Maud Lyon

Maud Lyon is the Executive Director of the Cultural Alliance of Southeastern Michigan, whose office is located in the FD Lofts building of Eastern Market, Detroit.  The Cultural Alliance was founded in 2007 to help arts and culture organizations in a seven-county region to thrive and be sustainable community assets.  Maud Lyon has been a leader in the regional arts and culture community since 1990, in a number of capacities:  as an independent consultant, as a senior vice president for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, as the executive director of the city of Detroit’s 300th Birthday Celebration in 2001, and as director of the Detroit Historical Museum. 

To learn more about using arts and culture for community development, go to Partners for Livable Communities at www.livable.com or www.cultureshapescommunity.org.

To learn about developing effective public space such as parks and urban areas, contact the, Project for Public Spaces.

Monday

September 15, 2008

Culture Builds Communities

A community is a place where people are connected to one another.  We all want to belong—andto contribute, and to feel that where we live, work, and play is an expression of us, a statement of who we are and what we value.  Arts and culture is one of the best tools a community has to do just that.  Libraries, museums, historic sites, nature centers, parks, local cultural centers, public art, performing arts, and festivals and events are essential resources that every community can use to build strong social bonds and to establish a unique identity. 

Arts organizations have a proven track record of doing many things that build communities:

• Give at-risk youth a focus and a future

• Rally support to revitalize public buildings in distressed neighborhoods

• Give neighborhoods, towns, villages, and cities a unique identity and character

• Attract business, by giving people a reason to come to explore

• Promote racial and cross-cultural understanding

Don’t think this only means big institutions!  Arts and culture organizations of all sizes—from large, national attractions to small grassroots community theatres and art center—do all of these things for your community.

This week, we will explore how this has been done in southeastern Michigan, and how you could do it in your community.

To learn more about the Cultural Alliance, see www.culturalalliancesemi.org

Tuesday

September 16, 2008

Sense of Place

Your place is a unique combination of history and culture: what your community looks like and who lives in it.  Don’t make that a secret that only the locals know!  Share who you are.  Historical museums and preservation groups give walking tours—what a great way to introduce people to your downtown, or your neighborhoods.  Festivals and events are community traditions that get everyone involved and give people a reason to explore.  Use public art to tell your story!

One of the legacies of Detroit’s Tricentennial celebration is the International Monument to the Underground Railroad.  The idea came from a grassroots group:  the inspiration to celebrate that Detroit was not just a stop on the journey toward freedom; it was the gateway to freedom in Canada.  Artist Ed Dwight was commissioned to create a pair of bronze monuments.  This one is Detroit’s, and it depicts George DeBaptiste, an African American who was one of the leaders of the Underground Railroad in Detroit, pointing toward Canada for a group of freedom seekers.  The companion monument is located across the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario.  A map of Underground Railroad sites and the names of leaders of the movement are engraved in the granite base.

Public art can also be fun.  Remember the Cows of Chicago, since copied in so many communities?  Or maybe you have a local artist, like Detroit’s Tyree Guyton.  His Heidelberg Project has transformed one of Detroit’s east side neighborhoods into blocks of public art, which attract visitors and involve young people in the community.  Public art creates landmarks—and makes you stop and look and think about the place where you are.

Wednesday

September 17, 2008

The Importance of Shared Public Space

All too often, we live, work, and worship as separate communities, but arts and culture is a shared community experience.  Galleries, museums, concert halls and parks are places that belong to and welcome everyone.  Many a neighborhood and downtown have been revitalized by restoring, converting, or building a building for the arts.    

In Detroit, the Michigan Opera Theatre led the way to revitalizing downtown Detroit.  People thought David DiChiera was crazy to want to renovate an old vaudeville theatre, but look what has happened.  It is now part of a thriving district that has 2 sports stadiums, 12 theatres, 30 restaurants, and 125,000 parking spaces—and now, a growing community of loft apartments and condos. 

