An exhibit of an unusual kind is making its collective debut at the Atrium Gallery at One Capitol Hill in Providence. From May 29 through September 16th, the creative works of nearly 1000 people will be choreographed into a circus of color and form that was brought into being by an artist who cheerfully refuses credit for the finished works. “This is community collaborative,” Cathren Housley told us. “It’s the art of the people. I’m just the ringmaster.”
But what is Community Collaborative? If you’ve never heard the term before, you’re in good company. When most people hear the phrase, the first thing that pops into their head is a mural. But although it may represent a community, a mural is generally the creation or vision of a single artist or team. They are in control of, and accept sole credit for, the finished art. But community collaborative is quite literally art that is created by the community itself. The artist is not in control. Housley has to call upon a huge bag of tricks to pull all of the pieces together and give them a unified impact. It’s not a genre for the faint of heart.
Housley started out on a very different career path. She was a commercial freelance artist working in product development, illustration, publishing, and model making. In 2011, a serious injury to her working arm threw her onto the sidelines for nearly a year. As a self-employed artist, she couldn’t depend on unemployment or worker’s comp, so as the bills began piling up, Housley began developing arts and literacy workshops for the Community Libraries of Providence with the support of grant funding from the RI State Council on the Arts. The move was to change the direction of her life forever.
“My freelance jobs had always kept me isolated in my studio. After my injury, I know that if I hadn’t become involved with those workshops I would’ve spiraled into depression.”
Community involvement became the lifeline that pulled her through pain and exhaustion. There was healing energy that seemed to grow when she worked to help others find their own creativity. People shared problems, laughed together, and learned together. Her workshop participants became her paintbrushes. She created designs that used universal symbols to merge individuals’ art into colorful, large-scale installations to enhance community well-being. She developed new painting approaches and games to involve non-artists in the creative process. It became an ongoing experiment using art to create a change in the energy of public places and in those who visited them.
Community collaborative seems like a rather existential art form; it’s not taught in schools or widely publicized.
“I first saw the potential of community collaborative art at the RISD Museum in 2007,” says Housley. “The museum held a family event of art and workshops based on the theme of Mysterious Places on Earth. For my part of the event, I constructed a 22 foot mosaic replica of the Great Serpent Mound of Adams County Ohio, over the course of the day, cutting the mosaic pieces from laser copies of snake art that was created by families attending the workshop. It wasn’t until halfway through that I noticed something unusual was happening.”
Ordinarily, people would visit, have fun with a project, and then leave. On this day, the families kept coming back as Housley constructed the large scale art over the course of the day. Why? “They wanted to see when their drawings would go up on the mural,” Housley told me. “Their involvement had become personal.”
How many of these projects has she done now?
“Over the last decade and a half I’ve done nearly 20 in total, thanks to RISCA, The Rhode Island Foundation, and Providence Arts Culture and Tourism. Unfortunately, many of my earlier works were far too large to install in the Atrium Gallery, but one of my favorites was the Peace Flag Trilogy: three 20 ft x 10 ft recreations of the American flag, each one made with over 300 individual flags of Peace. #2 in the trilogy was the United American Peace Flag, which was reimagined in spectrum colors. Working with The Peace Flag Project, we collected flags from politicians (including then-Governor Gina Raimondo), from native Americans, immigrants, homeless people, students, babies, and people in wheelchairs – basically every cultural group in the state. It was a privilege to be able to work with all of them.”
So what will we see when we walk into the Atrium Gallery? “Well, you won’t see 1000 different pieces of artwork. What you will see are the works of nearly 1000 people, consolidated into a collection of large-scale installations, each with the intention of bringing hope, peace, and the eternal imagination of the human mind to every viewer. It’s fun, it’s full of color and light, and kids will enjoy it as much as adults.”
The reception ceremony is on August 20 from 4 pm – 6 pm. The community is invited, treats and music will be provided.
For details on these projects and more, visit ArtHouseRI.com
Cordane Meesey is a pen-name for Cathren Housley, who’s taken the creative perspective of interviewing herself for this piece, and to present this collaborative art project.