First to consider

As artists we mirror the world around us, we reach into the human experience, we imagine universes, we simplify, we complicate, we lift up and rip open. We celebrate, accuse, we entertain, educate, we connect.

And if we look at our process and presentation – the steps into, through and out of our work – there is often a great deal of care for what our voice wants to say and our talent express. The experience of creation, even when communal, is ripe with self-reflection and self-concern.

Our intention as artists may be to share of ourselves, to be seen, to expose questions or fears we have for the society we are currently living in. And to create from that space requires we, on some deep level, have a relationship with our self that is in constant dialogue either with our thoughts, our emotions or our intuitive body. The more attuned we are to ourself as a unique vehicle for expression, the greater our potential impact can be through our training, methodology,  techniques and approach. At our best, we are fine-tuned instruments of the human experience. Yet is this accomplishment enough in the world we find ourselves in today?

Where does compassion to and intimate partnership with our community enter into our work and effort? And should it? Art For Social Renewal suggests that it should, it must, become an intentional part of the artist’s art-making and art-sharing in a world that is fracturing and relationally dysfunctional.  As we focus on what is being created in our studios and rehearsal halls, a guide star for us must also focus toward what is happening behind the closed doors of our neighbors. Those human beings we share space with in a building or on a tree-lined street of behind fenced houses. Those who we live amongst, who we pass on the way to the gallery or theatre, and who need us.

Do they need us?  Yes, they very much do. Art For Social Renewal contends it is those individuals – our neighbors  and fellow community members – who most need to be invited to share in our work and process. They benefit from an intentional creative contact which can open up their experience of living, of knowing themselves and giving from that experiential knowledge in ways no other sector of our social systems can. Thereby changing the environment of their communities, cities and towns. To guide them toward the fullness of their humanity, sensually attuned to the world around them, to their fellow human beings and to the beauty, wonder and harmony of natural and manmade creation.

Community Renewal International

At Community Renewal International (CRI) a basis of contemplation begins with these five essential questions: 

What kind of WORLD do we need?

What kind of SOCIETY creates that world?

What kind of PERSON creates that society? 

What kind of ENVIRONMENT creates that person? 

What do we have to DO to create that environment?

CRI responds to these questions with 27 years of experimenting and refining a process of human relational living that has emerged into a ‘social technology’ acknowledging that if you want to have a healthy society, you must have whole people who are then capable of having healthy relationships. Whole people are defined as ‘competent and compassionate’. These relationships then become mutually enhancing and a relational network of intentionally caring human beings can then cross all boundaries of individual differences, zip codes and country borders.

Given what we artists know about the arts, Art For Social Renewal stands on the foundation that you can not have whole human beings if they are not intellectually curious and creatively expressive. This, of course, does not mean we are envisioning a world full of Picassos and Maya Angelous (although that would be nice). Art For Social Renewal acknowledges that in order to confront the challenges we have before us both locally and globally, renewing our world is necessary. That renewal is a process which requires creative thinking and doing throughout all aspects of society. Whole people ready to renew society therefore must be in touch with their creative capacity.

This begs the question for every individual artist who wants to make an impact on the fundamental aspect of human interaction:

“Can my kind of art change our kind of world?

It’s a confronting question because it asks us to look seriously at what we are offering and what we’ve accepted thus far as a valid contribution to our community. Is art for arts sake enough? Or is there another way to create balance between that indefinable drive within us that MUST create and the container and intentionality in HOW and WHY we do it. Until this moment in time many of us have been satisfied with the legitimate experience of self-expression. Some of us in the field of art for social change have brought attention to issues such as violence against women, censorship in democracy, sensitivity toward refugees, etc. etc. none of which in the last decade have improved. In fact only worsened. So perhaps we are not going deep enough. Or perhaps we are working with the wrong intention.

So what is the answer?

Creative Corps

It is a radical thought to approach Art For Social Renewal. After deciding if you are willing to explore this path it asks of you to consider three inter-connected actions: 

• Embrace the core premise of Community Renewal International
• Commit to examining your work as it could best contribute to the expansion of intentionally caring relationships in your community
• Join the creative movement related to CRI – Creative Corps/Renewal Team – that works to experientially awaken our fellow human beings to their wholeness – their competency and compassion

Creative Corps, an initiative of The Global Theatre Project in partnership with CRI, invites artists to build an international movement that believes art should be at the center of our communal life. Not on the fringe, not behind closed doors of galleries, theaters, concert halls and museums, not mainly for the elite, and not as an expendable aspect of education, but nurtured in every soul on this planet, valued by them as fundamental and expressed in ways authentic to their unique personhood and local culture. 

Working locally, and connecting globally, Art For Social Renewal stands on Four Pillars:

Kindness

Community

Artistry

Whole Artist Elements (those things elemental to living as a creative and intellectual being – curiosity, courage, hunger, passion, connectivity, knowledge, sensual development).

