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MIAMI UNIVERSITY
The Graduate School
Certificate for Approving the Dissertation
We hereby approve the Dissertation
of
Katherine K. Smith
Candidate for the Degree:
Doctor of Philosophy
Director
Kathleen Knight-Abowitz
Reader
Thomas Poetter
Reader
Michael Evans
Reader
Lisa Weems
Graduate School Representative
Stephanie Danker
ABSTRACT
A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF
AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE WITHIN AN ARTS COUNCIL’S EVENTS AND PROGRAMS:
FINDING JOY, EXPRESSION, CONNECTION, AND PUBLIC GOOD IN THE ARTS
by Katherine K. Smith
City Township made a township-level decision to utilize arts events and programming to
create community formation within its public. A non-profit entity entitled the Arts Planning
Council was established to harness the aesthetic experience within the arts and to address the
deep state cuts to the township budget. My aim was to understand the formation of a community
based arts education program, how it contributes to the meaning and creation of community, how
human connection is created through existential aesthetic experience, and how it can lend a
feeling of communitas (V. Turner, 1969) among township members.
Through the interpretive discourse and the methodology of hermeneutical
phenomenology, I analyzed how the Arts Planning Council made meaning of the aesthetic
experiences that occurred in their arts events and programming that result in community creation.
For two years, I functioned as a participatory observer and conducted formal and informal
interviews with Arts Planning Council board members, township trustees, and township
administrators. I applied horizontalization (Moustakas, 1994) to cluster significant statements
from their accounts into consistent themes of understanding. Using the emerging themes of the
arts as joy, the arts as expression, the arts as connection, and the arts as a public good as
generative guides for writing, I divided the study into sections that elaborate on the phenomenon
of the aesthetic experiences within the arts events and programming and how those experiences
lead to community creation.
I concluded that the members of the Arts Planning Council and township trustees
understand the receptive joy, expression, and connection derived from the liminal experience of
the arts creation and participation. The resulting feeling of spontaneous communitas lends a
desire to continue communitas into a normative state. Ultimately, desire engenders a joint aim to
deliver the arts as an irreducible, social good. This idea interrupts the discourse that arts
education should only occur in schools and makes the responsibility for educating the public one
held by all township members. The result is an ecology of education built within the revitalized
community of City Township.
A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF
AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE WITHIN AN ARTS COUNCIL’S EVENTS AND PROGRAMS:
FINDING JOY, EXPRESSION, CONNECTION, AND PUBLIC GOOD IN THE ARTS
A DISSERTATION
Submitted to the Faculty of
Miami University in partial
fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Educational Leadership
By
Katherine K. Smith
Miami University
Oxford, Ohio
2016
© Katherine K. Smith, 2016
iii
Contents
Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................................ ix
Chapter I: Introduction to the Study ............................................................................................................ 1
Overview ................................................................................................................................................... 3
A National Context: The Perception of the Arts in Communities ............................................................. 4
A Local Context: The Creation of the Arts Planning Council ................................................................. 7
My Positionality ...................................................................................................................................... 14
Research Question and Study Rationale ................................................................................................. 15
Research Goals ....................................................................................................................................... 16
Hermeneutical Phenomenology .............................................................................................................. 17
Limitations .............................................................................................................................................. 18
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 20
Chapter 2: Literature Review ..................................................................................................................... 21
The Definition of Aesthetic ...................................................................................................................... 21
Making Meaning of an Experience ..................................................................................................... 22
Imagination within the Aesthetic Response......................................................................................... 24
Emancipatory Value within the Aesthetic Response ........................................................................... 26
Community Creation from the Aesthetic Response ............................................................................. 29
The Idea of Community Defined ............................................................................................................. 31
A Definition Imbued with Pragmatism ................................................................................................ 33
A Definition Imbued with Existentialism............................................................................................. 34
A Definition of Communities of Practice ............................................................................................ 36
The Final Value: A Transformed Definition ....................................................................................... 39
The Arts Experience Leading to Community .......................................................................................... 43
Community-Based Arts Education ...................................................................................................... 46
The Classroom Community and the Neighborhood Community ......................................................... 48
Aesthetic Experience in Public Spaces ............................................................................................... 49
Discussion ........................................................................................................................................... 53
Recommendations for future research ................................................................................................ 53
Chapter 3: Methodology ............................................................................................................................ 55
iv
Ontology: The Object of Study ................................................................................................................ 56
Epistemology ........................................................................................................................................... 59
Study Design ........................................................................................................................................... 61
Hermeneutical Phenomenology .............................................................................................................. 61
Turning to the phenomena of aesthetic experiences and their contribution to community creation. ..... 62
Investigating experiences as we live them. ............................................................................................. 65
Participants ......................................................................................................................................... 66
Written Protocol .................................................................................................................................. 72
Interviewing: Personal Life Story ...................................................................................................... 74
Observations: The Experiential Anecdote .......................................................................................... 75
Reflecting on the Essential Themes which Characterize the Phenomenon ............................................. 76
Describing the Phenomenon through the Art of Writing ........................................................................ 80
Maintaining a Strong and Oriented Pedagogical Relation to the Phenomenon ..................................... 81
Ethical Issues ...................................................................................................................................... 81
Balancing the Research Context by Considering Parts and Whole ........................................................ 83
Chapter 4: The Nature of Arts Events and Programs and Their Contribution to Community Creation .... 85
The Arts as Joy ........................................................................................................................................ 86
Receptive Joy ...................................................................................................................................... 89
Sustained vigor for receptive joy. ....................................................................................................... 92
Having satisfaction in the liminal experience of receptive joy. .......................................................... 93
The Arts as Expression ............................................................................................................................ 95
Expression is an Essential Human Characteristic .............................................................................. 97
The Arts Can Open Windows for People through Expression ............................................................ 99
The Arts as Connection ......................................................................................................................... 100
"It is a Human Need to Feel a Sense of Belonging” ......................................................................... 103
City Township is a Diverse Public .................................................................................................... 104
"An Aim was to Have Events that Would Unify the Township Public” ............................................ 106
The Arts as a Public Good .................................................................................................................... 109
Community of Practice...................................................................................................................... 116
Mutual Engagement of Participants in Communities of Practice: The Arts Planning Council
Consists of Unique Individuals who equally Contribute to its Action. ............................................. 117
v
Mutual Engagement of Participants in Communities of Practice: The Aim of the Arts Planning
Council is to educate the Public on the Value of the Arts. ................................................................ 119
Accountability to a Joint Enterprise of the Community of Practice: A Goal is a Community Hub that
is Full of Activity. .............................................................................................................................. 121
Accountability to a Joint Enterprise of the Community: The Arts Planning Council is Part of the
Township Despite its Existence as an Independent, Non-profit Entity. ............................................ 123
Accountability to a Joint Enterprise of the Community: Financial Stability for the Arts Planning
Council Will Enable More Individuals to be Involved in the Arts. ................................................... 124
Accountability to a Joint Enterprise of the Community: Connecting with Arts Partners will enable
the Arts Planning Council to enhance its Resources. ....................................................................... 126
Negotiability of the Shared Repertoire of the Community of Practice: Vocal Feedback Gives the Arts
Planning Council a Gauge. ............................................................................................................... 128
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 129
Chapter 5: The Implications of Arts Events and Programming toward Community Creation ................. 131
The Arts as Joy ...................................................................................................................................... 133
The Arts as Expression .......................................................................................................................... 136
The Arts as Connection ......................................................................................................................... 140
The Arts as Public Good ....................................................................................................................... 144
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 148
Chapter 6: A Final Discussion .................................................................................................................. 150
High Points ........................................................................................................................................... 151
Listening ............................................................................................................................................ 151
A Separate Entity .............................................................................................................................. 151
A Programming Structure ................................................................................................................. 152
A Self-Sustaining Entity .................................................................................................................... 152
Limitations ............................................................................................................................................ 153
The Board.......................................................................................................................................... 153
The Space .......................................................................................................................................... 154
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 155
References ................................................................................................................................................. 157
Appendix A ............................................................................................................................................... 165
Appendix B ............................................................................................................................................... 168
Appendix C ............................................................................................................................................... 170
vi
Appendix D ............................................................................................................................................... 171
Appendix E ............................................................................................................................................... 172
Appendix F................................................................................................................................................ 173
Appendix G ............................................................................................................................................... 174
vii
List of Figures
Figure 1: Great Blue Heron, Katherine Coy Smith, soft-ground print. .......................................... ix
Figure 2: The third annual local art show at City Township located at Independence Barn. ......... 1
Figure 3: A gallery of artwork at the local art show. ...................................................................... 2
Figure 4: Age distribution within City Township. .......................................................................... 9
Figure 5: Ethnicity distribution within City Township. ................................................................ 10
Figure 6: Income distribution within City Township. .................................................................. 10
Figure 7: Employment distribution within City Township. .......................................................... 11
Figure 8: Education distribution with City Township. ................................................................. 11
Figure 9: Description of arts events and actors involved in each event........................................ 13
Figure 10: The Arts Planning Council Board, 2012-2016 ............................................................ 68
Figure 11: Teaching artists for the CBAE at City Township........................................................ 70
Figure 12: City Township Administration Hierarchy, 2015-16 .................................................... 72
Figure 13: Example of significant statements and horizontalization. ........................................... 79
Figure 14: Arts activities after an outdoor puppet show for children and their families .............. 86
Figure 15: Drawing class at City Township ................................................................................. 97
Figure 16: Groups of township citizens of all ages enjoying the arts events at Arts Fest. ......... 102
Figure 17: Indian dancers performing at the Banquet Hall…………………………..………... 110
Figure 18: Traditional verses Cultural Education. ...................................................................... 137
viii
This work is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Lucille K. Coy, who inspired me to enjoy the
aesthetic experiences in life.
ix
Acknowledgments
Figure 1: Great Blue Heron, 2002, Katherine Coy Smith, soft-ground print.
The soft-ground print I created of a blue heron at the beginning of flight visually
represents for me the work of a doctoral student. I offer this image as gratitude to my advisors,
mentors, friends, and family members who have worked in concert to make it possible for me to
accomplish that which I did not think I could do. It has certainly been a privilege to study and
write about education and aesthetics from a curricular and leadership point of view. I am
grateful to have that privilege and look forward to sharing the knowledge I have learned with
others in order to enhance our country’s education.
I would like to offer my utmost gratitude to my dissertation advisor, Dr. Kathleen Knight-
Abowitz, for affirming my initial interests into entering the program, for planning my academic
coursework in a timely manner, and for her constant support, time, interest, and guidance during
the dissertation process. Her wisdom and knowledge is deep and very appreciated by me. I
would like to thank my other committee members, Dr. Thomas Poetter, Dr. Lisa Weems, Dr.
Stephanie Danker, and Dr. Michael Evans for their support, patience, information, and guidance.
Each of them holds a body of work that serves as a guide, an inspiration, and a goal for me to
follow. I appreciate all of the individual attention they each gave me in regard to this project.
I am grateful for the support of my colleagues in the Educational Leadership Department.
My cohort members and classmates are so kind and encouraging. Their interest and enthusiasm
sustained me throughout the four years I have been taking classes, teaching, researching, and
writing. I look forward to more collaborative work with them, and I am grateful for the
opportunities we have shared together thus far.
I could not have done this research without the Arts Planning Council board members
and Lisa. Lisa’s first request for advice has led to a much longer work relationship that I cherish
x
and the establishment of a growing arts presence in City Township for which I am grateful. The
board members were both enthusiastic and helpful with the research process. Their eagerness to
talk to me and tell me their stories single-handedly contributed to the creation of this project. I
am very grateful to share their story so that other township publics or cities may benefit from the
knowledge. Thank you to Lisa, Frank, Bob, Elizabeth, Sarah, Mitch, Estelle, John, and Rick.
Finally, I would like to convey my deepest gratitude to my husband, C. Pat Smith, and
my family. I certainly would not have made it through this project without their support,
understanding, encouragement, and love. My husband’s unequivocal support kept me going. He
did not let me look back on my decision to study educational leadership and helped me to
flourish in my attempt. I am grateful for the many loads of laundry, drives to kids’ activities, and
trips to King’s Island that he did in order for me to read, study, and write. I would like to thank
my children, Zack, Noah, and Sophia, who were never sure what I was doing but were always
there to give me a hug and help me around the house. Thank you for our “power hours!” I
would like to thank my dad, Keith D. Coy, for listening to me rattle on about different ideas and
supporting me throughout my total school and work career. His interest and enthusiasm for what
I was learning encouraged me to keep working at it. My in-laws, Dr. Diane V. and Dr. Arthur W.
Thornton were constant cheerleaders to me. I am very grateful for their encouragement, advice,
and many meals they fixed for our family while I went to their basement at the lake to write. My
brother, Christopher D. Coy, has been a terrific mentor and guide for me while completing this
process and networking for a new job. His belief in my abilities has been pivotal. I would also
like to thank my friends, Kathy Peterson and Tami Baxter, who called regularly to see that I was
doing okay and helped take care of my children when I needed help. Finally, I would like to
acknowledge my mother, Lucille K. Coy, who passed away near the beginning of my
coursework. Her support and love was unflappable, and I could not have made it to this point
without her constant reminder that what I knew was not always “testable.” She believed in
“creative loafing” and the aesthetic side of life and for that I am grateful. As an English teacher,
she made sure my brother and I could write, and I think she would have enjoyed proofreading
this big paper.
1
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study
As I pulled into the parking lot for Independence Barn (pseudonym given), I could see it
glowing with lights and almost shaking with the excitement and energy that seemed to be
spilling from its interior. No parking spaces were available at all in the front. A bit panicked
that I might not find a place to park, I followed another car around the building to an almost
hidden lot behind it. I carefully walked to the front of the building, slowly navigating an
unknown path and several stairs in the dark. As I approached the door, I could hear laughter,
music, and loud conversations. When I walked into the doorway, I could see volunteers passing
out guidebooks, others pouring wine to sample, musicians performing as a quartet, food arranged
for sampling, and beautiful, sophisticated artwork displayed on easels and walls. Two hundred
people were mingling, eating, talking, and looking at artwork. The energy was alive and
contagious. As a visitor, I could not help but smile and sense the excitement myself. Lisa
(pseudonym), the Arts1 Planning Council’s (pseudonym) chairperson, was making
announcements in between the music changes.
Figure 2: The third annual local art show at City Township located at Independence Barn.
Elizabeth (pseudonym), a community board member of the Arts Planning Council,
approached me with a radiating smile. Together, she and I admired the photography displayed
on the wall next to where we were standing. I met her granddaughter and her son, conversed,
1 In this study, the term, arts, refers to the arts in a general sense, meaning music, dance, drama, creative writing,
and visual art. Art in a singular form refers to visual art.
2
and moved on to see the other spaces. I traversed through the silent auction to get a feel for the
diversity of the artwork, and I observed more small groups of people talking and laughing among
each other. The artwork donated for the silent auction seemed of high quality with selections
such as hand blown glass created at the local glass workshop, fiber work, photography, sculpture,
drawings, and paintings. The revenue from the sale of these items would go back into the Arts
Planning Council’s budget for future events.
Figure 1: A gallery of artwork at the local art show.
The barn had a wonderful, open feel that only a barn can give, but it also allowed for
small spaces of displays that the council had used to better organize the artwork. I started up the
main staircase that snaked around the quartet and the wine samplers and came to rest at the main
display rooms upstairs. I could not help but snap some photographs of what I saw along the way.
I saw Estelle (pseudonym) and congratulated her on her recent election win. She is one of three
Township Trustees for City Township (pseudonym) and the strongest supporter for the arts on
the Trustee Board. She was just up for reelection and told me that she was trying to “recover”
from the hard campaign.
I roamed into the main gallery space that had glass vessels punctuating the middle of the
room with intense colors and framed artwork that bordered the outside of the room by hanging
on portable grids. Several artists stood by to talk to the visitors about their artwork. I talked to a
few artists, heard their stories, and took notes on others who could possibly teach for the
community based art education program the Arts Planning Council was trying to develop. I took
thorough notes about all of the artists and their mediums. The variety of media was exciting to
see and impressive. Works created in pastel, oil, watercolor, acrylic, wood, glass, mixed media,
textile weaving, fiber/sewn designs, relief sculptures, gourd art, scratch art, and photography
3
displayed behind leaded glass were all represented. The only medium missing was ceramic
work.
I walked carefully down the stairs and I searched for Lisa. I found her talking to several
people. As I said goodbye, I complimented her on how impressive this third, local art show was.
The quality of artwork had become elevated. The addition of the wine tastings, the food, the
presence of the artists, and the music made it a very special and celebratory event (Reflective
notes from field journal, 11/6/2015).
Overview
Art encourages us to experience our lives more vividly by urging us to reexamine
our thoughts and renew our feelings. The essence of art is the spark of insight and
the thrill of discovery—first experienced by the viewer… The best art cuts
through our tendency to prejudge our experience. Great art sharpens our
perceptions by re-creating human experience in fresh forms, bringing a new sense
of the significance and connectedness of life. (Frank, 2009, p. 21)
Aesthetic encounters are experiences from which individuals derive meanings that raise
their intellect and moral sense (Frank, 2009). What is normally obscured by the everyday
qualities of habits and “busyness” can suddenly be seen through a new awakening. With clearer
vision, obstacles and challenges are viewed more acutely, and the imagination creates ideals of
what could be or create empathy to see the world through another’s eyes (Greene, 1988).
Dialogue and critical thinking result, and when done in a communal setting, such as in a local art
show, they can catalyze the formation of a community. An “in between” arises when individuals
share ideas and feelings with others through their aesthetic objects or their aesthetic reactions.
The “in between” is “marked by an emerging solidarity” and sharing of beliefs (Hannah Arendt
as cited in Greene, 1995, p. 35). This “in between” creates a doorway, or a “limen,” into
moments of dissolved social structure to create a phenomenon called communitas defined as the
activity of community or the joy of being or working with others (E. Turner, 2012; V. Turner,
1969).
This type of community is not produced through “rational formulation, edict, or social
contract” (Greene, 1995). Instead, it is achieved through meanings that are experienced together
through reified aesthetic objects and mutual engagement within conjoint activity and a joint
4
enterprise (Greene, 1995; Wenger, 2004). This type of community can be created both within
and by formal and informal aesthetic experiences (E. Turner, 2012). Pragmatically, community
members discover what they recognize together, such as the artwork, the play, the literature, or
the music. Participants appreciate what they have in common that contributes to the pursuit of
shared goods and ways of being together (Dewey, 1927; Greene, 1995, p. 39; Wenger, 2004). By
offering aesthetic experiences in the arts in classrooms (formal arts education) and other public
venues (informal arts education), encounters with artworks can engage as many people as
possible in open ended dialogues and can provide the opportunity for communal decisions
(Greene, 2001). Individuals begin to recognize each other in new ways and an institution of a
relational community could be created in public venues, through shared aesthetic responses to art
objects, events, and programs presented in both the educational and public setting. Community-
Based Art Education is the framework used to describe arts education taking place in public
spaces beyond the classroom walls. Informal settings allow space for freer dialogue, debate, and
democratic thinking. Dewey (1927) explained that democracy is the idea of community life
itself, and wherever there is conjoint activity whose consequences are appreciated as good by all
who partake and sustain it, there is a community (p. 149).
A National Context: The Perception of the Arts in Communities
In theory, community creation from aesthetic experiences sounds ideal and attainable.
The research shows the public does not necessarily view the arts as something essential to
community life (Americans for the Arts, 2011; Fine Arts Fund, 2010; Malmuth, 2011; NEA,
2012; Strom, 2002). Lambert Zuidervaart (2011) analyzed the American battle around
government funding of the arts in order to better understand what the opponents and advocates
assume with respect to the arts, the state, and a democratic society. In his development of a new
sociocultural theory about the arts and government funding, Zuidervaart (2011) enunciated
“three conceptual polarities” that “pervade American debates” (p. 5). First, a conflict exists
between advocating for government support or for a free market approach to arts funding. The
second reveals another conflict “between protecting the freedom of artistic expression and
maintaining the authority of traditional value” (Zuidervaart, 2011, pp. 5-6). The third is a
dilemma whether to allow images of contemporary art to challenge the status quo or to convey
that contemporary art is a “menace” to society (Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 6). These points divide the
5
public into “two main camps waging cultural warfare” (Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 6). One side
advocates for “government support, freedom of expression, and provocative challenges” (p. 6).
The other side advocates for a free market, traditional values, and holds a disdain for cultural
decadence (Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 6).
Controversies about government funding for the arts raise many specific questions and
point to numerous fields of study. Zuidervaart’s (2011) goal in his theoretical analysis of these
debates was “to uncover and challenge widely shared philosophical assumptions and to propose
an alternative conception of art in the public” (Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 5). He claimed democracy,
articulated in the concepts of participation, recognition, and freedom, is what is ultimately
contested in the debates about government arts funding. He noted the National Endowment for
the Arts brochure that indicated “a high degree of correlation between participation in the arts
and ‘civic engagement’” as an example (p. 312). In it, Dana Gioia, chairperson of the NEA,
stated: “Healthy communities depend on active citizens. The arts play an irreplaceable role in
producing both those citizens and communities” (as cited in Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 312). In the
end, Zuidervaart (2011) argued for a “robust public sphere and a thriving social economy, as
well as arts organizations that help form and foster them” (p. 12).
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is aware of a lack of broad studies
investigating the effects and the perceptions of the arts within communities and the public
sphere. The organization embarked on a mixed method research project with the Monitor Group.
The study included “leading thinkers in a variety of fields” to establish a “testable hypothesis for
understanding how art works in American life” (NEA, 2012, p. 5). The result is a system map
reflecting a common view of the relationship between art and community outcomes. Past
research has been reactive and data driven. The NEA desires research to be theory-driven and
proactive. A theory of change would help to better understand the arts as a dynamic and
complex system, rich in intellectual history of argument and counter-argument. A system map
shows recurrent themes and concepts such as art itself, quality of life outcomes, and broader
societal impacts. On a more complex level, it indicates system multipliers such as markets and
subsidies, politics, technology, demographics and cultural traditions, and space and time (NEA,
2012, p. 14).
The City of Cincinnati’s non-profit, public arts fund entitled ArtsWave (formerly named
the Fine Arts Fund) conducted a study with Topos Partners in 2008. Their study falls into one of
6
the themes that the NEA’s (2012) system map indicates. Topos Partners and ArtsWave
researched how to create “inclusive community dialogue that would lead to a broadly shared
public responsibility for arts and culture in the region” (Fine Arts Fund, 2010, p. 1). Following
one year of social scientific research methodologies of one-on-one interviews, archival and
document analysis, focus groups, and “talk back” testing, the group concluded that arts advocates
need a “deeper understanding of the best way to communicate with the public in order to achieve
a shared sense of responsibility” (p. 1) for the arts. Previous to the report, the arts were
considered nice but not necessary, a private good and not a public good. They are conceived as
an individual matter and a product to be purchased in which individuals passively receive the arts
and are not active with them. Consequently, the arts are situated as a low priority in regard to
how people value them (Fine Arts Fund, 2010).
Topos Partners realized the discourse needed to change to position the arts as a public
good or a collective responsibility. Through the talk back testing, one message stood out as an
effective way to change the current discourse: “A thriving arts sector creates ripple effects of
benefit throughout our community” (Fine Arts Fund, 2010, p. 3). Those benefits are viewed in
two very distinct philosophical perspectives. First, the ripple effect results in a vibrant thriving
economy with neighborhoods that are more lively, communities revitalized, and tourists and
residents attracted to the area. A body of literature exists quantifying the economic benefit of the
non-profit arts sector. It speaks to the trend of downtown arts development and explains the
establishment of cultural policy to maintain social equity and avoid gentrification (Americans for
the Arts, 2011; Kelaher, et al., 2014; Malmuth, 2011; Nicodemus, 2013; Strom, 2002).
The second ripple effect results in more connected populations where diverse groups
share common experiences, hear new perspectives, and understand each other better (Fine Arts
Fund, 2010, p. 4). A body of literature also exists to realize this more scholarly and community
driven aspect of the arts (Asher, 2009; Biagi, 2001; Buda, Fedorenko, & Sheridan, 2012; Chung
& Ortiz, 2011; Cummings, 2012; Ekhoff, 2011; Herrman, 2005; Hutzel, 2007; Krensky, 2001;
Law, 2012; Medina, 2009; Song & Gammel, 2011; Strom, 2002; Washington, 2011). Missing
from this literature are studies of local townships utilizing the arts as a public good. There is
little knowledge and only a few events serving as exemplars for arts-based groups creating
programming to connect individual citizens together where they share common experiences, hear
new perspectives, and understand each other better.
7
A Local Context: The Creation of the Arts Planning Council
City Township made a township-level decision to utilize the arts to create a stronger
social connection among its public. The results are manifest in many arts events and programs
scheduled by a township non-profit group entitled the Arts Planning Council. The group is in the
process of creating a 10-year township impact strategy. Lisa, chairperson of the Arts Planning
Council, explained: “We … will soon be working with other non-profits to build a stronger arts
presence in the community that will bring community vibrancy and interest to this area”
(Personal communication, August, 2014).
The Arts Planning Council exists today as an independent, non-profit group because of
tax cuts from the state government and a small, but very vocal, anti-tax group who politically
attacked the township by targeting the Arts Council as it was forming. Several years ago, the
state governor desired to balance the state budget. The state money that was issued to local
governments through the Local Government Fund was cut by 50%. The estate tax that
contributed to local monies was eliminated. When those cuts were combined with the state law
that prohibits local townships from collecting income taxes from local businesses, City
Township found itself $2 million short of its original budget. The result was that services such
as EMT, fire, and police would stay, but other services and goods, such as the senior center, the
Banquet Hall, the parks, and the township events could be eliminated. The township
administrators and trustees knew that elimination of such public goods would be harmful to the
quality of life of the township.
Through innovative ways, the township realized avenues to allow them to collect funds
legally and democratically through the public’s voting approval. A township is not allowed to
collect income taxes on local businesses, but if the township defines a business zone and works
in conjunction with a neighboring city, together the township and the city may collect an
“earnings” tax from those business employees. This zone is called a Joint Economic
Development Zone (JEDZ) and must be approved by a vote from township residents. The
money collected from the JEDZ must go toward economic development, such as road repair and
running the township. The police and fire services are funded from separate tax levies and
would never use the money from a JEDZ. In the creation of City Township’s JEDZ, the trustees
8
and administrators built in incentives in the form of grants for local residents who would choose
to live and work in City Township (field journal notes).
The creation of the JEDZ would guarantee township services but would not guarantee
arts events and programming. Knowing this, the administration, the trustees, and Lisa created
the Arts Planning Council as a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization. Despite the knowledge of the
incentives for local residents who are business owners and the possibility of services and goods
provided by the township to exist, a local business owner and resident spoke out against the
JEDZ formation. He made a philosophical argument against township residents voting to allow
businesses and their employees to be taxed when most businesses and employees were not voting
members of the township. In other words, it was an argument against taxation without
representation. In his efforts to speak out against this tax on the upcoming ballot, his group
attacked the Arts Planning Council as they were forming, by purchasing the rights to the Arts
Planning Council’s name. The anti-tax group transformed the former arts council’s name into an
acronym with an anti-tax message that was derogatory toward the township. The township
public became divided over this issue and the arts became an easy target. The issue, however,
caused the Arts Planning Council to “regroup” with a new name, an approval to become a non-
profit, a new website, and a plethora of supporters. In fact, the Arts Planning Council claims the
attack on them from the anti-tax group made the Arts Planning Council even stronger than before
the attack. The residents of City Township did get to vote on the development of the JEDZ and
passed it with a 52.29 % vote of approval from township residents (field journal notes).
The existence of the Arts Planning Council and the attack on the township over the JEDZ
creation harkens back to Zuidervaart’s (2011) point of the cultural warfare that permeates
American publics. Zuidervaart (2011) claimed “democracy is the root of the debate” (p. 12), and
City Township stands as a local example of this national context. The township trustees and
administrators are attempting to achieve what Zuidervaart (2011) called “a robust public sphere”
as well as an arts organization, the Arts Planning Council, to “help form and foster that public”
(p. 12).
The Arts Planning Council utilizes the arts as a public good to promote aesthetic
experiences in the township. These aesthetic experiences are found in the arts events and
programming the Arts Planning Council provides. The experiences serve to connect members
together. Art expression directly impacts the individual and, in turn, affects individuals’
9
relationships within a group of people. The experience of creation, performance, or study of the
arts draws people together around arts events creating a commonality among viewers and artists.
The purpose of this hermeneutical phenomenological study is to understand how the Arts
Planning Council makes meaning of the aesthetic experiences created through its art events and
programming that lead toward community creation.
City Township is located in the northern hills of a fairly large, Midwest city. As the most
centrally located township of 12 townships in the county, it has a total population of 36, 319 and
covers 16.6 square miles. The township has borders on the more urban, downtown area to its
south and east, and its middle class, predominately African American (14, 479) and white
(20,219) suburban populations at its center, west and north. The labor force in City Township is
a total of 19,597 people with 18,205 employed and 1,377 (7%) unemployed. Of the 15,091 total
dwellings located in the township, 14,047 of those are occupied. The income distribution in the
township represents a higher percentage of working and lower middle class households with
40% making $20,000-$60,000 a year and 29.4% making $60,000-$100,000. Nineteen point
seven percent of the public makes $100,000 or more a year. The township touches seven school
districts, but only one district is located completely in the township (2010 Census Data on
township website2).
Age Total
Under 18 9,231
18 and over 27,088
20-24 1,569
25-34 3,951
35-49 6,940
50-64 7,594
65 and over 5,781
Figure 2: Age distribution within City Township.
2 Citation withheld for reasons of confidentiality.
10
Race Total
White 20,219
African American 14,479
American Indian 47
Asian 387
Pacific Islander 23
Other 308
Identified by two or more 856
Hispanic or Latino 658
Hispanic or Latino 658
Figure 3: Ethnicity distribution within City Township.
Amount Total Percent
Less than $10,000 654 4.9
$10,000 - 20,000 1,031 7.7
$20,000 - 30,000 1,143 8.5
$30,000 - 40,000 1,334 9.9
$40,000 - 50,000 1,348 10.0
$50,000 - 60,000 1,339 10.0
$60,000 - 75,000 1,798 13.4
$75,000 - 100,000 2,147 16.0
$100,000 or more 2,642 19.7
Figure 4: Income distribution within City Township.
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Status Total Percent
Labor Force 19,597 N/A
Employed 18,205 92.9
Unemployed 1,377 7.0
In Armed Forces 15 N/A
Not in Labor Force 10,088 N/A
Figure 5: Employment distribution within City Township.
Level Total Percent
Populations age 25 and
older 25,671 N/A
Below grade 9 626 2.4
Grades 9-12 1,974 7.7
High school 7,804 30.4
Some college 4,959 19.3
Associate's degree 2,195 8.6
Bachelor's degree 5,212 20.3
Graduate degree 2,901 11.3
Figure 6: Education distribution with City Township.
City Township owns community property on which is situated the administration
building. This building houses the administration offices, the fire department, and a public
presentation room where trustee meetings are held. The police department is less than one half
mile down the street. A Senior and Community Arts Center building and a Banquet Hall are also
12
located on the property. Both of these buildings are dedicated completely to the citizens of the
community. The Senior and Community Arts Center, in particular, houses a large woodshop, an
art classroom, a commercial kitchen, a gallery, and three open “halls” for the community to use.
Many education classes take place in the Senior and Community Center. The Banquet Hall is a
1930s open dance hall that is used for large group and event rentals throughout most days. Many
arts events take place in the Banquet Hall, but its use is primarily for generating revenue used to
maintain the Senior and Community Arts Center.
The population of City Township is mostly a working to middle class, racially mixed
population, which makes it an unusual case for the arts to be chosen as catalyst to enrich
community life and to view arts as a public good. In the United States, the arts seem to be
associated with college educated, wealthier communities because of the cultural capital and the
costs associated with providing arts programming and events. The majority of City Township
population, 49.7%, has a high school degree and some college experience, while only 20% hold
a completed college degree. The service industry functions as the main economic support of the
smaller communities that make up City Township. This demographic situation affects the
volunteers for the various events in the township. Many families have parents who work outside
of the home; therefore, attaining volunteers for various events is a constant tension for the Arts
Planning Council. What choices the Arts Planning Council makes for arts events and
programming and how the community values these events and programs may be affected by this
socioeconomic situation.
The initial impetus of the Arts Planning Council was to develop a strong representation
and support for local adult artists of the community. Community artists were asked and
rewarded for showing their artwork, musical performances, or acting. From this base of artists,
musicians, and performers, the Arts Planning Council continues to utilize them as teachers.
Many adult and youth classes are taught with a local resident as the instructor. The instructors
create the curriculum for the class as well as teach a programmed series of classes to other
township members. These local educators and learners are important elements in creating the
arts experiences and the meaning of community within City Township.
The format and number of classes initially created by the Arts Planning Council as part of
the township’s event series and community based art education (CBAE) program has been
inconsistent and random. A regular event schedule that occurs in quarterly sessions was created.
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Art classes were scheduled on a six week rotation. Events such as a summer concert series, fall
dinner theaters, and yearly family entertainment events have been streamlined to meet the
various demographics of the township. Foundational art classes create the current format of the
CBAE with drawing, painting (acrylic and watercolor), and a variety of workshops programmed
for the adult township members (ages 15-adult). Arts educator forums were also planned in an
effort to better connect the township to the schools through the arts (See figure 8).
Figure 9: Description of arts events and actors involved in each event. Created in 11/2014 and still used in 5/2016.
