By Kara McDonagh
The Community Art Corps (CAC) is a national service program funded by AmeriCorps that operates in conjunction with the M.A. in Community Art (MACA) program at the Maryland Institute College of Art. The program pairs artists and community organizations in intensive 11-month residencies and allows eligible students to complete both the M.A. degree and a year of AmeriCorps concurrently. While completing the two programs simultaneously is a rigorous endeavor, it is desirable for the student for a number of reasons, including the opportunity to earn a stipend and an education award while finishing his/her education. For community organizations, having an artist work with them on almost a full-time basis at greatly reduced cost has also proven desirable.
The partnership between the academic program and the national service program was initially proposed and undertaken because the values that guide AmeriCorps programs are closely aligned with the values that shaped the development of the M.A. program. These values include an emphasis on civic engagement, collaboration with community-based organizations, experiential education, service learning and community building. AmeriCorps’ emphasis on “getting things done” and on producing demonstrable results resonates well with the MACA program’s philosophy that artists learn best by doing, and that real actions that produce real consequences are the best motivation and inspiration for the burgeoning community artists joining the program. Additionally, the college’s investment in the future of Baltimore demands that the program meet the critical challenge of working with and bringing resources to Baltimore’s indispensable nonprofit and cultural community.
The objectives for the CAC program were crafted to enable a wide variety of projects, partners and student/members to create relevant, unique, collaborative work. The program’s goals were created with a dual and complementary purpose; to provide an opportunity for students to gain experience and to learn essential skills and competencies in community arts while also bringing talented, committed artists to work with organizations on accomplishing the goals of the community. The objectives deliberately lend themselves to a wide variety of interpretation depending on the capacity, priorities and values of the organization, community and member/student.
These objectives are as follows:
* To increase arts based activities for youth and communities
* To support and expand community-strengthening projects
* To increase volunteerism, thereby building capacity within organizations
* To thoroughly prepare participants for careers working with children, youth and communities via the arts, with an emphasis on developing a long- term commitment to such work.
While the first three objectives are subject to evaluation with each program year, it is the last one that will be considered here. It is now possible to conduct an initial assessment of the post-graduation experiences of graduates/alumni from the first three classes of the program in order to consider the degree to which their experiences have prepared them to work with children, youth and communities on a long-term basis. Also in question is the degree to which communities are able to generate the resources needed to embrace more and different kinds of meaningful art opportunities. While a thorough examination of these questions is beyond the scope of this paper, some preliminary findings gleaned from observations and interviews will provide information about the ability of the program graduates to find, create or expand community art opportunities and about the ability of the community-arts field to sustain these newly trained and experienced practitioners.
Program background
The program consists of several kinds of members, those who are affiliated with MACA (as current, former or prospective students) and those who are participating only in CAC and are not students in the MACA program. This paper will refer to the participants of the CAC program as “students” and/or “members” to reflect this distinction in membership among those in the program.
A total of 42 people began the CAC program in the first three years of operation, and 39 of them successfully completed the program, earning an MA. degree or an education award through AmeriCorps, or both. All artists in the program went through an application process that included the submission of images of their studio and community work as well as written statements that outlined their experiences and motivation for community art. All program participants have some experience in community work and most have a degree in art or design. Most participants are either right out of undergraduate school or have had a few years experience after undergraduate school. Twenty percent of the students/ members have been nontraditional-age artists with significant amounts of experience.
Community Partners
Since the initial year of CAC in 2003-04, student/members have worked with 30 different organizations. Thirty three percent of these were organizations with an explicit emphasis on art, including several arts centers, a production company and performing group, an artist’s studio center specializing in cultural performances, several youth arts programs and two museums. The remaining 67% of the organizations have broader ranging agendas, but are interested in working to incorporate art, or strengthen its presence, in their organizations and their programming.
Many of the nonarts organizations that have participated in the program are afterschool programs. These programs vary in size, scope and focus; some are based in schools and some in community or faith-based organizations, others are programs that have an emphasis on serving a particular culture or demographic. Other nonarts community partners have organizations with a specific focus, such as literacy, advocacy, the environment, community organizing and/or improving a certain area of the city. Our partners have also included 3 schools with new and/or innovative programs, and the central branch of Baltimore’s public library.
