Grass Roots: Preserving Community through Art

If you haven’t been to Fellows Riverside Gardens lately, and even if you have, a visiting exhibit there should provide a great reason to make a special trip. Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art tells the history and showcases the artistic beauty of the sweetgrass baskets of the Carolina low country. The exhibit links the artistry of today’s basketmakers with their African origins and the continuing tradition of basketmaking in Africa.

Beyond the aesthetic beauty of the baskets themselves, what I found most intriguing in my conversations with basketmaker Nakia Wigfall and exhibit curator Dale Rosengarten was the way the local community of Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, took control of what might once have been seen as a symbol of enslavement and transformed it into a tool for economic and cultural independence and pride. As Nakia mentions in our interview, her great-grandparents were among the enslaved people who once labored on rice plantations in the area, and for the, the flat, wide fanner baskets they made each year were necessary tools. But as Dale explains, by the early 20^th century, the basketmakers of Mt. Pleasant began to sell their work along the roadside near Charleston, ensuring that they could preserve their artistic freedom and protect their economic interests.

At the same time, as Nakia makes clear, basketmaking weaves not only practical, beautiful objects. It also weaves together the family and community. She learned to sew these baskets from her mother, and she has taught her own children. Basketmaking allows families like Nakia’s to strengthen their ties through shared art, but because they can earn a living through this work, it also allows them to remain in their home community – a community with roots dating back to before the Civil War.

Grass Roots also has something to offer our community. The exhibit is part of an effort by Mill Creek Park to expand its outreach, especially to the African-American community. As John Russo and I noted in Steeltown USA, the park has long served as a dividing line between the mostly white West Side and the mostly African-American neighborhoods that border the park along Glenwood Avenue. Decades ago, black people were only allowed into Idora Park one day a week, and the amusement park was later a site of some fights between white and black youth. Racial divisions remain strong in this community, but Mill Creek MetroParks is trying to help change that. I hope this exhibit will draw African-American visitors to Fellows, but I also hope it will give white visitors a different perspective on African-American culture.

Art in Difficult Times

One of Youngstown’s gems, the Butler Institute of American Art, turns 90 this year. This week on Lincoln Avenue, I’m talking with museum director Lou Zona about what’s happening at the museum this summer. On the top of the list is the anniversary gala. The May 28^th event with feature actress Jessica Lange. An exhibit of her photographs will also open that evening.

Late in the summer, the Butler will host its annual Midyear Exhibition, a nationally-recognized, juried show. As Lou explains in our interview, this show is not only exciting to put on, it is viewed by artists and galleries around the country as an important exhibit for emerging artists. The Butler is also extending the Andrew Wyeth exhibit, and it has a new exhibit of small-scale collages from the National Collage Society. With so much high-quality activity, it’s not surprising that the Butler was recently re-accredited. In our interview, Lou explains what that means and why it matters.

But we also talk about the challenges facing museums and other arts organizations in this time of economic crisis. I’ve written elsewhere about how the current situation might connect with the 1930s, but so far I’m not seeing any signs of what I think is one of the most culturally significant aspects of the New Deal – the arts programs sponsored by the Works Progress Administration. Roosevelt’s stimulus plan, unlike Obama’s, funded arts projects as a way of getting artists back to work. In the process, those artists also created some significant new works and reached out to new audiences. In the current recession, we have to take on that responsibility as members of the community. By supporting the arts, we not only help provide jobs for those who make, exhibit, and distribute art. We also support the availability of art that can help us understand the events and issues of the moment and find inspiration to persevere in difficult times.

Growing More Than Good Food

May is garden time. While you’re beginning to plant tomatoes and pansies, this is also a good time to think about the larger social value of growing your own food, supporting local agriculture, and contributing to the greening of our community. On Lincoln Avenue this week, I’m talking with Elsa Higby, director of Grow Youngstown, who’s organizing several projects focused on these issues.