Through participation with the board and volunteering before, after, and during events, I
have met the various board members, township members, and township trustees attending and
volunteering at arts events and classes. Casual conversations and interviews have led to insights
into their understanding of aesthetic experiences, the phenomenon of communitas, and how the
arts experiences have contributed to that understanding. The township members are the focus of
the “acts” that are done by the Arts Planning Council to create an institution of community in
City Township. It is through the Arts Planning Committee board members’ understandings that I
hope to share how aesthetic experiences, from arts events and programming, can create relational
communities. The importance of this work is not just for other organizations to use as a reference
Dinner Theater Series
Concert Series
Family Entertainment Series
Education Series
• Fall
• Performing Artists
• Event volunteers
• Summer
• Concert Committee
• Musicians
• Event volunteers
• Year round
• Actors
• Art volunteers
• Year round sessions
• Learners
• Teaching artists
• Local Art Show
• Event volunteers
• Summer camps for kids
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of what can be done, but also for educators and curricularists to better understand the function of
the aesthetic within a curriculum and how it contributes to the establishment of community
within the classroom or school setting.
My Positionality
As a visual art educator, I had the opportunity to teach in the public schools, in the
university setting, and to volunteer in multiple age settings. In each one of those scenarios, I was
always amazed at how the class would have a certain and unique feeling after several artistic
experiences together. We could not achieve the same sense with simply having a lecture. I soon
realized a connection existed between the experience of the art production or the art
interpretation and the unique feeling occurring within the class. Projects, such as the creation of
a family sculpture out of shapes, would engender self-reflection, analysis of family dynamics,
and expression of the new symbols representing family. Artists’ statements accompanied the
sculptures to explain the personalities of each family member. The way the parts of the family
interacted influenced the construction of the sculpture itself. Students objectified their feelings
in order to share their experience with others in the class. The meanings created through those
contributions connected the participants together in a new way that led the individuals into
solidarity of understanding, better known as relational community.
With this understanding of what the aesthetic experience through the arts can do for a
group of people, I found it hard to understand why a hierarchy of subject matter existed in our
education curricula. It is a hierarchy that justifies the elimination of arts in schools when budgets
become tight, as they did after the economic downturn of 2008. In 2009, one mid-Ohio school
district’s economic strife led to a restructuring that eliminated 44 art, music, physical education,
and media specialist positions. According to a CBS report on September 16, 2011, 200,000
visual arts, music, and physical education positions were eliminated nationwide over the course
of two years (Buda, Fedorenko, & Sheridan, 2012, p. 11). City Township felt the same trend
when its schools also laid off arts teachers. Consequently, when I learned in 2012 that the
township trustees and administrators of City Township wanted to utilize the arts to connect
township members and support the school districts, I was eager to watch the process unfold.
I was deeply interested in the formation of a community based arts education program in
City Township and how it contributes to the meaning and creation of community. Interesting,
15
too, is the understanding of how human connection can lend a feeling of communitas among its
township members. I realized, when I heard about City Township’s plan to create an Arts
Planning Council, the mere idea to utilize the arts to connect township members indicates a
human desire for connection. A situation like this emphasizes the need for the arts to begin in
the public school setting and continue in public spaces for adults who hold aesthetic experiences
as important.
When I taught as a middle school visual art teacher, the surrounding township in which I
taught supported my efforts to expand my visual art program aesthetically through grants, artists-
in-residence programs, and local news coverage of my program’s efforts. A community-based
arts program also influenced me and my program through teacher workshops and arts
programming for my students. These connections and developments were keys to my success as
an art teacher. I was given a network of other teachers from other subjects who supported my
efforts to create an aesthetically rich curriculum for my students. I was given direct access to
visual artists, musicians, actors, dancers, and creative writers that allowed me to live the
curricular possibilities of aesthetic experiences within group settings before teaching them to my
classes. To see the possibilities of all that a community-based arts program can do for public
school teachers and for township members is exciting, but it also begs the question, “How do
members of an Arts Planning Committee make meaning of aesthetic experiences of the arts
events and programs they create?”
Research Question and Study Rationale
The overall question answered by this study utilizing phenomenology of existential
experience as its framework is, “How does the Arts Planning Council make meaning of the
aesthetic experiences created through arts events and programming?” The theoretical
frameworks utilized for this study are the social constructs of phenomenology and the
existential3 nature of the aesthetic experience (Bedford, 1972; Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Buber,
1958; Dewey, 1934/2005; Greene, 1978, 1988, 1995; Schutz, 1967; Schutz & Luckmann, 1989;
Van Manen, 1990). Both of these theories frame a pragmatic creation of community (Dewey,
1927; Greene, 2001). The aesthetic experience within a group serves as a “liminal” space that
3 The goal of existentialism is to make every human aware of what he or she is and to grant each human the full
responsibility of his or her existence and his or her acts in which each is involved (Bedford, 1972, p. 8).
16
breaks down social structure and results in a feeling of communitas (Greene, 2001; E. Turner,
2012; V. Turner, 1969). Based on my analysis of relevant studies utilizing arts experiences to
create meaning of community within classrooms, neighborhoods, and institutions, and through
hermeneutical phenomenological analysis of the board members’ and township trustees formal
and informal interviews, I attempt to understand how the Arts Planning Council views those
theoretical concepts. The township hopes to create connections among township members
through the arts. The results should stimulate the local economy, create a city-center, and
support the seven school districts within the township. I find the study of City Township
valuable to other communities who desire to position the arts as central to their public life but
may also hold atypical demographics for such decisions. City Township is a contemporary
context and a real-life, bounded system creating more than just a case study. It creates a context
in which I and the Arts Planning Council can reflectively understand the meaning of community
formation from aesthetic experiences.
Research Goals
My goal through this study was to utilize hermeneutical phenomenology to understand
how the Arts Planning Council makes meaning of the aesthetic experiences created through their
arts events and programming that lead toward community creation. Aesthetic experiences give
way to existential connections among and between individuals, creating a deeply active feeling
of communitas. I am interested in understanding how this response is passed on to others
through the typifications and actions of the Arts Planning Council board, the audience members,
the actors, the artists, the art teachers, the musicians, the stage crews, and the many volunteers.
The subjective reality created by these actors and their actions and reactions to the phenomena of
art is maintained through their rituals of performance, advertisement, fundraising, education, and
conversation of shared responses. In these ways, the phenomena of meaning making of a
community through the aesthetic experience of the arts events and programming creates actions,
17
both typified4 and habitualized5, and rituals, both rational and nonrational,6 that supersede
fragmented geography and socio-economic income. An understanding of connection within City
Township is created. It is an understanding of the arts as joyful, expressive, connecting, and a
social-public good.
Hermeneutical Phenomenology
The study at City Township began as a pilot study with an interpretive case study design.
It worked as a case study because City Township was and still is a bounded, real-life case in
which I investigated the meaning making of Arts Planning Council members. I understood how
they viewed the aesthetic experiences they created from the arts events and programming. A
case study is conducted to develop an in-depth understanding of a single case in order to explore
an issue or problem using the case as a specific illustration (Creswell, 2013; Glesne, 2011; Stake,
1995; Yin, 2003). As an intrinsic pilot case study, this case arose from a distinctive need to
understand complex social phenomena of aesthetic experience and its ability to create
community. The pilot case study allowed me, as the investigator, to retain the holistic
characteristics of real-life arts events and arts classes (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003).
However, as I spent time as a participant observer in City Township while conducting the
pilot case study, in particular with the Arts Planning Council, the approach of interpreting the
understanding the Arts Planning Council members make of the aesthetic experiences and their
contribution to community formation required a methodology that would “raise questions, gather
data, describe phenomenon, and construct textual interpretations” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 1).
Thus, the approach of this study is phenomenological and hermeneutic. It is language-oriented
because the aesthetic experience of community formation requires a phenomenological
sensitivity to the lived experience of the Arts Planning Council members and their work in
particular. The meaning of community formation from aesthetic experience requires “a
hermeneutic ability to make interpretive sense of the phenomenon of the lifeworld” to see the
4 Typification is a term created by Alfred Schutz (1967) to describe typical or recurrent elements from the stream of
experiences of individuals. Humans identify elements which are similar perhaps because they share the same color,
shape, texture, or quality of movement. Berger & Luckman (1966) refer to all of the English attributes of their
friend from England as a typification. 5Habitualized actions are those that are repeated on a regular basis but without any consciousness behind the action. 6 Rational rituals are the intended, rehearsed rituals done by a group to negotiate change together. Nonrational
rituals are the unintended rituals that are done daily but not often noticed within a group setting.
18
aesthetic significance of situations and relations within the community formation of City
Township (Van Manen, 1990, p. 2).
The foundation of this approach is “textual reflection on the lived experiences and
practical actions of everyday life with the intent to increase one’s thoughtfulness and practical
resources of tact” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 4). Phenomenology describes how the Arts Planning
Council orients to the lived aesthetic experiences and the resulting community formation.
Hermeneutics describes how the Arts Planning Council and I interpret the “texts” of life.
“Semiotics is used to develop a practical linguistic approach to the method of phenomenology
and hermeneutics” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 4) so that research and writing in this study are
inseparable activities.
Limitations
Phenomenological research is not analytic science. It does not describe “actual states of
affairs” or make “scientific generalizations” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 22). Phenomenology is
empirical in that it deals with experience but not “inductively empirically derived” (Van Manen,
1990, p. 22). Van Manen (1990) stated it goes beyond an “interest in ‘mere’ particularities” (p.
22). Case studies and ethnographies focus on a particular situation, group, culture, or
institutional location to study what goes on there, how individuals of the group perceive events,
and how they might differ from other such groups or situations (Van Manen, 1990, p. 22). While
there may be a phenomenological quality to such studies since the participants are asked about
their experiences, the aim of the case study or ethnography is to accurately describe “an existing
state of affairs or a certain present or past culture which could drastically change from place to
place or over time” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 22).
A pilot case study of City Township’s Arts Planning Council could fill a gap in the
literature for townships who wish to establish their own Arts Councils and who may consider the
arts as a public good. Missing from the literature are descriptions and details of how an Arts
Council plans events and programming utilizing the aesthetic experience to connect citizens. As
a pilot case study, it was particular to City Township and carried the limitation that it may not be
like other cases (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003). As a phenomenological study, the meanings the Arts
Planning Council make of the aesthetic experiences created through arts events and
19
programming that lead toward community formation can be understood by others as meaning
derived from the lived experiences of the Arts Planning Council.
City Township is a large and encompassing township, which covers many smaller
neighborhoods, seven school districts, and contains islands of township entities encased by other
townships. It is not a small, homogenous township that includes one school district or a few
neighborhoods only. It is not homogenous in the level of education or income that members
attain either. It is a suburb, but it is a first ring suburb that borders and, in some cases, even
contains the city proper. Most Arts Councils function within a city or a suburb but not within
both. As Stake (1995) claimed, this case cannot be generalized, but what is within the case can
be. On the other hand, as a phenomenological study, the analysis of the meanings of the actions
of the Arts Planning Council and their understanding of how the aesthetic experience moves
township members toward individual connections and communitas can be generalized. Petite
generalizations as such are helpful, but the grand generalization of one case to another will be
limited. Yin (2003) stated that case study generalizations can only be toward theoretical
propositions and not toward populations or universes. The groundwork of a case is the
particularization of it.
I have taken the pilot case study at City Township and have “learned it well” through
observations and interviews with the Arts Planning Council, township members, and township
trustees (Stake, 1995). As I emphasized, it is more important to understand the function of the
aesthetic experience of the arts events and programming at City Township in detail rather than
how this case generalizes to other townships. It is a misnomer to speak of the phenomenology of
City Township or the Arts Planning Council as a particular case. Phenomenology cannot prove
one event over another and does not make “law-like statements, or the establishment of
functional relationships” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 22). The tendency, however, to generalize with
phenomenology runs the risk of focusing on the larger picture rather than the uniqueness of the
Arts Planning Counci, which could be a limitation (Van Manen, 1990, p. 22).
Van Manen (1990) differentiated phenomenology as neither “mere particularity nor sheer
universality” (p. 23). Instead, it consists in mediating between what is unique and what is
essential to make that difference. Phenomenology does not problem solve by “asking
questions,” seeking solutions of “correct knowledge,” discovering “effective procedures and
winning strategies, calculative techniques, and methods” which derive results (Van Manen,
20
1990, p. 23). Instead, phenomenological questions are meaning questions that beg the
significance and meaning structures of certain phenomenon. “Meaning questions cannot be
solved and done away with” (Marcel, 1949, as cited by Van Manen, 1990, p. 23). They can be
better understood when realizing that thought and tact can be employed in certain situations but
one can never shut off understandings. Meaning questions remain the topic of conversations of
lived life and “appropriated” by those who desire such insight (Van Manen, 1990, pp. 23-24).
Conclusion
This hermeneutical phenomenological study of the aesthetic experience and its
contribution toward community formation could reflect a connection of township members
through the existential, aesthetic experiences the Arts Planning Council creates with arts events
and programming. Individuals might discover what they recognize together, and might attain
mutuality and active reciprocity within the community based programming (Dewey, 1927;
Green, 1995; Wenger, 2004). Hopefully, as many people as possible engage in open-ended
dialogues about arts, events, and programs. The arts might provide the opportunity for communal
decisions resulting in a relational community in public spaces. Phenomenology differs in
methodology from content analysis or case study whose methodologies specify beforehand what
they want to know from the text. Phenomenology is discovery oriented because there are no
predetermined objectives to compare or discover. Instead, it seeks to find out what certain
phenomena mean after they have occurred and how the phenomena is experienced by others
through their reflections of that lived experience (Van Manen, 1990, 37). Therefore, this
research is a journey of finding meaning in aesthetic experiences and how community is created
from those aesthetic experiences. Most particularly, it might be a unique experience to document
the communitas created from the liminal experiences of arts events. E. Turner (2012) maintained
one must keep in mind “researchers of communitas can only understand communitas when they
are right inside of it” (p. 8). My objective is to be there.
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Chapter 2: Literature Review
The goal of this study is to understand how the members of Arts Planning Committee make
meaning of the aesthetic experiences created through arts events and programming that lead toward
community creation. In this chapter, the conceptual literature of aesthetic experience, existential
connection, pragmatic community theory, communities of practice, and communitas creates a
foundation for understanding the empirical literature of community formation through the arts.
The conceptual and empirical literature contributes to the understanding of the aesthetic
experiences and their contribution toward community formation in City Township. The literature
reviewed in this chapter situates this study as an empirical example of the phenomenon of the
existential aesthetic experience and its ability to connect humans to humans (Buber, 1958, 1975;
Greene, 1995; E. Turner, 2012; V. Turner, 1972).
The Definition of Aesthetic
“Aesthetic” as a noun is used to question and ponder those qualities in a work of art that
make it worthy of defining what art is. Arguments center on relationships of art and beauty, art
and knowledge, and art and nature. The established theories of art production called aesthetic
stances—mimesis, expressionism, and formalism—also attempt to define the quality of art
objects within those frameworks (Day & Hurwitz, 2001; Weitz, 1956). The primary task of
aesthetics, according to Weitz (1965), is to elucidate the concept of art, specifically, the
conditions under which individuals employ the concept of art correctly (Weitz, 1956, p. 5). It is,
therefore, also important to look at aesthetic as an adjective.
As an adjective, “aesthetic” refers to the quality of something such as an aesthetic
response or as aesthetic inquiry, which centers on the type of questioning that delves below the
surface of long-held assumptions. The focus of aesthetic inquiry is a “process of probing for
answers to everyday questions” that relate to “urgent and controversial issues” (Day & Hurwitz,
2001, p. 273). In this way, aesthetics is a term used to single out “a particular field in philosophy
concerned with perception, sensation, and imagination and how those qualities relate to knowing,
understanding, and feeling about the world” (Greene, 2001, p. 5).
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A binary is created when discussing the focus of aesthetics in education. The divide falls
between those who want to emphasize that aesthetics, especially in education, has to do with the
encounters viewers have with artistic objects as the catalyst of a personal experience and analysis
(existential) and those who believe that the meaning one receives from an experience contributes
to the creation of the artistic object (phenomenological). Eisner (1998) referred to this binary as
two kinds of aesthetic knowledge. One is the “knowledge of the world toward which the
qualities of an artistic form point” (Eisner, 1998, p. 37). When viewing artwork, aesthetics
focuses on the ways of apprehending or perceiving an artistic object. The existential hope is that
people will find themselves “reading the artistic objects” in such a way that “some windows
open in their own experience and in their own imaginations” (Greene in Uhrmacher & Matthews,
2005, p. 222). It is an “existential belief that individuals are not yet complete;” therefore this
view allows for a freedom to become possible when “options for life and being” (Bedford, 1972,
p. 8) are opened through awareness of other’s experiences objectified into works of art.
The second type of aesthetic knowledge is knowledge of the qualities of form in objects
derived from a phenomenological event. We become increasingly able to “know qualities called
aesthetic by developing abilities to experience the subtleties of form, such as knowing aspects of
music, literature, art, and science” (Eisner, 1998, p. 37). Dance educator Susan Stinson (2002)
reminds us to look beyond superficial similarities of aesthetic forms to discern the art object as a
whole, as compared to the components. For example, we can discern that which “distinguishes
dance from movement” (Stinson, 2002, p. 154). Stinson (2002) identified “experience and
engagement” (p. 154), combined with a sense of form, as central to meaning of the artistic
object. The aesthetic object, whether found in nature and the environment or created by the
artist, “reveals the force of feeling through itself” (Broudy, 1977, p. 36).
Both types of aesthetic experience, whether from the art object or from the experience
contributing to the craft of the object, catalyze the individual to “reflect on a part of his or her life
not initially seen” (Greene in Uhrmacher & Matthews, 2005, p. 220). These aesthetic
experiences give meaning to everyday occurrences.
Making Meaning of an Experience
Etienne Wenger (2004) suggested that a focus on meaningfulness helps us better
experience our world and our engagement with it as meaningful. We must be alive in a world in
23
which we can act and interact, in essence participate. For example, Wenger (2004) explained
that the creation of a painting is a mechanical production utilizing canvas, wood, saws, brushes,
pigments, oils, and techniques. “But for the painter and for the viewer, the painting is an
experience of meaning” (Wenger, 2004, pp. 51-52) exchanged between them through the object
of the painting.
Experience.
Dewey (1934/2005) explained that “every experience begins with an impulsion” which is
“a movement outward and forward” (Dewey, 1934/2005, p. 60) of the whole person. Proceeding
from need, the impulsion begins the experience. Eisner (1998) claimed that experience is the
product of both the “features of the world” and the “biography of the individual” (p. 34). The
experience evokes a qualitative transformation of energy into thoughtful action through the
“assimilation of meanings” of past experiences (Dewey, 1934/2005, p. 62). An individual’s past
influences the experience when it interacts with the individual’s present (Eisner, 1998, p. 34).
The function of the “old and new” is a “re-creation in which the present impulsion gets form and
solidity while the old, ‘stored,’ material is literally revived, given new life” (Dewey, 1934/2005,
p. 63) through a new situation. Dewey (1934/2005) called this conversion of activity an “act of
expression” (p. 63).
To express means to keep the emotion and move it forward toward a completion (Dewey,
1934/2005, pp, 64-69). The function of art is not, according to Langer (1953), for the
“stimulation of feeling” but for the “expression of feeling through symbolic expression of forms
of sentience as the artist understands them” (p. 80). The expression becomes a “clarification of
turbid emotion” (Langer, 1953, p. 81), rather than a simple discharge of emotion. In this way,
the emotion is distinctly aesthetic because it is “induced by expressive material” and “consists of
the transformative” (Langer, 1953, pp. 80-82).
Symbols.
Any device used by an individual to make an abstraction of an idea or feeling from an
experience, such as an image, representation, or an impression, is considered a symbol (Langer,
1953). Symbols illustrate the artist’s imagination of feelings rather than the artist’s own
emotional state and express what the artist knows about the inner life (Langer, 1953, p. 22).
24
Langer (1953) explained the relation between symbol and what it means can be found in music.
Tonal structures create music and “bear a close similarity to forms of human feeling such as
forms of growth, attenuation, flowing, conflict or resolution, speed, arrest, and calm or
excitement” (Langer, 1953, pp. 22-28). Learning how to represent what one has experienced is
“a primary means of expanding the consciousness of others” (Eisner, 2005, p. 297).
The “common function of the aesthetic is to modulate form so it can, in turn, modulate
our experience” (Eisner, 1998, p. 34). In a phenomenological way, the form of the work or
symbol itself informs us and shapes our internal life. Consequently, “individuals need to know
how to read aesthetic forms” (Eisner, 1998, p. 34). Information about the form or symbol is
gathered through the senses and secured, making sense of what is collected such as the prose, the
melody, or the texture of a sculpture. To do this is an “act of discrimination” and a selective
process requiring a “fully engaged mind” yielding “insight and emotion” (Intrator, 2005, p. 178).
Intrator (2005) believed individuals can become “practiced in reading a broad array of forms” (p.
180): poetry, film, novel, expository text, art, sculpture, and the natural world. Cognitive
capacity expands as humans intelligently “‘read’ multiple forms of ‘text’ humans use to express
what they know” (Intrator, 2005, p. 180) or their understanding about an experience. The
experience, therefore, is a product of continuous interaction of the individual with the world and
is the basis of the phenomenological definition of aesthetic as an adjective. “In the end, works of
art are the only media of complete and unhindered communication between [human] and
[human] …” (Dewey, 1934/2005, p. 109).
Imagination within the Aesthetic Response
At the root of every experience lies the interaction of an individual and his or her
environment (Dewey, 1934/2005). The experience becomes a conscious perception when its
meaning is concluded from former experiences. Past experiences, however, can only find their
way into the present through imagination, which is a “conscious adjustment of old and new
meanings” (Dewey, 1934/2005, p. 283). Intrator (2005) argued: “To be imaginative means to
fashion thoughts and feeling in our minds” (p. 179). He explained that we utilize imagination by
taking reality and inventing concepts of what could be. Literal understanding becomes the
launching pad for considering what should be or what will be in an individual’s life. Imagination
in the curriculum is an educator’s tool to stimulate students to see new perspectives, open new
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avenues of reality, and ponder alternative ways of being (Greene, 1995, p. 18). Aesthetic
education empowers viewers by allowing them to do what Greene (1995) called “releasing
imagination” or opening doors to different realities (as cited in Intrator, 2005, p. 179).
Perceptive Imagination.
Harry Broudy (1977) explained that “perception is the receiving and the interpreting of
information as a guide to action” (p. 7). The “products of perceptive imagination” are images
that convey our feelings, make them perceivable to the senses, and create an objective form for
our experiences (Broudy, 1977, pp. 7-8). Intrator (2005) enhanced this idea when he stated that
events or phenomenon can move individuals in such a way that traditional approaches to
representation are not sufficient to convey the felt experience (p. 181). In these cases, the
imaginative quality that dominates the aesthetic experience lends deeper and wider meanings and
values that can be even more moving than the experience itself. Dewey (1934/2005) concluded
that with the use of imagination, the expression, more than the object itself, expands the
immediate experience. In turn, the viewer of the art object attempts to interpret the experience
with his or her own imaginative perception further compounding the effect of the perceived
experience (Dewey, 1934/2005).
Imaginative release.
Imagination is the heart of the aesthetic process and can disclose provinces of
“possibilities that are personal, social, and aesthetic” and are entered in through “the lenses of
various ways of knowing, seeing, and feeling” (Greene, 2001, p. 65). Greene (1988) espoused:
“Experience becomes fully conscious only when meanings from earlier experiences enter in
through the exercises of the imaginative capacity” (p. 125). Those who can notice and become
part of a work of art through new visions and experiential possibilities are more likely to connect
their own experiences than those who cannot become absorbed in a work of art (Greene, 1978, p.
186).
Greene (1978) explained individuals can release others for this kind of aesthetic “seeing”
by explaining how the arts involve imagination to create products such as paintings, poetry,
sculpture, theater, and film (p. 186). It is the imagination that allows humans to rise beyond the
everyday routine, and it is the artistic-aesthetic that allows them to knit together a new
26
reality. These realities, Greene (1978) explained, are uniquely brought together when humans
explore media in order to both learn to work with it and to try to express something seen, felt, or
heard. Imagination is the essential element that gives the capacity to posit alternative realities
creating “as-if” perspectives. Without the release of imagination, human beings would become
trapped in literalism and would not be able to imagine what could be (Greene, 2001, p. 65).
Emancipatory Value within the Aesthetic Response
Existentialism in the Aesthetic.
Viktor Lowenfeld (1982) stated in his lecture to future art educators that “the most
important thing which art education should do for humans is to make them sensitive to
themselves—to their own problems and to their own environment. Aesthetic experiences
emphasize the values that are important in life” (p. 333). In this way, the aesthetic experience
moves away from a phenomenological act to an existential one. The literature on existential
aesthetic experiences specifically addresses the curriculum in education. In particular, the
educator’s role in creating aesthetic experiences for learners is important, whether they are
experiences that lead to the creation of an aesthetic object or an encounter with an aesthetic
object.
According to Mitchell Bedford (1972), the first principle of existentialism is that
“humans are nothing but what they make of themselves” (p. 219). The goal of existentialism is
to create human awareness of what the individual could become. It grants each human the full
responsibility for his or her existence (Bedford, 1972, p. 8). Following this goal, Martin Buber
(1958), an existential philosopher, believed humans have a “twofold attitude” toward
connections and relations that primary words can define (p. 3). One is called an “I-It attitude,”
and the other is an “I-Thou attitude” (Buber, 1958, p. 4). The “It” refers to an object or being that
can be manipulated by a person. The “Thou,” however, is the highest object that one can find.
The Thou has no bounds and establishes a world of relation (Buber, 1958, pp. 3-6).
Using his theory of a twofold attitude, Buber (1958) explained the aesthetic experience of
art creation and art appreciation as an existential phenomenon:
This is the eternal source of art: a [human] is faced by a form which desires to be
made through [him or her] into [his or her] work. This form is no offspring of
[her or his] soul, but is an appearance which steps up to it and demands of it the
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effective power. The [human] is concerned with an act of [her or his] being…
[He or she] can neither experience nor describe the form which meets [him or
her], but only body it forth. (pp. 9-10)
Yet, the human can behold the splendor of the confronting form which remains clearer
to the human than anything else in the world, at that moment. To produce the art from such an
encounter is to draw the experience and feelings forth and simultaneously invent it and discover
it. “The work produced is a thing among things, able to be experienced and described as the sum
of qualities. But from time to time it can face the receptive beholder in its whole embodied
form” (Buber, 1958, p. 10).
Sensitivity to the self and one’s own needs is an important part of an existential aesthetic
education. Lowenfeld (1982) explained that most people bury this sensitivity by “surrounding
themselves with meaningless other things” in order to escape the subjective present (p. 335).
Individuals do not want to be stifled by problems so they invent things to distract themselves
such as parties, habits, or work. Bedford (1972) stated it is an existential belief that humans
avoid responsibility for their actions through marginal living that does not fulfill their full
potential. Existentialism, however, is a philosophy designed to encourage humans to consider
and to “actualize their full potential” (Bedford, 1972, p. 8). Likewise, Lowenfeld (1982) believed
that individuals should have time to think about themselves and their problems. With time,
humans could learn to confront their “selves” and to consider and to resolve the injustices that
might have been done to them (p. 336)
Maxine Greene (1978, 1988, 1995, 2001) claimed aesthetic education, rife with aesthetic
experiences, provides existential opportunity for the individual to realize or become sensitive to
him or herself. Aesthetic experience creates the “freedom-space” where imagination can surpass
the barriers to thought, feeling, and action (Broudy, 1977, p. 6). Greene (1978) espoused
freedom, even in freedom-space because freedom “depends on the opportunity to think for
oneself” (p. 7) and to find oneself at whatever stage one may be. Considered as a space for
possibility, the curriculum should enable “occasions for individuals to articulate the themes of
their existence and to reflect on those themes until they know and understand themselves in
relation to the world” (Greene, 1978, p. 19).
Greene (1988) discussed Merleau Ponty’s idea that aesthetic experience is not just a
“deflection of attention from the ordinary life” (p. 124). Instead, it is an exploration of the
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possibility of seeing “what was ordinarily obscured” by the familiar that it now goes unnoticed
(Ponty, as cited in Greene, 1988, p. 124). Only when these situations are visible can individuals
interpret and understand the new experience or situation. They can clearly view the obstacles
and challenges preventing them from their desires to pursue freedom. She wrote, “Without being
‘onto something’ young people feel little pressure, little challenge. There are no mountains they
want to climb so there are few obstacles with which they need to engage” (Greene, 1988, p.
124). In essence, art becomes an educator’s weapon that takes aim at the hegemonic culture, and
learners cannot stay indifferent. “Once we see our givens as contingencies, then we may have an
opportunity to posit alternative ways of living and valuing and to make choices” (Greene, 1995,
p. 23).
Emancipation in the Aesthetic
Existential, aesthetic experience can adopt a critical theory point of view. Experience
urges individuals to reflect on their current, subjective state of being, ultimately, taking on an
emancipatory realm. Paulo Freire (1990) indicated the “struggle of the oppressed for
emancipation” begins with “human recognition of reality” (p. 55). Liberation, he stated, is a
cycle of individual action and reflection on individual worlds and must take place to transform it
(Freire, 1990, p. 66). The cycle of action and reflection, praxis, engenders continuous dialogue
that must consider the historical situation of the oppressed and his or her perceived reality of that
condition (Freire, 1990, p. 52). When using artwork and aesthetic experience as critical
awareness work, the artwork becomes the medium through which are human problems are posed
and will catalyze the dialogue around the “problems.” According to Friere (1990), “Problem
posing education affirms humans as beings in the process of becoming—as unfinished,
uncompleted beings in and with an unfinished reality” (p.66). An art curriculum that enables this
“problem posing” through the created artwork is not only existential, but is also emancipatory for
students. It equips them to understand the “history of the knowledge structures” they are
encountering and how those knowledge structures relate to human life (Greene, 1978, p. 55).
Through problem posing arts experiences, “a deepened consciousness of their situation”
can lead individuals to better understand the situation as a human reality (Freire, 1990, p. 73).
Dialogue results from this awareness allowing participants to engage in critical thinking that
perceives reality as a process and not as static. It is a risk-free thinking imbued with action that
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transforms reality into a new, normalized reality (Freire, 1990, p. 81). Consequently, if learning
focuses on the experiences of a lived life, then it should enable individuals “to recognize lacks in
their own situations” (Greene, 1978, p. 19). This type of learning aids individuals to transcend
those “lacks” to discover new realities. New realities encountered through the arts can enable
individuals to foresee and desire a freedom that enables social interactions, encourages
individuals to become active in society, and permits individual contributions (Greene, 1995, p.
39).
Community Creation from the Aesthetic Response
Aesthetic education enables individuals to see things from a larger perspective than their
own. A “wide-awake” perception of an idea moves individuals to recall shared existential
experiences fashioning a communal desire to overcome apathy and extend beyond the present
situations (Greene, 1995, p. 35). Greene (1995) asserted that shared existential, aesthetic
experience projects ethical, community concerns to the foreground. “If imagination is linked to a
sense of possibility and our ability to respond to other human beings, we can link it to the
making of community” (Greene, 1995, p. 38). An individual’s affiliation with the community is
promoted and can foster civic values.
Exposing individuals to art does not lie merely in the idea of having a common language
when speaking about the arts. It is based on the notion that the arts “enable those of us in
partnership like this to understand and to honor one another diverse through our backgrounds and
perspectives, and, yes, obligations [to one another] appear to be” (Greene, 2001, p. 168). The
sharing of works of art familiar to the common life is widely enjoyed in a public and gives signs
of a unified, collective life. For Dewey (1927), it is the emancipatory praxis and the wide-awake
perceptions of artists which gives them the role to deliver factual opinion on public matters. He
believed artists’ lives reach deeper levels. Therefore, Dewey (1927) purported “the function of
art has always been to break through the crust of conventionalized and routine consciousness” (p.
183). The simple making of the experience into a material object of expression is no longer an
isolated event to the artist, but can be “the remaking of community experience in the direction of
greater order and unity” by the nature of it being shared (Dewey, 1934/2005, p. 84). The
perceivers of the given work of art apprehend the work in light of their backgrounds,
biographies, and experiences. “Artists have always been the real purveyors of news, for it is not
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the outward happening in itself which is new, but the kindling by it of emotion, perception, and
appreciation” (Dewey, 1927, p. 184).
In a communal setting, new worlds open to enable the formation of a community that
shares a rich dialogue and a sharing of certain beliefs. Democracy and dialogue can happen in a
space where individuals find their distinct voices and lend importance to the identifying of
shared beliefs (Greene, 1995, p. 42). Diverse individuals can speak to one another as “who they
are,” and they can feel free to create in and between themselves (Greene, 1995, p. 39). For
example, the in between arises when individuals objectify their expressions in any art form for
others to respond to or to understand (Hannah Arendt, as cited in Greene, 1995, p. 39).
This type of community is not rationally or formally created such as with contracts
(Greene, 1995, p. 39). It is a community achieved by persons who are offered freedom space to
discover what they recognize and appreciate together and contributes to the use and distribution
of shared goods, such as ways of being together and of reaching some common world they value
mutually. Members in this type of community discover ways to make intersubjective sense and
to imagine future possibilities for their group’s becoming (Greene, 1995, p. 39).
Greene (1995) declared intersubjective sense comes from people “being together in a
particular way” (p. 40). When experienced with others, this knowing of each other draws
individuals together in a revitalized community with active reciprocity among the members.
Buber’s (1958) I-Thou relationship experience may best explain the intersubjective sense of
which Greene (1995) speaks. Bedford (1972) described a meeting as the I-Thou relationship in
which “two people encounter each other in such a way that they do not really perceive the object
reality of each other” (p. 99). Instead they blend together so a feeling of unity exists between the
two. Bedford (1972) explained that “neither is trying to accomplish some alternative motif, but
both find themselves lifted above the time-space sphere” and are “hardly aware of the
interrupting forces in their environment or of the time that passes during their encounter” (p. 99).
