From our East Canyon Artist in Residence
I want to share a vision that keeps swirling around in my head - to use resources we already have as great potential benefit for our community - creating a Community Arts Studio in The Dimond, with space to gather, create and exhibit.
During my time teaching Creative Reuse Handcrafts at the Dimond library (through a grant from Dimond Improvement Association), broken dish mosaic workshops at Mischief in The Laurel, and facilitating the East Canyon 22x Art Swap in Dimond Park, I can see there is great interest in the community for creative activities that involve recycling and sustainable art practice in a variety of media.
The benefits are endless: the possibility to meet a wider range of fellow community members, to enjoy the pleasure of working creatively in a friendly, relaxed, cooperative atmosphere, to reinterpret time-honored crafts using today’s materials, to develop more sustainability and to learn to create functional art pieces for personal use, gift-giving or sale from materials that would otherwise be thrown away.
There are several such places throughout the area, but we don’t have anything like that here….places like:
- Recology and SCRAP in SF
- The Ecology Center in Berkeley
- East Bay Center for Creative Reuse in Temescal
- Richmond Art Center
We do have some wonderful examples of public art in our neighborhood, so the talented hands are here. It would be great if creative collaboration could have a place to happen all the time, not just for visual art, but also a space that could also host talks, music, community meetings…not just for the Dimond, but for all of our nearby neighbors.
I do not know much about securing or funding a place, but hope others will have that kind of experience. I have heard of other cities where artists have founded studios/ galleries in vacant properties that have rejuvenated whole neighborhoods.
It’s also important for participation to be available to folks of all financial levels…possibly by exchanging studio and/or class time for time helping to keep things functioning. I have seen this arrangement work as well.
I have personally collected more materials over the years than I could ever be able to use in several lifetimes, especially textiles and plastics, that I would be happy to donate to the studio… enough to supply a whole program of activity without delay.
We can do this with relatively low expense, we can help our environment, we can build our community - we can do this!!!!
Judith Schonebaum
www.judithschonebaum@gmail.com
