Friday, January 10, 2020
The Artist Is In Residence In More Places Than You Think
Butts In the Seats: So Drew McManus must be reading my mind, or at least my reading list. Yesterday I was reading an ArtsNet piece about an artist-in-residence program with the Philadelphia district attorney’s office that went on to mention other artist-in-residence programs sponsored by different governmental entities.
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When I read the title of this article, I got really excited because I was expecting to read about the artists in residence in the commercial world. I love how stores and designers often "adopt" an artist and utilize their skills and visions. Notably, Bergdorf Goodman hired New Orleans based artist Ashley Longshore to be its artist in residence. Seeing that--seeing someone from my hometown create art for a esteemed department store--made me happy, and after reading this article, I felt a different kind of happiness. I didn't realize that the practice of having an artist in residence went all the way up into the government. These artists are hired for different reasons, and for purer reasons as well. While Ashley Longshore creates art to fuel her love of art and effortless creativity, the artists in residence in the legal system create art to foster effortless creativity in others. I especially loved the section that talked about how art is introduced to inmates. They learn about it and create art for themselves. As students with majors in the arts, we all know the benefits that come from exercising our creativity. The fact that those benefits are introduced to inmates is really lovely to see.
I honestly find the information in this article really surprising because I think nowadays people often consider the government and the arts as having a somewhat tenuous relationship. A lot of this is likely due to the fact that at a smaller level, state and town governments (especially in smaller/less populated areas) often do have contentious relationships with their arts communities because those governments are the ones that end up cutting funding to the arts in public programs. So as I said before, I was kind of shocked when I first started reading this, but it makes me really excited to learn that opportunities like this are out there for artists. I think it is also a really smart initiative on the side of these organizations that are creating these residencies because they seem to have finally realized that art has a distinct way of spreading a message while also keeping people engaged and doesn't feel like there is someone stuffing information into their ears. Overall, I think that this program is really inspirational and shows a mutually beneficial way that the government can help the artistic community.
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