The relation to the Thou is direct and requires no former knowledge of the other (Buber, 1958, p.
11). It occurs “only when all obstacles collapse” (Buber, 1958, p. 12). Love, according to Buber
(1958) “is responsibility of an I for a Thou” (p. 15). The relation is mutual: “My Thou affects
me, as I affect it” (Buber, 1958, p. 15).
A community cannot arise without “active reciprocity” (Greene, 1995, p. 40) and
aesthetic experience. Experience with artwork can provide it while causing “obstacles to
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collapse” (Buber, 1958, p. 12). Through the discovery of unseen and unknown dimensions to
aesthetic experience, individuals can desire new experiences that lead toward community. Links
created between individuals such as actors, characters, and/or subjects within artwork frees the
imagination. “Windows will open as the actual and new alternatives for living become clear”
(Greene, 1995, p. 42).
Empathy in the aesthetic realm gives individuals the “capacity to see through another’s
eyes” to understand how the world appears from another’s point of view (Greene, 2001, p.
102). By offering aesthetic experiences in the arts in classrooms and in other public venues,
encounters with art works can engage many individuals in dialogue and can provide the
opportunity for communal decisions (Greene, 2001, p. 107). Individuals will connect their
personal histories to one another and will be provoked to “imaginatively transmute some of their
stories into media” (Greene, 1995, p. 42). The objectification of the stories allows individuals to
look, think, respond, and move forward together as a group. A gradual consciousness of selves
as members of a community contributes to community creation in public venues through shared,
aesthetic responses to art objects, events, and programs presented by and through both the formal
education setting and the informal public setting.
The Idea of Community Defined
The idea of community is a multi-layered, morphed concept that is contextualized within
place and time. The term is often used in broader, vernacular ways to define group existence, to
define what the group wants to achieve, or to define how the group functions within its
membership. The definition can change, depending on the time period and the use, to focus on
any one of those three intents. As history has progressed, the theories of community have
layered onto each other to reflect the political and social situations of each current time period
and, therefore, have changed the definitions of community that have been applied. Philosophies
and definitions of community are derived from those originating with Plato, Aristotle, Cicero,
Arabian thinkers, church fathers, and German social thinkers (Pitirim in Tӧnnies, 1887/2002, p.
vii). Tӧnnies (1887/2002) purported that human beings are social and will come together in
many ways to support each other and to make change together. Various historical phenomenon
and intents for community work have caused different parts of those philosophies to be
emphasized. For example, theories of community and society were created to describe the social
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function of humans during the industrial revolution. Tӧnnies (1887/2002) confirmed Aristotle
and Hobbes’ focus on “different aspects of social life” through the understanding that human
beings, “by their very nature, are social beings who unfold their true essence” by living in
“communities of kinship (neighborhoods) and spirit, and are capable of forming associations by
agreements” in an effort to attain certain ends (p. ix).
Another example of community theory is found in the American political and social
foundation, which is grounded in positive and negative freedoms and how the individual is
defined (Knight-Abowitz, 2000, p. 8). These political theories and America’s diverse history
feed current debates emphasizing whether the community or the individual should be the
defining character in the “democratic state” (Knight-Abowitz, 2000, p. 8). America’s heritage,
as described by Knight-Abowitz (2000), created the current tensions of communitarian and
liberal philosophies.7 Wars against totalitarian regimes, and sociopolitical movements, such as
the civil rights movement, lent credibility to liberal philosophical “themes of universal, natural,
and individual rights” (Knight-Abowitz, 2000, p. 37). Communitarian reformers, however, seek
to make public spaces, such as schools and townships, “less liberal, with greater moral depth”
and seek more “moral coherence in the midst of a confused cultural context” (Knight-Abowitz,
2000, p. 49). Knight-Abowitz (2000) explained that “themes of decentralization, local
governance, community, caring, and high moral and intellectual standards” (p. 49) can be linked
to communitarian reformers. Communitarianism is a driving factor for community-based
programming to connect individuals together.
To look at the definition of community from our 21st century vantage point, it appears as
an often-used term that begins to lose its original meanings in order to take on tributary meanings
of different intents. For this study, the focus is not on community as an organizing or functional
concept, but as a phenomenon that occurs within certain conditions creating a freedom space in
which individuals can connect to one another through their pursuit of shared goods (Buber, 1975;
Bedford, 1972; Dewey, 1927; Greene, 1995; Lave & Wenger, 1991; E. Turner, 2012; V. Turner,
1969). For this reason, pragmatist and existentialist definitions of community serve to frame
Greene’s (1995) existential view of community creation through aesthetic experiences. Victor
7 The philosophical terms of liberal and communitarian are distinct from the current popular political terms.
Philosophical liberalism is defined by Knight-Abowitz (2000) as a theoretical commitment to extensive individual
liberties. Philosophical communitarianism is defined by Knight-Abowitz (2000) as a philosophy in which
individuals can be understood first as community members reflecting their traditions, belief systems, and roles.
33
and Edith Turner’s (1969, 2012) phenomenon of communitas creates a conceptual understanding
of the effect of community connection.
A Definition Imbued with Pragmatism
Pragmatism is an American philosophical movement that formed during the late 19th
century and took hold at the beginning of the 20th century. For John Dewey, the father of
pragmatism, a community required neither a “common belief system among participants, nor
specific traditions of community, nor unchanging norms that provided stability at the expense of
growth” (Knight-Abowitz, 2000, p. 14). Instead, Dewey (1927) avowed:
Wherever there is conjoint activity whose consequences are appreciated as good
by all singular persons who take part in it, and where the realization of the good is
such as to affect an energetic desire and effort to sustain it in being just because it
is a good shared by all, there is in so far a community. (p. 149)
For Dewey (1927), a “clear consciousness of a communal life” (p. 149) constitutes the
idea of democracy. Dewey (1927) claimed communal life is moral and sustained emotionally,
intellectually, and consciously. It is the singularity of a group, or a group function, only when
the consequences of combined action are perceived and become an object of desire and effort.
Joint participation in group activities and the results of those activities are communal concerns,
which demand communication as a prerequisite. The “signs and symbols” (Dewey, 1927, p.
152) of the communal activity created by artists, musicians, writers, dancers, and actors aid the
communication both within and without the community. What becomes important is the
perfection of how the group communicates its ways and meanings. A genuinely “shared interest
in the consequences of interdependent activities may inform desire and effort, thereby direct[ing]
action” (Dewey, 1927, p. 155).
Knight-Abowitz (2000) clearly defined “pragmatic communities” as “characterized by
what is held in common and by how change is understood through communicative processes of
conflict” (p. 14). In other words, community is defined by how it functions, not by how the
members define themselves. For pragmatists, community is created and maintained through the
process of communication emphasizing growth, participation, difference, and problem solving.
Classical pragmatists consider pluralism in communities as contributing to “growth of human
beings and their social groupings” (Knight-Abowitz, 1999, p. 152).
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Following Dewey (1927), liberty is the fulfillment of individual potential enacted within
communal relations (p. 150). There is power in making a distinct contribution as an
individualized self that results in enjoyment of the effects of communal association. The
uninhibited sharing of each member’s contribution to the community leads to equality within that
community and is a direct result of associated action. Dewey (1927) described this as an
effective regard in equality for the distinct and unique within individuals, “irrespective of
physical and psychological inequalities” (p. 151). Equality and respect for the unique individual
within a community was regarded by Dewey (1927) as the “fruit of community” when the
character of the community directs the group’s action (p. 151). Pragmatist community theory
creates a framework for Greene’s (1995) description of community creation within aesthetic
experience. It is a community that contributes to the pursuit of shared goods, such as “ways of
being together” and of “reaching some common world they value mutually” (Greene, 1995, p.
39).
A Definition Imbued with Existentialism
Martin Buber’s (1975) view of community is born from the existential “crisis of humans”
(p. 157) in the 20th century. His view relates to pragmatism because Dewey and Buber argue for
equality, communication, and individuality within the community to promote a richer democratic
life. Buber, according to Mitchell Bedford (1972), believed humans have become “problematic
to themselves” (p. 105). In order to “rise above the problem, [humans] must learn to live
forcefully” (Buber, as cited in Bedford, 1972, p. 105). The crisis Buber described is interpreted
by Bedford (1972) as an “eclipsing of human relations with the eternal Thou” (p. 108), or God,
during the 20th century. Humans no longer have trust in God, which results in an inability to
open themselves up to their neighbors. Buber (as cited in Bedford, 1972) challenged humans to
return to trust and called for humans to develop a “feeling of fraternity, dialogue, and familial
existence” (p. 107) with each other. Bedford (1972) illustrated Buber’s crisis as happening in
our age of great industrialization when humans struggle to negotiate the mechanisms of
industrial society (p. 95). Buber (as cited in Bedford, 1972) believed “institutions outside of
humans are indifferent to human concerns” (p. 95).
Buber’s (1975) answer is for humans to have contact with each other and live a full life.
For Buber (1975), living a full life means humans must take the risk of coming together in
35
unified ways (pp. 93 & 106). Trust in each other, the universe, and others’ existence allows for
full fraternal lives. Only then can humans “develop feelings of interested concern with life as it
exists around them” (Bedford, 1972, p. 107). Interested concern in others is known as solicitude
and solicitude will support humans’ entrance into fraternity with their neighbors. Solicitude
comes from “essential, direct, whole relations between humans,” whether through family or
through choice, and can either “assume objective, institutional forms like friendship or can touch
the depth of existence” (Bedford, 1972, p. 110). Firmly rooted in the intimacy of fraternity and
trust, humans can enter into dialogue with their neighbors and “discover the Thou” (Bedford,
1972, p. 107) in their neighbors. In that way, they can embrace the “central Thou” and, in turn,
the world (Bedford, 1972, p. 107). Humans “experience human truth” devoted to God’s truth,
which must “involve the community” (Bedford, 1972, pp. 106-107).
Buber (1975) maintained that the aim of the group and its future accomplishments are the
most important attributes defining community. The comradeship that develops in the work for
the community aim empowers the group and strengthens its power toward that aim (p. 30). In
community, individuals are no longer “side by side but with one another, of a multitude of
persons” (Buber, 1975, p. 31, emphasis in original). As the community moves toward its aim,
the individuals experience a “turning to the ‘other,’” or a flow from “I to Thou” (Buber, 1975, p.
31). “Achievements of the group are considered auxiliary” compared to any effect that changes
the core of the community, enlightening Buber’s (1975) statement that, “community is where
community happens” (p. 30).
Bedford (1972) illustrated Buber’s definition of “community as an organized group of
individuals who respect one another and try to be close like brothers and sisters” (p. 96). The
community of individuals is necessary. “It is a fellowship in which all receive common
teaching, know the security of law and order, and are able to live at peace with fellow humans”
(Bedford, 1972, p. 96). A collectivity is the counterpart to community and occurs when those
involved lose sight of the aims. Buber (1975) described a collectivity as a “bundling together”
not a “binding together” (p. 31). Buber (1975) concluded: “The self is removed in the collection.
Dialogue and monologue are both silenced in the collective” (p. 32).
Buber’s (1975) definition of community is imbued with the existential idea of human
responsibility. It defines a response to the social and political phenomenon of the 20th century.
Contemporary communitarianism influences Buber’s definition of community, yet pragmatism
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shines through in the balance of the individual connecting to another individual to work together
for a unified goal. It further compliments Greene’s (1995) claim that aesthetic encounters
provide opportunity for individuals to seek connection points with personal stories objectified in
artistic media. The next definition of community serves as an example of the theories that Dewey
(1927) and Buber (1975) have issued forth. It further illustrates the layering effect that these
definitions have together as each one influences the other and all strive to respond to the spaces
that are present in current publics.
A Definition of Communities of Practice
Human relations with one another and human care for one another will allow for
existential connections to happen when individuals work toward a unified goal. In our 21st
century, we see groups of people relating to each other out of forced, institutional arrangements
created by contracts. Lave & Wenger (1991) and Wenger (2004) called these groups
communities of practice, which grow naturally among people who engage with each other.
Neither difference, nor homogeneity, nor geographic location is reason for membership (Wenger,
2004, p. 74). The characteristic of a community of practice and its source of coherence of
community are mutual engagement of the participants, accountability to the joint enterprises of
the community, and a negotiability of the shared repertoire of the practice (Wenger, 2004, p. 72).
In essence, the goals of the community work characterize it as a community.
Wenger’s (2004) theory is not just a theory of community, but a “theory of social
learning” within the platform of the defined goals of the community (p. 11). His “theory of
social learning” is based on various social theories such as Symbolic Interactionism from Herbart
Blumer and inspired by G. H. Mead. In order to address various disciplines of practitioners and
theoreticians with his theory, Wenger (2004) has drawn from large body of theories and
disciplines (p. 11). He has drawn on “theories of situatedness from the disciplines of philosophy,
psychology, education, and sociology” (Wenger, 2004, p. 281). He referred to concerns with
“issues of practice” using knowledge from Marx, Lave, Bourdieu, Habermas, Latour, Orr, Star,
Vygotsky, Willis, and Wittgenstien, and “issues of identity” from Strauss, Giddens, Eckert,
Linde, and Sullivan to name a few (2004, p. 282). For Wenger (2004), a “social theory of
learning” is not exclusively an academic enterprise, but can “inform daily actions, policies, and
the technical and organizational systems of education that humans design” (p. 11). It is
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important to consider how “shared cultural systems of meaning” and “political-economic
structuring” are interrelated as they help constitute learning in communities of practice (Lave &
Wenger, 1991, p. 54).
Mutual Engagement of Participants in Communities of Practice.
Communities of practice organically occur among participants who share space, goals,
and projects (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Lesser, Fontaine, & Slusher, 2000; Stoecker, 2012;
Wenger, 2004). As humans, our experience and engagement in the world must be considered
meaningful (Wenger, 2004, p. 51). Our everyday lives have “patterns” (Wenger, 2004, p. 52) of
practice in which we engage and we repeatedly reproduce. In the reproduction of those patterns,
we create meanings that “negotiate anew” the histories of the meanings of those practices
(Wenger, 2004, p. 52). Wenger (2004) indicated meaning is not produced unless one participates
in the world and participation garners recognition of ourselves in the other with whom we
address (p. 55). What is recognized “has to do with our mutual ability to negotiate meaning”
(Wenger, 2004, p. 55). Practice, then, is about meaning as an experience of everyday life.
Negotiation of meaning and participation happen within a process that also involves
reification. Reification means to treat an abstraction, such as democratic practice, as a concrete
material object, such as democracy (Wenger, 2004, p. 58). It gives “form to experiences by
producing objects that congeal the experience” (Wenger, 2004, p. 58). Wenger (2004) suggested
that in “participation we recognize ourselves” in each other, and in “reification, we project
ourselves” toward each other (Wenger, 2004, p. 58). It is in those projections that we attribute
meanings to an independent existence. In other words, in the process of reification,
understanding evolves into form that then “becomes a focus for the negotiation of meaning”
(Wenger, 2004, p. 59) as people use it.
Mutual engagement in a community of practice is possible and is productive because of
both “diversity and homogeneity” within the membership (Wenger, 2004, p. 75). As this
“medley of people” become engaged mutually in their practice, “each person in the community
of practice finds a unique place and gains a unique identity,” further integrating and defining “the
course of engagement” (Wenger, 2004, p. 76). Wenger (2004) acknowledged that mutual
engagement creates relationships among members and connects participants in deeper ways than
mere abstract similarities in terms of personal features or social categories (p. 77). These deeper
38
ways become “tight nodes” of interrelationships resulting from mutual engagement toward a
joint aim and not out of an idealized definition of community created by connecting participants
to each other in categorical ways that are diverse and complex (Wenger, 2004, p. 77).
Accountability to the Joint Enterprises of the Community of Practice.
The second characteristic of practice as a source of community coherence is the
“negotiation of a joint enterprise” (Wenger, 2004, p. 77). The complex mutual engagement of
the practice requires negotiation among members. The joint enterprise results from that
negotiation. Therefore, the enterprise belongs to the members and creates relations of mutual
accountability among the participants (Wenger, 2004, p. 77).
Communities of practice are entities within larger contexts of history, social or cultural
settings, or institutions. These larger entities have specific resources and constraints.
Oftentimes, the community of practice is profoundly shaped by conditions outside of the control
of its members. Even so, “day to day reality is produced by the participants within the resources
and constraints of their situations” (Wenger, 2004, p. 79). Wenger (2004) explained that the
negotiation of a joint enterprise among group members creates relationships of mutual
accountability among the participants (p. 81). “What matters and what does not matter” (p. 81)
plays a central role in defining the circumstances under which members feel concerned or not
concerned about what they are doing and what is happening around them.
A Negotiation of the Shared Repertoire of the Community of Practice.
The development of a shared repertoire is the third way that a community of practice
maintains its composition. A shared repertoire is a collection of resources created for negotiating
meaning in the “joint pursuit of an enterprise” (Wenger, 2004, p. 82). The repertoire could
include routines, words, tools, ways of doing things, stories, gestures, symbols, or concepts that
the community produces or adopts during its existence and are now part of the practice. This
repertoire, as a resource for the negotiation of meaning, is “shared in a dynamic and interactive
way as mental objects or models that require members to agree on their meanings” (Wenger,
2004, p. 84). The mental objects or models are not just solvable problems. Rather, they are
“occasions for the production of new meanings” (Wenger, 2004, p. 84).
39
What is important to remember about communities of practice is that they have a “shared
history of learning” (Wenger, 2004, p. 87) that organically adapts and reinvents itself.
Consequently, they cannot be defined by the function of the community alone. The goal of the
practice, instead, defines the community as an “emergent structure” that is “produced by its
members through the negotiation of meaning” (Wenger, 2004, p. 96). The negotiation is an
“open process” making it “highly perturbable” and “highly resilient” (Wenger, 2004, p. 96). Its
existence is not dependent on fixed members, such as a community defined only by its members’
attributes, but grows with the arrival of new generations of members who the older members
must train (Wenger, 2004, p. 99). The new members are accepted from a legitimatized position
on the periphery moving toward the center (Wenger, 2004, p. 100; Lave & Wenger, 1991). This
movement of discontinuity and continuity manifests in boundaries in the social landscape
requiring maintenance, relations, objects, and brokering (Wenger, 2004, pp. 106-114).
The Final Value: A Transformed Definition
The previous literature reviewed gives light to how the definition of community can
evolve with the different time periods and socio-political emphasis. Perhaps the definition for
community is not categorically in the operands of the creation, function, or goals, but in the
production of the final value. This is seen in communities of practice where a flow and
connection occurs among practitioners who share space, goals, and projects (Lave & Wenger,
1991; Lesser, Fontaine, & Slusher, 2000; Stoecker, 2012; Wenger, 2004). The husband and wife
team of anthropologists, Edith and Victor Turner, speak of an existential phenomenon of
community that they call “communitas.” E. Turner (2012) defined communitas as a “sense that
happens unexpectedly when a group of people’s life together takes on full meaning” (p. 1). E.
Turner (2012) explained that stories work best to convey the idea that communitas is a “sense” or
a feeling undergone by many people during an experience without the boundaries of social
structures (p 1). E. Turner (2012) explained:
Communitas occurs through the readiness of people…to rid themselves of their
concern for the status and dependence on structures… It comes in the direct
moments of life of a person or a society…Communitas is a group’s pleasure in
sharing common experiences with one’s fellows. (E. Turner, 2012, p. 2).
40
One could say that communitas is an effect of the previous definitions of community melding
together.
V. Turner (1969) discovered a “connection between the experience of communitas and
the rites of passage,” which are “moments of change freed from regular structures of life” (as
cited in E. Turner, 2012, p. 2 and in V. Turner, 1969, p. 96). Per E. Turner (2012), V. Turner
(1969) realized that “the sense of joy and the unaccommodated human being may be linked with
the sense of community Martin Buber rediscovered in the 1940s with his ‘I-Thou’ and ‘I-We’
theory” (p. 2). Linking the joy of communitas with the existential relational theory of Buber
(1958) described a relationship as always “happening” (V. Turner, 1969, p. 136). It is something
arising in “instant mutuality, when each person fully experiences the being of the other” (V.
Turner, 1969, p. 136). Inspiration also came from touches of Karl Marx’s social idealism in the
age of capitalism and Mikhail Bakhtin, from communist Russia, and his understanding of the
joys of the people linked to their festivals and clowns (E. Turner, 2012, p. 2).
V. Turner (1969) maintained that “in order to live, to breathe, and to create novelty,
human beings have had to create—by structural means—spaces and times in the calendar or
cultural cycles” for liminal8 areas of time and space that open to the play of “thought, feeling,
and will” (p. vii). This “anti-structural liminality” established a foundation of ritual and aesthetic
forms that represent a reflexive step in a social process. In such cases, society becomes both the
subject and the direct object (V. Turner, 1969, p. vii). V. Turner (1969) explained this as an
“existential bending back” upon society’s self, making “the same plural subject” the agent of
social analysis of who and what society is (p. vii). Society’s “substance is in the reflexivity” (V.
Turner, 1969, p. vii).
V. Turner (1969), inspired by his field work with native groups, used rites of passage to
understand the liminal state and communitas, the Latin term for community (p. 94). V. Turner
(1969) distinguished this modality of social relationship from a mere definition of an “area of
communal living” (p. 96). Communitas, instead, is a “liminal phenomenon that offers a blend of
lowliness and sacredness, of homogeneity and comradeship. It is present in rites and ritual with
a moment in and out of time and in and out of secular social structure” (V. Turner, 1969, p. 96).
One of the three states of ritual, the liminal period, creates a situation where “the characteristics
of the subject are ambiguous” (V. Turner, 1969, p. 94). V. Turner (1969) clarified: “Liminal
8 Limen is Latin for door frame. Used in this way, liminal represents a passageway between space and time.
41
entities are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and
arrayed by law, custom, convention, ceremony” (p. 95). Liminal beings may be represented as
“possessing nothing or having no status, property, insignia, or rank in the system” (V. Turner,
1969, p. 95). E. Turner (2012) explained that liminality is a state in which individuals go
through a change resulting in a condition that gives way to communitas (p. 4). V. Turner saw
liminality as a phase in social life in which this confrontation between “activity which has no
structure” and its “structured results” produces in humans their greatest moments of
understanding of who they are (E. Turner, 2012, p. 5).
Marjorie Wilson (1977) viewed the art room as a freedom space, a limen, where structure
dissolves allowing communitas to flourish among the educator and learners. Connections were
made, and newcomers were welcomed to the liminal space of the art room and the community
within it. To view the art room in this way, Wilson (1977) applied the “anthropological notion of
structure and antistructure” to the art room and the “social modality of communitas found within
transitional groups in rites of passage” (p. 2) to the community within the art room. She studied
the phenomenon of communitas as it affected students in the “single, anti-structural setting of the
art room” and the “enculturation into the world of art” as a rite of passage through communitas
(Wilson, 1977, p. 2). Wilson’s (1977) main contribution of her study is the “awareness of the
substantial role that anti-structural dimensions of education play in their educative value”
(Wilson, 1977, p. 177).
Liminality, marginality, and structural inferiority are conditions that generate myths,
symbols, rituals, philosophical systems, and works of art (V. Turner, 1969, p. 128). These
cultural forms are “reclassifications of reality” and of the “human relationship to society, nature,
and culture,” (Wilson, 1977, p. 128). These cultural forms incite humans to action as well as
thought. Each of these productions has many meanings, and each holds the potential to move
people at psychobiological levels simultaneously (V. Turner, 1969, p. 129). Relations between
humans “generate symbols, metaphor, and comparison” creating art and religion as their
products instead of legal and political structures (V. Turner, 1969, p. 127). V. Turner (1969)
asserted prophets and artists tend to be liminal and marginal people who strive with a passionate
sincerity “to rid themselves of the cliché’s associated with status incumbency and role-playing”
(p. 127). They enter vital relations with other humans in fact or in imagination.
42
Tension occurs where the “immediacy of communitas gives way to the immediacy of
structure” during rites of passage or aesthetic experiences (V. Turner, 1969, p. 129). Humans are
released from structure into communitas only to return to structure revitalized by their
experience in communitas. Communitas is different than Emile Durkheim’s solidarity, the force
of which depends on an “in-group and an out-group” (p. 132). Instead, it is “solidarity of open
morality” whose “spontaneity and immediacy” is in direct contrast to the political character of
structure and not often sustained (V. Turner, 1969, p. 132).
Despite its anti-structural state of free relationships, communitas encultures norm-
governed relationships between social personas resulting in three types of communitas. The first
type is existential or spontaneous communitas. This is known as a “happening” or a “winged
moment as it flies” (William Blake as cited in V. Turner, 1969, p. 132). The second type is
normative communitas, which is where the existential communitas is organized, over time, into a
lasting social system. Normative communitas arises from the need “to mobilize and organize
resources” (V. Turner, 1969, p. 132). Social control among the members of the group pursuing
this goal becomes necessary. The third type is ideological communitas, which is “an attempt to
describe the external and visible effect of an inward experience of existential communitas and to
lay out the optimal social conditions under which such experiences might be expected to flourish
and multiply” (V. Turner, 1969, p. 132). One must realize that normative and ideological
communitas are “within the domain of structure, and it is the fate of all spontaneous communitas
to undergo what most people see as a ‘decline and fall’ into structure and law” (V. Turner, 1969,
p. 132). In normative communitas, rules abolish structural differentiation. Rules are found in
domains of kinship, economies, and political structure. They serve to “liberate the human
structural propensity and give it free reign in the cultural realm of myth, ritual, and (artistic)
symbol” (V. Turner, 1969, p. 133).
V. Turner (1969) offered a warning in stating it is the “great human temptation, found
most prominently among utopians,” (p. 139) to resist giving up the good and pleasurable
qualities of that liminal phase of communitas. It is hard to make way for what may be the
necessary hardships and dangers of the next phase. “Spontaneous communitas is richly charged
with effects,” (V. Turner, 1969, p. 139) mainly pleasurable ones. V. Turner (1969) explained life
in “structure” is filled with objective difficulties such as decision making, sacrifices, and
“physical and social obstacles to be overcome at some personal costs” (p. 139). A magical
43
quality exists with spontaneous communitas. V. Turner (1969) claimed that subjectively, there is
a feeling of “endless power,” (p. 139). If left alone, this power cannot be applied so easily to the
structure of our social existence. Our actions within our structure, per V. Turner (1969),
“becomes arid and mechanical if those involved in it are not periodically immersed in the
regeneration of communitas” (p. 139). Wisdom, however, is understanding the right balance
between structure and communitas under certain conditions without clinging to “one modality
when its time is spent” (V. Turner, 1969, p. 139).
The Arts Experience Leading to Community
The aesthetic nature of the arts enables them to be the catalyst of community formation in
the formal classroom and in the informal spaces beyond the classroom walls (Dewhurst, 2011;
Duncum, 2011; Hoffman-Davis, 2010; Law, 2012; National Endowment for the Arts, 2012;
Serig, 2010). The arts allow for a freedom to pursue aims of dialogue, interaction, relationship
building, difference, and community action. Aesthetic experiences work to break down the
obstacles and create liminal spaces in which communitas can flourish. These experiences allow
individuals to create the kinds of communities “that are in fact and in deed microcosms of the
kind of world we want…to build” (Delacruz, 2009, p. 43).
The literature in this section points to the benefits of utilizing arts events and
programming in the development of positive community formation. Some of the studies took
place within the formal classroom to create community there. Often the community within the
classroom affected and created community beyond the classroom and within the larger school.
Other studies examined how the classroom or school community affected the neighborhood
surrounding the school and other institutions that interacted with the school. Yet, other studies
took place away from school grounds within the public space of a township, village, or city
itself. Initially, I will examine how the aesthetic experiences affected the classroom community
and then I will analyze how art experiences created community outside of the school walls.
Aesthetic Experience and the Classroom Community
In the empirical literature that will be reviewed, community was created in various ways,
but most studies centered community creation on the making of a final aesthetic product. Art
creation is a unique, human behavior to make something “special” that arouses our senses and
intrigues our intellect. In many instances, the smaller art class gathered together to analyze an
44
issue, create a product, and present it to the larger community (Asher, 2009; Biagi, 2001; Buda,
Fedorenko, & Sheridan, 2012; Chung & Ortiz, 2011; Hutzel, 2007; Krensky, 2001; Law, 2012;
Washington, 2011). The smaller community of the art class was the sole focus of several
ethnographic and empirical studies (Cummings, 2012; Herrman, 2005; Medina, 2009) where
motivating individuals by creating a supportive and loving community for them was imperative
before any effect on the larger population beyond the classroom could be considered. Self-
esteem (Boyes & Reid, 2005; Campana, 2011; Cummings, 2012; Green, 2010), self-awareness,
and social awareness (Bains & Mesa-Bains, 2002; Chappell & Cahnmann-Taylor, 2013;
Dewhurst, 2011; Law, 2012; Norman, 2009) were indicators of the success of the creation of a
smaller, classroom community.
Self-esteem and motivation in the artistic classroom community.
Self -esteem and motivation were the results of many of the studies of classroom
community creation. Group work activities encouraged communication between individuals and
were the predominate activities that created community. Supportive comments along with “non-
rational actions of caring” (Cummings, 2012, p. 21) from the teachers helped students to feel
comfortable. Cummings (2012) found that when “teachers responded to students’ emotional and
physical needs,” students were more willing “to engage and be motivated in the classroom
experience” (p. 21). Students were motivated by teachers who demonstrated warmth and
openness, encouraged student participation, and were enthusiastic, friendly and helpful. In
Green’s (2010) article, an apprenticeship between artist and student was a model that led to three
characteristics of confidence, proficiency, and professionalism. Biagi (2001) found that creating
a sacred space with the establishment of an art gallery in the school increased self-esteem,
motivation, and appreciation for others.
Several studies cite the ability of arts creation to have the power to reach students who
are struggling in other areas, such as social skills or academics (Biagi, 2001; Chappell, 2006;
Green, 2012). The arts have great potential to reach students who are disengaged from
school. Those students are “the ones who are at the highest risk of failure” (Biagi, 2001, p. 417).
Boyes and Reid (2005) found in their literature review that students who created artwork in one
control group “exhibited better attitudes toward one another” than those who did not create
artwork in the non-control group (p. 2). The conclusion was that “arts creation gives vent to
45
creative urges, brings self-esteem and an improved self-concept, and breaks down students’
inhibitions” (Boyes & Reid, 2005, p. 2).
Self-awareness in the artistic classroom community.
The studies reviewed demonstrated the elements of community, which entail “a sense of
self-awareness through individual and group identity and belonging” (Dewhurst, 2011, p. 2). The
way in which a subject is presented to a group and the process of the creation is a catalyst for arts
students to reflect on their own feelings and view the community around them in another
way. Both Biagi (2001) and Washington (2011) based their research on the performance of the
artistic creation and the final presentation itself. Washington found that consciously created,
performance-based art gave refugee students agency. The students compared and contrasted their
history with the academic knowledge they learned in school (Washington, 2011). Biagi (2001)
recorded student reactions to the creation of a gallery in the school that eventually impacted the
school’s community and the surrounding neighborhood community. Students were proud of
their work and their peers’ work on display. The gallery “promoted a caring, appreciative, and
respectful environment” (Biagi, 2001). By reaching beyond the pre-existing curriculum,
Washington (2011) and Biagi (2001) created new possibilities for interaction involving learners
and educators as critical citizens aware of themselves in relation to community issues and
concerns. “When art is done for the sake of community building, art learning must adopt an
emphasis on the development of relationships, social structuring, and culture, not object-making”
(Washington, 2011, p. 266).
Social Awareness in the artistic classroom community.
Many studies focused on the creative experience of emotion, empathy, ambiguity of
interpretation, and respect for multiple points of view. The arts-based experiences in these
studies illuminated visions of better futures and allowed students’ critical consciousness to be
flexible resulting in broad connections between individual experiences and social issues of the
larger social system.
Art education aims must embrace notions of a citizenry that is creative, caring and
connected and one that is imaginative, informed, and engaged with others toward our
46
mutual goals of building the kinds of worlds we ourselves wish to inhabit. (Delacruz,
2009, p. 13)
Several case studies utilized service learning with other classroom communities to
develop empathy within the primary focus group, where the action of the artistic process was
emphasized more that the final product (Bains & Mesa-Baines, 2002; Law, 2012; Prettyman &
Gargarella, 2006; Washington, 2011). For example, Law’s (2012) study of students at Lingnan
University in Hong Kong and Bains and Mesa-Bains (2002) work at California State
University’s Reciprocal University took the perspective of training student leaders to create
strong classroom communities with various groups of people. In Law’s (2012) studies, the
student participants, who were trained to create tailor-made art activities for their clients with
disabilities, were impacted as much as the clients. With Law’s South Asian group, the
performance art activities helped the clients, or children, overcome their shyness and talk about
their own nations (Law, 2012, p. 71).
Bonds were created between the student educators and the clients through the process of
dialogue, active experience, and critical consciousness engendering social awareness. The bonds
created by the joint art activities at the Reciprocal University in California created lasting
friendships between the university students and the minoritized youth in the university
classroom. The connections influenced the minoritized youth to see themselves and their
neighborhood community with positive potential. Collaborative efforts, as seen in the arts, are
“logical and effective means of creating social awareness contributing to innovative models of
action” (Delacruz, 2009, p. 13). Formal and informal arts educators can have the curricular
freedom to create conditions in the classroom that may lead to more caring societies by giving
prominence and time to conversations that matter and by forming partnerships that facilitate
public work. The learners gain a sense of pride and self-motivation by recognizing the
importance of an individual’s contribution to a larger project which results in social
awareness. In many of the studies, the development of a community in the classroom helped
learners develop a greater appreciation and understanding of their roles within the classroom and
the larger school community (Asher, 2009; Cummings, 2012; Hutzel, 2007; Krensky, 2001).
