As a Community Development Corporation, we know in theory that working with artists could lead to interesting programming, but we have no idea where to start and how to connect with artists. Some of our staff try to go to places and events where we might find things in common with artists, such as gardening and community events, as well as showing up at openings and such. But there still seems to be a gap between our general interest in partnering and the ability of our staff or the artists we meet to make a connection and advance the conversation.

What has been unsuccessful is designing a program in a way that overtly supports artists but doesn’t overtly give them the tools and resources needed to effectively build relationships with the community. That’s not an innate skill set for many artists. Even though artists have something that they want to share, they may not have the tools or resources necessary to understand how to share it.

The extent of our work to connect artists and communities is making one-on-one introductions. For example, last summer there was a filmmaker who was new to town and he was looking to make connections with organizations around a particular issue. I met with him and said ‘sure I’ll connect you to this person and that person.’ That’s happened many times since. I’ve connected artists to each other or to organizations so that they can collaborate. While this is better than nothing, I can’t help but think we could use a more strategic system and more capacity for serving artists interested in community-centered work.