Program Design
The design of the program has evolved significantly since its inception because of the ongoing feedback from program participants. The design is also informed by the changing expertise, interests and experience of the staff and faculty members and community partners who are teaching, facilitating, mentoring and advising participants throughout the program.
While artists who participate only in CAC have an initial orientation and pre-service training period before going to work in their individual sites throughout the city, students who are part of the MACA program have a more intense point of entry into their 11-month residency/year of service. The MACA students spend six weeks in teams with two high-school interns planning, implementing and evaluating, community art experiences for young people in summer art camps. This culminates in an exhibition/event that includes public workshops that are facilitated by the young people who participated in the summer programs. This summer experience is followed by a period of reflection in the fall, which includes artmaking, writing and mining texts for their relevance and personal significance to the students’ summer experiences.
When student/members enter the organizations that they will partner with for the remaining 11 months of the program, the initial expectations for their activities are negotiated with their site supervisor, who is a representative of the organization that makes a commitment to the member, and to the program, to provide mentoring and direction in the context of the site. During the orientation, members and site supervisors are brought together to begin conversation and to get an overview of some of the key activities of the program year.
Throughout the program, student/members come together for regular reflections on their activities to set and evaluate personal and professional goals and to brainstorm and problem solve with their colleagues. Those who are in MACA meet weekly for a day-and-a-half of class time during the semester. They work on a number of joint projects, critique the development of their thesis artwork, examine theory and apply it to their practice in community, and learn practical skills for operating in the context of their host organization. Those who are only in CAC convene less frequently for biweekly seminars and workshops in conjunction with MACA coursework.
Another critical component for MACA students in the program is the ongoing individualized feedback from faculty mentors about their work. This includes on-site observations of work, written and verbal feedback, responses to ongoing journal entries, and meetings with organizational and community representatives to facilitate additional feedback. Those CAC members who are not MACA students receive similar feedback from the AmeriCorps coordinator, although less frequently. In the final semester for MACA students, feedback is mainly focused on their thesis work and their written Programming, Advocacy and Sustainability (PAS) report. This is a report in which they explore an important theme of their work on site, to document key findings for the organization and to explore possible future directions for themselves.
Program Results
The program has exceeded the quantitative goals that were initially set when formulating the request for funding from AmeriCorps. More important, there have been rich, varied and meaningful responses that have emerged out of the interactions between the student/members in the program and communities they worked with.
The artwork that has been created, and the themes that this artwork explored have included:
* costumes for performances that address the problem of AIDS in the community
* mosaic panels designed to celebrate jazz and its history
* comic books based on the theme of leadership, featured in a national project
* youth- and adult-created animations that focus on themes such as healthy relationships, sexuality and the history of African-American hairstyles
* banners featuring children’s artwork, installed by a community organization to call attention to an underused park in the city
* a multimedia performance about the problem of gang violence that features youth leading a dialogue about potential solutions
* a mosaic archway and iron fencing for a community garden designed and fabricated by youth
* an exhibition and closing event featuring music, workshops and screenings of youth films that brought new life to an underutilized city park
* oral histories of community activists, featured in an exhibition on the history of the Black Panther Party
* lanterns, costumes and stiltwalkers used in a spectacular annual Halloween parade that brings together the varied population of a community
* an installation of found objects and photographs used to educate policy makers about environmental issues in the neighborhood
* a community dinner at a local arts center that brought together neighbors to share their varied cultural dishes and customs
* youth-designed screenprinted pins and posters with messages about healthy food and eating habits that were distributed at community events and corner stores
* a citywide annual youth media festival focused on the theme of identity
* an installation of hundreds of clay “seeds” created by an organization’s stakeholders in response to a series of workshops about the organization’s future
* hundreds of handmade books made by youth in library branches throughout the city assembled into a massive installation
* embellished trash receptacles permanently installed in some of Baltimore’s most blighted areas.
Program Graduates
An informal assessment of the current working lives of the 39 people who completed the program in the last three years indicates that the majority, 56% (26 people), are working or have worked with nonprofit organizations. An additional 18% (seven people) are working within education systems, while two percent (1 person) works in a public institution and 10% (four people) work in for- profit companies. Several people work in more than one place, so they may be represented in more than one of the sectors described below.