Community-Based Arts Education
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The studies within this part of the literature review take place outside of the school walls
and fall under the heading of Community-Based Art Education (CBAE). CBAE is a guiding
framework for informal art education and experiences that take place beyond the school walls.
CBAE incorporates art education practices that are “sensitive to possible relationships cultivated
between the arts and regional communities” (Bastos, 2002). These programs broaden
participants’ understandings of the arts and education, while also cultivating positive attitudes
toward informal learning through engagement with various community and cultural resources.
CBAE bridges the gap between understandings of arts in different regional communities. It
holds the “potential to empower participants when outreach merges with unique needs and
resources of an aesthetic community” (Eckhoff, 2011, p. 256).
Community art centers that focus on education first emerged in the United States at the
turn of the century, primarily in settlement houses, where their purpose was to assist new
immigrant populations in the acquisition of marketable skills (Hoffman-Davis, 2010; Longo,
2007). The inception of the Village Improvement Movement in 1893, the City Beautiful
Movement in 1893, the Outdoor Art Movement in 1899, the Community Theatre Movement in
1915, the Cooperative Extension Service in 1937, the Works Progress Administration in 1933,
and the Comprehensive Employment Training Act in 1970 all serve as historic examples of
Community-Based Art Projects (Congdon, Blandy, & Bolin, 2001). The tradition of skill-based
arts learning continued with arts centers expanding their offerings in urban settings while
“maintaining their dedication to public service” (Congdon, Blandy, & Bolin, 2001).
In the late 1960s, artists created centers for learning in response to cutbacks in arts
education in the schools and social trends that threatened the well-being of youth. The Artists’
Collective in Hartford was founded in 1970 to offer the arts as “an alternative to gang life and
drugs” (Hoffman-Davis, 2010). New York City established community arts centers as
extensions to the schools damaged by the removal of arts education. History illustrates “a range
of community-based initiatives that are examples of explicit arts learning and are examples of
implicit civic responsibility” (Hoffman-Davis, 2010). Community arts settings are those
“informal and formal enclaves in which people assemble, work, and act together” for a variety of
political, cultural, economic, and educational purposes, ultimately directed toward debating and
creating the common good through aesthetic projects (Congdon, Blandy, & Bolin, 2001).
48
Community art centers are places where individuals come specifically to study the arts.
The goals of these art centers prioritize personal and interpersonal development, arts skill
building, pre-professional training, cultural and intercultural awareness, and a commitment to
community service and development (Hoffman-Davis, 2010). These goals are measured by
“self-sustaining outcomes” such as “community interest, community support, student attendance,
and student performance” (Hoffman-Davis, 2010). The centers offer “sustained arts instruction”
that sequentially progresses and is assessed in relation to the individual’s developing skills
(Hoffman-Davis, 2010).
The Classroom Community and the Neighborhood Community
Researchers have indicated that the larger, neighborhood community beyond the
classroom can also be impacted by the arts and community based art education. The larger
community consists of social groups beyond the classroom setting, which are largely defined by
location and space. Some studies addressed the larger community as other classes within the
school, other schools, or the neighborhood surrounding the school (Asher, 2009; Bains & Mesa-
Bains, 2002; Biagi 2001; Campbell, 2001; Chung & Ortiz, 2011; Krensky, 2001). Yet others
referred to community as institutions within the school vicinity or in a neighborhood, such as
businesses, townships, park districts, community youth groups, artist studios, art museums,
universities, or travelling art groups (Bains & Mesa-Bains, 2002; Green, 2010; Hoffman-Davis,
2010; Norman, 2009; Serig & Hinojosa, 2010; Spilka & Long, 2009).
In several studies, the classroom was taken out of the school and into the neighborhood to
respond to the needs of the surrounding neighborhood community (Asher, 2012; Buda,
Fedorenko, & Sheridan, 2012; Hutzel, 2007, Krensky, 2001). This style of community-based art
education creates change and “empowers participants to deconstruct single voices of authority
through critical practice” (Hutzel, 2007). In these studies, the students selected local social
issues to address through research. Art work was envisioned and created as the solution. The
curriculum for the learners was co-created and conducted with peers, parents, professionals,
specialists, and community members. It was based on local issues that held congruent goals to
both the school and the residential community. These studies argued that the arts provide a
powerful way for young people to explore and affect social issues in their immediate
49
neighborhoods. The arts can make a free space in which young people can “envision
possibilities for themselves” and their community (Krensky, 2001).
Studies by Asher (2012), Buda, Fedorenko, and Sheridan (2012), Hutzel (2007), and
Song and Gammel (2011) centered on community needs and issues of place. The results were
increased student awareness of social issues, increased classroom community support of one
another, and an increased sense of agency within the neighborhood community. Using artists-in-
residence, service learning, and integrated curriculums, the learners transitioned from novices to
experts as knowledge grew out of active participation with interest-based groups (Buda,
Fedorenko, & Sheridan, 2012). One study focused on puppetry that brought social issues to the
community’s attention in a positive way (Asher, 2009). In the study relayed by Buda,
Fedorenko, and Sheridan (2012), the issue of farmland evolving into suburban neighborhoods
was most pressing. The result was a plan that the students presented to the city council to
reconfigure the park that existed behind the school, in an effort to preserve history. Hutzel
(2007) found that her participants were empowered to make change in their community through
their asset-based research. The learners transformed a run-down park into a playground area in
their west end, Cincinnati neighborhood using two large murals (Hutzel, 2007, p. 312). In Song
and Gammel’s (2011) study of the Mystic River mural project, leadership skills and participation
skills were increased as participants researched, collaborated, problem-solved, and created an
ecological mural that played an important role in connecting the participants with the local
community and the community with the local river (Song & Gammel, 2011).
Aesthetic Experience in Public Spaces
Public events can connect individuals within public spaces. The studies reviewed
(Chung & Ortiz, 2011; Jeanneret & Brown, 2012; Magsamen, 2001) examined arts events that
were created from needs within the neighborhood or city community that directly impacted those
publics. The general public is usually not the target of arts-based advocacies and is unaware of
the ability for the arts to create connections among individuals (Chung & Ortiz, 2011). In these
studies, the general public experienced arts advocacy and social connectedness by facilitating
interaction between people with shared interests in the arts. Both social connectedness and
cultural citizenship were created with relationship building as the cornerstone of community
development and well-being (Jeanneret & Brown, 2012).
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These events noted in the literature have several names such as Via Calori, The Ultimate
Block Party, Mind in the Making, Kaboom, and ArtPlay (Chung & Ortiz, 2011; Jeanneret &
Brown, 2012; Magsamen, 2001). Participatory public art events like Via Calori and ArtPlay can
enhance the local opportunities for communities who choose to use the arts for relationship
building and community learning opportunities. Via Calori is a street art festival where the artists
may rent a space on which to create a large pastel piece of artwork. ArtPlay is a public arts
space located on the river in the city of Melbourne that caters to children through workshops
with musicians from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Both community-based arts education
programs engage students, artists, teachers, and parents by increasing the visibility and perceived
value of arts education in the public domain (Chung & Ortiz, 2011; Jeanneret & Brown, 2010).
The event gives the social recognition of the participants and showcases the practical
contribution of art to a particular place. The experience can strengthen the community ties by
creating a “cycle of benefits” (Chung & Ortiz, 2011, p. 51). As stated by a student who
participated in Via Calori, “Businesses gain recognition. Charities gain needed money. Artists
gain a creative outlet for ideas and expression and the community builds its culture and
enrichment” (Chung & Ortiz, 2011, p. 51).
Community Arts Partners: Collaborations with Community Institutions
Educational opportunities for students are extended when collaborations with institutions
are already established by the local public. These collaborations, or partnerships, were cited to
positively transform schools (Bains & Mesa-Bains, 2002; Campbell, 2001; Eckhoff, 2011;
Hoffman-Davis, 2010; Phinney, Moody, & Small, 2014). Eight of the studies in the literature
involved classrooms or whole school collaboration with an outside community institution. In all
the studies, the lack of funding for the arts and the multi-racial populations served as catalyst for
connecting to these established entities (Bains & Mesa-Bains, 2002; Campbell, 2001; Krensky,
2001; Prettyman & Garagarella, 2006; Norman, 2009; Serig & Hinojosa, 2010; Spilka & Long,
2009). Despite lack of funding, the reasons to continue arts education were: 1.) the importance of
the arts as a communication tool, 2.) the need for democratic practices, and 3.) the arts’ benefit to
overall academic achievement. Results of these collaborations indicated improvement in the
schools, the quality of the learning in the arts, the overall performance of the students, affective
curricula, and professional development for teachers, community leaders, and artists (Campbell,
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2001; Prettyman & Gargarella, 2006; Krensky, 2001). The community institutions and their
programs provide physical and emotional space where learners could come together and
recognize the power of community and collaboration in their lives (Prettyman & Gargarella,
2006).
Four contributing factors lead to the success of arts education through community based
institutions (Campbell, 2001). One factor is that the program must first have a community based
focus that is determined by the community outside of the school and benefits both the school and
the outside program. Most of the artwork created in Campbell’s (2001) study was conceived by
the participants’ critical reflection about the community. Second, the program must make use of
an existing resource base. In Campbell’s (2001) study, the local college donated supplies and
money for the program. Art, music, and theatre college students gave up their afternoons to
teach. Third, the program must make a forum for discussion and exhibit sensitivity and
awareness of community issues. The college’s coffee house offered the space to display the final
art products. Finally, the program must be participant directed. The overall focus and the final
project in Campbell’s (2001) study were determined by the students involved in the program.
The collaboration or partnership with community institutions and public schools can take
on three distinct formats. The most obvious is the after-school extension of the school’s arts
program into the community arts center to fill in the curriculum that was missing in the public
school (Campbell, 2001; Norman, 2009).
Another format is the integration of the community institution into the existing, formal
school curriculum. In several studies, this phenomenon occurred in a very physical way with
community volunteers coming into the school building on a regular basis as part of an integrated
project (Ekhoff, 2011; Krensky, 2001; Norman, 2009). In Krensky’s (2001) ethnographic study,
a partnership model was created with the community arts group called Youth for Change (YFC)
and the Lewis Middle School (LMS) in Minersville, Colorado. Eight speakers from YFC came
to LMS once a week for 10 weeks and led sessions for the students to develop skills such as
leadership, consensus building, community organizing, oral and written communication, and art
skills (Krensky, 2001). Norman’s case study (2009) involved a partnership model with art
teachers and artists. Teachers had a choice to work with an in-house, certified art teacher or to
collaborate with an artist in residence program for a minimum of ten weeks. In Ekhoff’s (2011)
study, transformative partnerships were created through collaboration between school art
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educators, local artists, and the university art museum to give elementary and secondary students
the opportunity to view original works of art created by the collaborating local artists.
A third format of arts collaboration can occur between multiple community institutions.
The term for this is a community partnership where an organization or individuals share needed
resources, ideas, connections, and expertise (Serig & Hinojosa, 2010). From the literature
reviewed, this is a partnership typically established by an arts institution with other social
community groups such as Second Chance in Salinas, California, a group intervention program
targeting young adults involved in gangs (Bains & Mesa-Bains, 2002). Two of the studies
(Bains & Mesa-Bains, 2002; Serig & Hinojosa, 2010) focused on the university institution and
its collaboration with local community groups. In her part of the review, Hinojosa (Serig &
Hinojosa, 2010) explained that the contemporary practices in higher education institutions are
slowly adapting a greater priority for community arts activities, which can be traced to
inspiration from Paulo Freire’s (1990) writing combined with contemporary culture work. These
activities are created in direct response to society in its present state (Goldbard as cited in Serig
& Hinojosa, 2010, p. 251). The result is contemporary artwork focusing more on the practice of
art making through collaboration. Such artwork responds to a universal theme rather than a
reaction to a specific issue. Methods and practices in community arts are realized through
determined planning with collaborative partners (Serig & Hinojosa, 2010).
It must be noted that the main goal of these foundational programs has been to strengthen
the community building from within the communities themselves. Community created from an
outside entity is not a sustainable relationship (Chappell, 2006). Chappell (2006) analyzed the
federal policy entitled the 21st Century Learning Centers Grant (21st CCLC) that targeted high-
poverty, low-performing schools. Chappell (2006) concluded that the policy constructed
children of these communities as deficient and determined that their free time would be better
controlled by adult narratives. The people of the community became “projects” of the state and
the state’s visions. The community could not sustain the reforms without the continuous flow of
state monies. Program creation that is needs-based creates a deficit model that the community
cannot provide for its own people and contributes to a community’s feelings of powerlessness
(Hutzel, 2007, p. 306). In the literature reviewed in this section, the partnerships and
collaborations were created from curricula that were conjoint between educator, learners, and
community.
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Discussion
Historically, the arts have been considered a solitary act and the epitome of
individualism. Art creation is often seen as neutral and content-driven due to meditation and
contemplation. This research indicates there is a movement toward roles that aesthetic
experiences play in community building, cultural affirmation, the articulation of a need for
change, and ultimately, a sense of communitas among participants. Arts education is not just a
discourse of schools alone. The literature reviewed reveals that community is the primary
association in which the integration of arts activities and democratic goals should be organized,
and the results are a sense of caring communities in classrooms and neighborhoods that reflect
the 20th and 21st century definitions of community defined through pragmatism, existentialism,
and communitas laid out in this review (Campana, 2011; Darts, 2006; Dewhurst, 2011; Green,
2010; Longo, 2007).
Recommendations for future research
This review of literature has focused on the arts’ ability to connect populations where
diverse groups can “share common experiences” and understand each other better as individuals
with one another as “a multitude moving toward one goal” (Buber, 1975, p. 30). The many
studies reviewed indicated that connections, awareness, empathy, and various skills through
aesthetic experiences can serve to create a regard for and an understanding of each other in group
situations (Buber, 1958; Greene, 2001; Dewey, 1927; Knight-Abowitz, 2000). Many of the
studies were qualitative case studies that reviewed the effect of the teaching or making of
aesthetic objects. Several studies concerned the role of the classroom in community creation or
the role of the classroom in larger, regional community creation. Some studies concentrated on
partnerships, while others focused on the efficacy of an aesthetic program toward community
creation with a population. Others analyzed the function and value given to community arts
centers that had survived longer than 10 years.
Only one study serves as an example of how a regional, community Arts Planning
Council begins to establish arts programming for its community. Paul Manley (2009) writes
about how Portland, Oregon’s Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) was formed in 1995 as
a nonprofit sector of the city-county bureau that established Portland’s public art program in
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1980. The group has a broad mission to “integrate arts and culture in all aspects of community
life” (Manley, 2009). RACC has stewarded the creation and maintenance of a public art
ecosystem in collaboration with partners in three counties. In 2008, RACC created a program
series called in situ PORTLAND, which placed challenging work in public spaces to serve as the
catalyst for dialogue about art and/or community issues.
Despite the description of the rich, democratic role that the arts play in the Portland
community life, there is little detail as to how this arts program created a connected community,
one that illustrates a pragmatic definition of community. There are no studies that analyze how
aesthetic experiences can create a connected community in a socioeconomically and
geographically fragmented public. The question is raised, “How do members of an Arts
Planning Council make meaning of aesthetic experiences through arts events and programming
toward community creation?” The understandings that members of some regional arts councils
may have of how aesthetic experiences contribute to community formation could aid other
regional Arts Councils. Such understandings would contribute to each council’s knowledge of
how best to structure, value, and assess their community based art education programs as they
grow and expand around the cultural place making of aesthetic experiences.
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Chapter 3: Methodology
The process of doing this research is approached by me, as the researcher, with certain
philosophical assumptions and beliefs (Cresswell, 2013). These assumptions engage various
theoretical and interpretive frameworks that allow me to enact those beliefs. Consistent with
Quantz (2014a), methodology should “reference the discursive practices” that explain and gird
the researcher’s choice of beliefs, theories, and research methods that are used (p. 1). Van
Manen (1990) explained that “methodology refers to philosophic frameworks” or the
“fundamental assumptions and characteristics of a human science perspective” (p. 27). Unlike
the objective processes of conducting research in the natural sciences, the process of conducting
research in the social sciences involves “the study of humans as self-conscious objects capable of
reflecting on themselves, their situations, and their relationships” (Benton & Craib, 2011;
Quantz, 2014b, p. 1).
Interpretive discourses, such as those used in this research, are used to make claims about
how people make meaning of the world together. Max Weber (as cited by Quantz, 2014b)
conceived of social science as a “world concerned with meaning and the ways shared cultural
meanings affect the actions of individuals” (p. 2). Interpretive research becomes a “shared goal
of understanding of the complex world of lived experience from the point of view of those who
live” in that reality (Schwandt, 1994, p. 118). “Particular actors in particular places at particular
times fashion meaning out of events and phenomena through prolonged, complex processes of
social interaction involving history, language, and action” (Schwandt, 1994, p. 118). Merleau
Ponty (as cited in Van Manen, 1990) claimed that phenomenology is “human science research
that must seize this life and give reflective expression to it” (p. 38). The main thrust of this shift
in epistemologies is the realization that lived experience is “soaked through with language” (Van
Manen, 1990, p. 38). We can recall and reflect on experiences thanks to language.
In order to understand this world of meaning in City Township, I, as the researcher, must
interpret it. Van Manen (1990) purported: “From a phenomenological point of view, to do
research is to always question the way we experience the world” (p. 5); to want to know the
world is to profoundly be in the world in a certain way. Therefore, through the interpretive
discourse, in this phenomenological study, I am tasked with using research to understand how
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others make meaning of the world and assume that others will “construct their worlds
accordingly” (Quantz, 2014b, p. 3).
The hermeneutical phenomenological study of the meaning of the aesthetic experiences
and their contribution to community creation in City Township is situated as an interpretivist,
qualitative inquiry. To better explain the process that will be pursued in this study, I will narrate
these philosophical assumptions, the ontological and epistemological, and the theories and
methods through which this research practice will be enacted.
Ontology: The Object of Study
The ontological assumptions in a study relate to the nature of the reality of the issue, its
form, and its characteristics (Cresswell, 2013). As stated by Ted Benton and Ian Craib (2011)
social science has a specific ontology which involves meaningful social action. Within the
interpretive discourse, the ontological beliefs are that there are multiple realities constructed
through lived experiences and interactions with others (Schwandt, 1994). Lived experience has a
temporal structure that can never be grasped in its immediate manifestation, but only reflectively
as past presence. Lived experience implicates the totality of life, relating the particular to the
universal. Merleau Ponty (as quoted in Van Manen, 1990) gave ontological expression to the
notion of lived experience by defining it as “immediate awareness, which he called
‘sensibilities’” (p. 36).
Phenomenology in the social sciences is considered the study of appearances and the
description of those objects of experience which were considered “essences” intuited by the
mind, also known as eidetic analysis (Martin, 2000). “The aim of phenomenology is to
transform lived experience into a textual expression of its essence in such a way that the effect of
the text is at once a reflexive re-living of something meaningful” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 36). Van
Manen (1990) defined “essences” as linguistic constructions that describe phenomena. A good
description illustrates the linguistic construction of something. It is so construed that the
structure of the lived experience is revealed in an understandable way not known to us before
such a description (Van Manen, 1990, p. 39). Van Manen (1990) compared it to an artistic
endeavor in which the linguistic construction is a “creative attempt to capture a certain
phenomenon of life in a linguistic description that is holistic and analytical, evocative and
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precise, unique and universal, powerful and sensitive” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 39). He asserted it
is “a certain way of being in the world” that is questioned (Van Manen, 1990, p. 39).
I, as the interpretive researcher, am focused on understanding those multiple realities to
the point of a deeper understanding that social scientists refer to as verstehen. Verstehen is a
German term for understanding that encompasses an emotional identification with actors to
comprehend an actor’s thinking and the logical, symbolic systems of the actor’s culture (Benton
& Craib, 2011). Alfred Schutz (1967) acknowledged verstehen as the result of learning
processes derived from experiences of “commonplace learning.” Verstehen, therefore, is a
private matter of the observer which cannot be controlled by the experience of other observers
(Martin, 2000). For me, as the social science researcher, the question lies in the possibility of
knowing the actor’s intersubjective experiences. Thought objects are created by the
commonsense thinking of humans in their daily lives. These are known as first and second
degree constructs. The researcher can observe those constructs to understand the meaning the
actor has placed on them according to who the actor is, his or her social status, and his or her
expression of experiences. The result is that I, as the researcher, learn in a fragmented way “the
subjective meaning of others” (Martin, 2000).
Humans, according to Berger and Luckmann (1966), externalize their “selves” in activity.
The actions of the Arts Planning Council fall into “typified” roles as responses to these lived-
through arts experiences become habitualized. Typification in social science phenomenology
describes how language can generalize experience by differentiating reality through degrees of
familiarity. Berger and Luckmann (1966) referred to “typical” knowledge as “recipe
knowledge” that is dominated by pragmatic motives and is limited to routine performances of
actors’ roles in everyday life (p. 41). Distance of knowledge occurs when the acting selves are
understood as “types” not as individuals that are interchangeable.
Experiences become “kernels of current phases of lived experiences” that are often
represented in thematic components (Schutz & Luckmann, 1989, p. 2). They stand out against
the backdrop of individuals’ streams of consciousness due to the attention and meaning imbued
on the experience through a combination of an individual’s present situation and his or her own
subjective reality. When these experiences relate to some other experience for an individual,
especially within a project or plan, they are no longer memories, but become “acts” that can be
read as typifications (Schutz & Luckmann, 1989). The hope of the City Township trustees and
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the Arts Planning Council is that the arts experiences will relate township members to the project
of community so the members begin to act toward meaning-making of community within that
project. Thus, the world of the Arts Planning Council is created as a reality mastered by action,
by the members acting in it, and by the members changing it with their actions (Schutz &
Luckmann, 1989). Through the act of conversation, individuals purposefully enter into shared
agreements and understandings that constitute their cultural life (Greene, 1978). Together, the
typified and habitualized actions of this Arts Planning Council are passed on to others as an
“institution” of actions and responses toward their meaning of community derived from aesthetic
experiences (Berger & Luckmann, 1966).
To orient oneself to a certain phenomenon implies a particular interest, station, or vantage
point in life (Van Manen, 1990). In this hermeneutical phenomenology utilizing the interpretive
discourse, the ontological goal is to report the meanings of the typified actions of the Arts
Planning Council. Their actions result from each council member’s different perspectives and
understandings of community created from aesthetic experiences. Those typified actions may be
directed through arts events and arts programming in City Township. Ultimately, these actions
might also be directed toward the other community members of City Township. The intent is to
achieve the practical purposes of projecting the council members’ understanding of community
to create connection in the fragmented township. Evidence of these various themes will manifest
in the words and actions of different actors and the institutionalization and reality maintenance of
their actions in the study (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Creswell, 2013; Martin, 2000).
It will be through an interpretive research approach that the themes of the township
actors’ typifications toward meanings of community will be understood. To orient myself to this
phenomenon implies my particular interest and orientation toward it. My orientation as an artist,
art educator, teacher, and parent allows for my interest in the aesthetic experience of children and
adults and in the question of how community is formed through aesthetic experiences. I orient
myself existentially to humans and the aesthetic experience in a phenomenological
hermeneutical mode. This orientation allows me to understand the essential aspects of the
meaning structures of the experience. By reflecting on the experience, it is brought back and
forth, so that I can recognize the description as a possible experience and as a possible
interpretation of that experience (Van Manen, 1990).
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Epistemology
The epistemological belief of the interpretive discourse is that reality is interpreted by the
researcher and the researched, and is shaped by individual experiences. Together, the researcher
and the researched hold a shared goal of understanding the complex world of lived experience
from the point of view of those who live it. “Particular actors in specific places and exact points
in time fashion the meaning out of events through prolonged, complex processes of social
interaction involving history, language, and action” (Schwandt, 1994, p. 118).
The phenomenology of social science speaks to the Arts Planning Council’s
understanding of the meaning of community among themselves and the way they impose
meaning in the world of City Township (Benton & Craib, 2011; Martin, 2000). From a
phenomenological point of view, to do research is to always question the way we experience the
world. The act of researching, questioning, theorizing, “is the intentional act of attaching
ourselves to the world to become more fully part of it or to become the world” (Van Manen,
1990, p. 5, emphasis in the original). Van Manen (1990) called this the principle of
“intentionality” in phenomenology (p. 5). Only after I, as the researcher, have a firm grasp of the
concept of meaning as a phenomenon will I be able to analyze the meaning-structure of the
social world allowing me to use the interpretivist discourse on a deeper level (Schutz, 1967).
Schutz’s (1967) methodology calls attention to the observed facts and events within the social
reality of City Township and allows me to analyze the context of meaning across the timeframe
of executing acts within the township.
The acts are the presentations of and responses to arts experiences. As the qualitative
researcher, I will illustrate how the members of the Arts Planning Council construct a complex
world of experience of community from their subjective understandings induced by their aim and
practice involved in creating arts experiences for City Township (Schutz, 1967). To do this, I
will ask the questions to find the identity of the phenomenon of aesthetic experiences and their
contribution toward community formation. The township trustees, the Arts Planning Council,
and I must recall the experiences in such a way that the essential aspects and the meaning
structures are recognized as possible experiences and possible interpretations of those
experiences. Such is my task as the phenomenological researcher and as the writer: “to construct
a possible interpretation of the nature of a certain human experience” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 41).
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To do this phenomenological research, according to Van Manen (1990), is “to question
something phenomenologically” and to be “addressed by the question” of what something is
“really” like (p. 42). I asked, “What is the meaning of being part of creating an arts event or
program and how does that contribute to creating community?” The question was posed in an
existential way to the people who experience it, the members of the Arts Planning Council and
the township trustees. They gave me reason to reflect on the nature of the arts events and
programs. How do they drive community creation? I also questioned what it means to be a board
member who offers arts events and programs. “To truly question something is to interrogate
something from the heart of our existence, from the center of our being” (Van Manen, 1990, p.
43). As the researcher, my goal in this project is to “pull the reader into the question in such a
way the reader cannot help but wonder about the nature” of the arts events and programs and
their contribution to community creation (Van Manen, 1990, p. 43).
In phenomenological research, we must explicate assumptions and pre-understandings.
The problem stated by Van Manen (1990) “is not that we know too little, but that we know too
much” (p. 46) about a phenomenon. Our assumptions and the pre-existing body of scientific
knowledge “predispose us to interpret the nature of the phenomenon before we ever come to
grips with the significance of the phenomenological question” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 46). The
dilemma becomes “how to suspend or bracket those beliefs” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 46). Van
Manen (1990) and Moustakas (1994) suggested we try to come to terms with our assumptions
and to hold them deliberately at bay. Van Manen (1990) proposed we even turn this knowledge
against itself. The project of phenomenology is not to translate or reduce the phenomenon into
clearly defined concepts so as to dispel the mystery. Rather, “the object is to bring the mystery
more fully into our presence” (Marcel, as cited in Van Manen, 1990, p. 50).
Common, habitualized actions often become mundane and self-perpetuating. Aesthetic
responses, however, create situations where the mode of experience is brought into being by
encounters with works of art that enhance the perception, sensation, and imagination (Greene,
2001). Imagination is the heart of the aesthetic process and can disclose “provinces” of
possibilities that are personal, social, and aesthetic (Greene, 2001). To enter these “provinces”
the individual must look through “the lenses of various ways of knowing, seeing, and feeling”
(Greene, 2001). Empathy in the aesthetic realm gives individuals the capacity to see through
another’s eyes to understand how the world looks and sounds and feels from another’s point of
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view (Greene, 2001). In City Township and in other public venues, events brought about by
encounters with art works engage as many people as possible in open ended dialogues (Greene,
2001). There are vast possibilities for interpretation of these art works, giving the experience a
sense of adventure and a sense of community in the response (Greene, 2001). An aspect of
understanding this adventure as a group is a gradual consciousness of selves as members of a
community (Greene, 2001). In this way, an institution of community could be created in City
Township through shared, aesthetic responses to the art objects, events, and programs presented
by and through the Arts Planning Council.
My goal through this study is to utilize the hermeneutical phenomenological approach
within social theory in order to understand the meanings the Arts Planning Council members
make in response to the phenomena of arts events and programs and to understand how they
derive a meaning of community from them.
Study Design
Hermeneutical Phenomenology
“The lifeworld is both the source and the object of phenomenological research” (Van
Manen, 1990, p. 53). Lived experience involves a “pre-reflective consciousness of life” and has
a temporal structure, according to Dilthey (as cited in Van Manen, 1990, p. 35). It can never be
grasped in its immediate manifestation but only reflectively as a past presence (Van Manen,
1990, p. 35). Cresswell (2013) defined “a phenomenological study as the project of the common
meaning for several individuals of their lived experience of a concept or a phenomenon” (p. 76).
Phenomenologists focus on describing what all participants have in common as they experience
the phenomenon. The purpose, according to Cresswell (2013), is “to reduce individual
experiences with a phenomenon to a description of the ‘universal essence’” (p. 76). The
researcher identifies a phenomenon, collects data or information from individuals who have
experienced the same phenomenon, and presents a composite description of the essence of the
experience for all the individuals (Cresswell, 2013). The foundation of phenomenology is
philosophy and draws heavily from the writing of the German mathematician, Edmund Husserl
(1859-1938) and others such as Schutz, Berger, Luckmann, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-
Ponty (Benton & Craib, 2011; Cresswell, 2013).
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The word methodology refers to the “pursuit of knowledge” and implies a certain mode
of inquiry that contains reality assumptions to guide the procedures and techniques used to
“gather” the knowledge (Van Manen, 1990, p. 28). Procedures are the various rules and routines
associated with the practice of research. They allow the researcher to proceed forward. The
technique refers to the variety of theoretical and practical procedures one can invent to work out
a certain research method (Van Manen, 1990, p. 27). Hermeneutical phenomenological research
instead uses methodological themes “that enable the researcher to invent appropriate research
methods, techniques, and procedures for a particular situation” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 30).
Phenomenology “posits an approach that dissuades a predetermined set of fixed procedures,
techniques, and concepts that would control and govern the research project” (Van Manen, 1990,
p. 29). Instead, the method of procedure rests on the scholarship of the researcher who must be a
“sensitive observer of the subtleties of everyday life” and an “avid reader of texts” (p. 29) found
within the subjects to be studied. There is not, according to Van Manen (1990), a “method”
understood as a set of investigative procedures that one can master. He presents, however, six
methodological themes that seen as a dynamic interplay among six research activities. They are:
1. Turning to phenomena that interest us.
2. Investigating experiences as we live them.
3. Reflecting on the essential themes that characterize the phenomenon.
4. Describing the phenomenon through the art of writing.
5. Maintaining a strong and oriented pedagogical relation to the phenomenon.
6. Balancing the research context by considering parts and whole.
In this section, I will explain the approaches I took to gathering lived-experience material
in different forms that follow Van Manen’s (1990) six methodological themes.
Turning to the phenomena of aesthetic experiences and their contribution to community
creation.
Phenomenological research is a “turning to a task,” a deep questioning or concern that is
a project of some real person who sets out to make sense of a “certain aspect of human existence
within the context of a particular individual, social, and historical life circumstance” (Van
Manen, 1990, p. 31). The study at City Township began as an intrinsic, exploratory pilot case
study in which I was involved for two years. It began because my acquaintance, Lisa, had a
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concern about the direction in which she needed to take her position as Projects, Events, &
Communications Coordinator at City Township where she had worked for the past year. The
Township Trustees and the Administration, along with her, had decided to use the arts and arts
programming to “connect” the geographically fragmented township. They had observed that the
events related to art and aesthetics brought more people together, seemed most successful, and
made everyone happy (Interview with Lisa, 6/2013; 4/6/2016). She did not have a background in
the arts but knew that I did. Thus, she asked me to help her with her task.
The relationship and the research interest began in June 2013 when I visited the Senior
and Community Art Center. Lisa explained to me what she was hoping to do with the arts and
the school districts. She felt their current after school programming was successful, but the
township wanted to increase the support of the arts in the schools. She had planned a few events
such as artwork displayed in the lobbies of some of the local stores and vendors but did not know
what more to do. She had also considered a mentor program for students in the schools who may
struggle with proficiency tests. She thought these students could benefit from being paired with
professional artists. Within the next month, Lisa was planning to meet with the superintendents
from three of the seven schools that the City Township encompassed. She wanted information to
share with them and possibly a plan to support the art in the schools.
I was able to come up with a plan for the City Township that would have three parts to it
(see appendix A). The first part was to create and support a local arts community. The second
part was to utilize the local artists in the community to support different classes and curriculum
in the schools. The third and final part was to support the local teachers in the schools with
programming and professional development to teach them how to integrate the arts into their
curricula. These workshops could involve local artists, and they could become even bigger by
using more state and nationally acclaimed artists. My other suggestions for Lisa were to use
Aesthetics in Action (pseudonym given), an arts based group in the city 40 minutes north of City
Township that regularly hosts teacher workshops in the arts and aesthetic-based curricula. By
contacting these groups, she could partner with them to bring in programming for the schools
and community.
I knew when I met with Lisa in the summer of 2013 that what she was trying to do at City
Township was not easy but was very important for the community, for the school districts, and
ultimately for the teachers. What she was doing was, in fact, monumental. It interested me that
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City Township chose the arts as a means to bring the community together. I still am very
interested in how the arts serve as a means toward community and collaboration. I do not see
science used in that way, but instead the arts are used, which is a very interesting phenomenon to
me.
