Mesa Arts Center presenters Cindy Ornstein (right front) and Casey Blake (right rear) and fellow Mesa Up @ Nite presenters and Phonetic Spit poets Myrlin Hepworth and Tomas Stanton (2nd and 3rd from right, rear) joined fellow winners of the AZ Commission on the Arts ART TANK awards for a photo op after the judges’ decisions were announced.
Updates
We’re so excited that 40 artists from across the U.S. submitted applications for our shade sculpture RFQ. The applications were reviewed by our selection panel earlier this month, and three finalists were selected who will have an opportunity to submit a conceptual design and preliminary budget for the 21st Century Café Society Shade Sculpture. The artists will be notified, and we will share the names of the finalists in next month’s blog; they include internationally known artists, and we are very pleased at the caliber of both the applicants and the selected finalists!
During that same visit by Michael Tingley (MAC’s original design architect who is consulting on our ArtPlace project and participated in our Shade Sculpture selection panel), we had meetings with the core team, City engineers, ASU faculty and students, and hackers from HeatSync Labs (a hacker space in downtown Mesa). We developed the design for our multimedia interactive kiosk quite a bit on this visit, defining the interactives and the components and access process that will be needed for local inventors and artists to be able to share and engage the public with their work on site. We also further shaped our ideas about the physical design elements, and clarified the processes for obtaining the necessary technology consultant/fabrication vendor. The RFP for that vendor is in preparation.
Planning is in the final stages for our third annual spark! Mesa’s Festival of Creativity, to be held March 19-23. It’s going to be an amazing festival. In addition to the outstanding work of artists such as Austin Bike Zoo; Annie Hickman (who will show her amazing woven rainforest creature costumes); Jeff Zischke, who will show a commissioned site-specific installation, and performances by Carpetbag Brigade, we are showcasing a number of regional artists producing innovative interactive experiences. These include Dan Fine’s Wonder Dome, Megan Flod Johnson’s MADE Garden, Doug Boyd’s Tubberknockers, urbanSTEW’s AMYloid Project and many others. On Friday and Saturday evening we’re introducing spark! After Dark, which takes place at the site of our ArtPlace project, and sets the stage for the future 21st Century Café Society environment. Featured at spark! After Dark will be digital paintings by VJ’s from Glowing Pictures, along with a fun interactive called Dance Lighthouse (the public will be the go-go dancers whose movements direct the lasers in the lighthouse). Karolina Sobecka is bringing her incredible interactive projection piece “It’s You” that explores the experience of being a spectator and will be located appropriately in our Theater Building front window.
Planning is also moving along rapidly for the inaugural Southwest Maker Fest, a broadly collaborative event with many partners, including MAC, taking place on the Saturday of spark! near our campus along Main Street. Being a core partner of this event is enhancing MAC’s relationships with the maker community, which will be an essential audience and participant group for the 21st Century Café Society.
Recent Wins
Our “Mesa Up at Night” was a finalist for the inaugural Art Tank competition of the Arizona Commission on the Arts, and we won fourth prize! The awards were given following live presentations (via the “Shark Tank “TV show) and a large contingent made up of Mesa boosters, artists and merchants turned out to cheer us on! The feeling of solidarity and the great collaboration the planning and competition process generated was worth even more than the funding itself. We’ve been able to get the matching dollars to fund the entire project, and are in a bit of a frenzy bringing that to fruition along with all the activity described above. The project is designed to activate downtown Mesa with artist-driven events and activities in retail and restaurant venues this spring. For this project, 20 merchants and restaurateurs have commit to extended evening hours on ten strategically selected event nights, to model for patrons and retailers the opportunities that can exist with collaborative activity and extended hours in the heart of our city. Partnering on the project are Mesa’s Department of Arts and Culture, Neighborhood Economic Development Corporation (NEDCO-Mesa), Downtown Mesa Association, and downtown Mesa merchants. The project has been augmented further by additional performance nights at MAC’s Alliance Pavilion stage (the first completed part of our 21st Century Café Society project) and several additional new events and activities downtown being produced by the Downtown Mesa Association.
Mesa Arts Center/City of Mesa is in the pre-development phase for an Artspace project for live/work space for artists and spaces for arts organizations and creative businesses. We completed our market study and the results were fantastic, with far more artists interested in living in such a space than we would be able to accommodate! So as the study report is being finalized, we have begun the first phase of pre-development, thanks to a generous $150,000 grant from J.P.Morgan Chase. Site selection is underway, with three sites under consideration in downtown Mesa. This is another project that is very complementary and synergistic with our other creative placemaking activities and we are thrilled to be moving into the next phase of the project!
Insight/Provocation
The work involved in creative placemaking certainly snowballs. And with the impending arrival in just 1-1/2 years of light rail through the heart of the City, with a major stop at MAC’s front door, the pressure to move the work forward as rapidly as possible is palpable—though largely self-imposed. The biggest concern about the increase in activity is adequate staffing (and avoidance of burnout). With all arts and culture organizations still staff-squeezed since the reduction in the size of work force six years ago, but with new opportunities and needs abounding, the human resource challenge looms large. The increased pace facilitated by technology is (though a blessing) also a curse in its impact on the number of balls in the air. Adequate staffing may end up the make or break consideration for the success of this work (for the entire field—as I hear the same from all my colleagues). We all need to wave the banner for the critical importance of public engagement and activation through the arts, so communities increase their investment. And we need to tell the story of our sector’s impact on the U.S. Economy—the bigger story beyond the nonprofit sector alone. Check out and reference the recent NEA study that shows the entire arts-related industries’ percentage of U.S. GDP to be 3.2%--larger than tourism. It certainly helps get someone’s attention.