Just up Woodward Avenue, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra led the way to restore historic Orchestra Hall, one of the world’s most acoustically perfect concert venues.  The DSO built an office building, Orchestra Place, expanded Orchestra Hall with the Max M. Fisher Music Center (known affectionately as “The Max”), and donated adjacent land to the Detroit Public Schools for a brand new Detroit School of the Arts, which now has 750 high school students.

In Mt. Clemens in Macomb County, the Anton Art Center has renovated an historic Carnegie Library into galleries and teaching spaces, and has worked with city officials to develop public art for the downtown streetscape.  In every instance, the process to develop these facilities has brought people together to make it happen, has created venues that become points of pride.

Partners for Livable Communities (202-887-5990) is a great resource for planning this kind of work and finding ways that a community can effectively utilize its cultural assets.

Thursday

September 18, 2008

The Arts Attract Investment – and People

Years ago, I was a curator of costumes for the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans, and among other things organized lectures and events.  A woman who came to one of these parked in the French Quarter, walked to the museum, and passed by a building for sale.  She bought it.  Arts programs give people a reason to come into your community—and change their opinion of it for the better.  While most people don’t buy buildings, they do pay for parking, eat at restaurants and shop. 

Arts organizations also attract capital.  They receive grants and individual contributions, which are spent locally in jobs and contracts.  They are a magnet for investment and a major tool for community revitalization.  This picture is the historic Pewabic Pottery on Detroit’s east side:  founded in 1903 as an arts and crafts pottery, it has been a nonprofit since the 1980s.  For years, it was surrounded by dilapidated apartment buildings that overshadowed and hid the historic Pottery building.  Thanks to State grants and other funding, Pewabic has now purchased the property, demolished the buildings and this area is now a landscaped parking lot that has transformed urban blight into a significant attraction on Jefferson Avenue.

Best of all, arts and culture attracts people.  Here in the Detroit region, the Cultural Alliance of Southeastern Michigan has partnered with Macy’s and the Library of Michigan Foundation to create the Museum Adventure Pass.  Area residents can go to their local library and check out a pass for free admission to 25 museums.  In seven months, this program brought over 70,000 people to these museums—and most of them were first-time visitors.  Here is our favorite visitor comment:

Thank you so much for providing the Museum Adventure Pass.  With money being tight and gas prices so high, it's hard to go on vacation.  We decided we would go on vacation right here in our city!  My family and I have been visiting museums all summer long.  It has also inspired us to go to other museums not available in the pass, as well as other attractions in the city such as the zoo, sporting events, and art festivals.  At every location, I buy two postcards (cheap souvenirs!).  But at the end of the summer, I will be making a scrapbook with all the postcards and pictures we've taken from our Museum Adventures!  What a great way to remember our summer and show others everything Detroit has to offer!  Thanks again!       --- Emily

To learn more about the Museum Adventure Pass program, go to www.detroitadventurepass.org 

Friday

September 19, 2008

Grow Community Capability:  Develop People’s Talents

The best thing the arts does it to develop the individual creativity and talent of people in your community, often in ways you don’t expect.

In Detroit, Mosaic Youth Theatre trains high school students to produce theatre.  Even though 44 percent of their students come from families where no one has ever gone to college, 95 percent of Mosaic alumni go on to college.  Even better, the confidence, skills, and relationships that Mosaic gives them changes their lives.   

The arts also develop leaders.  Leading arts and culture organizations is a lot of work:  and the people who serve on boards, committees, and raise funds often go on to be significant community leaders in other ways.  Serving on boards is also a great way to meet people in the community, connecting people from different businesses and walks of life.  For the past year, artists, business people, community leaders, elected officials, and leaders of nonprofit arts organizations have worked together to develop a Cultural Plan for Washtenaw County.  Every population center has developed its own unique plan for the best way to maximize the benefits of arts and culture for their community.  The Arts Alliance has also conducted a census of artists, to find out how many artists live in the county, what they do, and how to connect them to better opportunities to develop their talents and to sell their work.  It is an extraordinary planning effort which is going to have a huge impact on communities large and small, as well as the county as a whole.  The Community and Culture Plan will be released in October, and is sure to be a model. 

For more information go to www.a2artsalliance.org/about_news.asp or www.a2artsalliance.org.