The following fall, in 2014, I needed to begin my research with a pilot study. I was still
very interested in what Lisa was continuing to do in City Township. I wanted to extend what we
started in June of 2013 and see it through for a longer period. What Lisa was attempting to do
needed to be done in parts and would take several years. It was a relationship that I wanted to
keep and watch flourish through the arts. The situation at City Township was a real-life situation
and would involve participant observation, collaborative research, in-depth interviewing,
document collection, and analysis.
For two years (2014-2016), I observed and participated in the activities, meetings, arts
events, classes, and retreats that were planned by the Arts Planning Council and Board members
of City Township. Subjective meanings were developed through arts experience, which further
developed meanings that individuals held regarding community. Through my observations and
participation, I better understood what the process was and what the roadblocks and the
successes were for making the arts a public good. I understood and learned what the meanings
were of various actors involved in the conversations and policy making that was integral to a
community prioritizing the arts. These meanings, however, were varied and multiple and led my
research to look for complexity of views rather than narrow categories of writing (Creswell,
2013; Glesne, 2011; Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003).
The meaning making activities themselves were central because it was the meaning
making activities that shaped action or inaction. These meaning-making activities were in the
forms of events, performances, education, and series planning, as well as informal interactions
with the Arts Planning Council in City Township. My role was to understand the effect these
arts activities had on the Township members’ meaning of community (Lincoln, Lynham, &
Guba, 1994, p. 116). As I studied the effects, I realized this was a human experience or a
phenomenon that was more encompassing than just a case study. I needed to question the nature
of this lived experience. What is the meaning of the arts events and programs and how do they
contribute to community creation? I needed to ask the members of the Arts Planning Council
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who experienced this phenomenon: What does it mean to be a board member who offers arts
events and programs?
Investigating experiences as we live them.
To make a study of the lived experience of community creation through aesthetic
experiences, I needed to orient myself in a strong way to the question of the meaning of the
aesthetic experiences and community creation. When investigating experience as we live it, the
notion of data or datum becomes ambiguous. Van Manen (1990) defined datum as something
given or granted. Such a definition gives the sense our experience is “given” to us in everyday
life. Phenomenologists believe the meaning, in this case the meaning of arts events and
programs contributing toward community creation, is found within the experience. The goal of
the study design, then, is “to search everywhere in the lifeworld for lived-experience material
that, upon reflective examination, might yield something of its fundamental nature” (Van Manen,
1990, p. 53).
My analysis of the meanings of arts events and programs and their contribution toward
community creation begins with my own life experiences, which are immediately accessible to
me in a way that no one else’s experiences could be. But, my experiences might also mirror the
experiences of others and offer an awareness of the structure of the phenomenon and clues for
reorienting myself to the other stages of the experience (Van Manen, 1990, p. 57). The aim is to
describe my own experiences with the Arts Planning Council and their arts events and
programming as much as possible so that I can focus on a specific situation or event. Using my
perspective will give an evocative value of a truth experience. The goal is to give a direct
“description of my experience without offering causal explanations” or “interpretive
generalizations” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 54).
In phenomenological research, the emphasis is always on the meaning of the lived
experience. Just as my experience is important, the point of this research is to also “borrow”
other people’s knowledge and their reflections on their experiences to better understand the
context of the whole human encounter (Van Manen, 1990, p. 62). The deeper goal was asking,
how is this experience aesthetic? How does this create community? Is this what it means to
create community from an aesthetic experience? Is this what the aesthetic community
experience is like? I gathered the data of the experiences of the township trustees, the Arts
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Planning Council, the teaching artists, and various attendees at arts events and programs. The
experiences were recorded in my field journal and consisted of email conversations, casual and
formal interviews, event participation, comparative case analysis, document review, and surveys.
The oral or written accounts of experiences in the lifeworld used in this study are transformations
of the original experience. Even video and audio recordings are transformed at the moment they
are captured. Phenomenology helps us to access life’s living dimensions while realizing that
these meanings have already lost their authenticity (Van Manen, 1990, p. 54).
In order to understand the whole context of the phenomenon of arts events and programs
and their contribution toward community creation, it was best to learn about the actors that
created the actions of the various meanings of arts events and programs and their contribution
toward community creation.
Participants
The main focus of my study was on the Arts Planning Council and its board members, so
I conducted the main interviews and observations with these members. The township trustees
created the Arts Planning Council. Therefore, they became a main part of the study. Secondary
to the board and the trustees, however, was my interest in the artists who created and produced
the arts experiences and those township members who participated, taught, and experienced the
arts. Within the data observations of these experiences, I have included both formal and
informal interviews and conversations with the artists, volunteers, and attendees.
The Arts Planning Council
The Arts Planning Council, a non-profit, 501(c)(3) group, was formed as a solution to
keeping the arts and event programming in the township without drawing on more property tax
revenue for capital. The state budget allocation for townships was cut in 2013 by the state
governor in order to balance the state budget. Many small communities lost programming that
was present for enriching community life. As a non-profit entity, the Arts Planning Council in
City Township is able to still function under the umbrella of the township but raise its own funds
through its non-profit status. To remain under the auspices of the township, Lisa, Bob, and Sarah
(pseudonyms given) are all board members employed in other roles by the township. Two other
Arts Planning Council members are selected from a pool of township volunteers. Lisa and the
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board of trustees interviewed volunteers who chose to be considered as potential board members.
The board members selected, Frank and Elizabeth (pseudonyms given), operate as
representatives of different parts of the community.
Lisa is the Arts Planning Council’s chairperson. She was hired by the township
administrator to function as an events and communications director. When the Arts Planning
Council was created, she was the most connected person to the events within the township
administration. Thus, it made sense to have the Arts Planning Council fall under her jurisdiction.
Bob works for the Township administration by overseeing both the Banquet Hall and the
Senior and Community Arts Center that currently exist on the Township property. He maintains
both buildings, arranges all rental of the Banquet Hall and the Senior and Community Arts
Center, supervises workers and volunteers within both buildings, as well as supervises the senior
group and its activities. He is a Township administrator on the Arts Planning Council board and
functions as business partner to Lisa. The two of them work closely for any arts event or
township event that occurs.
Sarah is the treasurer for City Township. As an employee of the township, she offers her
accounting services for any entity within the Township. Therefore, she functions as the treasurer
for the Arts Planning Council. She does not help with the actual events or programs that occur,
nor does she attend many of the events. She is seen at all officer meetings and Arts Planning
Council Board meetings.
Frank is a volunteer board member who interviewed for a position on the Arts Planning
Council Board of trustees. At the time of this study, he was the communications director for the
local school district, a former theatre director for the school, as well as a former television
producer and a current local actor in the community. He brings his expertise of arts
programming, sound and stage direction, and general experience with arts events. He is the main
volunteer for the sound crew at all events. He also participates as an actor with the semi-
professional acting groups that entertain the public during dinner theaters. Frank is seen at most
Board meetings but not the officers’ meetings due to the time constraints placed on him with his
job.
Elizabeth is also a volunteer board member who interviewed for a position on the Arts
Planning Council Board of Trustees. She is a realtor in City Township, and her husband is a
local builder. She brings the perspective of the local township citizen to the board meetings.
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Her enthusiasm carries her through all events and programs. As a volunteer actress in the
community, she is very happy to be part of the arts experiences happening in the township and
feels very strongly about the meaning of community and connection that these experiences will
place on the attendees. She is present at all events that take place through the Arts Planning
Council and volunteers to help with little things such as signing children in and out for classes
during the day.
Figure 10: The Arts Planning Council Board, 2012-2016
Local Teaching Artists
Lisa has tried to recruit and typically use artists and educators from City Township. Her
initial educator, Erin, was a formal art educator whose contract was not renewed with the local
school district because of budget cuts. Since Erin’s initial hire, Lisa has had other artists
approach her about teaching. Lisa has developed an application and, with me, questions to use to
screen applicants for hire. Following is a list of her current educators for her CBAE program.
Erin (taught 2012-2014) is a former art educator in the local school district. She has
created the curriculum and taught the past summer art camps, art and wine workshops, mother-
daughter workshops, and various craft workshops. Erin has a master’s degree in art education
from a mid-level university located 40 minutes north of City Township. She has been the
Lisa
Director of Communications & Events
Chairperson of the Arts Planning Council
Bob
Director of the Senior & Community Arts Center and
the Banquet Hall
Vice Chair & Secretary of the Arts Planning Council
Elizabeth
Community Board Member
At-Large
Sarah
Finance Director for City Township
Treasurer of the Arts Planning Council
Frank
Community Board Member
At-Large
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backbone of the CBAE until 2014 when she had to stop teaching due to the birth of her second
child and her desire to take more classes to retain and renew her teaching license.
William (taught from 2014-2016) is a self-taught watercolor artist who has been involved
in the local art show. He had been teaching and taking watercolor classes in other CBAE
programs in the larger city area for the past 18 years. He won a township contest to have his art
printed on street banners two years ago. He approached Lisa about teaching a watercolor class
for the township. William has a following of 5-8 older women who consistently take his classes
on Wednesday afternoons. William has been teaching the watercolor class at City Township for
two years.
Tanya (began in 2016), a local artist and art educator who had worked at a local glass
blowing studio, is the director for the art program at a local community college, and works full
time at a local nature center. She has a degree in art education, a master’s degree in art
education, a Master’s of Fine Arts degree, and is currently pursuing her doctoral degree in
CBAE. Lisa has asked her to teach a drawing class for the new CBAE program, as well as the
art and wine workshops. Tanya has taught one session of drawing in the CBAE program and has
conducted a successful stained glass workshop. She is scheduled to teach the first Art and Wine
class that Lisa is starting again.
Ethan (began in 2016) is a recent graduate of a well-acclaimed art and design school
within the central region of the state. As an accomplished illustrator of “monsters” and a self-
published comic book artist, Ethan hopes to touch the lives of junior high and senior high
students who want to create fantastical creatures, too, but may not be receiving that kind of
support at the public schools. Lisa agreed to allow him to teach a drawing class beginning with
the first rotation of classes. Having never taught before, Ethan has taken up my offer to observe
his class and mentor him as he progresses through his first class series. The subject matter of his
artwork will attract students who are interested in the darker side of fantasy creation. After the
first session, Ethan had only two students. He and Lisa decided to advertise a human life
drawing class for the second session, but it did not receive the interest they hoped. He will not
be teaching for the second session.
Wayne (taught 2012-2015) is a local artist who is accomplished at drawing. He created
his drawings on black scratch boards that give his work a sense of light and mystery as the
scratches evolve into the illusion of a three-dimensional object. During the local art shows, he
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sits and creates a scratch board drawing. Lisa posts a sign-up sheet next to him that visitors can
fill in to take his workshop the following day. He always has several participants join his
workshop every year. Wayne does not offer his workshop more than the one time affiliated with
the art show.
Figure 11: Teaching artists for the CBAE at City Township
Township Trustees and Administration
The story of City Township must begin with the trustees who are elected by township
members, appoint a chief administrator, and agree to certain decisions for running the township.
Lisa was hired by Mitch, the chief administrator, as the Director of Projects, Events, and
Communications. Lisa is considered a township administrator and her position as the Arts
Planning Council’s chairperson keeps the nonprofit arts group under the umbrella of the
township. City Township has three township trustees. All three are very supportive of the Arts
Planning Council and the arts in general. I conducted formal interviews with each one of the
Erin
Former art educator in the public school. Original teacher for CBAE. No longer teaching. She taught 2012-2014.
William
Local watercolor artist who teaches a watercolor class on Wednesdays to older students. He has been teaching for two years, 2014-16.
Tanya
Local artist and formal art educator. She worked at the local glass blowing studio and teaches at a community college. She will be teaching drawing, art and wine, and stained glass workshops. She begins 2016.
Ethan
Local illustrator of monsters and comics. Ethan is looking forward to teaching teenagers how to create fantastical characters. He begins 2016.
Wayne
Local artist who is accomplished at drawing. He demonstrates scratch board art at the local art shows and offers workshops in it. He only teaches in relation to the Local Arts Show.
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trustees to learn the full story of the arts in the township and to understand the meaning they
make of the aesthetic experiences and their contribution toward community creation.
Estelle has been a township trustee for several terms over the past 20 years. She is an
energetic and vibrant woman who strongly supports the arts in City Township. As the only
woman on the board, and a woman of color, she serves as an appropriate representative of the
community. As a personable member of the trustees, the Arts Planning Council members who
work with her like how she supports City Township.
John is a local attorney and has also served for several terms over the course of 20 years.
John sees the potential value of the arts in attracting people to the township to live and to visit
there. He understands how the CBAE programming and building rentals can generate income,
interest, and community connection that enable the programs to happen on a shoestring budget.
John is familiar with the history and the inception of the Arts Planning Council and the initial
hiring of Lisa. She was hired to “connect” the township and create an identity for the township
members.
Rick is the third and newest trustee who has served for one term for two years. He
supports the Arts Planning Council and is part of an impact committee working with Lisa for
sustainability consultation. Their goal is to figure out how the Arts Planning Committee and
City Township can generate income with their current assets that will enable the Arts Planning
Committee to hire an arts education programmer. The long-term goal is to generate a need and
desire for the building of a new Arts and Events Center. Rick is very conscious of the public and
the public’s desire for and satisfaction with certain services provided to them by the township.
Mitch is the Chief Administrator who was appointed by the township trustees. He, in
turn, hires the administrators to run the daily tasks of the township. He also serves as a leader for
the directors of the police, fire, public works, development services, recreation, and
senior/community services. Mitch is the original creator of the Arts Planning Council, along
with Lisa and Bob. He completely supports Lisa in what she does and mentors her on projects
that are new to her. Mitch has encouraged Lisa to promote the idea of an arts and events center,
which may eventually house the arts events and programming in the township.
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Figure 12: City Township Administration Hierarchy, 2015-16
Written Protocol
“Protocol writing is the generating of original texts on which the researcher can work”
(Van Manen, 1990, p. 63). Often, writing for the participants can be difficult and can restrain
their expression when they are asked to reflect on their situations (Van Manen, 1990, p. 63).
Since I had conducted this research as a case study initially, the writing that I asked of
participants was done in surveys and emails. Two smaller surveys (see Appendix G) were
created for Lisa to use at events and at art classes programmed by the Arts Planning Council.
Bias was removed from the questions, and editing was done to clarify the questions (Mertens,
2010). Only descriptive statistics and qualitative accounts were gleaned from these smaller
surveys because correlations did not seem necessary for my research, and they were not
necessary for the information needed by the Arts Planning Council. In the surveys, event
attendees were asked specific questions about the aesthetic experience at the event and their
understandings of community and connections. Many of the answers were qualitative accounts
on which I, as the researcher, and the Arts Planning Council could reflect. The survey results
from the events elaborated on the value township members saw in attending the arts events, their
enjoyment of the arts in their own neighborhood, the amount of money they spent before and
after events, and whether they felt connected to other township members through these events.
The same questions were asked for the art education classes. The education surveys also
garnered evidence of educator quality, effectiveness at creating classroom community, and
Township Trustees
Elected by members of the township
Township Administrator
Appointed by the trustees as CEO of township
Administrator gives direct supervision to: Fire, Police,
Public Works
Administrator gives direct supervision to: Recreation, Development Services,
Senior/Community Services
Township Administration
Hired by the Administrator to work on all sectors of daily township functions.
Finance, Human Resources, Economic development, Events, Zoning,
Property, Parks
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interest levels of learners. Follow up emails were sent to the Arts Planning Council regarding
the written descriptions on the surveys, and the information was used to make actions and
inactions about the meanings derived from the attendees’ experiences.
Comments from event surveys
This was our first show and due to experience, we will be more apt to attend
more.
Events at the (Banquet Hall) are convenient, nearby, family oriented, and
reasonably priced.
We love events here. The improv and the Greek Theater were my favorite (a few
years ago).
Lots of work went into this event. It was a nice, affordable evening out.
Enjoyable concerts.
Meet old friends and make new ones by sitting with someone I don’t know.
Everyone is sociable.
A good way to feel part of the community.
Satisfactory! “Different types” of diverse entertainment is good. Change the
types of entertainment.
Great time. Thanks! (6 attendees made this comment.)
Many forms of documentation were an explicit part of the collection phase of City
Township data during the pilot case study. I consider them, in the phenomenological study, as
written protocol. In the case study, they were useful, but they could also “appear with bias and
inaccuracy” since some items might have been deliberately edited before being printed (Yin,
2003, p. 87). From the phenomenological point of view, I was primarily interested in the
subjective experiences of the subjects for the sake of being able to report on how something is
seen from a specific view, perspective, or vantage point (Van Manen, 1990). Many interviews
and news articles about the Arts Planning Council and the arts events and programming have
been published in the larger, city newspaper, as well as online. Art work by artists and educators,
syllabi and course descriptions for classes, as well as brochures, flyers, and other published event
announcements have been accumulated to get a true feel for when and how many times the
classes and events are offered and the meanings the teachers, artists, or authors have of the
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aesthetic experience. They can also tell me what messages the Arts Planning Council or teachers
are unintentionally or intentionally sending to offer a connection within the township. Meeting
agendas and minutes helped me to understand the process the Arts Planning Council is using to
bring the arts experiences to the community. They explained the actions produced from the
meanings of the aesthetic experiences such as who leads the groups, who the groups are, and
when the groups will conduct their “acts” of business and how. Document review and the
evidence from those items follows the same lines of thinking as observation and interviews
(Stake, 1995, p. 68). Those documents give the timeline and history that is needed for the
foundation of understanding the meaning of aesthetic experiences and its contribution toward
community creation.
Interviewing: Personal Life Story
In hermeneutical phenomenology, “the interview serves very specific purposes” (Van
Manen, 1990, p. 66). It may be used for “exploring experiential narrative material” as a resource
for “developing a richer and deeper understanding of a human phenomenon” (Van Manen, 1990,
p. 66). It may be a “vehicle to develop a conversational relation” with an interviewee “about the
meaning of an experience” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 66). I have conducted several phone, email,
formal, and conversational interviews. The interviews provide the main thread of the story of the
Township as they most directly reflect the experiences of the members. This study is
investigating how the Township members make meaning of community through the aim and
negotiations of presenting arts events and programs that could create community. Most of the
interviews clarified this theme of the study and developed a conceptual and theoretical
understanding of the phenomena investigated or known as the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of the study
(Brinkmann & Kvale, 2015, p. 106). The phenomena of the arts experiences and the
understanding of community were reflected in the interviews as well as the process of who,
what, why, and how the arts were and are brought to the Township.
I allotted one formal interview per board member, township trustee, and individual
teaching artist in the informal CBAE program. My interaction with the board members and
educators on a weekly basis allowed for my informal conversations, interviews, and interactions
to build on the knowledge gleaned from the formal interview. Interviews took place at locations
decided by the informants. A plan of questions was shared with the informants prior to the
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interview (see Appendix F). The formal interviews were recorded with the signed consent of the
interviewees and transcribed into my field journal as well. For the board members, they were
asked questions about themselves and their involvement, goals, and plans for the arts in City
Township. The educators were asked questions in regard to their desire to teach in a community
setting verses a public school setting. What did they hope to accomplish through the teaching of
the class? And, what is the future of their class? How did they view the individuals who
attended their class? The goal was to reveal how the board members and educators decided to
apply for the board and/or teaching and how they, and the township trustees, envision the Arts
Planning Council’s role in creating community for the township members and the future of the
Arts Planning Council. I was able to share the transcripts with each interviewee providing a
reflective platform for us to converse about the meanings in their recorded experiences.
Informal interviews were unplanned but focused with certain questions that revealed the
individual’s experience with the arts in City Township. These interviews were also transcribed
into my field journal for analyzing and coding. Members of the Arts Planning Council
Enrichment Board were interviewed along with the Township Administrator, trustees, and
individuals who attended events and those who taught and attended classes programmed by the
Arts Planning Council.
Observations: The Experiential Anecdote
For the pilot case study and for the phenomenological study at City Township, I operated
as a participant observer in order to better understand the process involved in bringing the arts to
a community. Stake (1995) explained that “qualitative study capitalizes on the ordinary ways of
getting acquainted with things” (p. 51). Van Manen (1990) asserted that close observation
breaks through the distance often created by observational methods. “The researcher tries to
enter the lifeworld of those whose experiences” are relevant study material (p. 68). The best way
to enter a person’s lifeworld is to participate in it. Using that perspective, I watched and took
notes at Arts Planning Council Officer meetings, special programmed events, Arts Planning
Council retreats and workshops, and various classes, but I found it helpful to participate as a
volunteer, audience member, board member, teacher, mentor teacher, or officer depending on
what the event was. Through different events, I could enlarge my sample size to the volunteers,
event attendees, adult students, some teacher leaders, and individuals representing other arts-
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based groups in the community. I became a gatherer of anecdotes and developed a keen sense of
the cogency that anecdotes carry. By participating and not just observing, I was “able to build
rapport and trust” with the members in my sample group (Glesne, 2011; Yin, 2003). This
enabled me to maintain a certain orientation of reflectivity while guarding against the more
artificial attitude a reflective view tends to insert in a social situation. The anecdotes are
“narratives with a point” and as the participant observer, I was given the time and space to hone
those anecdotes (Van Manen, 1990, p. 69). The following is an anecdote taken from my field
journal on February 13, 2016 (pseudonyms given):
I came into the Banquet Hall to see the temporary stage set up at the farthest end
of the hall. In front of the stage, which was set up with instruments for a band,
was Tim (pseudonym given) sitting with his guitar. He is a man in his 40s, salt
and pepper hair, dark brown eyes, fit, a big smile, and wearing a red shirt with the
word “Tim” written on it in white. The kids and parents were sitting all around
him in a half circle. Tim played the acoustic guitar at the front. Brad (pseudonym
given), a man in his 20s, longer black hair, dark eyes, happy countenance, and
wearing a bright blue shirt with the word “Brad” written on it in white, was with
him on his left. Brad is from the locally famous band, Over the Seine. As they
played, Tim and Brad jumped at the front so the kids would jump to the music
too. Tim told a story to the children about how they made up this song at an
elementary school where he played and visited as an artist-in-residence. He told
them about how they created the story for the song and what it meant. He had the
children sing the song with him.
Reflecting on the Essential Themes Which Characterize the Phenomenon
Van Manen (1990) stated “a true reflection on lived experience is a thoughtful, reflective
grasping of what it is that renders this or that particular experience its special significance” (p.
32). Phenomenological research distinguishes between appearance and “a good description of a
phenomenon” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 39). In other words, it elaborates on the difference between
the things of our experience and that which grounds the things of our experience (Van Manen,
1990, p. 32). “Reflecting on lived experience becomes reflectively analyzing the structural or
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thematic aspects of that experience in a process called thematic analysis” (Van Manen, 1990, p.
78).
Moustakas (1994) used a method in his psychological phenomenology of building the
themes by going through the data and highlighting significant statements, sentences, or quotes
that provide an understanding of how the participants experience the phenomenon. He calls this
technique “horizontalization.” The researcher then creates “clusters of meaning” from these
significant statements into themes (Cresswell, 2013). “Themes are applied to some thesis,
doctrines, or message that a creative work has been designed to incorporate” (Van Manen, 1990,
p. 79). Thematic analysis is “the process of recovering the themes” (p. 79) embodied and
dramatized in the evolving meanings and images of the work. Van Manen (1990) claimed it can
be mechanistic with coding, but it is in actuality “a free act of seeing the meaning” (p. 79).
Ultimately, finding the theme becomes secondary and may be considered as a means to dive into
the notion being explored. Theme serves the purpose of “control and order to the writing,” or the
structure of experience (Van Manen, 1990, p. 79). Van Manen (1990) emphasized themes are not
objects or generalizations, however. He claimed “they are knots in the webs of our experiences,
around which certain lived experiences are spun and thus lived through as meaningful wholes”
(Van Manen, 1990, p. 90).
I transcribed my written notes into my field journal on the computer enabling reflexivity
in my work. It is a process that allowed me to reflect, discern, and analyze my research data
during the translation. I also took care to transcribe all of the interviews I held with the Arts
Planning Council, township trustees, teaching artists, and the township director. Participants
shared their lived-experience descriptions of the development of the Arts Planning Council, the
development of arts events and programming, their understandings of the City Township
population, and the contribution toward community creation these events have had. I read and
re-read the transcripts to use the selective approach to find what phrases seemed essential about
the phenomenon being described. As I studied the lived-experience descriptions, I began to
discern the themes emerging and noted certain experiential themes recurred as commonality
(Van Manen, 1990, p. 93). Following is an excerpt of the significant statements and clusters of
meanings leading to the themes of this phenomenon:
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Significant Statement Formulated Meaning
An extraordinary job of engaging the
community. Continuing to engage the
community would be getting support from
within the community. As they become
aware of some of our events, it would
increase their awareness, their motivation, and
their desire to get involved.
The arts are a catalyst toward involvement
with others.
Normally it is a good cross section of cultures
of individuals, different ages, sitting at the
table with some of the individuals.
Aesthetic experiences connect different ages
and cultures together.
They engage in discussion of the Arts
Planning Council and their appreciation of it.
The arts events are a special enriching
opportunity that we do not always get.
They get to learn about each other, who their
friends are.
Aesthetic experiences connect different ages
and cultures.
They learn about and talk to individuals who
are not from here. They come here and think
that it is a wonderful opportunity for their
family to participate in.
Aesthetic experiences connect different ages
and cultures together.
It reaches across all different age spans
beginning from the night that they have the
pajama party up to those individuals who are
aging in place.
Aesthetic experiences connect different ages
and cultures together.
And the laughter that I hear is just
phenomenal.
The arts are enjoyable.
I keep coming back because I love to see how
the Arts Planning Council is working to
revitalize our community and to give new
meaning to our community.
The arts events change the meaning of the
place.
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It is a great way to share. The neighbors are
sharing their thoughts and their feelings and
they are laughing together.
Aesthetic experiences allow others to share
with one another.
…then I look at the aging in place individuals.
They come in wheelchairs and walkers. They
sit and socialize.
Aesthetic experiences allow others to share
with one another.
Figure 13: Example of significant statements and horizontalization.
While Moustakas (1994) emphasized significant statements and clusters of themes, Van
Manen (1990) preferred to address theme analysis in a hermeneutical way as in “a back and forth
conversation the researcher develops with the notion” (p. 97) he or she wishes to explore. “The
conversation is a hermeneutic thrust” oriented to sense-making and interpreting of the notion that
stimulates the conversation. For that reason, conversation lends itself to the “task of reflection
on the themes of the phenomenon under study (Van Manen, 1990, p. 98). Van Manen (1990)
emphasized that the art of the research in the hermeneutic interview is to the keep the question of
the meaning of the phenomenon open. A collaborative hermeneutic conversation allows the
researcher to “enable the participant to reflect on his or her experiences in order to determine the
deeper meaning or themes of those experiences” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 100). Once the transcript
themes have been identified by the researcher, then these themes may become objects of
reflection in follow up conversations between the researcher and the interviewee. The
“conversation aims at producing insights and themes” the researcher may use to create the text of
the phenomenological structure of the experience (Van Manen, 1990, p. 100).
I employed Van Manen’s (1990) idea of the hermeneutic discussion during the interviews
but also engaged a conversation on the reflection of the transcripts with each participant. Once
the transcript was typed, it was sent to the participant to read, reflect, and edit. Several
participants asked to add information to specific topics or questions after reading what they had
stated. These changes led to email conversations regarding the true meaning of each question
and what the true meaning was for the participant. Having the deeper reflection of the
participant helped me as the researcher to not just formulate themes for the significant statements
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but to “also discern between incidental themes and structural themes” (Van Manen, 1990, p.
106).
Describing the Phenomenon through the Art of Writing
To do phenomenological research is a “bringing to speech” of something most commonly
in the form of writing. Phenomenology is the “application of logos, which is both language and
thoughtfulness about a phenomenon or an aspect of lived experience” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 32).
Cresswell (2103) assured that the structural description becomes a composite description that
presents the “essential nature” of the phenomenon or the invariant structure. This passage
focuses on the common experience of the participants and that all experiences have an
underlying structure. The reader should come away from the text with a feeling of deeper
understanding of what it is like for someone to experience that phenomenon (p. 82). This
particular text I am writing is the object of the research process with the Arts Planning Council,
and it serves community creation through aesthetic experience into a symbolic form creating a
conversational relation. This text serves more than mere communication of information. The
textual quality of the writing cannot be separated from the content of the text (Van Manen,
1990).
In research, writing is considered a reporting process and, in the hard sciences, there is no
room for poetic or textual language. However, in the human sciences and phenomenology,
reflective writing is closely fused into the research activity and the reflection itself. The writing
distances us from the lifeworld but also draws us closer. Van Manen (1990) confirmed that the
distance allows us to discover the existential structures of experience.
Writing involves a textual reflection in the sense of separating and confronting
ourselves with what we know, distancing ourselves from the lifeworld,
decontextualizing our thoughtful preoccupations from immediate action,
abstracting and objectifying our lived understanding from our concrete
involvements, and all this for the sake of now reuniting us with what we know,
drawing us more closely to living relations and situations of the lifeworld, turning
thought to a more tactful praxis, and concretizing and subjectifying our deepened
understanding in practical action. (Van Manen, 1990, p. 129)
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To Van Manen (1990) writing is a form of practical action because writing illuminates
what we now see that can no longer be ignored. Our existence is now mediated by our
knowledge of the phenomenon; therefore, the seeing is now a form of praxis. Van Manen (1990)
explained that “seeing the significance of a situation places us within the event,” and “true
writing empowers us with embodied knowledge, which can be realized into action in the
performance of everyday life” (p. 130). The Arts Planning Council members understand their
roles in bringing arts events and programming to City Township. Our hermeneutical
conversations contributing to the formation of themes of understanding of those aesthetic
experiences and their contribution toward community creation will leave an indelible mark on
how the council and I will decide to take up certain actions or inactions within the everyday
context of life in City Township.
Maintaining a Strong and Oriented Relation to the Phenomenon
Van Manen (1990) warned phenomenological researchers to stay strong to the orientation
of the fundamental question or notion. He claimed that “researchers can get side-tracked to
wander aimlessly in speculation or to settle for preconceived opinions and conceptions,
speculations, or theories” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 39). The researcher must “remain oriented to
the object of interest in a full and human sense and should not settle for superficialities or
falsities” (p. 33).
Lincoln (1995) asserted the task for the interpretivist is to “elaborate on what lies beyond
epistemology” (p. 275). He or she needs to elaborate on what lies “beyond the idea that there are
abstract qualities for judgment of the research” (p. 275). My prolonged engagement in the field
enhanced the use of hermeneutic conversations with board members in the Arts Planning
Council, township trustees, and teachers in the classes, which helped me stay oriented toward the
phenomenon of aesthetic experiences and their contribution to community formation.
Ethical Issues
I originally had many questions about how to conduct my research at the Township, such
as, how much should I be involved? Should I participate or just observe? By utilizing the
interpretivist discourse, however, I understood that the researcher-researched interaction is
common and allows the researcher to use inductive methods of emergent ideas obtained through
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methods such as interviewing, observing, and analysis of texts. The positivist discourse demands
objective observation, but in the interpretivist discourse, such an arrangement garners criticism
of objectification (Glesne, 2011, p. 162). The benefits to such a relationship are substantial, but
the caution of involvement in certain roles can be cause for worry or become perplexing. For
example, Glesne (2011) explains that the various roles of the researcher can become “unethical if
the researcher assumes the role of exploiter, reformer, advocate, or friend” (pp. 165-167).
“Relationships develop in qualitative research as the researcher becomes involved as a
participant observer” (Glesne, 2011, p. 171). These relationships, however, are structured as
asymmetrical roles with power located on the side of the researcher. It is imperative that the
researcher understand his or her ethical role to protect the rights of participants in “regard to
privacy, deception, and reciprocity” (Glesne, 2011, p. 172). In this case, the board needed my
expertise in art education, teacher development, and research. After simply observing for the
first year, I chose to reciprocate with the board during my second year by researching other
comparative cases of CBAE programs in the area. I presented information from several cases to
the board during the second annual retreat in November 2015. The board was then able to make
decisions about how they wanted their program to look. Through joint interviews with education
and program directors at other community programs, Lisa could guide her board through the
planning process of their program. Together, she and I listened to the board’s decisions and
created a CBAE program for the township Arts Planning Council board to review and approve. I
could share my expertise with them to benefit, enhance, and build their future programs. I have
also been able to advise Lisa on the best ways to support arts educators in public schools. As a
former art educator in a public school, I could give her insight into how an arts teacher thinks,
positions him or herself within the school and township, and what he or she might view as
beneficial. These choices of reciprocity were ethical ways for me to give back to the Arts
Planning Council for their permission to allow me to conduct research with them for two years.
In the research at City Township, I have heeded the advice to use broad ethical guidelines
along with personal ethical choices. I have completed the Institutional Review Board (IRB)
Training and application (see Appendix B). I have received an exemption from IRB review, but
that does not exempt me from obtaining permissions (see Appendix E) and informed consent
forms (see Appendix D). It is also necessary that I heed the members’ requests for
confidentiality and privacy. Forms for informed consent were signed before formal interviews
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with township members and some requested interviews not be recorded. Based on the
township’s request, pseudonyms have been given and identity has been altered to insure
anonymity. Because this is a government group, all exchanged information and meetings are
public. If I want to communicate with any members of the township, the information (emails
and attachments) is available to the public, and the public is invited to any meetings that the
township holds and that I may attend. For these reasons alone, I had to be very careful about
what I said at meetings and what I sent through email. Not only did I want to keep the research
subjects anonymous in my findings, but I also did not want to set precedence for contributing to
meetings if the rest of the public was allowed to attend but not contribute. Through this work, I
am striving to give voice to the process and efforts that Lisa and her board hope to achieve. The
balance between possible harm and benefits is not an issue that I can foresee.
