Creative
energy zooms through a room in West Baltimore where
some 30 members of WombWork Productions high step,
spin and dance with arms outstretched in a series
of African dance moves, all to the beat of live
drums. In the far corner, Sean Keelan, the only
white guy present, does his best to keep pace with
the Park Heights-based troupe, gathered on a
Wednesday night to rehearse performance pieces that
deliver a potent HIV-prevention message to city
audiences.
Keelan is a candidate in a new graduate degree program at the Maryland Institute College of Art. The yearlong master of arts in community arts pairs students with city nonprofit groups to learn how to use art as a catalyst for social justice and how to see the community, itself, as a medium for their own artwork.
Since September, Keelan, 23, has appeared in WombWork performances around the city, fashioned props and sets with other members and learned from the inside out how the organization employs art as a positive force in the lives of youthful members. WombWork has become his family, Keelan says. Its leaders are his elders and "everyone else is your brother and sister."
Today, Two Way Street, an exhibition featuring the work of Keelan and his classmates inspired by their residencies, opens in MICA's Meyerhoff Gallery. A kaleidoscopic mix of installations, paintings, videos, photographs and performances, the show reflects the artists' immersion in 13 distinct communities. From North Baltimore to Brooklyn and Curtis Bay, students forged relationships, saw conflict, discovered the cultural assets and traditions of disenfranchised communities rarely visible to the outside world.
Keelan's project, an assemblage of drums cobbled together from buckets, paint cans and wood scraps, is designed to lure anyone to pick up a pair of drumsticks and play. Music underpins the WombWork community, he says. "It's a release of energy and a release from pain," he says. "It's a good tool for healing as well as dancing."
Similarly, each piece in Two Way Street is a synthesis of all that the students have absorbed during their residencies. Together, the works also demonstrate art's ability to express a community's dreams and how, simultaneously, the process of making art can be a means for achieving those dreams.
Jessie L. Reid collaborated with Kids on the Hill, a group that builds relationships through public art projects, to create a mosaic arch emblazoned with the words: "Don't be ashamed of who you are. You only get to be you once." Finding consensus on the idea of an arch through debate and voting was part of the learning process. After its exhibition at MICA, the arch will be installed in the group's sculpture garden on Reservoir Hill.
Working with the Creative Alliance in East Baltimore, Ashley Clemmer created ingenious light boxes that honor the history of the old Patterson Park theater where the arts group is housed. Aleks Martray's documentary about the Bon Secours community in Southwest Baltimore celebrates the neighborhood while airing its challenges. A photo essay created by graduate student Christy Zuccarini with the Stadium School Youth Dreamers provides an intimate portrait of kids who, among other activities, bought their own house to refurbish as a community center.
Captivated by city gardens, Carol Krawczyk created an installation with a miniature field of rye grass pushing through concrete. Every community is "affected by what's growing next to it," she says. Working at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Amanda Smit filed stories about her co-workers in an old-fashioned card catalog that browsers are welcome to inspect.
"The challenge was for them to get to know their site and the issues they wanted to explore," says faculty member Jann Rosen-Queralt, a sculptor who has created many works of public art. Project ideas were "often inspired either by the specifics of their site or issues that came up in their site."
Students had to get their bearings quickly in order to create a work of art. Rosen-Queralt says their creativity was challenged in unfamiliar territory where they confronted the questions: What is your voice? Where is your voice? How is it heard?
"We really have to be a bit fearless," says Krawczyk, who is working with the Child First Authority, an organization that puts together after-school programs.
As she and her classmates plumb Baltimore's many communities, "We definitely got the feeling we're shaping and controlling the future of community arts," Zuccarini says.
The graduate students are learning that sustainable change doesn't happen quickly. "We want them to understand that you can't just sweep in and do your thing and sweep out and [accomplish] anything long term," says Ken Krafchek, the program's director.
The community arts graduate program is MICA's latest effort to fulfill students' demand for more hands-on experience in schools, neighborhoods and nonprofit groups. The program operates in conjunction with the school's Community Arts Corps program, launched last year with a $156,000 grant from AmeriCorps.
Students seeking careers in community arts have chosen a path that leads far from the art world's more rarified spaces. They are "really in for the long haul and definitely in it for the right reasons," says Kara McDonagh, MICA's AmeriCorps coordinator. "They love art and they love kids and community and they believe art can make a huge difference and they want to be a part of that."
Nor is making lots of money a priority for these students, McDonagh says. Community art is "a field in which they will have to be really creative about how to raise money for the work that they do."
Keelan, a painter who graduated from MICA last year, enrolled in the graduate program because, "My studio work felt selfish and to have learned all these skills ... I felt the responsibility to share these tools."
As the program director of WombWork, Rashida Forman-Bey has worked closely with Keelan. "When you're doing community art, you have to be able to be open to people from all kinds of different cultures," she says. "But because he's such a beautiful spirit himself, Sean can open up and share."
One day a week, the graduate students gather for classes. On a recent Monday morning, Cinder Hypki, a community artist, leads a discussion on how to use art as a tool for social justice. It is one of the most "illusive, quicksilver and important aspects of community work," she says. For homework, she assigns students to draft their own "personal code of ethics as a community organizer."
That afternoon, Karen Carroll, director of MICA's art education programs, talks to the students about creating meaning through art. A constructive critique of Two Way Street projects follows.
