Describe your community. You may be a part of many communities: church, school, family, neighborhood, youth groups, town or social activities. Describe the community that you seem the closest to. --The community that I describe and relate to the best is my hometown, WaKeeney, KS. It is a small community that I have been born and and raised in and will continue to raise my own family here. The town is quite small and populates approximately 1,800 people. It is also very well known for two reasons: one being that it is the halfway point between Denver and Kansas City and it is also extremely well known for being the Christmas City of the High Plains. The community itself is fairly quiet and you can either know everything about everyone in the town or you can easily keep to yourself and not know everybody.
What are the shared experiences and events in your community? --While there are many things that go on within the community I would say that there are two big things that happen each year that is a shared experience for everyone within the community as well as visitors to the town. One being the county fair which always occurs the end of July and beginning of August. It is a week long event that is filled with a lot of various activities that attract many people. The second experience that is very popular is our annual Christmas tree lighting, which takes place the Saturday following Thanksgiving at 6:00 in the evening. All of the local downtown businesses stay open late and everyone gathers around the 60 foot tree that stands in the middle of Main street and awaits Santa's arrival so he can light the tree.
What common goals do you and the people in the community share? --While there is no list of goals that are published for everyone to see, I would say that a common goal for our community is to keep the small town alive by putting back into local businesses as much as possible. So many small communities become ghost towns and I believe it is a goal of our community to not let that happen within our community.
What stories in your community need to be told? --I think more stories about local businesses need to be heard by more people.
How might individual, group, and community stories be told through art work? --I believe that the stories of the community would best be told through the eyes of the community members. To be able to do this through art work I think it would be best to have a large blank canvas and then explain to the community that they must tell the stories of the community through this canvas so the rest of the world can see. Over time, I think it would be quite interesting to see the end result and how different people within the community depict the same stories of the community.
Is there a sign, symbol, ritual, or story from these questions that could act as a central metaphor? --I think something involving a Christmas tree would be the best symbol to depict our small town, just for the simple fact that, that is truly what our town is known for.
Are there opportunities for you to support and expand upon local craft traditions. --Yes. Each year there is always a craft fair that takes place at our county fairgrounds. I think making it a point to visit the various booths at the craft fair and purchasing items from them would help support the craft tradition that we have.
Discuss the idea that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." What aspects of community environment do some members of the group find beautiful that others do not? Can those who find something ugly see it in another way? --I think the one thing that same may see as beautiful and some may not is our downtown area. Our downtown business area basically runs the length of two blocks and is a brick road rather than gravel. As far as the businesses, while most of them are occupied currently there are some that are old and abandoned. To some in our community I think they see it as beauty because it's a little glimpse of what was here a long time ago. To others, they may think it is trashy because some of the buildings have windows knocked out and are clearly abandoned.
Who could you partner with for this project? --I think the best people to partner with for this project would be local junior high and high school organizations. I remember when I was in junior high and high school our student organizations were always searching for community service projects to participate in, so I feel allowing them to help would be a good partnership.
Where could this event take place or displayed at? --I think that this project would best be displayed at a local business downtown. Prior to choosing one specific business some thought and preparation would have to be done to ensure that it would work to successfully be displayed at the chosen business.
Who would you like to reach in this project? Who would you like to see this project or be educated about your community? --I think this project would be good to attract visitors to the town. Too often I think people overlook small communities as just being a ghost town with nothing in them, so I think letting people know what is so special about our community would be great.
ReplyDeleteHi Victoria,
I apologize for the two part post; my comment isn’t being accepted in a single submission. So here is part one:
I enjoyed reading your comments and I agree that community is easily lost if we do not invest our time and commitment to renewing it constantly. Your love for and commitment to your town comes through in your comments. Sometimes for those things we hold most dear, we often have trouble communicating the source of those affections to others who know nothing about it. It has a special place in our hearts and always will, so defining what makes it special seems unnecessary. I think a really noble goal you have is not only to remind your community members why they care for the town, but to help visitors fall in love with it, too. In order to do that, a narrative is really useful. What is the history of WaKeeney: how was it founded, and are any descendants of those founders within your community? If any of them are elderly, what can they remember about earlier eras of the town? I love your idea about telling the stories of local businesses to promote independent commerce. Could the people who told their stories weave them into the history of how your community has changed over time? These are stories that can vitalize WaKeeney in the minds of those of us who do not yet know it as its residents do. Once you start asking these questions of how to describe what makes WaKeeney the place you love the most, I am sure you will have ideas I did not. These could relate to topics like local legends or families or organizations that inspire and hold the community together.