Balancing the Research Context by Considering Parts and Whole
Van Manen (1990) claimed the researcher must constantly measure the overall design of
the study or text against the significance the parts play in the total textual structure (p. 36). It is
necessary to step back and look at the total contextual givens and how the parts need to
contribute toward the total (pp. 33-34). I, as the researcher, wove the data into a “bricolage of
layers” that enhanced what was observed at the site (Creswell, 2013, pp. 36-37). Using the
emerging themes as “generative guides for writing the research study,” I divided the study into
sections each elaborating on essential aspects of the phenomenon (Van Manen, 1990, p. 168).
The implication is that hermeneutical phenomenology in this study was used as description of the
board members’ understanding of the aesthetic experience and its contribution toward
community creation, but it was also used as a critical philosophy of action. Hermeneutical
phenomenology “deepens thought and, therefore, radicalizes thinking and the acting that flows
from it” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 154). As reflected in the literature reviewed, the ontology, the
epistemology, and the methodology of this hermeneutical phenomenological study, arts
experiences can be viewed as a public good and can engage people in understanding the meaning
of community and in community formation. Such understanding is a “ripple effect” that creates
the institution of community to be maintained and sustained as a public good that is a collective
responsibility.
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This phenomenological study will illuminate that arts education is not a discourse of
schools alone. With the heavy reliance on standardized testing in the public schools, the arts
become limited and sometimes non-existent. Students, who need the outlet of the arts for
connection, support, and the recharge of communitas, will be the children left behind. Schools
cannot address all issues in a community, especially when the state has usurped the attention of
schools toward enhancing scores on a standardized test. The ripple effect of the arts in City
Township and other geographic communities will lead to a connected population where diverse
groups of children and adults will share common experiences, hear new perspectives, and
understand each other better through aesthetic encounters that lead to a positive joy of being
connected. This meaning of community will enable the surrounding township to support and
enhance the school community. In this way, the arts become a social responsibility and a form of
social action itself. Arts educators need to draw on their expertise to ensure they are included in
the meaning making within the public sector that influences educational decision making both in
and out of schools. Arts educators must possess a clear vision of the meaning of community
(Freedman, 2011, p. 41-41).
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Chapter 4: The Nature of Arts Events and Programs and
Their Contribution to Community Creation
Alfred Schutz (1967) linked understanding of the lifeworld with the concept of verstehen.
He stated that verstehen is not a method used by the natural sciences because it is a particular,
experiential form in which common sense thinking takes cognizance of the socio-cultural world
(as cited in Martin, 2000, p. 139). Martin (2000) argued that if social science wants to explain
reality, it must develop devices foreign to the natural sciences to understand common sense
experiences of the social world. The essential difference in structure between the social sciences
and the natural sciences is that thought objects in the social sciences must be created through
thought objects constructed by the common sense thinking of humans living their daily lives
within the social world (Martin, 2000, p. 139).
Thought objects constructed by common sense thinking are second degree constructs
made by the actors, in this case the members of the Arts Planning Council, on the social scene
whose behavior I observed and I hope to explain by illuminating the structure of the
phenomenon of arts activities and programs that create community within a geographically and
socioeconomically fragmented township. This chapter articulates the understandings and the
meanings the Arts Planning Council, the township trustees, and the teaching artists have of the
phenomenon of arts events and programs and their contribution toward community creation.
Ultimately, the project of phenomenological reflection and explication is to affect a more direct
contact with the experience as lived.
To understand the experience is to be involved in the crafting of a text. To come to grips
with the structure of meaning of the texts becomes a reflective analysis of the structural or
thematic aspects of that experience (Van Manen, 1990, p. 78). Therefore, the nature of the
meanings of arts experiences and programs that create community were gleaned from interviews
with members of these groups by identifying significant statements through a method called
“horizontalization” (Moustakas, 1994). Clusters of meanings were organized by creating
consistent themes of understanding articulated in those significant statements. The themes that
arose were the arts as joy, the arts as expression, the arts as connection, and the arts as a public
good. The result is a rich, textual description of the phenomenon of the arts taking place at City
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Township and the role the Arts Planning Council plays as a result of their understandings of
bringing arts experiences to the public in an effort to create community.
The Arts as Joy
Reflections from Field Journal, 4/23/2015
I am not discovering anything new. The people who attend know why
they attend. The people who arrange these events, created the Arts Planning
Council, know why they are doing this. The township employees, who work too
hard, know why they are doing this. I simply have the pleasure of observing the
joy in their actions and writing it down. At each event, I hear people give their
testimonies to the value of the arts and to the value of having them in their own
backyard. It is a pleasure for me to be part of their actions toward creating a
community centering on the joy of the arts.
Figure 14: Arts activities after an outdoor puppet show for children and their families. This event took place in the park-like
grounds outside of the township’s Banquet Hall and Senior and Community Arts Center, June 11, 2015
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A repeated theme in conversations with event participants, class participants, members of
the Arts Planning Council, and township trustees was joy. Arts Planning Council members or
township trustees stated, “I noticed that they are having a good time at the art fair we had,” or
they stated, “Everybody was just enjoying themselves.” Van Manen (1990) explained that when
analyzing a phenomenon, one must search more closely for what the common words truly mean.
He claimed “ordinary language is a huge reservoir in which the incredible richness of human
experience is deposited” (p. 61). In other words, the “verbal manifestations” (Van Manen, 1990,
p. 62) will have interpretive significance for the interpretation of the phenomenon. Therefore, in
analyzing the word “joy,” we understand that it commonly refers to the emotion excited by the
attainment or expectation of good, gladness, or delight. It is also considered a state of happiness
or bliss. The word that is often used in the descriptions by the participants is “enjoy” which is a
verb, while “joy” is the noun. According to the common definition, “to enjoy” is to have
satisfaction in the experience, to have possession or the use of something, or to have the benefit
of something.
Nel Noddings (1984/2003), however, explained in her book, Caring, that joy is not
necessarily an emotion. Instead, she focused on “the reflective nature of the joy that
accompanies a realization of the responsive relations of caring [for another]: the sense of
connectedness, of harmony—the combination of excitement and serenity—the sense of being in
tune that is characteristic of receptive joy” (C.M. Meadows as cited in Noddings, 2003, p. 144).
In her book, Noddings (1984/2003) philosophically analyzed the idea of caring and why it is
important to us as humans. She explained caring to be integral to relationships of engrossment,
duality, reflection, and receptivity. The receptive nature of caring for another results in what
Noddings (1984/2003) referred to as receptive joy. She claimed (1984/2003):
The occurrence of joy is a manifestation of receptive consciousness—a sign that
we live in a world of relation as well as in one of instrumentality. That joy is
sometimes an emotion—a nonreflective, direct contact with some object—is not
denied. As emotion, it is delightful. But joy is often different from the basic
emotions. As basic affect, it accompanies our recognition of relatedness and
reflects our basic reality. Its occurrence and recurrence maintain us in caring and,
thus, contribute to the enhancement of the ethical ideal. (p. 147).
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Noddings (1984/2003) referred to joy as a “basic effect” that is a result of the recognition
of relatedness. The relatedness of which she speaks is the existential, I-Thou relationship of
which Buber (1975) spoke. Such an existential relationship exists when one human becomes
engrossed with another human or another object. The result of the engrossment, duality,
reflection, and receptivity with the “other” is a receptive joy that seems “to arise without a direct
object and with an element of reflection” (Noddings, 1984).
Receptive joy is a manifestation of a receptive consciousness that accompanies the
recognition of relatedness. Bedford (1972) illustrated the concept of relatedness as a meeting. It
is a situation in which two people encounter each other in such a way they do not perceive the
object reality of the other. Rather, they blend together to incite a feeling of unity between the
two. Neither is trying to accomplish some alternative motif, but both find themselves lifted
above the time-space sphere making them unaware of the interrupting forces in their
environment or of the time that passes during their encounter. Noddings (1984/2003) defined
this occurrence as having the result of a receptive joy. She believed giving rise to receptive joy
increases our “personal vigor” to maintain receptive joy and sustains our “quest for ethicality”
(Noddings, 2003), p. 147).
Maxine Greene (1978, 1988, 1995, 2001) argued aesthetic experiences provide existential
opportunity for the individual to realize or become sensitive to, or relate to, him or herself and to
others. Aesthetic experience creates freedom-space in which to do this (Broudy, 1977, p. 6). It is
the area of life where imagination can overcome the customary barriers to thought, feeling, and
action allowing the recognition of relatedness. Merleau Ponty (as cited in Green, 1988) believed
aesthetic experience is an exploration of the possibility of seeing what was ordinarily obscured
by the familiar. It is a possibility of relating to each other through arts experiences, becoming
engrossed with each other, reflecting each other, and finding receptive joy in those arts activities.
When aesthetic experiences are utilized as a group, the group has an opportunity to see
the familiar in a new light and recognize the relatedness of each other. The basic effect, that
Noddings (1984) referred to as receptive joy, is a communal recognition and reflection of
relatedness that results in a society or “group’s pleasure, or enjoyment, in sharing common
experiences with one’s fellow humans” (E. Turner, 2012). Victor and Edith Turner called it
communitas. Communitas is a form of receptive joy in that it is a reflective consciousness by
individuals within a group. It is not just a pleasurable reflection derived from the relation
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between two individuals. Rather, it is a joy found in the reflective consciousness of an
existential connection between several individuals catalyzed by an outside occurrence or
situation. For Noddings (1984/2003), the reflective occurrence of receptive joy happens because
of the caring for each other as individuals. For E. Turner (2012) and V. Turner (1969), the
reflective occurrence of receptive joy happens in the moment of being together as a socially,
equal group due to the circumstances of the moment.
V. Turner (as cited in Wilson, 1977) further stated that “moment” occurs in a special
space described as “liminal,” where the development of direct, immediate, and total
confrontations of human identities occurs. A liminal space is a freedom space that is devoid of
social structure and gives individuals freedom that Greene (1988) and Broudy (1977) explained
as a place to aesthetically relate to one another. In the arts events and programs in City
Township, township members can find enjoyment in pursuing their own freedom to see their
worlds more acutely. The receptive joy resulting from the relatedness created by the liminal
space of the arts events and programs will be maintained by the “personal vigor” of the members
of the Arts Planning Council to sustain that joy over the course of time.
Receptive Joy
The board members’ and the trustees’ descriptions of the public at the arts events and
programs illustrate the receptive joy township members experience. Estelle, a township trustee,
commented, “I notice that people are generally very happy, calm, and in the moment.” She
explained the joy she saw when attending different events:
And the laughter that I hear is just phenomenal.… I find it so interesting to talk
about the kids and then I look at the aging in place individuals9. They come in
wheelchairs and walkers. They sit and socialize. It is a fun way to socialize. If it
is a concert, they are sitting there enjoying the concert. It is very serene and
surreal. (Interview with Estelle, 4/15/2016)
Comments and vocal feedback the members of the Arts Planning Council hear illustrate
the receptive joy of township members. They heard comments such as, “I love attending arts
events!” Or, “I love this [children’s puppet show] event.” They also hear and define for
themselves arts experiences are “fun.” When an experience is fun, people often enjoy it. Both
9 The term, “aging in place individuals,” is used by Estelle to describe the older members of the township.
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Lisa and Estelle used the word “fun” to describe the experience people have when attending art
events or creating artwork. Lisa explained that the board’s long term dream is to create a
community hub where there is constant activity, engagement, and programming. She defined it
as, “A place that people know to go to when they are looking for excitement and fun.” Lisa also
referred to the arts events as “genuine, authentic family fun.” Estelle explained that attending a
concert is the seniors’ “fun way to socialize,” and for children in school, the arts create a way for
students to “have fun.”
Those children are so creative and so eager to learn new things and new ways of
communicating. They like to have fun. I think it should be a way that we get into
the schools and engage the teachers and the parents in ways that the students can
learn how to have fun. It opens up their world. (Interview with Estelle,
4/15/2016)
When asked what their definition of “fun” was, Lisa defined it as:
I think that it is a stress-free time. It is a positive experience. It is a memorable
experience. It is something that you do not have to cram into your day. It is a
reward for all that you have done in the week. It is kind of like your relaxation. It
is something that you look forward to. It is not something else that I have to get
done. (Interview with Lisa, 4/6/2016)
Both Estelle and Lisa have equated arts experiences with “fun,” and according to Estelle,
having fun will open one’s world to new experiences or to see more acutely what was already
there. The events and classes of which the members of the Arts Planning Council and trustees
speak provide “a moment of change freed from regular structures of life” (V. Turner, 1969, p.
96). V. Turner explained that art falls in the realm of leisure (as cited in Wilson, 1977). Wilson
(1977) defined leisure using the French term “leisir,” which means to be “permitted or to
indulge, such as in moral laxness” (p. 13). Therefore, the arts and the space of their performance
or creation become a freedom space in which humans can rise above social structural limitations
“to play with ideas”, with “fantasies,” with “words,” with “artistic mediums,” and with “social
relations” (Wilson, 1977, p. 13). It becomes a liminal space and category that is “betwixt and
between” the categories of work and less frivolous activities such as familial or civic obligations.
V. Turner (1969) discovered a connection between the experience of communitas and the rites of
passage that are “moments of change freed from regular structures of life” (p. 96). Communitas
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is a liminal phenomenon that offers” a blend of lowliness and sacredness, of homogeneity and
comradeship” (V. Turner, 1969, p. 96). “It is present in rites and ritual with a moment in and out
of time and in and out of secular social structure” (V. Turner, 1969, p. 96). V. Turner (as cited in
Wilson, 1977) compared industrial leisure to native ritual:
Just as [tribes people] make marks to disguise themselves as monsters, heap up
disparate ritual symbols, parody profane reality in myths and folk tales, so do the
genres of industrial leisure, the theater, poetry, ballet, novel, film, sport, rock
music, classical music, art, pop arts, etcetera—play with the factors of culture,
sometimes assembling them in random, grotesque, improbable, surprising,
shocking, usually experimental combinations. (pp. 13-14)
Wilson (1977) explained “ritual does not subvert the status quo,” but industrial leisure
often does through its parody, lampooning, and imitations (p. 14). Art itself is not subversive,
but “it is suspect because it represents that which is leisure” or not regarded as work (Wilson,
1977, p. 14). It is considered play, fun, and not important to the structure as is math or science.
It is “symbolic of that which is subversive of the social system or structure” (Wilson, 1977, p.
14). Not only are the arts and the space where the arts are created or performed suspect of
subversion of the status quo, but what happens within that creative or performing space is
considered perverse or outside of the bounds of structure. Even the actors, musicians, artists,
teachers, learners, and audience are considered suspect, too. Wilson (1977) explained that this
idea removes the arts and their space “from the social structure and gives it freedom to transcend
the rules and regulations that are structurally imposed” (pp. 14-15). The spaces for the
performance and creation of arts events and programs in City Township become a world apart
where relationships between township members may develop and flourish in “the modality of
human interrelatedness which is communitas” (V. Turner as cited in Wilson, 1977, p. 15).
Communitas is mercurial, fleeting, and can catalyze change in a culture. V. Turner (as
cited in Wilson, 1977) noted the liminal state is where anti-structure and communitas may occur
as a “kind of institutional capsule or pocket which contains the germ of future developments of
societal change, in a way that central tendencies of a social system can never succeed in being”
(p. 15). The township trustees and Arts Planning Council seek to find that germ of future
developments in the liminal spaces of the arts events and programs. Their goal is to connect
their township members through the existential relatedness that results from the liminal spaces of
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the arts. Lisa shared the term “quality of life” as one that township administrators and public
servants use to describe such a phenomenon as communitas within liminal states. Lisa states,
“Ours is quality of life. We use that phrase all of the time. How can we continue to build quality
of life? How can we provide a service that makes people want to live in this community?” One
goal of the Arts Planning Council is to provide relational, receptive joy found through liminal
arts events and programs.
Sustained vigor for receptive joy.
The members of the Arts Planning Council and the township trustees seek to sustain the
vigor of the work to continue the receptive joy that occurs in the group moments, which I call
communitas. The members seek to create situations in which the township public has an
expectation of receptive joy. They want the public to have an expectation of good, gladness, or
delight, and to have satisfaction in the experience. Rick, a township trustee, explained that, as a
trustee group, they would like to do “something special.” He stated, “The arts are definitely
something that could be special to bring people in across the county to the township.” He also
noted, “As many people as we can get in are coming to our events.” His reasons for deeming the
arts as special are based on his observations of the township public when attending the events.
I know this sounds corny, but the thing that you see when you go to those events
is the best side of people. They are engaged, happy; they are positive; they are
joyful. They are not sitting there with their arms crossed, because it is up to them
whether they come or not. When they come, they are usually engaged in the
events. It is hard to have events where 90% of the people are engaged when they
are there. (Interview with Rick, 4/20/2016)
Rick explained the difficulty of having events where no one is engaged in the moment
but understands the arts represent a “special” liminal state of anti-structure. The anti-structure of
the arts serves as a positive force defined through the concepts of liminality and community. The
arts events and programs are a temporary liberation from behavioral norms and cognitive rules
representing that which is novel, creative, and thus, vital to City. Knowing the public
experiences happy, positive, and joyful moments—experiencing receptive joy—gives the Arts
Planning Council the reason to continue the arts events and programs. Lisa, the chairperson
explained in her interview, “When we did different events that brought in elements of the arts,
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we had higher attendance.” Her observation of the public at events justifies her work and gives
her vigor to sustain it.
People are generally really happy when they come to these events. They are
finding that it is not a stressful thing for them to bring their kids to. The kids are
having a really, genuinely, good time without them having to try really hard for
them to have a genuine, good time. It is genuine, authentic, family fun. It is not a
cookie-cutter created, forced type of fun that a festival is.” (Interview with Lisa,
4/6/2016)
Having satisfaction in the liminal experience of receptive joy.
Mitch, the township director, was pleasantly surprised by the enjoyment the citizens had
with the arts events and programs in City Township but also surprised by his own receptive joy
in attending the events. In his interview, he explained his experience at the local art show. The
art show became a liminal space, or a “world apart,” where relationships between individuals
could develop and flourish (Wilson, 1977, p. 15). In other words, he was surprised and satisfied
with the experience of communitas he felt in that space.
I was blown away. I was blown away by how simple it was. I was blown away by
the type of sophisticated person that we got. They were not waiting to be
entertained. They just naturally socialized and had a very good time with a very
simple evening. (Interview with Mitch, 5/13/2016)
He was surprised at the naturalness of the joy that attendees felt. He explained, “People just
come in a very relaxed setting. They just enjoy it. I did too.” Mitch understood his own
satisfaction in the arts experiences, was surprised by it, and concluded members of the public
must have the same satisfaction in the experience as he did.
I don’t consider myself an artsy person or the type of person who goes to a lot of
events, but when I do, it is very enjoyable. By and large it is a very natural
relaxation, comfort, and enjoyment that most people are having. It feels very
natural. (Interview with Mitch, 5/13/2016)
John, a township trustee, also commented on the local art show:
I noticed that they are having a good time at the art fair we had. Everybody was
just enjoying themselves. There was a lot of artwork and crafts. People were
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proud of the things they had done. I was amazed at some of the local talent that
we have…As I think back, I think of people enjoying it. (Interview with John,
4/20/2016)
Several of the board and trustee members commented on how relaxing and calming the
arts experiences are for the township members. The removal of structural obligations led to the
group feeling of joy, or communitas, within the spaces of the events and programs. When a
person is satisfied with his or her enjoyment of an activity in a liminal space, he or she can then
experience a feeling of calmness and relaxation resulting from a reduction in the tensions and
oppressions of the order of structure. The arts events and programs lend a space where rule
breaking and evasion of the structure are acceptable. The very nature of the arts exists outside
the “regulating, constraining [social] structure” (Wilson, 1977, p. 13), within the realm of leisure.
Estelle explained this phenomenon when referring to the students who she observes during her
volunteering in the schools:
I feel there is an opportunity, since we do have two schools in our school systems
that are struggling and dealing with challenges with children. Many times, we
have students with ingrained gifts, some of them are related to behavioral issues,
and I think this [the arts] calms them down. (Interview with Estelle, 4/15/2016)
My observations of high school boys participating in a preview of their future play at an
Actors’ Guild (pseudonym given) event at the township conveyed the satisfaction of their
experience. In my field journal, I wrote: “They looked like very convincing pirates. The boys
were having fun with their costumes, new personas, and just being there…the director, sitting
next to me, seemed pleased with their performance. The children in the front seemed happy”
(excerpt from field journal, 10/30/2015). The liminal space of the theater gave the boys freedom
to play with ideas, personas, and fantasies.
Another concert by the local city civic orchestra (pseudonym given) also conveyed the
satisfaction that attendees have with the arts experiences in City Township:
A man came in from outside with a bike helmet and a reflective vest on. He had a
loop of keys hanging around his neck. He stood to the side of the audience in the
back and smiled. When the song was over, the audience clapped and gave a
standing ovation. There was full appreciation for what they had heard. People
were happy, smiled, shook hands, talked to one another, and slowly walked out of
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the building and into the parking lot. The man in the vest seemed pleased to have
stopped in for the short moment as he laughed and said hello to other members of
the audience. (Excerpt from field journal, 8/6/2015)
The arts events and programs fall within the realm of leisure, a liminal category regarded
as play and, therefore, subvert the social system. The liminal space of the aesthetic experience
allows individuals to flourish in the joy of relatedness. Lisa referred to the type of “authentic
family fun” they provide as unique from a festival and is one that “is not a stressful thing for
them to bring their kids to.” Satisfaction in the receptive joy of the experience, which I will label
as communitas, creates a relaxing and calming experience for all who attend or participate.
Understanding the receptive joy that everyone feels, and the communitas they feel as a
group, when attending arts events or art programming in City Township contributes to the
meanings the members of the Arts Planning Council and the township trustees must have to act
in accordance with the aims of providing arts events and programs to the public. The joy the
individuals feel of the group’s spontaneous communitas lends vigor to sustain their aim to
continue to have these liminal spaces. The members of City Township enjoy the freedom to see
their worlds more acutely through and within the liminal spaces where presentations and
creations of the arts occur and the Arts Planning Council provides for them.
The Arts as Expression
A recurring theme in the conversations of the Arts Planning Board members and
township trustees is that artistic expression enlightens humans to grow and reflect on life as they
know it. John, one of the longest serving trustees, explained, “I think it [art experience] is
something that is enlightening, and it helps people grow and have a better appreciation for not
just the arts, but kind of a reflection of life overall.” In other words, it is the phenomenon of the
artistic expression that causes a reflection in those experiencing it to occur.
Expression, according to John Dewey (1934/2005), contains all the elements needed to
define a meaningful experience. Old, stored information from past experiences are assimilated
with new information from new experiences when they are met with resistance, such as emotions
of despair or joy, and become media for new meaning. The members of the Arts Planning
Council aim to present arts events and programs that provide liminal spaces for communitas to
occur. The liminal space contributes to behavior in which participants enjoy new experiences
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with each other. Within these aesthetic experiences, participants can understand and connect to
the work of others’ artistic expression or to express their own.
An error in aesthetic theory can occur in supposing the mere “giving way to an
impulsion, native or habitual, constitutes expression” (Dewey, 1934/2005, p. 63). Dewey called
this a simple discharge or a removal of something, such as a laugh or a cry. The act of discharge
lacks a medium in which the expression takes shape and may only be expressive to the reflective
interpretation of the observer. An example is a nurse concluding a sneeze is a sign of an
impending cold. Only where there is material employed as a medium is there expression and art.
Everything depends on the way the material is used (Dewey, 1934/2005). For example, Dewey
(1934/2005) explained “the act that expresses ‘welcome’ uses the smile, the outreached hand,
and the lighting up of the face as media that organically communicates delight upon meeting a
valued friend” (p. 66). Consequently, spontaneous acts are converted into means that make
“human intercourse more rich and gracious” (Dewey, 1934/2005, p. 66), just as a painter
converts pigment into themes of expressing an imaginative experience.
Dewey (1934/2005) claimed “there is no expression unless there is an urge from within
that moves outward” (p. 63). Emotion is necessary to the expression of inner feelings and urges,
but it is not a “sufficient” condition to have expression. He further explained there is no
expression without excitement or turmoil. Expression connects to the arts when an actor
understands the meaning of certain things he or she does as between the “doing and the
undergoing” (Dewey, 1934/2005, p. 65). Dewey (1934/2005) defined expression as an activity
that was “natural but is now transformed because it is undertaken as a means to a consciously
entertained consequence” (p. 65). Such transformation marks every deed of art. Dewey
(1934/2005) defined art as “something performed in view of its place or relation in the processes
of intimate, human intercourse” (p. 65). The members of the Arts Planning Council understand
what Dewey (1934/2005) stated. Their goal is to create liminal spaces through arts events and
programs where “something” is performed, created, and expressed, in relation to the processes of
existential relatedness resulting in receptive joy. When this joy occurs among individuals within
the liminal, group setting, because of the outside activity of artistic expression, I call the
resulting, conscious reflection, communitas.
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Figure 15: Drawing class at City Township. Students were asked to reflect on their names and objects to be studied for
drawings.
Expression is an Essential Human Characteristic
Mitch, the administrative director of the township, explained previously that the events
are “a very natural relaxation, comfort, and enjoyment that most people are having. It feels very
natural.” When viewing artwork, aesthetics focuses on the ways humans apprehend and perceive
an artistic object. The existential hope is that people will find themselves “reading the artistic
objects in such a way, some windows open in their own experience and in their own
imaginations” (Greene in Uhrmacher & Matthews, 2005, p. 222). It is an existential belief that
individuals are not yet complete. Therefore, this view allows for a freedom to become possible
“when options for life and being are opened through awareness of other’s experiences”
objectified and expressed into works of art (Bedford, 1972). Both types of aesthetic experience,
whether from the art object or from the experience contributing to the craft of the object, catalyze
the individual “to reflect on a part of his or her life not initially seen” (Greene in Uhrmacher &
Matthews, 2005, p. 220). These aesthetic experiences give meaning to everyday occurrences and
make the action of expression essential to the human character. Thus, John stated: “It [the arts]
is important…A person’s life without the arts would be devoid of an essential human
characteristic.”
When referring to the students in the schools, Estelle stated:
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I think it [art expression] gives them [young people] an opportunity to think out of
the box, to be more concrete. I think it is encouraging them to enhance the left
side of their brain if the right side is their priority, and, if their left side is their
priority, to enhance the right side. It gives them an opportunity to express
themselves. (Interview with Estelle, 4/15/2016)
Lisa explained why artistic expression is an essential human characteristic by the
way she retold the behavior of children and parents at arts events. She explained:
It [art expression] is not necessarily a niche thing. I think that kids like to play. I
think that parents like to play. I find parents making their own projects on the
side too… When we went out to the school and brought that art program to the
school or when we do Art Fest and have a more elaborate craft, there are a lot of
kids who really gravitate toward that and like to do it for a while. They don’t find
it frustrating. (Interview with Lisa, 4/6/2015)
It is not frustrating because, as the township trustees and members of the Arts Planning
Council understand, the arts and artistic expression are essential to our human character. Estelle
expressed this understanding when she said, “It [art expression] was a way for me to express
myself more profoundly.” Perhaps that is why a group of local artists would meet weekly at the
Senior and Community Art Center, before the Arts Planning Council was ever considered, to
create artwork together. Lisa explained:
[T]hose classes that were already going on at the senior center, that were run by
volunteers, that were arts focused, were the largest classes. We have a Tuesday
art class that does not cost anything. It is a drop-in program. They regularly get a
larger class. We have a really good wood carver group and a woodworking
group. They meet on their own. Their membership is only $25.00 for the year.
They come in, and we have a time scheduled for them. We had a core group of
talented artists who were doing this on their own. They do not want to teach, but
they would love to have more adults join them. (Interview with Lisa, 4/6/2015)
For these local artists, creating artwork together was “something performed in view of its
place or relation in the processes of intimate, human intercourse” (Dewey, 1934/2005, p. 65).
These artists created liminal spaces where “something” is expressed in relation to existential
relatedness resulting in receptive joy and group communitas. The Senior and Community Arts
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Center is a liminal space where communitas could be present. Mitch, the township administrator
understood this. He proclaimed, “The arts have been important to us since the beginning of time.
I don’t think they are going to go away.” Eisner (1998) reminded us that, “the common function
of the aesthetic is to modulate form so that it can, in turn, modulate our experience” (Eisner,
1998, p. 34). In a phenomenological way, the form of the work or symbol itself informs us and
shapes our internal life. It is an essential human characteristic.
According to Dewey (1934/2005), there must be inner emotion moving outward to have
expression. Emotion is necessary to the inner urges of expression, but it is not a “sufficient”
condition to have expression. Therefore, to express means to keep the emotion and carry it
forward to a development or completion. To John, a township trustee, the art itself “is an
expression of humanity. It is something that everybody has some connection to in some way. It
is important.” The “function of art is not,” according to Langer (1953), “for the simulation of
feeling but for the expression of feeling through symbolic forms of sentience as the artist
understands them” (p. 80). The expression becomes a clarification of turbid emotion, rather than
a simple discharge of emotion. In this way, “the emotion is distinctly aesthetic because it is
induced by expressive material and consists of transformative emotions” (Langer, 1953, pp. 80-
82). Expressing oneself is an act that is an essential human characteristic.
Estelle believes arts experience in the schools and with children in the township “gives
them an opportunity to express themselves.” She believes in giving arts experiences to township
members so they “can see that it [the arts] is positive and it is a positive outlet for the kids.”
Estelle grounded her statements in her own experience of working in a women’s theatrical group.
She said, “It was phenomenal for me to be able to take off the hat of the professional jobs that I
had and to put on a hat of being myself, trying to capture where my gifts were. It was a way for
me to express myself much more profoundly.”
The Arts Can Open Windows for People through Expression
Working with the theatrical group allowed Estelle to open windows for herself that were
originally unknown to her. For her, it was possible because of the leadership of her acting
group’s director. He “was a fantastic director. He was rough. He did not care what our
occupations were. He cared about you really getting into your script and learning more about
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yourself.” Her director gave them a liminal space in which the actors could “role play.” He
asked them to express themselves through the aesthetic experience necessary to act in the play.
Estelle clarified her belief in the arts, their ability to open windows, and to connect others
to learning even more about the arts. She explained:
I see it [Arts Planning Council] as an opportunity to help enrich and enhance the
lives of our residents in the community, individuals of all ages. That is what I
think is really critical. I also saw it as a way to engage and broaden the vision of
individuals, meaning all individuals no matter what their age is, regarding the
valuable gift this is in the community. You do not have to go to the Actors’ Guild
(pseudonym given). They stimulate individuals to become much more interested
in the arts. That is part of why I did this and why I think it is valuable. (Interview
with Estelle, 4/15/2016)
Imagination, as Greene asserted (2001), is the heart of the aesthetic process and can
disclose “provinces” of possibilities that are personal, social, and aesthetic and are entered in
through the lenses of various ways of knowing, seeing, and feeling. Leaders and teachers, like
Estelle’s theater group leader, can release people for this kind of seeing and discover the
imaginative mode of awareness that makes paintings, poetry, sculpture, theater, and film
aesthetically available to the public (Greene, 2001). The members of the Arts Planning Council
understand this and hope to provide these “provinces” of possibilities through liminal spaces and
open windows for people through expression, which they understand to be an essential human
characteristic.
The Arts as Connection
Aesthetic experiences enable individuals to see things from a larger perspective than their
own. The existential nature of aesthetic experiences brings ethical concerns to the foreground.
“If imagination is linked to a sense of possibility and an ability to respond to other human beings,
then imagination can be linked to the making of community” (Greene, 1995, pp. 35-37).
Engaging individuals in arts events and programs is based on the notion that “the arts enable
those in partnership to understand one another” despite diversity in backgrounds and
perspectives (Greene, 2001, p. 168). A community, therefore, can be achieved by persons who
are offered space in which to discover what they recognize together and appreciate in common
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enabling them “to find ways to make intersubjective sense” and “to imagine other possibilities
for their becoming” (Greene, 1995, p. 39). It is through empathy in the aesthetic realm that
individuals gain the capacity to see through another’s eyes and understand how the world looks,
sounds, and feels from another’s point of view (Greene, 1995, pp. 40-42).
Members of the Arts Planning Council and the township trustees speak of “connecting”
their public together through social means of arts events and programs. They did not consider
the effect of the liminal spaces of the arts and the existential effect of aesthetics on the
participants. The result of existential relations can grow deeper than mere social connections to
catalyze the participants’ sense of belonging in the township. Gerard Delanty (as cited in
Mulligan, 2013) argued in his book, Community, that “the idea of community has exerted itself
as a powerful idea of belonging in every age” and its persistence as a desirable situation “consists
in its ability to communicate ways of belonging” (p. 110). Delanty (as cited in Mulligan, 2013)
claimed that community survives as an aspiration because it “offers people what neither society
nor the state can offer, namely a sense of belonging in an insecure world” (p. 110).
Delanty (as cited in Pahl, 2004) explored community under conditions of post-modernism
and globalization. In his writing, he brought politics of identity into his discussion on
community to claim that “individual, personal life is the basis of participation in collective
action” (Delanty, as cited in Pahl, 2004, p. 1602). “It is this action which creates and defines
community, rather than [community] emerging from values of normative structure” (Delanty, as
cited in Pahl, 2004, p. 1602). Post-modern communities, per Delanty (as cited in Pahl, 2004),
“shift from identity to difference, from closed to open communities, and in embracing liminality,
which is to be found less on the margins of society than its centres” (p. 1602). Like Habermas,
Delanty (as cited in Pahl, 2004) views “community as belonging” and as “constructed in the
communicative process, rather than in institutional structures or spaces” (p. 1602). Hence,
community “is neither a form of social integration nor one of meaning, but is an open-ended
system of communication about belonging,” making this type of community detached from the
older, cultural structures such as family and kinship and class (Dalanty as cited in Pahl, 2004, p.
