done it’s not exactly that big an economy boost, it’s more of a feel good. I’m not saying it can’t be done, I’m saying it doesn’t seem to have worked so well so far.
And finally, John, do you really think that there’s about $20 billion floating around in untaxed untracked money in Brattleboro i.e. the tag sales, drug money, internet sales you referred to.? Seriously, do you really think that’s a fact?
Where or who are the
Where or who are the “anonymous snipers” that you take such offense to? Every person who has commented on this particular post have all used either their full names or enough of their names to be easily identified. Nothing anonymous about any of the replies. I understand, though, that everything seems like criticism when you’re convinced that you are always right.
uuuuuuummmmmmm actually
uuuuuuummmmmmm
actually KAlden, Rosa Bonheur is an alias, however if I actually ever had the energy or desire to join any of these arts committees I’d have to change my name to Artemisia Gentileschi.
Why? you might ask.
Because working with these arts committees would be just like having the thumbscrews she was subjected to put under my nails. Although her thumbscrew torture was to prove that she was telling the truth when she charged another artist with rape. Why she had to go through the thumbscrew torture and not him you ask? I don’t know but I think Scott Walker might be able to shed some light….and lovely light it would be.
Well, I stand corrected! I
Well, I stand corrected! I do, however, maintain my opinion that the comments on this post are not “sniping” but rather well thought out critiques of the pomposity and arrogance that are evident in the replies of some of the non anonymous participants.
Thumbscrews? What a “cool” idea….
Yeah I just can't figure out
Yeah I just can’t figure out whether using the thumbscrews were supposed to make you tell the truth or wouldn’t you have told whatever it would have taken to get the thumbscrewing to stop. She was likely a much better painter than he was too as she was an exceptional talent who had fame during her lifetime but oddly never showed up in the history books. Funny that . . . how that happens
Maybe the Judith image was too much for the historians
http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/435702
http://nmwa.org/explore/artist-profiles/rosa-bonheur
http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/baroque/Artemisia-Gentileschi.html
http://www.artic.edu/exhibition/violence-and-virtue-artemisia-gentileschi-s-judith-slaying-holofernes
To all of those in past and
To all of those in past and current history who advocate that torture is the best- perhaps only- way to elicit truthful answers I ask this: Does it not occur that most people would admit to and agree with anything just to make the torture stop? I suspect they just want answer of some kind. They don’t have to be truthful answers.
Ironies Abound
The main one here, invisible as water to fish, concerns the poached tag for this grant, ‘Our Town’. The Wilder play, a minimalist masterpiece, is often invoked as a quaint homage to small town life. Indeed, rustic life is central to the plot, and bucolic charm is woven through the characters’ exchanges, but the play is far from toothless. In fact, death is never absent from any interaction, including a climax which laments the demise of the drama’s young protagonist. If there is any message, it’s not sentimental or feel-good, rather a wake-up call to separate the wheat from the chaff while there’s still time.
Another irony, the play is driven by the presence of the ‘stage manager,’ a nameless character, who comments on and does their best to further the action, but is never unaware of the artifice of art.
When I read the continued dismissals of voices that don’t have ‘real names’, I can’t help but feel a certain anger against the priggishness that comes through the ersatz perch of an embedded vantage. And it seems to elude some that as vacancies on committees persist, the aggressive splashing- even sniping- might be the very reason fish are avoiding the hook.