Nonprofit Arts Organizations
Arts organizations are an obvious place for a community artist to look toward in cultivating meaningful work and some of our former program participants do work for and with arts organizations. Ten people (23% of the total program alumni) currently work with arts-based organizations. The majority of these people work either in part-time or contractual capacities or as second-year AmeriCorps members, with the thought that the organization may ultimately be able to leverage financial support to create additional positions that those artists, or others, might transition into in the future. Most have positions teaching, leading groups, and/or offering administrative support. Two alumni (six percent) hold full-time positions with arts organizations; both describe their positions as largely administrative in nature.
Other Nonprofit Organizations
Nonprofit organizations in Baltimore with a variety of missions have been enthusiastic about engaging artists to assist with their programs, projects and organizations. A significant number of these organizations now work with many of our program alumni on maintaining or expanding current projects and on developing new community arts opportunities. They also have hired alumni of the program for positions within their organizations that do not have an explicit emphasis on the arts.
Almost one third of MACA/CAC alumni (13 people) now work primarily with nonarts nonprofit organizations. Of them, seven work in positions that are primarily focused on art and its role in community. Two of these graduates are in pre-existing positions that work with young people and communities via the arts. The other five graduates are in positions that are new to the organizations; in most cases these are positions that the organization and the student/members collaborated on creating. One works part-time with a foundation coordinating efforts to improve the community’s access to cultural resources, one is a coordinator for a performance-based gang-violence prevention program, one is an environmentally focused community arts coordinator and one is a co-director of a youth center that is adopting a community arts focus. One additional program alumnus also works full-time in a non-arts-based organizations; his work is supported through an Open Society Institute fellowship, which covers the total cost of his salary while he work on projects that are outlined and implemented in partnership with the organization.
Six additional former student/members hold positions in nonprofit organizations that are not arts-based. These positions vary, but making art with communities is not an explicit part of their job description. In some cases, they find ways to make creating or supporting community art a part of how they accomplish their goals. These positions include AmeriCorps coordinator and project manager, community organizer, program director, development director, activities coordinator and youth advocate.
Public Institutions
One of the former members has gone on to work at a public institution: Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library. The student/member spent two years in the program, one as a MACA student and a second as a CAC member, and is currently employed full-time as the library’s first and only community outreach coordinator.
Education
Eighteen percent (seven former program participants) now work in the context of an educational system. Four members work in arenas affiliated with higher education; the positions they hold are: arts coordinator at a nonprofit/university partnership, program assistant at a university office of cultural and special events, coordinator of an international service-learning program, and adjunct faculty member. An additional three members teach art in K-12 city schools, with an emphasis informed by their community arts experiences. One of these three was funded through an Open Society Institute fellowship that supported her work combining art and wilderness expeditions with the high-school youth. She has since transitioned into a teaching position at the school.
Eight percent (three CAC program alumni) went on to acquire additional education in a field other than community art: one to graduate school with a double major of art education and fine art and one to law school, and one is planning to attend graduate school for art therapy.
Additional Volunteer Service Work
Twenty-eight percent (11 people) went on to complete a second year of AmeriCorps; the majority served their additional year in the Community Art Corps. A year or two of service turned out to be a transition into a paid position for a total of ten people who were hired by their host organizations after their year(s) in CAC and/or MACA. To date, two of these people subsequently left the positions, which were both at the same youth arts organization.
Work in For-profit Sector
At this point, only 10% of former participants work primarily in the for-profit sector. One returned to work with a graphic-design firm where she had a position before she entered the CAC program. Three other graduates worked for a period of time in nonprofit organizations but now work in a small family-owned farm, a local foundry and a national technology corporation.
