by Terry Besser
Assistant professor and extension sociologist
Iowa State University Extension to Communities
Art is not the exclusive luxury of the rich. Art and artistic enjoyment are everywhere -- from the pleasing composition of a flower bed to the gaudy pink flamingo lawn ornaments in your neighbor's front yard. The type of art that relates to community development is called "public art." It too comes in many variations from building facades, to public landscaping, to more traditional sculptures and murals.
David Sucher in his book entitled "City Comforts: How to Build an Urban Village" maintains that public art is important to community welfare because it helps us understand how others see places, events, people and ideas. The artist and the planners, who are often behind the scenes, are communicating some message to us through the medium of the art. That message functions as a conversation piece encouraging exchange between people within a community.
Through public art, people share feelings of playfulness, enjoyment or more profound emotions (as they do with patriotic or commemorative art). In addition, public art can serve as a source of community pride, and sometimes shared community chagrin (as the shuttle cock sculptures outside the Kansas City art museum illustrate). One thing is clear in Sucher's thinking: public places that display and maintain art become more valuable places.
The contribution of art and artists to community development is not always recognized, and if recognized, not always appreciated. Mel Andringa, an artist from Cedar Rapids, has developed a way to think about the relationship between communities and artists. He presented his ideas at a recent conference on sustainable community development held in Des Moines.
Using types of dogs as an organizing principle, Andringa identified three types of relationships between artists and communities. The first representation is artist as lap dog. Lap dog artists create decorations for the homes of the wealthy and provide pleasant entertainment for the intelligentsia. This is a common image of artists and probably accounts for the misconception of art as a diversion of the elite upper classes, providing little relevance to the average person's life.
Second, is the artist as junkyard dog. Artists of this category are mean and angry --convinced of the world's injustice and banality. They are alienated from others and believe in their moral superiority, over elite and commoner alike. The art of junkyard dog artists contains large doses of acrimonious social criticism.
The image Andringa prefers is the last, the artist as seeing eye dog. Artists of this persuasion help communities see meaning and beauty where it was not obvious before. In the process, they assist community residents better understand their common bonds. We can all think of community eyesores that were turned into places of pride by artists who created murals, walking paths or gardens. Although the seeing eye dog metaphor relates most directly to visual art, Andringa clearly intends to include drama, music, dance and "folk art" such as quilting and woodworking in his artists' typology. Thus those who act in and help to produce local plays are seeing eye dog artists. People who play locally meaningful music for local celebrations are seeing eye dog artists.
Both Sucher and Andringa stress that public art is not created exclusively or even mostly, by professional artists. It does not take certified specialists, e.g., artists, musicians and actors, to enrich the community's visual and auditory environment. What is required is the ability to "see" and then the willingness to help others see. In fact, any person whose artistic work builds connections between the community and the surrounding landscape, and between community residents, is a seeing eye dog artist. Artists can make a significant contribution to enriching the quality of life in a community. Community leaders should find ways to involve artists in community development processes, and view the cultivation of local seeing eye dog artists as community development.
Contacts:
Terry L. Besser, ISU
Extension Sociology, (515) 294-6508
Del Marks, ISU Extension
Communication Systems, (515) 294-9807