Along with supporting and encouraging urban gardening, Elsa is not only advocating but also helping make it easy for local residents to buy most of their summer produce from local farms. Through community-supported agriculture – also known as CSA – you can buy a share of what’s being grown on one of three area farms. Every week this summer, you can pick up a box of fresh veggies, fruit, and herbs at a convenient site in the city. Grow Youngstown is also offering shares in two local meat producers. Participating gives you lower-cost, higher-quality food as well as the pleasure of knowing that you’re helping support local agriculture and build our community.

As Elsa explains in our interview, all of this is not only about improving the quality of our food, our environment, and our community. It’s part of a global vision about improving the world through social change and organizing. Who knew that what you eat could matter so much?

Grow Youngstown is not the only greening project in the Mahoning Valley these days. As we discuss in the interview, it’s part of an expanding network of projects aimed at planting more trees, building more urban gardens, and helping people who’ve never planted a garden learn how to make things grow. Interested in getting involved? Contact any of the folks below:

Fairgreen Neighborhood Garden
(North Side of Youngstown - plots available)
Contact: Elsa Higby or Hannah Woodroofe
citygardens@growyoungstown.org

Good Natured Gardening Partners (ages 5 and over)
Competitive/Educational program
Contact: Dave Georig OSU Extension
(330) 533-5538

Jubilee Gardens
(Brier Hill, Youngstown - plots available)
May 21st luncheon and garden kickoff
Contact: Mary
(330) 651-3054

St. Patrick’s Church and 4-H Oakhill Clovers
(South Side of Youngstown - plots available)
Contact: Carla Hlavac
(330) 743-1109

The Urban Community Victory Garden
A project of Concerned Citizens II, OSU Trumbull County Master Gardeners and Horace Mann School
(Warren - 15 x 30 plots available)
Contact: Steve Hudkins
(330) 637-3530

Treez Please
Planting trees and creating urban gardens in Youngstown

They’re hosting a Perennial Plant Exchange on May 16 at 1 pm
Contact: Susie Beiersdorfer
(330) 881-1050

Pornography and Public Policy

Most of the interviews on Lincoln Avenue explore current issues, with a strong focus on the Mahoning Valley. This week, we’re talking about the past, with historian Whitney Strub. But the history he studies is very much part of contemporary life, since debates about pornography, obscenity, and sexuality never seem to die.

As Whitney explains, we can to a great extent track the pendulum swing of that debate according to which political party is in power. When Republicans dominate, concerns about morality shape policy. For Democrats, the concerns are more about balancing free speech with censorship. Across the political spectrum and through much of the past century, however, the primary issue shaping public policy about obscenity has been how it influences children. That encompasses crack-downs on child pornography, worries about children’s viewing of internet porn, and fears about pedophilia. Other key issues have to do with the exploitation of women, negative representations of sexuality, and concerns about how the porn industry operated.

Strub also examines how what gets defined as “obscene” reflects changing social and political mores. In the middle of the 20^th century, images of interracial couples could be deemed obscene, even if they were merely holding hands. Similarly, images of homosexuality have often been judged as unacceptable.

Running through all of the history, though, is a sense of futility. Despite various laws and public debates, pornography continues to thrive, and the industry keeps adapting to new technologies and social trends.

Celebrating Mexican Heritage

If you listen to Lincoln Avenue regularly, you may have noticed my ongoing interest in the local Mexican community. As I’ve written before, some of that is because of my own history, growing up in a city with a large Mexican population. But it also comes from my interest in immigration and ethnicity in the Mahoning Valley. You can’t miss the prevalence of Italians or Irish people in this area, but even though Mexicans have been here for about 90 years, they are a smaller and less visible part of the community.

But, as Rachel Flasco explains in this week’s interview, that doesn’t mean that Mexicans aren’t proud of their heritage, or that they don’t enjoy an opportunity to celebrate and share it. Rachel is President of the Sociedad Mutalista Mexicana, the Youngstown Mexican Club. In our conversation, she explains some of the ways the local Mexican community has changed over the years, shares some of her own family’s history, and talks about the activities of the Mexican Club.

