Community

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.

Beauty/Repulsion

Self Portrait!