Creative Configurations
The working lives outlined above are simplified for the purposes of comparison in this paper, but in truth, there are many more complexities to the realities of the working lives of program graduates. Most of the program alumni have lives with creative combinations of work, including work that comes with financial remuneration and work that does not. Many continue to create artwork, crafts and other creations that they exhibit or sell or give away. At least one program alumnus works contractually with nonprofit organizations that organize residencies in schools and other places, and also creates work to be exhibited and/or sold. Similar complexities are illustrated in the example of another former program participant who currently works at four different part-time ventures; as an activities coordinator at a housing facility for formerly homeless men, a teacher in a community arts program, a coordinator for an international arts-based service-learning program for college students, and the founder of a voluntary educational and cross-cultural project that brings Baltimore city high-school students to work with rural Nicaraguan villages. As one former participant put it, “I see my future careers blending all of my passions and interests: artistic development, community service, entrepreneurship, intellectual inquiry, environmental stewardship. … There is not one ideal job for me, and I envision myself with a multifaceted career” (Burk).
The Skills To Sustain a Long-term Commitment to Community Art
When a sample of program participants in CAC were recently interviewed about what skills they felt were serving them well in facing their current challenges in the field, they had varied responses, which can be summed up roughly within the following categories:
* Organizational skills. Student/members interviewed mentioned their improved writing, organization and time-management skills. They also spoke of the importance of understanding and employing concepts such as accountability and evaluation.
* Leadership experience. Many described leadership experiences from the program as critical in their ability to take on challenging new positions. Specifically mentioned was the experience of “inserting myself in an environment that didn’t have art” (DiBussolo) and “forging my own role, realizing the potential of a given position and taking initiative to expand my job description” (Burk). Members also mentioned the experience of transitioning into leadership positions, notably through two years of AmeriCorps service, as being important in the development of their confidence and abilities.
* Critical thinking and problem solving. Those members interviewed who were MACA students spoke about writing, thinking and theory as instrumental in helping them feel “well versed” (DiBussolo) in community arts, and in developing an ongoing inner dialogue, as well as a dialogue with collaborators and co-workers, to evaluate what is happening in their work. One member said, “AmeriCorps taught me a lot about thinking big, thinking about implementation challenges and making it work with the challenges you’re presented with” (Jaller). Another spoke about her experience of learning to assess the attributes and limitations of a given set of circumstances in order to create viable alternative plans when needed.
* Development of interpersonal skills. Student/members specifically mentioned the development of interpersonal skills as an important part of their growth, and a significant factor in their successful projects to date. “Learning how to operate inclusively, looking at things as a team working together towards a goal” (Robinson) was a skill that one member mentioned as being highly valued in her current work environment. While one member mentioned the experience expanding their “ability to adapt to new settings and amongst different groups of people” (Burk), another member noted that the cardinal rules she learned in the program that has served her well is to “Not burn bridges, and to go where you’re wanted” (Aldana).
* Educating/Advocating for community arts. Program graduates said that an essential part of their work in organizations, even arts-based ones, was to educate others about community arts, working to broaden the vision of educators, artists and others who may not be familiar with the various manifestations of community art. For one graduate, this often takes the form of “helping people learn the process of a project so they can get away from the mindset from hiring one artist for a project, and learn to use the artist as a resource to work with everybody on the project” (Aldana).
Participants that were interviewed also spoke of the skills and knowledge that they needed to develop in order to function more effectively in their current positions. These were mainly skill sets that are specific to the particular environment in which they are currently operating. They included additional proficiency in managing budgets, understanding more social-work skills to cope with situations they encounter while working in community, learning to teach to large groups of people, and negotiating the inner workings of governmental processes.
Conclusions
In looking at what graduates are doing one to three years after the conclusion of the program, it is clear that many former program participants are developing creative ways of working with a variety of community organizations. While this strategy certainly includes working with arts organizations, it also appears fruitful to work with nonarts organizations interested in adopting arts-based initiatives and agendas. This not only increases opportunities for citizen participation and influence of arts programming and cultural life but also opens up new pathways and opportunities for the development of community art and artists.
While some program graduates interviewed expressed the frustrations of working in a nonarts environment, saying things like, “I am trying to integrate the arts into this job as much as my job will allow. I was hired as a community outreach person and I’m expected to do that job. If art sneaks in, that’s fine, but they don’t see the arts being a priority” (Smit) others expressed a somewhat different view, advising, “Being able to call yourself an organizer or a coordinator has been really helpful. Drop the arts until people are ready, see yourself as a community service. It’s not taking away from the arts. Why do you have a problem with being called anything? To me it’s all an opportunity to apply myself as a creative person” (Aldana). Others advised that helping organizations shift towards seeing art as part of their mission includes “mak(ing) it easy for an employer to say yes to idea by doing all the leg work, finding connections, and gaining permission from all the necessary individuals and organizations. After one successful endeavor, support and time to do similar projects has often followed” (Burk).
