Community Arts

Goals for the Art Connect Eagan included: 1) deepen connections between artists and the greater Eagan community; and 2) offer skill building opportunities for artists. 1) Connections between artists and the community were strengthened through the Harvest of Art Celebration and the Community Supported Art project. The Harvest of Art event included an art exhibit featuring 45 artists, most submitting 2 pieces of artwork. We also had live entertainment by the Family Trade, artist demonstrations, raku pottery firing and pop-up artist tents. Each of these activities invited participants to interact directly with artwork, art making and/or artists. A new activity included this year was the Community Supported Art project. This project, modeled after Community Supported Agriculture, featured 25 shares of artwork from 6 local artists. Each share include 6 original pieces of artwork created just for the 2016 Community Supported Art. Artwork included: set of hand painted greeting cards, photo of Eagan's natural settings, pyrograph coasters featuring Eagan locations, horse hair fired pottery piece, fused glass platter and an oversize clay serving bowl. While, it was challenging to explain a new concept to the community, it was very well received and offered a unique way for people to connect to artists and their artwork in a very personal manner. Community Supported Art buyers picked up their box at the Harvest event and were able to meet each artist. We are planning to repeat the project again in 2017. 2.) Skill building for artists. The Eagan Artist Connect group continued to grow with 80+ Facebook group members and regular monthly attendance of 25-30 artists. We hosted Springboard for the Arts' "Career Planning for Artists," "Framing Your Artwork" with Wet Paint and a presentation by mnartists.org. We also invited members of the group to speak on areas of their own expertise, including "Applying for Art Festivals" and "hands on pricing workshop with Excel." The group also had 2 art making sessions, allowing artists to create work, sketch and share ideas. The guest speakers and discussion topics were helpful and imparted valuable information to artists working in the community. This project succeeded in deepening connections between the artists and the Eagan community through several strategies, including the Community Supported Art project, the Harvest exhibit and event activities. The project allowed the community to engage in a variety of ways from viewing to buying to participating. This multi-focus on engagement is a key component to the project. For future artistic/community engagement projects, we will repeat the Community Supported Art and Harvest event activities. The focus on skill building for artists through Eagan Artist Connect continues to face challenges. This multi-disciplinary group has great synergy, but lacks internal leadership for sustainability. Staff struggles with capacity to adequately support this group. The group will continue, but will need to re-assess their goals moving forward. The project successfully reached our intended community, both for artist engagement and for community engagement. * Artist Engagement. The project attracted artists from the local community. The professional development workshops and monthly meetings attracted new artists to engage. All six Community Supported Art artists were already involved in the Eagan Art House Community. However, one artists was fairly new at artwork production, so the Community Supported Art opportunity was a great way for her to strengthen her connections to the community as an artist in addition to being a well-known business owner. The artists who participated in pop-up artist booths at the Harvest of Art Event had exhibited or sold with art house events before. However, 2 of them had not had an artist booth before. All of the individual artist connections with the community represented a broad diversity of media, including pottery, watercolor painting, photography, fused glass, acrylic painting, jewelry, oil painting, and wood burning (pyrography). We also reached a broad diversity in age from the young participants in the raku pottery firing and exhibitors to the senior adult population. The Harvest of Art Exhibit was a prime example of representing a diversity of skill levels of art making. Because of the welcoming nature of this community visual art exhibition, we highlighted the very beginning artists to the very skilled artists, and every skill level in between. Some artists are self-taught and work on their own. Others have taken art classes for many years and make most of their art at the Eagan Art House. One mother and daughter pair both entered work into the exhibit - the mother started painting to spend creative time with her daughter. The Harvest of Art Event also attracted new audience members from diverse communities in Eagan, especially those from India and East Asia. We also saw an uptick in new volunteers. As far as accessibility, our activities were very accessible to artists and to the community. Artist workshops with Springboard for the Arts and with Wet Paint Artist Supply were free. The Harvest Event was free to attend and Raku pottery was for sale at $5, $10 and $15 levels. The facility of the Eagan Art House is ADA accessible. We paid special attention that the parts of the event that took place on the outdoor grounds of the Art House could be accessed by those with mobility challenges. For example, the artist pop up tents and registration table were both on asphalt to aid in accessibility. Grassy areas were kept clear of barriers. A video of the event was produced by ETV and broadcast on local cable TV. On-line promotional materials were formatted to allow for audio transcription. Event attendance increased from 275 in 2015 to 400 in 2016. Local artists supported was strengthened. From a survey of Community Supported Art purchasers, 2 of the respondents didn't know any of the artists when they purchased, showing a support of local artists regardless of who it was. All of those who responded had purchased or contacted the artist after the Community Supported Art. 6 artists participated in the first ever Community Supported Art.