1602).
Delanty (as cited in Pahl, 2004) concluded that questions of belonging are central in the
modern world. He suggested that community is relevant today because the fragmentation of
society has provoked a worldwide search for community. Delanty (as cited in Pahl, 2004) argued
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the individual is both freer than before and, “at the same time, more reliant on alternative social
bonds manifest” (p. 1603) as reflexive social networks of individual members. Cultural
development, such as the institution of arts events and programming in City Township, and
global forms of communication have facilitated the construction of community in our
postmodern world. Delanty (as cited in Mulligan, 2013) concluded that the revival of
community today is undoubtedly connected with the crisis of belonging in relation to place (p.
111). The movement to create a non-profit arts council reflects a desire to develop a stronger
sense of belonging in relations to place within the township.
The Arts Planning Council understands that, by offering arts events and programming
full of aesthetic experiences in classrooms and public venues, encounters with art works can
engage as many people as possible in open ended dialogues. Individuals seek connection points
among personal histories, and a gradual consciousness of selves as members of a community
allows community to be created in public venues through shared, aesthetic responses (Greene,
2001). Consequently, a postmodern community with a sense of belonging ensues.
Figure 16: Groups of township citizens of all ages enjoying the arts events at Arts Fest, 12/2015.
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“It is a Basic Human Need to Feel a Sense of Belonging”
The township trustees and the Arts Planning Council continuously mention this concept
of connecting the township public through the arts events and programs. A dominant theme
guiding their work is the idea that it is human need to feel a sense of belonging. For them, giving
this opportunity to the township public is important to the “quality of life” township members
have when living in City Township. Elizabeth explained:
The core of our mission statement is about engaging with the community to create
a sense of belonging. The community is fragmented geographically and makes it
even more applicable that we engage all groups. It is a basic human need to feel a
sense of belonging. In this way, we could benefit the community, and that is
critical. (Interview with Elizabeth, 1/12/2015)
Feeling a sense of belonging and believing it to be part of our essential human nature
harkens back to Buber’s (as cited in Bedford) existential answer to the “crisis” of the 20th century
(p. 157). Just as Buber (as cited in Bedford, 1972) alleged “humans had become problematic to
themselves” (p. 157) due to the great industrialization and an inevitable eclipsing of human
relations, the Arts Planning Council deems the diversity and fragmentation in the township, of
which Elizabeth speaks, as a burden to overcome. Buber’s (as cited in Bedford, 1972) answer is
for humans to have contact with each other and to develop a feeling of fraternity (p. 170). The
Arts Planning Council not only believes such an idea, but insists it to be integral to what it means
to be human. Buber (1975) claimed that, “when humans are firmly rooted in the intimacy of
fraternity and trust,” they can then “enter into dialogue with their neighbors and discover the
‘Thou’ in their neighbors” (pp. 7-8). The inevitable comradeship of a group resulting from
neighborly dialogue fills it with power toward the group’s aim to create community in which
individuals are with one another moving toward one goal. For the Arts Planning Council, the
goal is to create a sense of belonging by presenting the liminal spaces of the arts events and
programs, which enable relational joy through a sense of communitas. In this way, the Arts
Planning Council’s goal becomes the township members’ goal when the township members
empathize with each other and dialogue to connect to each other as a community of belonging.
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City Township is a Diverse Public
The topic of the township’s diversity and fragmentation, socio-economically and
geographically, is both a boon and a burden to the township trustees and Arts Planning Council.
Their belief in the arts as a catalyst toward social connection and a postmodern community of
belonging creates their aim. The diversity creates the challenge, and they all mentioned this
when I spoke to each one of them. Some of the members explained the diverse situation
regarding why the Arts Planning Council was created, while other members believed the aim to
connect the diversity is good but will take a monumental event such as building a Cultural Arts
and Events Center to make the connection happen. The range of understandings of the
township’s diversity and how the Arts Planning Council is progressing in creating connections
for that diverse public may be as diverse as the township public itself.
When the members or the trustees refer to the geographic condition of the township, they
use the word fragmented. Several areas of the township exist as islands surrounded by other
townships. They are literally broken off from City Township. Other areas are so geographically
far from the administration buildings that they, too, seem almost broken off. The neighborhoods,
however, are separate and distinct from one another, but they all come together to create the
township whole. Here is where the word diversity comes into play. The neighborhoods are very
different, but they exist as various forms making City Township multi-formed. To connect the
township public in its multi-form state, the events and programming must attract public within
the distinct geographic areas at the same time.
Sarah, the township finance director who also serves as the treasurer of the Arts Planning
Council, described the diversity of the township:
I think that in City Township, because of the geography of the township, there are
so many different neighborhoods that are not contiguous, who call themselves
something different. They call themselves Morristown (pseudonym) or they call
themselves Valleydale (pseudonym). Whatever it is they call themselves, most
people don’t identify themselves as City Township because of the geographic; the
fact that the borders are not contiguous, not everyone lives next to each other,
because we have so many different school districts. (Interview with Sarah,
4/4/2016)
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Lisa explained that the disconnected situation was the catalyst to create arts events. She
stated, “We found it by accident. We wanted to bring the community together because we have
such a disconnected community. When we did different events that brought in elements of the
arts, we had higher attendance.” Mitch further explained this phenomenon:
We were trying to do some community events primarily to bring everyone
together because it is a very fragmented community. It is fragmented
geographically and politically, not politically because we are all fighting but
politically in the sense that we do not have one school district. There are not a lot
of places where the full community ever comes together as one and because of its
size, it is hard to do. It is fragmented from that standpoint. (Interview with
Mitch, 5/13/2016)
The diversity may be a burden with which the Arts Planning Council must work, but they
have tried to use it as a boon. Frank stated: “Elizabeth and I are always wanting to get that
diversity element in there.” But in a second interview when Frank was asked if he felt the arts
events and programming were connecting the diverse public his answer surprised me:
I am going to say no. And the reason for that is that I still do not think that we are
getting the diversity of this community. I am not talking about racial diversity. I
am talking about socioeconomic diversity. It is very fragmented here. (Second
interview with Frank, 4/6/2016)
Frank believes the definition of connecting the community means “bringing all races and
socioeconomics together-be it, families. I count community as families as well as the senior
citizens. I think we need to break that socioeconomic barrier. That is crucial.”
There is a variance in the Arts Planning Council members’ understanding of the term
diversity, which is illustrated in Frank’s two responses during the different interviews. His
second interview reflects a “re-thought” understanding since the group has been working for two
years to connect the township. Editors Braedel-Kühner and Müller (2016) have attempted to
rethink diversity by analyzing how it is used currently and offering a new perspective on it.
Diversity, they claim, is a “poly-functional term used to describe and analyze the complex
dynamics in society” (Braedel-Kühner & Müller, 2016, p. 7). They argue diversity is a social
reality that is constituted by and within communicative action. The editors claim diversity
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should be understood as a socio-discursive construction and as “a possibility of identities that are
diverse through the expression of their relatedness” (p. 8).
Diversity is multi-dimensional with “symbolic, social, and individual dimensions”
(Braedel-Kühner & Müller, 2016, p. 8) to it. Often, criteria such as race, gender, age, or
ethnicity are used as predetermined analytical categories. Cultural data and ideological
underpinnings are, thus, clustered into stereotypes of trivial observation (Braedel-Kühner &
Müller, 2016). Instead, as “a continuous, socio-discursive process of the constitution of social
systems” (Braedel-Kühner & Müller, 2016, p. 8) they claim an ideal or constant identity should
not be assumed when “rethinking” diversity. Normative discourse about diversity results from
the function of language as communicative and as social practices of power relations. The editors
assert identity should be considered a “process of performative repetition of continuous
instability” (Butler as cited in Braedel-Kühner & Müller, 2016, p. 8). As a performative model,
diversity is an ongoing interpretation of behaviors, habits, and feelings. If differences are caused
by giving categorical order, it might make sense to remove the differences by understanding
“difference” as a “continuous movement” or as “performativity” (Braedel-Kühner & Müller,
2016, p. 9). Consequently, considering a radical singularity of City Township neighborhoods
will not help the Arts Planning Council in understanding diversity. Instead, a concept of
“relational singularities” of the various neighborhoods will better position the members of the
Arts Planning Council when creating arts events and programming to connect the construction of
social diversity they hope to understand. Frank’s second interview shows the evolution of their
understanding of a “rethought diversity.”
An Aim was to Have Events that Would Unify the Township Public
Pragmatic communities are characterized by what is held in common and by how change
is understood through communication and conflict. This definition of community allows room
for Braedel-Kühner and Müller’s (2016) revised concept of social diversity and Delanty’s (as
cited in Mulligan, 2013) postmodern understanding of a community of belonging. A pragmatic
community is defined by how it functions, not by how the members define themselves. For
pragmatists, community is created and maintained through the process of communication
emphasizing growth, participation, difference, and problem solving. Classical pragmatists regard
pluralism in communities as contributing to growth of human beings and their social groupings
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(Knight-Abowitz, 1999, p. 152). Neighborhood diversity and geographic fragmentation in City
Township would be regarded as pluralism by classical pragmatists.
To analyze the work of the Arts Planning Council and its attempt to existentially connect
the township members and how they understand the meaning of their work, I must consider
several points. First, I must consider the social diversity of the neighborhoods within the
township. Second, I must consider the ability for aesthetic experiences within the arts events
and programs to create empathy and dialogue among individuals. Finally, I must consider how
pragmatic communities focus on the function of the group’s aim, rather than the individual
definition of the group’s members. For example, Mitch explained the background behind the
inception of the Arts Planning Council and the use of the arts to connect the diverse and
fragmented public. He presented an example of a pragmatic community through the township’s
desire to communicate with the township members, using participation, difference, and problem
solving. He explained:
We were looking to doing events that would unify the community...The events
piece was towards that end, to bring people together to have fun and let their hair
down, but in a subtle way it would be an opportunity for them to find something
out about the township…. It makes them a little more connected back to the
community. (Interview with Mitch, 5/13/2016)
Lisa is more specific about what events garner public participation and connect the
fragmentation through diverse programming. She quickly realized it was the arts events that
attracted the public: “When we did different events that brought in elements of the arts, we had
higher attendance.”
A common theme in the understanding of the members of the Arts Planning Council and
the township trustees was that the arts allow others to share with one another, no matter the age
or culture. An existential connection to others could be established. Estelle’s reflection on how
citizens interact with each other at the events illustrates how the connection points and feeling of
fraternity occur among a socially diverse group:
Normally it is a good cross section of cultures of individuals, different ages,
sitting at the table with some of the individuals. They engage in discussion of the
Arts Planning Council and their appreciation of it. They get to learn about each
other--who their friends are. They learn about each other and talk to individuals
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who are not from here...It reaches across all different age spans beginning from
the night that they have the pajama party (an event for children) up to those
individuals who are aging in place. (Interview with Estelle, 4/15/2016)
Estelle affirmed, “It is a great way to share. The neighbors are sharing their thoughts and their
feelings and they are laughing together.” In Buber’s (1975) words, they trust each other and
enter into fraternity with each other to discover the “thou” in each other.
Rick confirmed the diversity of their participants when he stated what he has seen at
events. “We have different parts of our community coming out for different events.” In other
words, individual events attract individual groups. Frank’s comments on the diversity of the
township members and the events that attract the different groups affirmed the members of the
Arts Planning Council’s understanding of diversity as a social construction of relatedness:
(Frank’s first interview, 11/24/2014)
I think that this year we have made major strides [in reaching the diverse public],
definitely better strides for next year’s program. We are very conscious of the
lower income and the diversity in the community, hence, the hip-hop class. We
have a Mexican/Hispanic band. We are dealing with the older population. I think
we have made a very conscious effort that is better than when we started out.
(Frank’s second interview a year later, 4/6/2016)
I think our big goal this year was to get that summer concert series. That is what
is starting to bring more of the entire community together. It is not so segmented
like the dinner theater; it has a certain stigma to it. Education has a certain stigma
to it. Family series, you know. I think the concert series was our biggest goal….
Rather than catering to the individual groups with individual events and programs, the Arts
Planning Council now looks for singular events and programs that serve to attract and,
ultimately, engage at one event or program as many of the diverse groups as possible within the
township.
William, the local watercolor teaching artist, explained how his class serves to connect
individuals from different backgrounds. He said his students come from all over, but some of
them already know each other. According to William, the students enjoy sharing their
watercolors with each other whether they are prior friends or not. William stated, “Some of them
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are friends and like to see what other people have done.” As Greene (1995) would say, these are
connection points that allow people to understand personal stories objectified in artistic medium.
William views the diversity of backgrounds and skill levels as a boon to his curriculum. “[It] is
nice to have a lot of different people because they are all at different levels. They all learn from
each other.”
My interview with Lisa revealed the Arts Planning Council’s goal to have individuals
connecting to other individuals through the aesthetic experiences within arts events and
programs. Lisa explained:
To me there is no bigger gratification than actually seeing people participate in
that final thing [event]. It is the community engagement. I love being out in the
community and seeing the reaction and finding that they want more…I love that.
(Interview with Lisa, 4/6/2016)
Lisa’s final comments in her interview carefully considered the group’s aim to connect
diverse individuals to each other and to develop a feeling of fraternity and comradeship to work
toward a joint aim, “…what we have accomplished so far is positive. Our audiences seem more
proud of their community, and in turn, they are sharing what we do with their friends.”
For Dewey (1927), “a clear consciousness of a communal life constitutes the idea of
democracy” (p. 151). “Communal life is moral” (Dewey, 1927, p. 151). “It is emotionally,
intellectually, and consciously sustained” (Dewey, 1927, p. 151). It is “perceived as a group
singularity, or a group function, only when the consequences of combined action are perceived”
(Dewey, 1927, p. 151) and becomes an object of desire and effort. Participation in activities and
the sharing in results are communal concerns, and they demand communication as a prerequisite.
Participation in the events at City Township and the sharing in the results of those events have
become communal concerns instigating communication between the township trustees, the
township administrators, the Arts Planning Council, and the township members. Their pragmatic
goal lies in the balance of the individual connecting to another individual through aesthetic,
liminal experiences of arts events and programs.
The Arts as a Public Good
The township trustees and the Arts Planning Council have a clear vision of what they
want to do with the arts in City Township. I claim these individuals embody the aims of the
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Ripple report (Fine Arts Fund, 2010) conducted by the City of Cincinnati’s non-profit, public
arts fund entitled ArtsWave (formerly named the Fine Arts Fund) in conjunction with the Topos
Partners in 2008. Through this study, the Topos Partners realized that the public discourse on the
arts needed to change to position the arts as a public good or a collective responsibility instead of
the former consideration of the arts as a private good. To change the perception of the arts as a
private good, they realized that a new discourse needed to be conveyed and could change the
perspective by using one simple sentence: “A thriving arts sector creates ripple effects of benefit
throughout our community” (Fine Arts Fund, 2010, p. 3). According to the study (2010)
published by ArtsWave, two definite ripples of change occur when the perception changes to a
public good. First, the ripple effect results in a vibrant, thriving economy with neighborhoods
that are more lively, communities revitalized, and tourists and residents attracted to the area. The
second ripple effect results in more connected populations where diverse groups share common
experiences, hear new perspectives, and understand each other better (Fine Arts Fund, 2010, p.
4).
Figure 17: Indian dancers performing at the Banquet Hall during the Arts Sampler Weekend 2/27/2016.
The study published by ArtsWave and Topos Partners is reflective of a standard
economic argument to justify public funding of the arts. Lambert Zuidervaart (2011)
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investigated in his book, Art in Public, the standard economic arguments to justify government
arts funding and uncovered a cultural deficit in the economic arguments for the arts as a public
good. He claimed mainstream economists base their argument for financial support of the arts
on Paretian welfare economics, which hold “perfect competition, a given set of tasks and
technology, and given endowments of human capital and wealth” (Zuidervaart, 2011, pp. 23-24)
as main functions of an efficient economic system. Mainstream economists depend on efficiency
in an economic system. To them, efficiency is brought on by “a world populated by adult
individuals who are clear about their self-interests and who will use their wealth” in a rational
way” (Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 24). Zuidervarrt (2011) explained that efficiency arguments regard
the arts as public goods involving “externalities” for which individuals and consumers cannot be
expected to pay. He stated:
Externalities are benefits that accrue to third parties who are not directly involved
in a market transaction, such as between concert presenters and the purchasers of
a ticket. If the market price (the cost of the ticket) does not adequately account
for the external benefits, then on standard economic assumptions, the good or
service will tend to be underproduced. If the third party cannot be made to pay
for the external benefit through the market itself, and if the good or service is a
public good, then the government or public may need to correct the market failure
to provide an adequate supply for the (implicit) demand. (Zuidervaart, 2011, p.
26)
According to Deborah Stone (2012), the free market works well for goods and services
consumed individually, but some goods exist that communities value. These goods are
considered “public” or “collective” goods, meaning they can serve many people at the same
time. Zuidervaart (2011) stated that “the language of welfare economics considers a ‘pure public
good’ as a product, resource, or service that has two characteristics” (p. 26). The first
characteristic of a public good is that one person’s use of the good will not diminish the supply
for everyone else. The second characteristic of a public good explains that no one can be denied
access to it, whether or not one pays for using it (Stone, 2012; Zuidervaart, 2011). Stone (2012)
gave the examples of lighthouses, schools, national defense, hospitals, national parks,
community social safety nets, a system of justice, or a local government.
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Zuidervaart (2011) cited Dick Netzer who pointed out that few artistic goods and services
meet the criteria that characterize “pure public goods” (p. 16). Buying a ticket to a play or
reading a book of poetry does not exclude others from enjoying them. However, these artistic
goods do not have the same open-ended availability as clean air or national defense (Zuidervaart,
2011, p. 26). A national monument might be more closely aligned to a pure public good. All of
the arts provide external benefits (externalities) that are not restricted to the actual consumer.
Therefore, Zuidervaart (2011) concluded that “all of the arts are public goods,” but “perhaps,
they should be called ‘partial public goods’” (p. 26).
Mainstream economists consider three external benefits or “externalities” to qualify the
arts as a public good. These long debated externalities are: cultural, political, and economic
(Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 27). Cultural benefits, according to Zuidervaart (2011), are integral to the
arts themselves. The idea of “passing on the arts” to future generations, “contributing to the arts
education of current generations, fostering related art forms, and encouraging experimentation
and creativity in the arts” (Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 27) are the cultural benefits that presuppose the
arts as important. They are important enough “to warrant cultural transmissions, education,
interdisciplinary cross-fertilization, or innovative efforts” (Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 27). Zuidervaart
(2011) claimed, “economists have little to say about why the arts are important in the first place”
and why they are “distinct from other fields of market transaction” (Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 27).
Political benefits are the second type of externality that supports the idea of the arts as a
public good by economists. Political benefits include “the prestige art confers on nations, states,
cities, or regions” (Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 28). The formation of national identity and the raising
of political and social consciousness are other benefits the arts can provide. Many economists,
however, doubt the arts are particularly effective in this regard (Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 28).
Finally, Zuidervaart (2011) listed economic benefits as the third set of economic
justification for the arts as a public good. These externalities include “spillover benefits, such as
the development of a creative work force for commercial enterprises; multiplier effects of arts
activity on local commerce, tourism, migration, and new investments in nurturing ‘infant
industries’ in the arts themselves” (Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 28). Of the three externalities used in
the efficiency arguments for government and public funding of the arts, cultural benefits hold
“greater plausibility than political or economic benefits” of the arts as a public good
(Zuidervaart, 2011, p.29).
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Zuidervaart (2011) argued that if mainstream economists approach the arts with Paretian
welfare economics, they will either ignore or suppress that which distinguishes the arts as a
cultural endeavor (p. 34). The arts are not just “consumer goods satisfying the self-interests of
competing individuals” (Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 34). Considering the arts as a mere object of
consumer satisfaction alone, what the ArtsWave report considered a private good, causes a
cultural deficit when granting it economic justification (Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 35).
In a political society, what Stone (2012) refers to as the “polis,” community is the
paramount public good. Markets cannot produce community because markets are inherently
competitive and divisive. In fact, markets discourage, even hinder, collaboration for the
common good as “they stimulate individuals to look out for their own best interests” (Stone,
2012, p. 76). They can divide communities by reinforcing and perpetuating discrimination.
Paradoxically, “markets are themselves public goods because they cannot function without the
collective effort that contributes to their governance” (Stone, 2012, p. 76).
The logical thought is that a public good satisfies a public need. Public needs, however,
according to Stone (2012):
are those needs a community recognizes as legitimate and tries to satisfy as a
community…The conception of public needs in real political communities is
broader, more varied, and more culturally specific than the concept of public
goods in economic theory. In economics, the inherent characteristics of goods
determine whether they are public. (p. 101)
For example, Stone (2012) explained the lighthouse is a public good because light signals, by
nature, are visible to many users at one time. The light persists even after being used. In
contrast, public needs are selected through a political process. They are not determined by their
“inherent characteristics of things” but selected by what the public chooses necessitates so
imperative that “the government should help the public to meet them” (Stone, 2012, p. 101).
Public needs, Stone (2012) explained, are those things a community publicly recognizes as
“necessary” and agrees to provide. They are often in dispute (Stone, 2012, p. 101).
City township trustees realized the arts events and programming could not be a public
need provided by taxpayer dollars or government state funding. Not everyone in City
Township’s public believed the arts to be a need that should be fulfilled publicly. The state
governor did not believe the local events and programming to be a public need as he made
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significant cuts to local townships. A small but vocal group of local taxpayers of City Township
did not believe the local arts events and programming to be a public need as they formed a group
specifically against the use of township tax monies to fund what they called “unnecessary
things,” such as parks, senior centers, events, and arts programming (Interview with Lisa,
9/14/2016). Yet, the trustees desired to provide arts events and programs that serve to connect
their diverse public. They see the arts events and programming as a public good.
Rick, a township trustee, believes the arts are both a public and a private good and should
be part of the offerings to township members. He explained:
I think it is both. I think certain things we can support for the public and other
things would be more private. In other words, the people who want to attend are
going to have to pay or donate or something, verses other events that we have that
are free and for the public. It is a combination of both. (Interview with Rick,
4/20/2016)
John, a township trustee, explained he sees the arts as both a private and a public good.
“I think it is both. I think certainly the people individually benefit from it. I see it, and one of
the reasons we are pursuing it, is for the public good, for the development of the community.”
Estelle, another township trustee, views the arts as a public good when she defined them
as a gift they, as the township administration, can bestow on the City Township residents:
When we first began initial discussions—I have always been very supportive of
the arts—I thought of this as a gift we could give to our township and township
families. Initially I was really eager to be able to offer such an opportunity to our
community… I see it as an opportunity to help enrich and enhance the lives of our
residents in the community, individuals of all ages. That is what I think is really
critical. I also saw it as a way to engage and broaden the vision of individuals,
meaning all individuals no matter what their age is, regarding the valuable gift
this is in the community. (Interview with Estelle, 4/15/2016)
With the culture wars looming overhead, it is hard to justify charging individuals for the
arts as a public good. The most rational course of action for individuals is to “get the most for
the least” or as Stone (2012) called it, getting a “free ride on other people’s contributions” (p.
75). Consequently, voluntary exchanges alone will fail to generate enough public goods because
individuals will not voluntarily pay for them (Stone, 2012, p. 75). Welfare economists
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recommend, instead, collective action through the government in order to generate funds for
public goods (Stone, 2012, p. 75).
Collective action is defined as cooperation and mobilization for collective interests
(Stone, 2012, p. 236-237). Stone (2012) claimed that, in the public, people talk to each other
and, together, “can manage common resources such as forests or fisheries without depleting
them through selfish overuse” (p. 236). “They can come up with sophisticated rules for
conserving and dividing common resources, sharing the work of maintaining the resources, and
enforcing compliance of their use” (Stone, 2012, p. 237). In collective action, cooperative
efforts generate a perpetual energy that continuously regenerates more collective action.
Participation in collective efforts tend to follow individual desires rather than rational, logical
thinking garnering feelings of trust, loyalty, reciprocity, and altruism when participating in these
actions. “Norms of reciprocity” and “responsibility for the well-being of others can overcome
the barriers to collective action and encourage civic engagement” (Stone, 2012, p. 237). Existing
networks of voluntary associations become channels in which the collective action for the
collective good can take place. “All of these factors,” Stone (2012) argued, create social capital,
like physical assets or material wealth, and “can be used to harness individual energies for the
common good” (p. 237).
The work of the Arts Planning Council and the township trustees falls in line with
Stone’s (2012) explanation of collective action. The Arts Planning Council is a public good
resulting from the collective action of both the township trustees and the local public. The
township trustees understand that if the arts relate to, belong to, and affect the members of City
Township, they will have enjoyment of and knowledge of the arts and aesthetic experiences that
will engage township members in common, unofficial activities for them alone. Rick stated:
I think the people who want it are very outspoken about the fact. I am sure there
are people in the township that don’t care about it. We do not hear from them in
the sense that they are not coming in and saying why are we doing this?... We
have no negative feedback from our residents, really about all of the arts and
enrichment kinds of things that we do, whether it be the plays or events like that.
There are a lot of people who are adamant about us having them. If they are
against them, we do not hear from them. (Interview with Rick, 4/20/2016)
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In fact, the trustees so strongly embrace the idea of the arts as a public good that they
created an entity to deliver that good no matter what the financial health of the township might
be. This entity would function through collective action of the township public volunteers. As
Mitch, the township administrative director, stated in his interview:
How could we create an entity that can…be less of an impact to our budget but
still do what is very useful stuff but in very subtle ways...Without it we never are
going to get the place where people want to live… It is very confusing because it
is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization, but it is specifically and intentionally
linked to the township. Even though it is not the township, it is directly connected
to the township because the trustees in essence birthed it. (Interview with Mitch,
5/13/2016)
The result of the understanding of the arts as a public good to be fulfilled in City
Township through collective action is the Arts Planning Council, created as part of the township,
yet considered separate. It is an entity directed to deliver the arts as a public good to the
residents of City Township to create “ripple effects” of benefit throughout the township. Estelle
explained: “It has initially been started, and it is going and it is moving forward. We just need to
keep it moving into that direction.”
Community of Practice
The significant statements that I gleaned from the interviews with members of the Arts
Planning Council illustrate their collective action is an aim in which they are mutually engaged.
The mutual engagement gives them accountability toward that aim and toward each other
culminating in a shared practice to pursue this joint enterprise of delivering the arts as a public
good. Lave and Wenger (1991) and Wenger (2004) called groups such as the Arts Planning
Council “communities of practice,” which grow naturally among people who engage with each
other. Neither difference, nor homogeneity, nor geographic location is reason for membership.
The characteristic of a community of practice and its source of coherence of community are
mutual engagement of the participants, accountability to the joint enterprises of the community,
and a negotiability of the shared repertoire of the practice (Wenger, 2004, p. 72). According to
their statements, the Arts Planning Council’s cooperative work makes it a community of practice
that exists within the larger, township communities they are trying to create through their joint
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practice. In other words, there are layers of community operating and existing through joint
practice and through liminal experiences. Their significant statements about their work to deliver
the public good of arts events and programming fall into the three main ways Wenger (2004)
suggested communities of practice maintain their composition.
Mutual Engagement of Participants in Communities of Practice: The Arts Planning
Council Consists of Unique Individuals who equally Contribute to its Action.
Communities of practice organically occur among participants who share space, goals,
and projects (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Lesser, Fontaine, & Slusher, 2000; Stoecker, 2012;
Wenger, 2004). As humans, we must “experience our world and our own engagement with it as
meaningful” (Wenger, 2004, p. 51). Our everyday lives have “patterns” (Wenger, 2004, p. 52)
of practice in which we engage and we repeatedly reproduce. In the reproduction of those
patterns, individuals such as the Arts Planning Council members create meanings that negotiate
anew the histories of the meanings of those practices, in their case, the arts events and programs
(Wenger, 2004, p. 52). Wenger (2004) suggested that, in participation with each other, members
recognize themselves in each other, and in reification, they project themselves toward each other.
Mutual engagement in a community of practice such as the Arts Planning Council is
possible and is productive because of both diversity and homogeneity within the membership
(Wenger, 2004, p. 75). Their statements suggest that, as board members, they have become
engaged mutually in their practice of delivering the arts as a public good. Each person in the
Arts Planning Council has found a unique place and has gained a unique identity further
integrating and defining the course of their engagement. They all have a specific role each plays
in the engagement of delivering the arts events and programming. Wenger (2004) claimed that
mutual engagement creates relationships among members, and it connects participants in deeper
ways than mere abstract similarities in terms of personal features or social categories. As I have
observed the members of the Arts Planning Council, I have seen them create tight nodes of
interrelationships by connecting to each other in ways that are diverse and complex (Wenger,
2004, p. 77). Their board meetings are a space where they can voice opinions, debate, and
negotiate best practices for their work. The events become the space where the pre-work, work,
and post-work is done, most often, together.
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Elizabeth explained she is “thrilled about her fellow board members.” She said, “We all
bring something wonderful to the table.” She stated it is a real “give and take” with a progression
of thoughts that results in incredible action and benefit to the community. She is as thrilled today
even more so than at the beginning. She believes that the board functions “very democratically.”
Nothing is scripted, and their deliberations are very organic. She said, “[I]t is a testament to
what we have accomplished. The board meetings show progression every time we meet.” As a
local, long term resident, Elizabeth contributes her knowledge she has gained through her history
of place and her knowledge as a realtor. Her background shapes her perspective of how the Arts
Planning Council should deliver the arts as a public good.
Frank, on the other hand, is not a resident of City Township. He is part of the board
because of his original connection with one of the local school districts and his background in
theater, television, and communications and marketing. Frank explained, “I bring a lot of the
expertise of sound equipment, lighting design...Because I have done community theatre, I ran a
theatre program here for 13 years, I understand programming.” Frank’s expertise in
programming guided the group to create the “series” organization to their arts events and
programming. As they grow, however, expertise, history, and knowledge of the individual
members is becoming more necessary. Both Frank and Elizabeth have served for their two years
as community members, and they are both beginning their second terms as Board members.
Frank explained:
[T]here is only so much the five of us can do. It might be good to get two more
people to expand the board. I really like the whole concept of what Currents in
Art was teaching us of getting someone in the corporate world who deals with
fundraising to help us. Lisa can’t do it all…That is why I was really pushing her
to get volunteers to start subcommittees up. (Interview with Frank, 4/5/2015)
Bob understands his position on the board and his unique situation as both an
administrator on the board and a local resident. He explained how he was appointed to the board
as the facilities director. “The second thing is that everything that had to do with the arts had to
do with my facilities, so I had to be in the mix.” Thus, he and Lisa work closely in negotiating
the practice of creating an event. His dual role is both as an overseer and as an integral person:
My role I view as more of an advisor, that third pair of eyes… Not only do I work
here but I am a resident. I am not going to want to see anything that is totally off
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the mark, or it is going to be detrimental to the township because it is going to be
detrimental to me personally. (Interview with Bob, 4/5/2016)
Like Bob, Sarah is an administrator assigned to be part of the Arts Planning Council. She
functions as the Director of Finance for the township and as the Treasurer for the Arts Planning
Council. She explained that she did not have a choice in being part of the board:
Debbie (pseudonym given), who was the previous financial director, she served as
the treasurer for the Arts Planning Council so it was sort of expected that I would
take over that role… I am fine with doing it. I am a supporter, more of a
supporter of us moving forward to build the new arts center building that we want
to build… My whole goal of participating at this point is that I want to build this
arts center. I want to move this project forward. I am glad to be a part of it for
that reason. (Interview with Sarah, 4/4/2016)
Lisa, according to Frank, “is the point person because she has to write the contracts and
all of that important stuff, so we are more like advisors than a working council.” As the
Communications and Events Director for the township and as the Chairperson for the Art
Planning Council, Lisa is struggling with her dual role and trying to negotiate her time spent on
both roles without a paid staff or a larger board. She explained:
I don’t think we are making the mark that we will in the future when we have more
help. I think that is the only thing holding us back at this point …We have a lot of
ideas and we want to do all of these great things. We just cannot physically do
everything that we want to do. (Interview with Lisa, 4/6/2016)
From their statements, it is clear their individual roles and views contribute to their mutual
engagement in the community of practice established to deliver the public good of arts events
and programs to the members of City Township.
Mutual Engagement of Participants in Communities of Practice: The Aim of the Arts
Planning Council is to educate the Public on the Value of the Arts.
Wenger (2004) claimed meaning is not produced unless one participates in the world.
The participation of the members of the Arts Planning Council is the possibility of mutual
recognition in each other of something that they wish to address. What is recognized has to do
with their mutual ability to negotiate their meanings of the arts events and programming toward
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community creation (Wenger, 2004, p. 55). Negotiation of meaning and participation happen
within a process that also involves reification. Reification is to treat an abstraction, such as
artistic expression, as a concrete material object, such as “art” (Wenger, 2004, p. 58). It gives
form to experiences by producing objects that congeal the experience such as the art class or the
dinner theater. Reification is not one-sided. It can be both positive or negative. In participation
the Arts Planning Council, members recognize themselves in each other, and in reification, they
project themselves toward each other. It is in those projections that the members attribute
meanings to an independent existence. In other words, in the process of reification, certain
understanding is given form, which then becomes a focus for the negotiation of meaning as
people use it.