While at one to three years post-graduation, the majority of program participants are still working with children, youth and communities, many via the arts, a more telling portrait may emerge as subsequent years pass. There have been numerous studies, policy papers and articles that warn that this generation of graduates may not, in the long term, choose work in the nonprofit sector. A variety of factors, including the perception that nonprofits don’t offer viable career paths or room for advancement, may influence alumni’s choices over the next decade. Negative experiences in nonprofits with desperate financial situations influenced at least one of our program alumni, who now works in a large technology corporation renowned for their creative business practices. She says, “There’s got to be a better way of doing things that are more integrated with the rest of the world. I want a different model — making money and also doing good” (Jaller). In addition, it is also true that “this generation of graduates enters the nonprofit sector with greater financial obligations than any previous generation” (Ballard 12) and that the “mismatch between the financial obligations of indebted graduates and low, entry-level salaries in the nonprofit sector may cause increased turnover rates among graduates entering the nonprofit sector” (Ballard 12). Incorporating ways of assisting program graduates with managing student-loan debt, such as leveraging educational awards or other student-loan forgiveness options may be one way of helping retain talented community artists who want to continue their work in the nonprofit sector.
The growth of programs focused on educating and preparing community artists are producing alumni that are concerned with finding financially feasible ways to continue their work. Their experiences can provide valuable examples of potentially fruitful directions for community arts, as well as guidance for education programs on how to incorporate an emphasis on skills that promote sustainability in their work. The fairly recent influx of university-trained community artists should be of interest to those who are concerned about the future of the nonprofit sector. Given that nonprofits are facing what experts call “an unprecedented crisis in leadership, with organizations … across the country struggling to recruit and retain talented staff” ( Rucker) efforts should be made to advocate for resources and opportunities that incorporate community arts efforts into a range of nonprofits and support community artists’ development into potential leaders in the field. To the extent that education and/or national service programs can assist communities and organizations in piloting community arts initiatives at a minimal cost, they can collaborate with students and organizations in “growing” new and innovative community arts programs and opportunities.
This essay is part of the Community Arts Convening & Research Project, 2008, funded by a Nathan Cummings Foundation grant to the Maryland Institute College of Art. The essay was reviewed and selected by the project's Editorial Board: Ron Bechet, Xavier University of Louisiana; Lori Hager, University of Oregon; Marina Gutierrez, Cooper Union; Ken Krafchek, Maryland Institute College of Art; Sonia Mañjon, California College of the Arts; Amalia Mesa-Bains, California State University Monterey Bay; Paul Teruel, Columbia College Chicago; and Stephanie Woodson, Arizona State University.
Kara McDonagh is the coordinator for the Community Art Corps program at the Maryland Institute College of Art and is a faculty member in the M.A. in Community Arts. She has worked with children, youth and communities over the past 21 years in a variety of capacities, including as a social worker, community organizer, artist and nonprofit leader.
REFERENCES AND WORKS CITED
Aldana, Maria. Personal interview. 27 Feb. 2008.
Ballard, Amanda. “Understanding the Next Generation of Nonprofit Employees: The Impact of Educational Debt: A Study Conducted for Kim Klein and the Building Movement Project.” Building Movement Project. Spring 2005. Demos: A Network for Ideas Action. 27 Feb. 2008
Burk, Katie. E-mail correspondence. 1 March 2008.
DiBussolo, Julia. Telephone interview. 28 Feb. 2008.
Jaller, Kathy. Telephone interview. 27 Feb. 2008.
Robinson, Rachel. Telephone interview. 27 Feb. 2008.
Rucker, Phillip “Crunch Predicted in Nonprofit Sector, Groups Are Not Nurturing and Retaining Tomorrow’s Leaders, Study Says.” Washington Post 3 March 2008.
Smit, Amanda. Telephone interview. 12 Feb. 2008.
Original CAN/API publication: August 2008
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