The Start of Awesome

Contrary to what the title of this blog and this post imply, I am far from confident about the course I am about to take. This marks the start of my independent study in Community and Collaborations within the arts. Will this class be successful? What am I really trying to learn? Is it even possible to learn this stuff? And what gives me the right to think I can formulate an independent study in all these things?

I am not sure that this is going to work out, but I am sure that I must try. Perhaps, if this is a failure, it will still be awesome. I think there is some famous quote out there about beauty in the attempt.... or failing is better than not trying at all. I can't quite recall but I am going to try to adopt that attitude. Which brings about another question. What do I mean by failure? I'm not even sure what the answer to that is.

So here I begin. The questions I hope to have some answer to (or at least understand better) by the end of this term are many: What does it mean to work with the "community"? How does an artist work with the community? What about exploitation? What does community art accomplish? Does it matter? How do I explain to people who don't think this work matters that it does? Does the artist have to be a member of the community or an outsider of the community to make this type of work? Is it possible to be both? Does the relationship of the artist to the community change the process? If so, how so? Is it possible to make a living doing this? What happens when the project ends? Does the end of contact between the artist and community change the project? Does it make it mean less? Does this end to the project turn the artist into an exploiter? Can this be avoided?

There are more but I'll get to them later. For now, this is the beginning. The beginning to my questions and concerns. Throughout the next month I will attempt to undertake three projects that explore these issues and will blog daily about what other questions come up and what I learn in the process. So, thanks for reading, and stay tuned if you want to learn more with me.