Beginner's Guide to Community-Based Arts , 1st Editon OUT OF STOCK: Ten Graphic Stories about Artists, Educators & Activists Across the U.S.

by Mat Schwarzman, Keith Knight (Illustrator)

Ten transformative local arts projects come alive in this illustrated training manual for youth leaders and teachers. This energetic guidebook demonstrates the enormous power of art in grass-roots social change. It presents proven models of community-based arts programs, plus techniques, discussion questions, and plentiful resources.
Writer Mat

Schwarzman directs the Crossroads Center at Xavier University, which trains youth leaders nationwide in community-based arts activism. He holds a PhD in transformative learning.
Graphic storyteller Keith Knight is an award-winning cartoonist, rapper, and hip-hop musician with three nationally syndicated comic strips

Genres: Nonfiction, Art

200 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2005

Reviews

[CTEP]

The Beginners Guide to Community Based Art is a handbook for new and veteran teachers, artists, and activists who facilitate community-arts based programs. Through the stories of ten US based artists and activists, this guide lays out new techniques, skills, and definitions to use in future programming. Schwartzman breaks down community based arts into five categories: contact, research, action, feedback, and teaching - otherwise anagrammed as CRAFT. The book is divided up into these chapters, and each artist's story is told through black and white comics. After each story is also specific topic questions and a suggested activity inspired by the artists story, broken down very precisely. All of the artists featured range in location, project duration, focus, impact and audience. By covering such a wide variety of artists, anyone could pick up this book and be inspired by one of their stories, or even multiple stories for different projects.

The artists included are Chris Edaakie from Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico, whose work focuses is engaging Zuni youth in diabetes awareness, a disease which had plagued over 50% of the adult tribe members. Rhodesia Jones in San Francisco focuses her work towards addressing "the cultural and social needs of the female incarcerated population through performance arts and dance. Ricardo Levins Morales from our own Minneapolis creates activist art for union workers to spread awareness about local labor law history. In Appalachia, Tom Hansell exposed the dangerous problems of the coal hauling industry in his documentary Coal Bucket Outlaw. In San Antonio, Texas, a women's pottery collective, Mujer Artes, create artistic alternatives to the stereotyped images of Mexican Americans in mainstream media. In Philadelphia, through transforming an abandoned lot into a community garden, Lily Yeh, and deceased creative partner James Maxton, created the Village of Arts and Humanities - a community-based arts, education, and neighborhood development organization. Across the country in Seattle, the Isangmahal Arts Kollective puts together themed performances to engage youth and to honor different community activists and organizations. In Denver, photographer Tory Read put together a community photography workshop to give the perspective back to community members whose neighborhood had been continuously slandered in mainstream media. On the internet, but primarily based in Brooklyn, Picture Projects duo Sue Johnson and Alison Cornyn created A Town Hall in Cyberspace through 360degrees.org for prisoners to share their story, giving the visitor a "multi-vantaged view" of the prison experience. Lastly, in New Orleans, educational group, Young Aspirations / Young Artists (YAYA) shared their teaching structure, where everyone has a specialty and anyone can be a teacher.

All of the artists stories are incredibly inspiring - from the topics they've chosen, to how they were executed, and the longevity of a lot of these projects shows that community based artwork can be successful. My personal favorite was the story of Lily Yeh from Philadelphia. In the late eighties, she received a grant to transform an abandoned lot into a community garden, started by herself and recruited whoever was hanging around the area to help her as she went. Through engaging with the community, she met James Maxton, a long time drug addict with no imagination of a future for himself. Yeh taught him how to put energy towards something positive by showing him how to mosaic. He made a commitment to become clean and sober, and helped Yeh transform over a dozen lots in North Philly into community parks. This project turned into the Village of Arts and Humanities which engages over 3,000 children , teens and adults annually. It's incredibly inspiring to see how such a small and simple project has turned into an incredibly effective community arts program. Throughout the entirety of the book, community arts members ask themselves, "what kind of impact do I want to have on the world?" and " how can I make my work better?" I highly recommend this read to people starting up any community arts programs, as it has been an inspiration to me for a wide variety of projects to work on in the future. The only warning I have about this book is that it was published in 2005, so many of the artists have moved on to other projects, and their information in the book is out of date.

Artists
Rhodessa Jones - http://www.culturalodyssey.org/
Ricardo Levins Morales - http://www.rlmartstudio.com/
Tom Hansell - http://appalshop.org/
Mujer Artes Ceramics Cooperative - http://esperanzacenter.org/
Lily Yeh & James Maxton - http://villagearts.org/
Isangmahal Arts Kollective - https://www.facebook.com/pages/isangm...
Tory Read - http://www.sparkworkconsulting.com/
Alison Cornyn & Sue Johnson - http://www.picture-projects.com/
Young Inspirations / Young Artists - http://www.yayainc.com/

[Joseph Crupper · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the power of this book rests in the stories that are told. The model was not really something I feel like I would adhere to strictly, rather something that should flow through any art project. But each individual project that was featured in the comics did illuminate many fantastic ways that art and community building can thrive together.

The edition I read was in need of updating. At one point they use the term ‘sexual preference.’ Where now we would see ‘sexual orientation.’ Also, some stories about the art projects were part of those eras and would need to be updated. The dramatic therapy for incarcerated women, for example, lacked current data and cannot account for any changes in political environment since the start of movements like Black Lives Matter and other mass incarceration awareness and law projects.

Useful for research, but I would not lean solely on it before starting out to change your own community.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

This graphic novel is really great guide for getting involved and starting community art based organizations! The book breaks things down in an approachable way that really helps the process seem less intimidating and more doable.

[Eli · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent "beginner's how-to" for community-based artwork. Loved the diversity of artforms and settings (both geographical and types of communities) and that the creators kept things fairly simple. A delightful guide if you've never done this sort of thing before, or if you want to teach folks (especially youth) who haven't.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for ideas for community projects. Has a lot of great suggestions for getting started, coming up with the basis for the project, and how to inspire others through your work. I would recommend this to teachers, community leaders, and anyone else who wants to help the community through creative projects.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inspiring and a easily read format. The problem with the subject matter is that every community is different, the political/social/economic environment is unique. Other stories do well to inspire, but less of the nitty-gritty. Still, well done.

[Sock · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book that tells the inspirational stories of community art projects using comics. I found it inspiring and felt hopeful after reading it. ¡Viva la revolución!

[Mills College Library]

370 K699 2005

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview of placemaking and artistic activism with inspiring stories. Largely presented in graphic format so it's a quick read.