In its most realized form, this work consciously creates containers – environments – that connect diverse individuals and communities whose reason for coming together is the creative project. Here, they are motivated to learn on a common foundation, to collectively create from what they learn and to share with the larger community what they have come to understand and what they have made in celebration. The process contributes to the evolving of ‘whole people,’ builds intentional caring relationships that are enlivened through activating the four pillars, and offers the opportunity to involve various sectors of our society as partners. This approach to art-making-as-community-renewal gives all involved a deeper experience of our common culture – our shared human experience – reflected through the beauty of our diverse prism.

When approaching all of the Four Pillars the opportunity presented to the artist(s) is to step into their work with all of the Whole Artist Elements engaged starting with curiosity. Being curious about how each pillar might contribute to your work and your relationship to your community will help you make this process your own. That is the invitation and freedom within it. These pillars are presented as inquiries to uniquely evolve as you grow and evolve artistically and relationally. They are also created as a common language to connect artists who wish to work in this area with the same level of intentionality regardless of cultural background or global location.

Kindness

Considerations given to where kindness arises can be inspired/invited regarding how you make and present your work, during the process itself, the partnerships you may engage and how they are approached, the environments you create and work within, that you invite others into; all of these and other considerations offer the opportunity to relate to art-making at another level of consciousness. What occurs to your craft when it is reaching beyond self-expression and into relational-creation founded in kindness? What opportunities present themselves? What obstacles? Art For Social Renewal considers both opportunities and obstacles to have rich value for the artist in this process as a tool for self-evaluation and expansion into communal relationship in their work.

Community

There are established and important schools of community-engaged art throughout history and throughout the world. Within the context of Art For Social Renewal the question of community becomes personal to the artist. What does community mean to you? What is YOUR definition. Then take the time with clear eyes to look around you on your street, in your neighborhood, in your town/city or state. What are you hearing on the streets? Reading in the local papers? What is reflecting back to you as the current condition of your community? What do you feel is beautiful about it, and where might decay be apparent. A relationship of an artist to the community is a living relationship. It is constantly evolving as situations and human beings evolve and change. In defining your relationship to community and seeing the truth of how it is being lived on a daily basis an artist committed to community renewal can then respond through lifting up what is beautiful or pointing out what must change. 

At the same time the artist is applying a conscious approach to defining, examining and exploring their community, a second consideration of community is vital. This is the one the artist creates themselves around their work. Once we begin to work with other human beings on creative work we are, in fact, creating an intentional community. This is where one pillar is essential for another to function. How is this intentional community crafted so that kindness is encouraged in the interaction of all participants? And so that the highest level of collective creative expression and experience can be achieved as a benefit to the larger community. 

Artistry

When considering artistry Art For Social Renewal takes into account both the professional artist and the ‘non-artists’ who may be involved or impacted by the project. It is important that this pillar offers the possibility of the continual evolution of both. 

Every human being is creative. Every human being has something to contribute from the development of their creative and intellectual self. We have stepped away from this fact during the last century or so. We have siloed artists to the edges of our society for too long. And we have suffered from this separation. Lewis Mumford, the lauded historian, in his book “Art and Technics” lays out a question to consider and envisions a solution:

Why has our inner life become so impoverished and empty, and why has our outer life become so exorbitant, and in its subjective satisfactions even more empty? Why have we become technological gods and moral devils, scientific supermen and esthetic idiots – idiots, that is, primarily in the Greek sense of being wholly private persons incapable of communicating with each other or understanding each other?

To avert a tragic end, the HUMAN PERSON must come back onto the center of the stage….we must put ourselves in the mood and frame of mind where ART BECOMES POSSIBLE. Above all we must learn to pause, to be silent, to close our eyes and wait….the creative impulses that stirred in the human soul hundreds of thousands of years ago…. will not vanish. While life persists, it holds the possibility of circumventing its errors, of surmounting its misfortunes, of RENEWING ITS CREATIVITY. 

Art For Social Renewal responds to Mumford’s concerns and his hopes for humankind. This third pillar promotes the awareness that artists must now work toward renewing our world keeping two objectives in mind. One is to continue to honor and stretch the mastery of their own art as a valued contribution to our world. Two is to generously act as a guide toward opening the experience of authentic exploration and expression in others. The pillar of Artistry acknowledges that the higher the artistic expression, the deeper the impact on those who have created the work and those who receive it leaving a lasting impression on society as a whole.

Whole Artist Elements

Art For Social Renewal has identified seven elemental aspects of the creative process for the artist to bring raised attention to their individual work as well as be intentionally embedded in their approach assisting others toward their innate creativity. Creative and intellectual development of the individual as a “Whole Artist” allowing for a higher expression of possibilities for the community and that community’s eventual stamp on society is the underlying focus of Art For Social Renewal. 

Curiosity
Art For Social Renewal encourages inquiry at all stages of the project’s work. From the project’s intention to the artistic choices made, a deep level of curiosity keeps all involved on a path toward awakening them to their fullest capacity of both intellectual and creative use. Observation, research and inquiry are continually in play.

