#REVERB14 (Day 2): Creative Placemaking Forum...Artists make a difference in their communities

CREATIVE PLACEMAKING FORUM AT THE FOX. Today, I attended a discussion hosted by the Atlanta Regional Commission on how communities and artists mutually benefit from one another when they collaborate. (all photos by Hallelujah Truth, aka Ruth Schowalter)

Greetings Pilgrims, Fellow Sojourners, and Creative Soulmates! Today, I am foregoing the #REVERB14 Day 2 topic to write about my visit to the Fox Theatre in midtown Atlanta today to participate in the Atlanta Regional Commission Creative Placemaking Forum.

TALKING ART AND COMMUNITY IN THE EGYPTIAN ROOM. Jamie Bennett, executive director of Artplace America, spoke about three major benefits of what art can do for a community: 1) Art attaches people to a place. 2) Art attaches people to one another. 3) Art creates more active citizens.

The two participants for the Creative Placemaking forum were Jamie Bennett with Artplace America, and Jason Schupbach, with the National Endowment for the Arts--two of America's largest financial supporters for Creative Placemaking. Artists, directors of community organizations, and politicians were in attendance to learn more about how they could get funding for art projects that would be mutually beneficial to both artists and community.

ARTISTS, COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS, and POLITICIANS. The audience was rich in talent and interest but in need of funding and ideas of how to engage community and artists in shared endeavors.

Callahan and Chris

It was fun to see my friends networking before and after the forum started. Callahan Pope McDonough, a visual artist and board member with me on the Women's Caucus for Art of Georgia (WCAGA), took time to talk with Chris Appleton, co-founder and executive director of WonderRoot, about the arts organization expansion in 2015 to a new facility.

Duluth Mayor and Christine

At the end of the forum, my friend, artist, and fellow InterPlayer, Christine Gautreaux spotted the Mayor of Duluth and wanted to connect with her envisioning future opportunities to engage in art and community in the suburb of Atlanta where she lives.

In addition to learning about intriguing, fun, and beautiful outcomes in major US cities as a result of endowments to the arts in Creative Placemaking from the NEA and Artplace and the powerful impact of that art in the communities was one big surprising fact!  While 96 percent of people value art, surprisingly only 27 percent value the artmaker! The perception of the artist in our communities definitely needs to change!

I was also left pondering something involving our own perceptions of self as artists. 

Jamie Bennett said that when people in an audience are asked if they are soccer, tennis, or golf players, a vast number of hands are raised. However, when an audience is asked if anyone is an artist, there may be only a few hands that haltingly go up. How is it that in the continuum of athletic prowess, people are willing to acknowledge their abilities to play a sport, even when on a continuum from beginning golf player to an expert one like Tiger Woods, their is a vast difference in performance ability? Yet in the art continuum of beginning singer, musician, painter to professional accomplished ones, people are reluctant to even to claim a beginning artist status. They don't even step into the arena!

If you happen to be one of these artists reluctantly claiming your place in the artist's continuum, I want you to write to me immediately and announce yourself as an artist! Do it now!

That's Coffee With Hallelujah! SOUL BLOG with me!

I AM AN ARTIST, A BLOGGER, A CREATIVE COMMUNITY BUILDER. As the creator and administrator of the Daily Creative Practice, a Facebook Group with more than 800 members, I am interested in how individuals can be supported by an online community as they explore their creativity in their homes. As a member of the board of WCAGA, I am also interested in supporting and finding ways to mentor upcoming artists in real time and place here in Atlanta. 

With reluctance, I did not write on today's prompt for #REVERB14 (Day 2).  
What unfinished projects from 2014 am you willing to release now? (Regret not required.)

INFORMATION ABOUT #REVERB14: Hallelujah for opportunities to reverberate, to REVERB with Kat McNally, whose mission is to remind you that you are never alone! Situated in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Kat has been hosting this December blogathon since 2011, and she does a heart-warming and inspiring job! Join #REVERB14 here for 21 days of continuous blog writing, posting, and commenting to prepare you for 2015!