Smaller Can Be Great!

A younger artist friend from back home asked about recommendations for the small or rural art gallery.  It is a difficult question to answer.  I have worked with numerous projects that denote, list and explore galleries as cultural assets in terms of tourism and media, but most often, the smaller gallery and the rural gallery seem to act as a local arts incubator, a social outreach or an artisanal display more than they do a true arts center.

    As I am trying to consistently reinforce, there is nothing wrong with the artisanal center or promotional gallery and as such, I can only recommend a strong relationship be established between the local arts community, the chamber of commerce and the local technical schools and all efforts be made to market! Market!, Market!

    On the other hand, just as a small ethnic or rural community requires a church, mosque or religious center, each should have a fine arts establishment – merely for the survival of the spiritually creative soul.

    The most common arts venue in smaller communities seems to be the theatre – Ft Peck Theatre near Glasgow, Montana, Commonweal Theatre, in Lanesboro, Minnesota, the old Baliwick Theatre in Chicago, and the Minnesota Historical Theatre in St Paul,  and numerous other examples indicate how smaller theatres have become essential venues for the arts.  My observation is that the strongest of these theatres also seem to have tendency to include both locally reflective material and one or two more challenging or experimental pieces, along with the traditional performances of traditional favorites such as the Sound of Music, Death of a Salesman, etc.  While popular films such as Please Don’t Eat the Daisies andWaiting for Guffman tend to disparage small-community efforts in this regard, I often find smaller, more local, more-budget-conscious productions to be more intimate, more approachable, often more creative, and just as interesting as Chicago’s Wolf Trap or Minneapolis’ Guthrie.  What are the popular Fringe Festivals if not groupings of the smaller theatrical and cabaret-style theatre experience?

    Art galleries that seem to do “small” well are Klondike Institute of Art & Culture in Dawson City, Yukon, the original Plug-In Gallery (now a greatly expanded enterprise) in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Chateau Park Museum – Art Centre in St Catharines, Ontario, Hamond Arts Alliance in Hammond, Wisconsin, the Swedish-American Museum (SAMAC) in Chicago, Dana Gallery in Missoula, Montana, and the arts pavilion at Kirstenbosch Gardens in Cape Town, South Africa. 

Four to Watch

Four to Watch

   You will have to excuse my silence.  No, I did not stop noting and appreciating good art – in fact, some of the most interesting pieces have come out of the last twenty-four months.  Rather, I have been more pre-occupied with that other aspect of art and culture – the establishment and maintenance of narrative theory (in other words, grad-school).  While this has taken up most of my time, it is with relief and joy that I return to our conversation about the everyday, pedestrian enjoyment of the art that surrounds us.

   In this regard, I feel it somewhat necessary to re-establish some of my aesthetic tastes and leanings with you.  While I cannot provide you with an exhaustive, culturally critical analysis of the various regional and world markets, I have identified four areas that I feel are on the up-swing – pending their ability to maintain the necessarily social and political stability to foster the creative process and their ability to gain an audience.

    As the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games has demonstrated, the great games can serve as a ready catalyst for great artistic endeavors – and for generating the appreciative audience to support the works being presented.