35 Small City Social & Cultural • Feature • William George many ways. We didn’t quit because we believed that art deeply matters, beyond words. To engage with the arts and artmaking is to engage deeply, fully, heart and soul, in the “play” of life. It means the stakes are probably higher than we may be used to. It’s about love. What else, other than love, can get us through the grass, bottles, and sharp-edged and sticky soda cans we’re sure to meet along our way? That being said, here are three basic ideas, crossroads of understanding if you will, to take us a bit deeper. I have included brief video excerpts from a documentary film I recently co-produced with three other colleagues—Bridget George of the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, Dave Fry of Godfrey Daniels Music Club, and Doug Roysdon of Mock Turtle Marionette Theatre—called Rooted, a story of artists embracing place. 1. Art is most powerful and effective when it grows organically from a deep understanding of identity. The City itself is a living, creative being, and like any artist, it must first know who it is, what it cares about – it’s history, it’s landscape, it’s wounds and glories, what it loves – before it can know what art it should advance and how to do so. “What should we do,” a City might ask. To answer that question, don’t think so much: “What do we want to do?” (Personally, I want to do everything, don’t you?) Instead ask, “What do we need to do?” And to answer that question most effectively, you need to know who you are. As a City. And embrace it! Art most effectively grows from that ever-evolving feeling/understanding of identity. Stealing ideas from others is fair play; just make sure that the ideas or approaches you’ve taken are used to organically advance this understanding of what’s right “for you”, who YOU are as a City. Once priorities are set, concerns and dreams identified, there are many possible ways forward; it can be confounding: • Should we make available inexpensive housing for artists to build families to live locally over long periods of time? • Could we provide no-to-low interest loans for repurposing spaces for performance sites or public “sharing” venues? • How might we inaugurate cross sector dialogue or even intrasector dialogue. (It’s not surprising that the arts community suffers the same fractured and alienated culture that surrounds it, thus inhibiting growth and creativity.) • How might we advance programs
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