Block Heads to Focus on Retail
Monday, July 11th, 2005
Block Head Gathering
Tuesday, July 12th
8 am
J. Grundy’s Rueb-N-Stein
Archive for July, 2005
Community Resources and the Pursuit of the Art Town
Sunday, July 10th, 2005
Some of you may have noticed my column in the Wednesday July 6, Northfield News. A few of you may have actually read it. In the column, I reported that there was a group of people proposing to use some of the communty’s resources to create and fund a new position, commission another study and launch a new marketing campaign in the hopes of getting greater recognition for Northfield as an Art Town. I suggested that instead of spending money on an arts administrator, an arts consultant and an arts marketer, we use the resources to support existing groups and efforts and to actually invest in our artists.
On Thursday night, this group, now known as the Coordinator Oversight Group (COG), called for the hiring of an “Art Town Coordinator”, “an independent assessment” of Northfield’s potential as a center for the arts, and to pursue an “advertising and self-promotion” campaign. The Northfield News article names a number of people apparently involved with this group.
It is indeed an impressive group, but I still think they are proposing bad ideas. I’d like to hear from the folks in the blogosphere. If you have some thoughts on the subject, attach a comment here or join the discussion on the Northfield.org Issues List: Does an Art Town need an Art Town Coordinator?
Audio and video interview: Making Northfield an Art Town
Sunday, July 10th, 2005Here’s a 6-minute MP3 of my “Art Town” interview with Ross Currier that I originally posted to Northfield.org.
And here’s a lightly edited video (4 minutes) of the same interview.
Championing Northfield as an Art Town
Wednesday, July 6th, 2005This column ran in the July 6 edition of the Northfield News.
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More on the Arts Building
Friday, July 1st, 2005As the article in Saturday’s Northfield News indicated, the dream of a community arts facility lives on. Many of the people who were mobilized behind the Artspace effort continue to meet, discuss, plan and implement.
The discussions between Mathern, Machacek, Currier and Smith largely focused on the 10,000 square feet of potential studio space, where the elemental forces of life: fire, water, earth and air would be used for some of the basic materials of creativity: glass, stone, metal, clay, wood, fiber and ink.
Machacek imagined spaces outfitted with the tools to create, Currier saw a facility controlled by its users, Mathern envisioned the creative professionals sharing their processes and products with the public, and Smith recognized the economic vitality that such a place would bring to Northfield.
It is reminiscent of other historic movements where efforts were made to enhance and extend the opportunities for creative professionals, allowing them to explore new ideas and enrich their lives.