You can join in one of those activities, the upcoming “Pre Cinco de Mayo Fiesta,” on Friday, May 1, at the Mastropietro Winery in Berlin Center. The event will feature Mexican food, music, and dancing.

The Business of Diversity

When you read the phrase “managing diversity,” you might imagine the kind of sensitivity training workshop that was – rightly – a common object of ridicule in the 1980s and 90s, the kind where everyone is encouraged to appreciate each other’s differences and avoid making racist or sexist comments. In our conversation on Lincoln Avenue, Luke Visconti, one of the founders of DiversityInc, made clear that his approach to creating more diverse workplaces isn’t like that.

DiversityInc publishes a magazine and manages a website that profiles businesses that have succeeded in hiring, keeping, and promoting women, people of color, and gays and lesbians. He told me, as well as the audience at YSU’s annual Diversity Leadership dinner, that the key to creating productively diverse workplaces isn’t about eliminating overt discrimination but about addressing the obstacles that too often keep talented workers from being promoted. Yes, those barriers can be a matter of attitudes, though Visconti insists that he doesn’t think that most employers or colleagues are racists or sexist (though he acknowledges the persistence of homophobia). They simply aren’t aware of how their own habits and assumptions might exclude others. As he explains in tonight’s interview, companies often benefit from recognizing patterns of exclusion and from some basic, often common-sense advice, such as don’t penalize women for taking maternity leave, or simply making your company’s commitment to diversity a strong theme in how you present your business.

Visconti’s positive approach makes sense. We can’t promote real equal opportunity on the basis of guilt; we have to make clear how discrimination harms not only those who are its objects but also those who enact it. And I’m always happy to see discussions of diversity being led by straight, white men – those who, it would seem, have the least to gain from it. In his blog, Ask the White Guy, Visconti encourages people to ask questions that they might not be comfortable either asking within their own companies or to someone who is different from themselves.

All of this seems like a move in a good direction. My diversity skepticism kicked in, though, when Visconti explained his business model, which uses statistical analysis to show companies how well (or poorly) they’re doing and offers consulting services and information to help them do better. That feels a little like a gotcha game. No doubt, companies and organizations need help. Maybe I’m too idealistic, but I’m a little uncomfortable with the idea that promoting diversity has itself become a way to make money. I hope that DiversityInc and other companies like it, with the help of all of my colleagues who teach about diversity in schools and colleges and who organize community-based efforts to fight inequality, will succeed enough that they create their own obsolescence.

Economic Development on the Individual Level

One of the recurring themes of Lincoln Avenue has been economic development. Usually, that has me talking with someone who is developing some kind of local or regional project to create new businesses. This week, I talk with Kelly Elko about a different kind of economic development: preparing women who are living in poverty to join the workforce and improve their families’ economic position.

Kelly directs Potter’s Wheel, which is just one of the programs run by Beatitude House to help women and children escape poverty. Along with providing housing, educational programs, and support for personal growth, Beatitude House helps women who have not been successful in finding and keeping jobs develop the skills they need to achieve economic stability. For some women, getting out of poverty is a matter of changing their attitude – gaining confidence and determination. For some, it means learning that showing up day after day can help you keep a job. For still others, it means learning specific skills that will help them land a job or figuring out how to dress for an interview or simply finding out about job opportunities.

All of which is fine in theory, but what if Beatitude House could provide hands-on work experience for the women it serves? That’s exactly what Kelly and her colleagues are working on as they design a new “green cleaning” business. They’re working with other local non-profits to learn about the concept of “social enterprises,” the idea that non-profits can create for-profit businesses that not only support their efforts financially but also provide important opportunities for their clients. The training program is sponsored by Community Wealth Ventures. By this coming fall, Beatitude House hopes to open a business that will give the women in its programs experience working and, for some, experience managing others.

To succeed in its work, Beatitude House needs your help. You can make a financial donation, but they also need stuff – work clothing, household goods, and more. You’ll find a list of needed items and information about how to donate them in the Beatitude House newsletter.

In a community with high rates of poverty, we not only need new businesses and jobs. We also need to support the development of individuals. That’s what Beatitude House is all about.