Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

By Michelle Knapik
Environment Program Director

Art met industrial history and invited the City of Paterson, aka Silk City, to re-imagine itself, to connect past and present, and to listen to voices and visions of transformation. Last Saturday, the Paterson Arts Council curated…Paterson! The 2011 Arts Walk came to life as volunteers converted vacant mills, green spaces, restaurants and businesses into compelling exhibition spaces.

To lovers of urban architecture, Industry Mill, Congdon Mill and Harmony Mill are in and of themselves art in terms of early twentieth century architectural design, but to most, they stand as abandoned relics of Paterson’s past glory. During the Art Walk, though, floor after floor of mill space was punctuated by visual art, performance art, music and poetry. The event was, in essence, a one day pass to peer into the industrial past, be inspired by more than 200 artists, and think about the potential of the mills to permanently support the creative, industrious and immigrant spirit of the city.

The vaulting ceilings, the sometimes painted, sometimes exposed brick, the near full story windows, the interior columns – these stunning, sometimes eerie features provided the blank slate for the exhibitions. Clearly, the art work graced the buildings, but at times the architectural elements graced the paintings, photographs and installations.

I spent most of my time in Industry Mill – an expansive and impressive five story edifice that alone showcased 45 artists. Climbing the stairs, I passed old work safety posters, which ushered in thoughts of productivity and manufacturing madness.

But one foot in the converted space and the thoughts turned to the arts as a force for social change. One installation featured images of abandoned spaces, another focused on mixed wood and paint for a grounded whimsical effect.

A board member of the Paterson Arts Council, Giovawna Cecchetti, talked about her 1995 “shadow series” that brought her face to face with emotional wounds that had kept her from facing her future. Her newer series on healing themes defines her now, but the shadow series spoke to the space and the notion of confronting the past and present in order to permanently convert these buildings into new uses.

The artists and Arts Council members have no shortage of what they’d like to see happen in these spaces. Artists studios, teaching and training space, artist housing, exhibition space. They want arts to anchor and stimulate the rebirth of these old buildings, as well as to serve as an economic engine for the city.

A similar event is about to take place this weekend in Trenton. Art All Night 2011 will transform the Roebling Wire Works factory and its environs into a 24 hour gallery and exhibition experience (from 3 pm on Saturday, June 18, to 3 pm on Sunday, June 19). The event features more than 800 diverse artists and various art mediums. Art re-awakens the historic factory space and signals that Trenton’s creative class is ready to fuel broader scale redevelopment.

These initiatives are becoming signature events in New Jersey’s older industrial centers. They attract and provide benefits for local and global artists. They build community and bring a sense of celebration to these urban spaces. They may be temporary exhibitions, but they result in lasting impacts and social change.

How are arts affecting redevelopment in the places you know and love?

Link here for a video and report on the Arts Walk.

Link here to connect with Sustainable Jersey to see how your town can earn points toward certification by incorporating Arts, Culture and Historic Preservation efforts.

Link here to explore Creative New Jersey’s first series of answers to the question of how creativity and innovation can revitalize New Jersey.

We tweeted about this project earlier this week, but in case you didn’t see it, we wanted to share it here on our blog too.

Candy Chang is a public installation artist, designer, urban planner, and co-founder of Civic Center who says she “likes to make cities more comfortable for people.” She took the side of an abandoned house in her New Orleans neighborhood and turned it into a giant chalkboard with the prompt, “Before I die, I want to______” and left pieces of chalk for anyone who wanted to join the conversation.

Much like the Museum of Possibilities in Montreal, which we blogged about recently, here’s a project that takes an unused space and invites the public to consider and share their aspirations. It’s a public art project that invites civic engagement in a really positive, hopeful way.

Take a look:

It’s inspiring isn’t it?

You can learn more about the project here and more about Candy Chang’s work here.

And if you like today’s post, you should follow us on Twitter where we share links to other fascinating and creative projects and stories like Candy’s.

Images: Candy Chang
Via Brain Pickings

Attention, gardeners, mark your calendars! The Friends of the Frelinghuysen Arboretum in Morristown is hosting the 2011 Community Garden Conference on Thursday, March 3 from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm.

The daylong conference features a keynote address by Dr. Laura Lawson, the Professor and Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at Rutgers. Breakout sessions include a wide variety of gardening topics – from rainwater harvesting and sustainable water use, to composting, to beneficial insects and pest management. The conference ends with a discussion about the connection between community gardening and local food pantries, led by Rev. Lisanne Finston, Executive Director of Elijah’s Promise (a Dodge grantee).