The timing is right for the community arts program, Krafchek says. He has noticed that MICA's students in general are "more multifaceted, more in tune with the world, and how they define the world is more inclusive."
stephanie.shapiro@baltsun.com
Keelan is a candidate in a new graduate degree program at the Maryland Institute College of Art. The yearlong master of arts in community arts pairs students with city nonprofit groups to learn how to use art as a catalyst for social justice and how to see the community, itself, as a medium for their own artwork.
Since September, Keelan, 23, has appeared in WombWork performances around the city, fashioned props and sets with other members and learned from the inside out how the organization employs art as a positive force in the lives of youthful members. WombWork has become his family, Keelan says. Its leaders are his elders and "everyone else is your brother and sister."
Today, Two Way Street, an exhibition featuring the work of Keelan and his classmates inspired by their residencies, opens in MICA's Meyerhoff Gallery. A kaleidoscopic mix of installations, paintings, videos, photographs and performances, the show reflects the artists' immersion in 13 distinct communities. From North Baltimore to Brooklyn and Curtis Bay, students forged relationships, saw conflict, discovered the cultural assets and traditions of disenfranchised communities rarely visible to the outside world.
Keelan's project, an assemblage of drums cobbled together from buckets, paint cans and wood scraps, is designed to lure anyone to pick up a pair of drumsticks and play. Music underpins the WombWork community, he says. "It's a release of energy and a release from pain," he says. "It's a good tool for healing as well as dancing."
Similarly, each piece in Two Way Street is a synthesis of all that the students have absorbed during their residencies. Together, the works also demonstrate art's ability to express a community's dreams and how, simultaneously, the process of making art can be a means for achieving those dreams.
Jessie L. Reid collaborated with Kids on the Hill, a group that builds relationships through public art projects, to create a mosaic arch emblazoned with the words: "Don't be ashamed of who you are. You only get to be you once." Finding consensus on the idea of an arch through debate and voting was part of the learning process. After its exhibition at MICA, the arch will be installed in the group's sculpture garden on Reservoir Hill.
Working with the Creative Alliance in East Baltimore, Ashley Clemmer created ingenious light boxes that honor the history of the old Patterson Park theater where the arts group is housed. Aleks Martray's documentary about the Bon Secours community in Southwest Baltimore celebrates the neighborhood while airing its challenges. A photo essay created by graduate student Christy Zuccarini with the Stadium School Youth Dreamers provides an intimate portrait of kids who, among other activities, bought their own house to refurbish as a community center.
Captivated by city gardens, Carol Krawczyk created an installation with a miniature field of rye grass pushing through concrete. Every community is "affected by what's growing next to it," she says. Working at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Amanda Smit filed stories about her co-workers in an old-fashioned card catalog that browsers are welcome to inspect.
"The challenge was for them to get to know their site and the issues they wanted to explore," says faculty member Jann Rosen-Queralt, a sculptor who has created many works of public art. Project ideas were "often inspired either by the specifics of their site or issues that came up in their site."
Students had to get their bearings quickly in order to create a work of art. Rosen-Queralt says their creativity was challenged in unfamiliar territory where they confronted the questions: What is your voice? Where is your voice? How is it heard?
"We really have to be a bit fearless," says Krawczyk, who is working with the Child First Authority, an organization that puts together after-school programs.
As she and her classmates plumb Baltimore's many communities, "We definitely got the feeling we're shaping and controlling the future of community arts," Zuccarini says.
The graduate students are learning that sustainable change doesn't happen quickly. "We want them to understand that you can't just sweep in and do your thing and sweep out and [accomplish] anything long term," says Ken Krafchek, the program's director.
The community arts graduate program is MICA's latest effort to fulfill students' demand for more hands-on experience in schools, neighborhoods and nonprofit groups. The program operates in conjunction with the school's Community Arts Corps program, launched last year with a $156,000 grant from AmeriCorps.
Students seeking careers in community arts have chosen a path that leads far from the art world's more rarified spaces. They are "really in for the long haul and definitely in it for the right reasons," says Kara McDonagh, MICA's AmeriCorps coordinator. "They love art and they love kids and community and they believe art can make a huge difference and they want to be a part of that."
Nor is making lots of money a priority for these students, McDonagh says. Community art is "a field in which they will have to be really creative about how to raise money for the work that they do."
Keelan, a painter who graduated from MICA last year, enrolled in the graduate program because, "My studio work felt selfish and to have learned all these skills ... I felt the responsibility to share these tools."
As the program director of WombWork, Rashida Forman-Bey has worked closely with Keelan. "When you're doing community art, you have to be able to be open to people from all kinds of different cultures," she says. "But because he's such a beautiful spirit himself, Sean can open up and share."
One day a week, the graduate students gather for classes. On a recent Monday morning, Cinder Hypki, a community artist, leads a discussion on how to use art as a tool for social justice. It is one of the most "illusive, quicksilver and important aspects of community work," she says. For homework, she assigns students to draft their own "personal code of ethics as a community organizer."
That afternoon, Karen Carroll, director of MICA's art education programs, talks to the students about creating meaning through art. A constructive critique of Two Way Street projects follows.
The timing is right for the community arts program, Krafchek says. He has noticed that MICA's students in general are "more multifaceted, more in tune with the world, and how they define the world is more inclusive."
stephanie.shapiro@baltsun.com
Lessons of community in artistic framework
MICA students, neighborhood groups join in creative projects
By Stephanie Shapiro
SUN REPORTER
February 2, 2006
MICA students, neighborhood groups join in creative projects
By Stephanie Shapiro
SUN REPORTER
February 2, 2006