Courage
Creativity requires vulnerability. Being human is difficult. The world we live in is filled with pain alongside hope, relationships are challenging and defenses often arise. Courage is applicable to 1) remain open to the truths of disturbing information your research might reveal on a project if it takes on a difficult social issue, and 2) navigate openly the challenges of working together, of the give-and-take that a creative community requires. The purpose of learning and growing into our capacity through Courage is to remain open and vulnerable as a strength, not a weakness. As well as developing the fearlessness necessary to confront the world as we have currently created it by becoming the people we feel will have the capacity to create it differently.

Hunger

Art For Social Renewal defines hunger as having a desire to remain in the gray area of learning and questioning throughout the process. This is a strength of the artist and a powerful tool of their work. A desire to know more finds comfort with a level of dissatisfaction: I can’t know everything, I must question my position, I can loosen my grip on this stand and see what else might be there. Hunger develops the muscle of emotional-intellectual exploration and the power drawn from remaining in the unknown where prejudices and predilections are recognized as obstacles of growth and informed creative expression.

Passion

An Art For Social Renewal project intentionally connects artists with community members to work through a process with defined value and objectives. Whether this means bringing attention and action to a social concern, or celebrating the gathering of individuals for the act of creating and learning together, the values and objectives become important for each individual. Passion is intimate alignment with the subject matter of the project as well as the project itself. It is what fuels the creative inquiries, what directs the collaboration. Consciously dealt with, Passion can align both individuals and the collective toward purpose. It can fuel hope and meaning in participants as well as motivate further learning and relationship-building in support of the project and beyond.

Connectivity

Community Renewal International intentionally builds and grows positive caring relationships. The development of a network of friendships that knows no border of landmass, religion, ethnicity or sexual gender is only possible through a willingness to relate to others in mutually enhancing relationship. Art For Social Renewal embraces Connectivity, a core element of the artists’ toolbox, as vital to assist in this vision. The artist’s experience of connection functions fluidly on multiple levels: to their project partners, to those that are involved in or impacted by the subject matter they are exploring as well as to the community which will receive the work. However an artist’s view is wider than what or who is immediately in front of them. Connectivity for the artist extends to all on this planet, and to the planet itself. Art For Social Renewal sees the element of Connectivity as an essential opportunity for artists to awaken in others this wider more expanded view of life.

Knowledge

What often remains under-appreciated about artists and their contribution to society is the depth of their intellectual capacity. Knowledge which is socially expansive and politically questioning is elemental to the continual growth of an artist and their work as society changes and cultural norms shift. Knowledge allows the artist to be a partner in our world by crossing boundaries and, often, building bridges. Sharing that knowledge with the larger community can inspire collective conversation and self-examination when necessary. Knowledge is an element of Art For Social Renewal which acknowledges that not all art is comfortable and that guiding others in one’s community to find the ability to collectively address the discomfort of social and political realities requires conscious effort in all stages of the work from conception to presentation. 

Sensual Development

Human beings are sensual creatures. We take information in consciously and unconsciously through the portals of our senses in a continual stream throughout our waking and sleeping states. Our five sense involvement on a daily level is often ignored or taken for granted. But these senses are powerful tools for engagement with the world sharpening an appreciation of its beauty. They strengthen our capacity to develop a connectivity to it. Artists lift an awareness to this aspect of being alive that invites engagement with the full-bodied self. When we act as guides to others to slow down and put attention to this very elemental aspect of lived experience, we open worlds of possibilities to our fellow community members which can make their lives and the lives of those around them richer and more deeply valued.

Clearly, none of these seven elements work independently. They are reliant on one another in how they impact, enhance, or expand the opportunities for deeper artistic expression, individual and collective growth of capacity for positive contribution, and the creative renewal of relationships within our communities.

An artist interested in working with the Four Pillars of Art For Social Renewal is making a commitment to being a part of a movement which believes the world must change yet understands this change can only come through RENEWAL. Applied attention and intention by artists in their local community, and in partnership throughout this world, is an invitation for a new form of artist-activism. An approach that is not asking artists to bring attention to an issue as a single purpose, but to look more holistically at the human condition. To work toward the evolution of Whole Persons as creative and intellectual beings while supporting their ability to engage at a conscious level of care and support of one another. Artists of Art For Social Renewal believe that art and artists must be in the center of this movement because we must return to the center of communal life. There was rich value in a time when human beings used more of themselves creatively in the mundane as well as to confront the daily challenges and opportunities of their world. Art For Social Renewal mines and exposes the extent of untapped creativity within individuals and communities as an essential need for renewing our world. 

After having read the above, please spend some time contemplating these questions:

• What would happen to our world if individuals were awakened to their own creative and intellectual capacity? 
• What would be the qualitative shift in our relationship to each other and the planet? 
• How might that change society? 
• How could my art and artistic process participate in that pursuit?