$55 for members and $60 for non-members. Click here to see the full brochure, and call (973) 326-7603 to register.

See also “Community Gardens Taking Root” in the Star-Ledger.

Image: Victory Garden of Tomorrow
You can buy a print of the artwork above (and other fantastic gardening / local foods related posters) here

If you’re not familiar with Kickstarter, it’s a website where anyone with an idea can set up a page and solicit donations for their project. It’s a new way, says Kickstarter, to “fund and follow creativity.”

Kickstarter features an all-or-nothing funding model: projects must be fully funded before any money exchanges hands, which helps minimize the risk to the donors. This model also helps the project’s creator test his idea in the marketplace without risk: if he doesn’t get fully funded, he doesn’t have to spend the money or effort to follow through, which frees him to refine his idea or try something new.

Scrolling through the pages of Kickstarter, you will see an incredible variety of ideas – some whose creativity might resonate with you, and some that might not.  Here are three projects that are fun, creative and help build community, and we’d love to see something like them here in New Jersey:

Sharing Ideas Through Materials

A group of resourceful Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) students called RISD 2nd Life collects a variety of leftover materials from departments around the school as well as from local businesses, rescuing unused art supplies that would have been thrown away. RISD 2nd Life then redistributes the supplies for free not just to RISD students, but also to Brown University students and the Greater Providence community. Their Kickstarter project asks for maneuverable cargo trikes (onya cycles), to help them collect and haul the materials.

We appreciate that RISD 2nd Life is rescuing usable supplies and keeping them out of landfills. We also applaud that the materials are free to the whole community. We can imagine this happening at any New Jersey university campus, but better yet, how about in any New Jersey town?

Brooklyn Night Bazaar

Aaron wants to bring a summer night market to Brooklyn, much like the open-air markets he saw in his travels throughout Asia. He envisions Friday and Saturday night markets from May to September featuring local vendors of arts and crafts, local foods and beer and wine from local brewers and vineyards. The market also includes performance space as well as a venue for local non-profits and organizations to engage with their community.

Really, what town wouldn’t benefit from a summer night market that brings people together and showcases local artisans, food, performers and non-profits? Wouldn’t you like to have them all across New Jersey – so that you could choose from your own town’s market one weekend, and perhaps a neighboring town market the next weekend?

Parts & Crafts: Community Supported Education

The Parts & Crafts Collective of Somerville, MA has a creative take on the CSA (community supported agriculture), Instead of buying a share of a farm and collecting a box of produce every week, they have developed the CSE (community supported education), where you receive a kit of stuff – craft, technology and engineering parts and supplies. Each box includes instructions, materials, and ideas and links to further research. What might show up in a box? Materials for building your own light saber, for example, or instructions to make your own juggling balls, so that you can learn how to juggle.

The Parts & Crafts Collective believes that building, playing and experimenting are the best ways to learn and the best ways to live. “If you have an active body and a curious mind than you can go into any situation, look at any object, with the mindset of ‘What can I do with this? How can I make this better, more fun, more just, wackier, more like how I think it should be?’”

Imagine kids and adults working side by side on these kits – learning and experimenting together, fostering a love for art and science and collaboration – in community centers around the state. It’s no wonder that this project already met its funding goal with time to spare.

If you like any of these projects – or any other project on Kickstarter – don’t hesitate to pledge some money and help them meet their goal.

Last spring, the city of Montreal invited its citizens to explore the possibilities of the city’s public spaces and share their ideas for the future of a particular lot in the Quartier des Spectacles district through this extraordinarily clever and creative public art installation called “The Museum of Possibilities.”

Visitors were encouraged to share their ideas by writing them down on pieces of paper and attaching them to the balloons. They could also vote with stickers on their favorite ideas posted by others.

This could have been a simple, pretty public art installation on an unused lot, but the creators of the installation took it far beyond that and used it as a civic engagement opportunity to think and talk about the often-neglected and underutilized spaces in our cities and towns. We love it.

As Maria Popover of the excellent Brain Pickings (where we spotted the Museum of Possibilites) noted, this project reminds us of Give a Minute.

Where should there be a Museum of Possibilities in New Jersey, and what would it look like? We want to hear your votes.

via Brain Pickings & Local Projects