Recently I came across a folder of images that I didn’t even know was in my possession. At age 24, I was one of nearly 30 artists in the Bloomington (IN) Artists’ Project, a CETA-funded program to help develop economic opportunities in the area. At that time, Indiana University was the driver of significant cultural events. But the local community was more of a desert for contemporary art. The banks did not display art, unlike Iowa City, where I moved in 1978.
I was part of the team that formulated workshops- drawing, dance, weaving, and in the UAW local in the sprawling auto factory in Indy. My friend Tom McAnulty showed up to teach drawing in his Datsun pickup. They were not amused. But he quickly charmed them with his own artistic abilities and his background in growing up in a family of 9 in Philly, sheet metal workers. My students wanted to make macrame owl plant hangers, and some of the other guys were inspired by the thought of skill screening on cars.
Our year long project was a practical graduate school for me. At 24, I didn’t have a lot of courage to engage community leaders in radical shifts in thinking. We did a lot of “research” using microfilm records at the library, talking, drinking coffee and eating freshly made biscuits with honey in the Chinese restaurant across the street. The power of art education was being embraced and art became a populist endeavor. I felt a bit guilty for being part of a government program, but only a little. My CETA training formed the basis of much of the other arts administration and community outreach I’ve done since then. I’ve been paying it forward. These images- what a blast from the past!