I love your idea that the whole community would be invited to participate in creating a large piece of art together; this would make viewing it when finished all the more meaningful. However, I think you would need to do more planning to get a piece that had cohesion, thematic unity, and aesthetic appeal. This could still work. You could form a committee and make all artistic decisions democratically so it still represented the visions of many artists, but the execution could be more controlled. Your idea as it stands also has the prerequisite of some artistic rendering ability in the participants. Perhaps one thing that makes your community remarkable is that you have a lot of artistic talent to be drawn on; in which case I think your idea is perfect. If you feel asking the town to paint everything themselves would exclude too many people who feel unable to do so, you could rethink and rely a bit on technology. There are computer software programs that will make line drawings out of photographs; if you like comic books you could think of this as having the computer be your “inker” for the images you want; the community then becomes the “colorists” (or paints the colors in). A last thought: I think the question about local craft traditions was intended to spur us to use these in creating the artwork. For instance, if there is a local weaving tradition, can woven pieces be incorporated, or could you do a tapestry rather than a drawing (obviously that’s just a hypothetical example). This one question could make you reconsider your use of media and alter your project significantly.
Part two:
ReplyDeleteBuilding on an icon you are known for, the Christmas tree, is a good idea. I would also think that since you would need to plan this with many members of your town, you might have a brainstorming session to see if there are other symbols that come to mind. If you want to showcase local businesses as you state, perhaps a depiction of your main street with brick road could be incorporated.
I think drawing on the schools to involve the youth of the community is a great idea. If you keep your goal of promoting local business, the local Chamber of Commerce or other business related organizations might also be able toad resources.
One really nice thing about your idea of using a large swath of canvas is that it is portable and can be installed in more than one area over time. You could even have it appear at the county fair or Christmas tree lighting. It could travel to your library or post office, and rotate through more than one business. The opportunities are endless, really!
I hope my comments were helpful, and I hope you and all the residents of WaKeeney continue to thrive, grow, and value independently owned and operated businesses that give color and character to the community.
Sincerely, Susan
Hi Victoria,
ReplyDeleteI actually think this is pretty good. You answered the questions well. I live in Connecticut and I do not know anything about Kansas, so I would definitely be interested in anything that you write about related to your town. When you write your essay, think about the people like me that are far away and write about the things you think will draw us to your community. I would love to see the tree and the 2 blocks of lovely brick. I'd also be interested in the craft fair. More over, if you mention the types of businesses that would be another attraction. I would encourage you to think about the type of things that would bring more business to your community. If the goal is to get more businesses to open up in your community, then a project focused on how and why would be quite helpful to someone like me. If you are just focusing on the local people, then I would definitely include the stories that you mentioned. I really think this project will help your community get excited about these goals. Good idea!
Great ideas! I am studying to be an elementary educator, and getting the students from your community involved in community activities is such a great experience for them to have. Teachers usually are more than happy to involve their students in activities that will help them express themselves.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I am from a town where the fair/rodeo is a HUGE event for the community. I think that displaying in there would be a fantastic idea. There will be a lot of traffic and it will be easy to get your thoughts and creativity out to the public.
Your town seems to be really interesting. I love the sense of community and how you work together to support local businesses. I think its really neat how so many members of the community and also visitors come together for the lighting of the Christmas tree. If I ever come that way I'll be sure to see it. I liked your idea of representing your art project downtown. Maybe you could also try to display it at the craft fair. I think that would be really neat! It may also give visitors a chance to see it while they browse through other booths.
ReplyDeleteVictoria,
ReplyDeleteComing from the same town, I can totally relate. Our town is definitely known for the Christmas tree lighting and fair. Instead of holding it at a local business, I think the fair would be a great place because that is when we have the most people come back to our town. That way more people would hear about it. I think having the junior high and high school organizations help is a great idea because there are a lot of them and they are always willing to do volunteer work. Other than that, I think this project is a great idea and will reach many people.
Good luck!
Victoria,
ReplyDeleteYour home town sounds just like mine, so I can definitely relate to you and your community. We have a county fair every year, about the same time as yours and it always has lots of different things. The main thing that I always make sure I am a part of is a ATV showdeo to raise money for a scholarship from a boy I went to school with who passed away in a car accident. Your Christmas tree lighting is beautiful I bet. You could elaborate on that and add that to your things you could do for artwork. When they do they Christmas tree lighting, you could have each family in the community or even individuals from the community decorate their own Christmas trees in their own unique way and then light them all up at once to show just what the community is made of. Each tree would show just a little bit about each person and family in your community. It would be interesting to see all the similarities and differences everyone has.
Your little town sounds absolutely amazing. I have always wanted to live in a small town and reading this had definitely made me want to that much more! I really enjoyed reading about your community, and think that all of your ideas are great. In regards to your stories of small businesses, I think that that is a great idea. I'm sure they each of them have an amazing story of how they came to be and I think it would be important to get as many of these stories as you can.
ReplyDelete