The Arts Planning Council has reified the artistic expression, connection, and joy into
arts events and programming. The members of the Arts Planning Council recognize each other’s
roles in the process of that reification and project themselves toward each other as they negotiate
and participate in the attribution of meanings to the aim of educating the public on the value of
these reified events and programs. In their comments, the board members and the trustees
explained their understanding of the meaning of the arts events and programs toward community
creation and the arts as a public good. Lisa stated “Our biggest mission is to create community
vibrancy.” Frank explained:
The first two years were a growth period for us to find our feet, what our focus
is...We have to build the momentum so that people understand what we are here
for and what we do…Our yearly goals have definitely changed. Our mission I
think is the same...We have come up with our programming series, and we
actually had to scale that back due to a lot of reasons. We lost some grant
funding. I think our biggest goal for the year was to get the summer concert
series, I don’t want to say under control, but we put most of our effort into that
summer concert series. Our dinner theater series is going well. The educational
series, we are still struggling with. I think our big goal this year was to get that
summer concert series… I think we are better focused now, and we are getting a
good response from the community. (Interview with Frank, 4/6/2016)
Estelle believes the Arts Planning Council needs to increase their “ability to outreach,
which means engaging individuals into understanding what the Arts Planning Council is all
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about.” Frank echoed that sentiment with his thoughts, “I think the biggest thing is the
marketing. We have done the arts guide, but I don’t think that is enough.” Bob asked the
question the Arts Planning Council always asks. “Is this something that the community is going
to want to do, or to participate in?” He further explained:
…Back to the Arts Planning Council, it is just frustrating that it is a process
that you have to go through and then you have the added government end
of it, and it is not quick and easy. (Interview with Bob, 4/6/2016)
Despite the complications created from being a government entity, Mitch believes they
have done well in creating their aim of educating the public about the value of the arts as a public
good. Mitch explained his experience with the Local Art Show:
That was my first experience. She [Lisa] has evolved that event back at the
Senior Center and then to the Centennial Barn. It has grown, and it has a different
sort of feel to what an event is. It was nice to see how that has evolved over the
years. (Interview with Mitch, 5/13/2016).
Rick said, however, “I think that we will continue to support [the arts] … Like anything
else, we would like to be able to do more and be more successful.”
Accountability to a Joint Enterprise of the Community of Practice: A Goal is a
Community Hub that is Full of Activity.
The second characteristic of practice as a source of community coherence is the
negotiation of a joint enterprise. The complex mutual engagement of the practice, bringing arts
events and programming as a public good to the township members, requires negotiation among
the Arts Planning Council members. The joint enterprise results from that negotiation.
Therefore, the enterprise belongs to the members of the Arts Planning Council and creates
among each of them relations of mutual accountability (Wenger, 2004, p. 77).
By doing more than what they are doing now, they hope to create a central hub of arts
activity for the township in the form of a Cultural Arts and Events Center. The possible arts and
events center has evolved into a future reification of the constant and present negotiations about
it. As Frank stated “The original dream was to build an arts center.” Lisa explained:
A big long term dream, and everything that I want to do eventually with having
our own center, is to create a community hub where there is constant activity and
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constant programming and constant engagement and things to do…A place that
people know to go to when they are looking for excitement and fun. (Interview
with Lisa, 4/6/2016)
Sarah equates having the center to having a township identity. She explained her view:
We just need something bigger and more consistent on a regular basis that is
really going to create that buzz and get people talking and really draw people
in…If we are really serious about creating this building and if we are serious
about this dream, then we need to get on board with putting forth the hard work
and the effort with bringing the revenue in. (Interview with Sarah, 4/4/2016)
Rick holds the same understanding as the rest of the trustees and board members but looked at it
very pragmatically:
It would be wonderful [to have an arts center] because we are in a central spot.
The scary part would be making it successful. Even if somebody wrote a check
for $8 million (an arbitrary number), as the [main city] is finding out, buying it is
not the problem but maintaining it and the costs that go along with that.
(Interview with Rick, 4/20/2016)
Bob believed that it should have been built 10 years ago, but Frank does not think it will
ever come to fruition. Bob proclaimed “If we did it 10 years ago, I think it would have been
easier, but maybe we would not have the opportunities we have now.” Frank said:
No, honestly, no; I am watching what is happening up at the [Arts Center in the
city 30 minutes north of us]. They are struggling. They have just redone all of
that theater and now they have lost one of their key players, [who] is leaving.
Budget and the price of the renovations have jacked the rental price up and these
semi-professional community theater groups cannot afford that. (Interview with
Frank, 4/6/2016)
The negotiations about the joint enterprise of delivering the arts as a public good consists
of each individual understanding the meaning of the arts events and programming toward
community creation. The negotiations of the future arts and events center is only one example of
the complex mutual engagement of the practice in which the Arts Planning Council engages in
and how that engagement contributes to the “community maintenance” of the group (Wenger,
2004, p. 74). The joint enterprise resulting from the negotiation belongs to the Arts Planning
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Council members and creates relations of mutual accountability among them (Wenger, 2004, p.
77).
Accountability to a Joint Enterprise of the Community: The Arts Planning Council is Part
of the Township Despite its Existence as an Independent, Non-profit Entity.
Communities of practice are entities within larger contexts of history, social or cultural
settings, or institutions. The Arts Planning Council is a non-profit and independent entity that
exists within City Township. The larger entities have specific resources and constraints.
Oftentimes, the community of practice is profoundly shaped by conditions outside of the control
of its members. For example, the non-profit status of the Arts Planning Council deems it
“apolitical.” It is against the law, an outside constraint imposed on the Arts Planning Council,
for a non-profit entity to engage any form of political activity. Even so, day to day reality is
produced by the participants within the resources and constraints of their situations. Elizabeth
commented, “We are connected but a separate entity [to the township]. In that way the arts are
maintained.” Mitch explained:
Even though it is not the township, it is directly connected to the township
because the trustees in essence birthed it. They do still have some control to turn
it off. There was always concern that we did not want it to become some kind of
rogue organization. We wanted it to have enough independence but we didn’t
want it to go off in a different direction that was contrary to the township’s
mission. (Interview with Mitch, 4/13/2016)
Bob explained: “It is my understanding that when you set up a non-profit in this way, the
start-up organization had to have the majority of the board.” A policy as such controls the size
of the Arts Planning Council’s board. Most the board members must come from the township
administration. If the board wants to grow, they should come up with another way to grow
without changing the majority balance. Right now, that means only five members can serve on
the board so that three are from the township and two from the community. Lisa has attended
leadership classes and is working with a mentor to help her figure out how to grow the non-profit
within the constraints of existing as a non-profit. She has come up with some possible solutions,
such as creating an advisory board to the executive board. She and the board have discussed,
negotiated, and decided on a possible arrangement to use going forward. Despite these
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constraints, Frank commented: “They [township administration] are pretty hands off and they
like what we are doing. They charged us with bringing a vibrant arts community to the area. So,
we did that.”
Accountability to a Joint Enterprise of the Community: Financial Stability for the Arts
Planning Council Will Enable More Individuals to be Involved in the Arts.
The creation of the Arts Planning Council was birthed from a solution to financial
constraints from the state budget cuts and the difficulty in trying to spend the donations given to
it. Creating it as a non-profit allowed the Arts Planning Council to legally accept and spend
donations and sponsorships, but it leaves the group in charge of its own fundraising. Writing
grants and discovering successful ways to bring in the right amount of money necessary to
function has been a difficult part of the joint enterprise. The more individuals engage and attend
the arts events and programs, the more money that seems to be needed to continue and to grow
those arts events and programs. John explained:
We decided to make it non-profit so that it could accept private funds and people
could get tax write offs. It was sorely the only way that it made any sense to do
it. We wanted to have it separate. If we did everything internally in the township,
there were so many rules. It worked smoother having it be an independent entity.
I think the main thing is to attract people to come here, to make this a vibrant
community and to provide arts opportunities for our business. (Interview with
John, 4/20/2016)
All the board members and trustees directly spoke to the need to grow and establish
financial stability to continue to do what they want to do. Lisa stated, “I wish it were bigger, I
honestly do. I don’t think we are making the mark that we will in the future when we have more
help.” Estelle’s comment supported Lisa’s: “And get money. We need to get money. We need
some fundraising so that we can engage more individuals in the arts. We have a lot of resources.
We need to get money, and we have to make connections with those individuals.”
Rick echoed her thoughts:
The first priority is to figure out better funding for it so that we can do everything
that we want to do without trying to frame it within the township restraints that
are budgetary… We just do not have the resources to do anything we want. We
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don’t charge money to make money on it, we charge nominal fees. I am part of a
group who is trying to fund it without putting the burden on the citizens. We are
trying to talk about different ways that might enrich the community, but we could
make some money on and help support some of our other programming. We do
not have lofty goals, but the community events are not overly expensive.
(Interview with Rick, 4/20/2016)
Lisa explained, “Building our capacity [staff, resources, and revenue] will allow us to
have a stronger impact.” John elaborated on this when he said:
I would say [the Arts Planning Council] has been a success. We look for ways to
build on it. Moving forward, I think we will. I think that one of our struggles is
that we don’t have a lot of staff. It is basically Lisa. I am sure there are times
when she feels very stretched given she is not just doing the arts, but she is also
doing other things for the township. It is hard to do it with an all-volunteer
organization. I am not saying that we are growing into a bunch of paid staff
people, but we are probably short on manpower to pull off all of the events.
(Interview with John, 4/20/2016)
Mitch equated the Arts Planning Council’s current growing state as one similar to a
newly successful business.
They are at that next critical step. Getting things going is one set of challenges.
Having some early success is another and it certainly has. Now it becomes what
any business goes through. Things are going pretty good, but I need more
employees. More employees means I will need to generate more money, and that
means I will need to open up more franchises. Where does that start to weaken
you? I think the growing pains that it is going through are what we expected.
What is a little scary is trying to figure out where is that market? Is it sustainable?
The next level is having actual facilities and having staff beyond what we do
today. Again, it is the financial piece. That is the difficulty. How do you sustain
it financially? Where is that constant flow of money? That is what they are
struggling with trying to figure out. (Interview with Mitch, 5/13/2016)
The members of the Arts Planning Council are working hard to be mutually engaged and
participate in the negotiations of quality programming in order to have arts events and attain
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financial stability all within the constraints of a non-profit entity existing within a larger
township administration. Bob explained it when he said:
I see my position right now is to make sure the revenues keep flowing to support
the facilities so that we maintain the current program while the council looks to
see: what are the next steps, what are our next options, what are our next
partnerships, what is our next chapter? (Interview with Bob, 4/6/2016)
Accountability to a Joint Enterprise of the Community: Connecting with Arts Partners
will enable the Arts Planning Council to enhance its Resources.
In negotiating their joint enterprise of delivering the arts as a public good, relations of
mutual accountability occur within the community of practice. Wenger (2004) specified the
complexity of the negotiated enterprise. It includes the instrumental, the personal, and the
interpersonal aspects of our lives. The enterprise is joint, not because everyone believes the
same or agrees with everything, but in that it is commonly negotiated (Wenger, 2004, p. 77).
The communal regime of mutual accountability plays a central role in defining the circumstances
under which the Arts Planning Council feels concerned or unconcerned by what they are doing,
what is happening around them, and to them (Wenger, 2004, p. 81). Over time, the joint
enterprise of delivering the arts as a public good creates resources for negotiating meaning
(Wenger, 2004, p. 81). Connecting with other arts organizations they call partners gives the Arts
Planning Council the resources it needs to serve the community and to grow. Mitch explained:
But the quality is not going to be there to do a level of events to bring the masses
of people they need if you do not have staff. How do you do that? That is what
they are struggling with. The key to this is that we will never be able to do a lot.
Whether you are talking about the funding of the staff or the funding of the
facilities, it is going to require a partnership of a lot of different entities both from
within the township and beyond the township. The facility cannot just be the arts
center facility. It is going to need a variety of a number of things to make that
sustainable. (Interview with Mitch, 5/13/2016)
Estelle believed the same when she said “We have a lot of resources, and I think that if
we connect and partnership more with them, I think that could be the right solution.” Elizabeth
supported the fact they were already reaching out to arts partners during their workshop to have
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them participate in a brainstorming session for the future arts and events center. She said the
turn out and response from the arts partners to their workshop and their aims for the township
gave “validity” to their efforts as a board.
Estelle felt strongly about partnering with other institutions:
The priority for Arts Planning Council is for it to continue to grow and expand
and broaden in scope and reaching more into our schools… We have the School
of Performing Arts. I would like to see how we can engage them more, and those
students could be mentors and showing other kids that this is possible. (Interview
with Estelle, 4/15/2016)
Reaching into the schools has been difficult for Lisa. The teachers are busy and not
willing to come to any more than one discussion meeting about how the schools and the
township connect. Lisa is researching workshops with artists that could instruct teachers to
integrate the arts into their curricula. Even though it has been difficult to directly connect with
the arts teachers, according to Frank, “She [Lisa] does depend a lot on the schools for some of
the programming like the preshow and volunteerism.” Mitch explained their past connections
with the school districts and why it has not been successful:
We have historically not done that very well [connecting with the school
districts]. We have never had any adversarial relationship. I think that is because
we have seven school districts. But, really only three of them are the significant
large areas of the township. I really think part of that is the nature of what the
three school districts have gone through. They have had a lot of transition with
their leadership. Not because people were coming and leaving and they cannot
keep a good person, but more so, the succession has been that the same people
who have been there were in their last 3-4 years. (Interview with Mitch,
5/13/2016)
Community arts partners and resources have been integral to the enterprise of the Arts
Planning Council. The Arts Planning Council receives grants from Currents in Arts, the State
Arts Council, the main city foundation, and members who attend workshops and training through
other groups. Wenger (2004) indicated practices evolve as shared histories of learning. The
history is a combination of participation and reification intertwined over time (Wenger, 2004, p.
87). The Arts Planning Council is creating a history of partnering with other resources in their
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effort to deliver the arts events and programming to the township members in order to create
community.
Negotiability of the Shared Repertoire of the Community of Practice: Vocal Feedback
Gives the Arts Planning Council a Gauge.
The development of a shared repertoire is the third way that a community of practice
maintains its composition. A shared repertoire is a collection of resources created for negotiating
meaning in the joint pursuit of an enterprise (Wenger, 2004, p. 82). The repertoire could include
routines, words, tools, and ways of doing things, stories, gestures, symbols, or concepts that the
community produces or adopts during its existence and are now part of the practice. Surveys and
vocal feedback are tools created by the Arts Planning Council to indicate how and what the
township members want. Lisa explained, “We have received a lot of it as vocal feedback. That
is how I am gauging things. ‘I love that you do this in the community,’ they tell the trustees. ‘I
love this children’s puppet show event. I had a great time at this particular program.’” Estelle
stated, “It seems like we are seeing much more of an appreciation in the township of the arts.”
Rick seemed plugged into the residents and what their interest is. He explained:
I think the people who want it [The Arts Planning Council] are very outspoken
about the fact. I am sure there are people in the township that don’t care about it.
We do not hear from them in the sense that they are not coming in and saying
why are we doing this… We have no negative feedback from our residents, really
about all of the arts and enrichment kinds of things that we do. Whether it be the
plays or events like that. There are a lot of people who are adamant about us
having them. If they are against them, we do not hear from them. (Interview with
Rick, 4/20/2016)
Bob also commented on the vocal feedback and how he used it as a gauge for their
success. He stated:
I hear stuff gurgling, and I think that is where I hear most of it. I would like to
hear more people chime in about it. It goes back to the rentals. Susan
(pseudonym given) and I say the same thing. If you do something right and it’s a
good experience, you’re lucky if somebody tells three people. If you do
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something wrong, they are going to tell everybody they know and three people
they don’t… (Interview with Bob, 4/6/2016)
John summed it up when he said “From everything I can see—the response, the public—
has been enthusiastic. They have really liked it. Most of our events have been sold out.”
Consequently, the Arts Planning Council’s use of vocal feedback has been a fair gauge of the
township member’s desire to experience artwork again or in a similar fashion. Lisa’s comment
from before sums up their negotiation with vocal feedback: “Word of mouth advertising is
growing, we are gaining a few new volunteers each month, our name is becoming more
recognizable, and we have received calls from other organizations and cities asking how we
created the Arts Planning Council.”
Vocal feedback is only one of the many resources created by the Arts Planning Council
used to negotiate meaning in the joint pursuit of delivering the public good of the arts events and
programming. Board meetings, consent agendas, case study comparisons, volunteer meetings,
advisory boards, series events and programs, and the various marketing tools are among the
many resources created and used by the Arts Planning Council. These tools are used but they
were not discussed explicitly by all members of the Arts Planning Council. Only Lisa would
discuss the board meeting with me and how it was run or what had happened during board
meetings. She truly understood the importance of certain resources. The other members did too;
however, only Lisa was as concerned as she was with how meetings were run or with how many
people they were reaching.
Conclusion
Van Manen (1990) delineated the project of phenomenology as ultimately both reflection
and explication to affect a more direct contact with the experience as lived (p. 78). To reflect
phenomenologically on the meaning of the arts experiences and programs and their contribution
toward community creation, I had to reflect on it as an Arts Planning Board member affecting
this phenomenon. Through discussions and interviews with the township trustees, board
members, and teachers, I created a text of this lived experience in City Township by interpreting
the meaning of their understandings of this phenomenon more accurately through a “free act of
seeing” the meaning (Van Manen, 1990, p. 79). The analysis of their significant statements led
me to their themes of how they understand the meaning of this phenomenon: the arts are joyful,
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expressive, connecting, and public. The statements from the board members and trustees reflect
their own life experiences with the arts events and programming that contribute to community
creation and how that phenomenon guided their actions toward creating the same phenomenon
for others.
It is clear from their statements they all understand the joy derived from the liminal
experience of the arts creation and participation and the result of a feeling of communitas in the
existential connections of individuals coming together through aesthetic experiences within the
arts events and programs. Their own understanding of that phenomenon guided them in the
decision to make the arts a public good so other township members could participate in the
communitas and the expression involved in such a liminal experience. The joint aim to deliver
the public good of the liminal experience drives the decisions and actions of the Arts Planning
Board members and creates a community of practice among them to better deliver such a public
good. Not only is the reflective process of discovering the meaning of this phenomenon
hermeneutic, but the actions of the board members themselves could be described as hermeneutic
as well. They experience the joy, expression, and connection themselves and turn around to
share that same joy, expression, and connection with others.
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Chapter 5:
The Implications of Arts Events and Programming toward Community Creation
Nicholas Longo (2007) wrote about a narrow public view of education and how it
continues to plague us today. He quoted Laurence Cremin from his 1975 lecture to the John
Dewey society when Cremin declared: “The fundamental problem in the progressive theory of
education…is the tendency to focus so exclusively on the potentialities of the school as a lever of
social improvements and reform as to ignore the possibilities of other educative institutions” (as
cited in Longo, 2007, p. 1). Longo (2007) explained that education has become confused with
schooling especially with policies such as A Nation at Risk, No Child Left Behind, Race to the
Top, and the current Every Student Succeeds Act. Due to this accountability movement and the
confusion of education and schooling, the public has been “relieved from the responsibility of
taking part in the education of young people” (Longo, 2007, p. 1). The effect has been a “nation
of spectators” as an apathetic and disengaged public.
Instead, Longo (2007) insisted that what happens in schools should reflect what happens
outside of the classroom. Educative successes and failures are the products of communities and
families. Therefore, Longo (2007) claimed we should appeal to broaden our education to reflect
all aspects of society, to reach beyond the schools toward the many individuals who educate:
parents, peers, siblings, friends, families, churches, synagogues, libraries, museums, summer
camps, benevolent societies, agricultural fairs, settlement houses, factories, radio stations,
television networks, and arts councils.
Longo (2007) suggested in his book, Why Community Matters, that an “ecology of
education” model could connect education with civic life as education is linked to democracy (p.
5). Longo (2007) critiqued the dismissal of the role of many institutions when the focus is solely
on the role of the classroom, or schooling. This failure to expand the connections between
institutions and communities to create real partners results in democracy as a private, consumer
good. Democracy, according to Longo (2007) “is the work of free citizens” (p. 4). Such work
involves “everyday politics” by ordinary people as “creative decision-makers and actors in all
aspects of public life” (Longo, 2007, p. 4). “Ecology of education” forms a web of interlinked
partnerships connecting education with civic life and shifting the center of learning to the entire
community where most civic and personal growth takes place (Longo, 2007, p. 4).
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The idea of an interlinked social community is also suffering, according to Longo (2007).
Community is suffering from the decline of “social capital” defined as the social network and
relationships between citizens (Longo, 2007, p. 7). The James S. Coleman study of 1966
entitled, Equality of Educational Opportunity (the Coleman Report as cited in Longo, 2007),
found “children with strong cultural capital” are more successful in school “than those without
social capital” (p. 7). The resulting conclusion of the report was that “schools are far less
significant than communities or families for students’ success” (p. 7). Therefore, children who
have lost those “connecting institutions are at an extreme disadvantage compared to those” who
are from connected institutional settings (Longo, 2007, p. 7). Longo (2007) declared that
“revitalizing community life may be a pre-requisite to revitalizing American education” (p. 8).
The public must think about “education differently…more comprehensively, relationally, and
publicly” (Longo, 2007, p. 9). The public must rely on myriad places where people learn and act
collectively. Strong schools need strong communities and strong communities can build strong
schools. The public must “bridge the connections” and emphasize them between the “formal and
informal educational opportunities” (Longo, 2007 p. 9). The empirical literature in this study
lends evidence to the idea that the public can build community. It can be built in a classroom,
the school, the neighborhood, and the surrounding township through arts experiences.
City Township has focused on revitalizing its community. Through democratic means of
ordinary, everyday political work of creative citizens as decision-makers, the trustees have
allowed the work of the Arts Planning Council to address the issues of their diverse and
fragmented public. The Arts Planning Council’s board members’ understandings of the
meanings of the aesthetic experience created through arts events and programming that lead
toward community creation has allowed them to treat the arts as a public good and has removed
arts education as a discourse of schools alone. The board members understand, from their own
experiences with the arts, the arts are joyful, expressive, connecting, and public. They
understand these meanings so strongly that their understanding directs the collective action of
their joint aims as a community of practice toward delivering such a public good and ultimately
creating an ecology of education in City Township. By analyzing the themes hermeneutically
discovered through the interviews, observations, and casual conversations with the board
members, this chapter will address the implications toward a revitalized community and ecology
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of education that is created by the board members’ understandings of the phenomenon of arts
events and programming toward community creation.
The Arts as Joy
The ecology of civic learning in City Township is given meaning by the Arts Planning
Council’s efforts to create “pathways” through their four-programmed arts series connecting the
institutions and individuals who allow arts events and programming to take place (Longo, 2007,
p. 100). These pathways begin with the Arts Planning Council’s and the township trustees’
understanding of the arts as joyful. Many of them commented on the events as “fun.” Rick
explained people are “engaged, happy, they are positive, they are joyful. They are not sitting
there with their arms crossed…” Lisa commented the people are “generally really happy when
they come to these events” and Mitch explained, “They just enjoy it. I did too.” In chapter 4, I
equated this “joy” with Nodding’s (1984/2003) concept of receptive joy, which results from the
engrossment, duality, reflection, and receptivity with another individual. I also explained the
liminal status of the arts as a leisure activity removes the arts events and programs from the
social structure of regulations and oppression. The result is a freedom space giving rise to
imagination that overcomes barriers to inhibit relatedness. The resulting feeling when a group is
working together toward a goal with no perception of social status or structure is called
communitas. Edith Turner (2012) and Victor Turner (1969) believed communitas occurs
through the readiness of people to rid themselves of their concern for the social status of others.
It comes in the direct moments of life of a person or a society and is a group’s pleasure or
enjoyment when sharing common experiences with one’s fellow humans.
The individual, receptive joy and the group feeling of communitas felt in creating and
observing art together is the personal vigor for the members of the Arts Planning Council to
sustain the experience of coming together publicly in City Township and is the driving factor in
all that is done to share it publicly with others. V. Turner (1969) explained that communitas,
itself, soon develops a structure in which free relationships between individuals become
converted into norm-governed relationships between social personas. The result is three types of
communitas that are visible within the Arts Planning Council’s events and programming.
The first type of communitas is a “happening” or an existential moment when the feeling
occurs due to individuals coming together to share the common aesthetic moments that arise
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from experiencing and/or creating artwork during the events or programs. Estelle’s comment,
“…people are generally very happy, calm and in the moment,” describes the existential moment
of communitas. Ultimately, that enjoyment of the moment is why the trustees and board
members desire to share the arts with the community as a public good. It is what they refer to as
“quality of life.” They understand the public benefits from enjoying moments together. They
understand the township members will equate enjoyable moments with “home” and the richness
they attribute to a flourishing life where they live. Lisa distinguished the “fun” of a common
aesthetic experience as distinctive from “a cookie cutter created, forced type of fun that a festival
is.” Experiencing arts events and programs is “natural,” as Mitch claimed. It creates spontaneous
communitas. It is, therefore, logical for Lisa to ask, “How can we continue to build quality of
life? How can we provide a service so that it makes people want to live in this community?”
Lisa’s questions lead to the eventual progression of the desire to continue spontaneous
communitas. V. Turner (1969) explained the second type is called normative communitas, in
which the existential first type is organized, over time, into a lasting social system (p. 132). The
Arts Planning Council’s understanding of the first type of communitas as enjoyable has engaged
them as a community of practice in creating normative communitas through the four different
programmed series they planned to occur each year. Normative communitas arises from the
“need to mobilize and organize resources” and “social control” among the members of the group
pursuing the goal of continuing and sustaining spontaneous communitas into the future (Longo,
1969, p. 132). Thus, the Arts Planning Council formed the art education series of classes. The
dinner theater series is planned with a structure of four dinner theater events happening during
the months of September, October, and November. The family series has six to seven family arts
events that happen throughout the calendar year, and the concert series is made up of four
concerts that take place in June, July, and August. Thus, the Arts Planning Council has shaped
the spontaneous communitas into normative communitas, over the course of a calendar year.
The normative communitas is now a lasting social system, to be presented to the members of the
township as a public good in which they can partake. The series structure enables the members
of the Arts Planning Council to establish their resources of arts partners and community
volunteers and market their public good in order to sustain the spontaneous communitas into the
future for the township members.
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Once the social structure of normative communitas is in place, the next progression has
been the desire to have a central location where the spontaneous communitas can always be
found. V. Turner (1969) described the third type of communitas as ideological communitas,
which is an attempt to describe the external and visible effect of an inward experience of
existential communitas. The hope is to lay out “the optimal social conditions under which such
experiences might be expected to flourish and multiply” (Longo, 1969, p. 132). The optimal
social conditions understood by the Arts Planning Council are embodied in the possible, future
entity of a Cultural Arts and Events center to serve as a “community hub where there is constant
activity and constant programming and constant engagement and things to do. A place that
people know to go to when they are looking for excitement and fun” (Interview with Lisa,
4/2016). This center was described as a place where all diverse individuals in City Township
might find an identity and come together despite their socioeconomic status, race, or
neighborhood. Community becomes linked to belonging as Delanty (as cited in Mulligan, 2013)
explained. Sarah said:
…I feel like it is going to take something as big and as grandiose as this new arts
center to pull all of those communities together and to really give City Township
a name and an identity and to have people talking about City Township and to be
proud of City Township. (Interview with Sarah, 4/4/2016)
According to Hoffman-Davis (2010) the goals of community arts centers prioritize
personal and interpersonal development, cultural and intercultural awareness, and a commitment
to community service and development. Self-sustaining outcomes, such as community interest,
support, attendance, and student performance are the forms of assessment in a community arts
center (Hoffman-Davis, 2010). An arts center’s success is measured by how much spontaneous
communitas the township members desire and experience at the center as ideological
communitas.
The fate of spontaneous, existential communitas is to fall into structure and law once it
becomes part of normative and ideological communitas. In normative communitas, those rules
found are meant “to abolish structural differentiation” and, instead, serve “to liberate the human
structural propensity to give it free reign in the cultural realm of myth, ritual, and symbol” (V.
Turner, 1969, p. 133). Hence, the structure of the ideological communitas serves to continue the
joy of the aesthetic experiences found within the arts events and programs of the normative
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structure created by the Arts Planning Council. Consequently, community based art education
serves as a guiding framework (normative communitas) for the joy felt when working together
without social structure (spontaneous communitas) and to create artwork in a public space
(ideological communitas). The joy of the arts is one meaning for why the trustees of City
Township established the nonprofit entity of the Arts Planning Council to ensure township
members will continue to come together to experience spontaneous communitas, or “quality of
life,” through arts events and experiences that create community where they live.
The Arts as Expression
The trustees’ and board members’ understanding of the joy of the arts extends into their
understanding of why they believe the arts are so enjoyable. John’s comment explains their
understanding: “I think it [art experience] is something that is enlightening and it helps people to
grow and have a better appreciation for not just the arts, but kind of a reflection of life overall.”
Some people enjoy reflecting on their state of being and expressing their understandings of that
state through artistic means. They also enjoy relating to others who have expressed their own
reflections through artistic means. Lisa stated, “It is not necessarily a niche thing. I think kids
like to play. I think that parents like to play.” She has equated play with expressing oneself.
The trustees and board members see art expression as an essential characteristic. John said, “A
person’s life without the arts would be devoid of an essential human characteristic.” This
understanding plays directly into the establishment of normative and ideological communitas
leading to the ultimate creation of the ecology of education for the township.
The key to establishing the ecology of education is in the board members’ understanding
that the ecology of education already existed. Lisa said, “We had a core group of talented artists
who were doing this on their own.” Her comment gives value to Mitch’s statement, “It [the arts]
is an expression of humanity...The arts have been important to us since the beginning of time. I
don’t think they are going away.” This core group of artists enjoyed expressing themselves
artistically to such a great extent they established their own normative communitas by meeting
once a week in the public space of the Senior and Community Arts Center. They encourage
others to join them and experience artistic expression together. They are not interested in
teaching. Lisa stated, “They do not want to teach, but they would love to have more adults join
them.”
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Longo (2007) explained that when education moves into the community, traditional
learning reforms into a culture of learning. It is best explained in a graph form of counterparts:
Traditional Education Cultural Education
School Centered Education in the Community
Expert Centered Citizen Centered
Youth Centered Intergenerational
Linear Systemic
Experts on Top Experts on Top and Within
Consumer oriented Producer oriented
Spectators Actors
Students Teachers and Learners
Figure 18: Traditional verses Cultural Education (Longo, 2007, p. 103).
Through the graph, one can see how the roles and focus of community education lend a
conceptual shift in a community setting. No longer are the students one age and just observing.
The students are intergenerational learners who are involved in the act of expression. The goal
of creating normative and ideological communitas stimulates conversation among board
members and township volunteers about how to best provide expressive learning opportunities
for township members. The aim becomes a democratic one to create meaningful learning
partnerships across generations, socioeconomic fragmentation, racial diversity, organizations,
schools, and neighborhoods.
Ultimately, this understanding of the arts as expression drives the creation of a
community based art education program known as the Arts Planning Council’s Art Education
Series. It necessitates a curriculum of skills allowing the township actors to be producers with a
community focus and socially minded. It is a curriculum that is citizen driven, utilizing experts
to guide the production of expression. The curriculum is pragmatically democratic, in that it is
the work of free citizens: the members of the Arts Planning Council, the teaching artists, and the
learners. There is “conjoint activity whose consequences are appreciated as good by all singular
persons who take part in it” (Dewey, 1927, p. 149). These citizens are the creative decision-
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makers who choose the skill sets they want to learn and the path they want to use to express their
reflections. A web of partnerships connects the township learners with artists, artists’ studios,
arts educators, musicians, actors, college institutions, other local arts centers, museums, and
other non-profit, professional, and semi-professional arts groups.
Understanding the meaningful structure of expression in the arts guides the Arts Planning
Council’s decision to have an art education series. Such a series creates the normative
communitas generated from expression structured into two hour classes occurring weekly and
taught in six week sessions. For example, basic drawing classes were created for students age 15
and older in which drawing skills could be learned and perfected. The need for foundation skills
came from the township citizens who wanted to learn the skills necessary to be more profound in
their expression. The curriculum exists as one that can be amended and molded by the learners
themselves. The Arts Planning Council utilizes surveys in which the learners can give their
feedback on the subject matter taught, the teacher’s ability to teach, the best times and prices for
class, and whether they would want to teach (see Appendix G).
The establishment of a summer art camp for children is another example of the
implication of the members of the Arts Planning Council’s understanding of the arts as
expression. This year’s art camp holds a curriculum with a township-focused message of
creating artwork to convey the harm of littering in local parks within the township. This
township-focused curriculum was reached by township members and the Arts Planning
Council’s board who were upset about the amount of litter in the neighborhood parks. Educating
the young people of the township about littering through an expressive, community art
curriculum seemed the best way to change a negative trend in the township community10. The
Arts Planning Council’s understanding of expression in the arts guided them in a community
centered curriculum taught by citizens to make systemic changes through educating children on
the issue. The “Kids Can” art camp curriculum allowed the children to become the actors to
artistically produce the public message needed to educate the rest of the township citizens about
the same issue of littering. Through puppet show “commercials” videotaped for the township
website, a song created with a local musician to be performed at a community concert, and
trashcans decorated with “stop littering” themed murals, these learners will become part of the
10 This is the beginning of a progression from simply community-focused art curriculum to creating more socially-just curricula in the future within the township.
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revitalized community created through the ecology of education the Arts Planning Council is
building.
Yet, another example of the implications for the Arts Planning Council’s understanding
of the arts as expression occurs through the input the teaching artists have in the community
based art education curriculum itself. The teaching artists are local citizens of the township or
educators from townships that neighbor City Township. The teaching artists meet after each six-
week session to discuss best practices for intergenerational students, best motivations for
continued enthusiasm, and outcomes for their learners’ final artwork. They reflect on the
curriculum so learners can, in turn, express their own lived experiences through their artistic
skills. After one meeting, the teaching artists decided to provide gallery space for learners to
exhibit and share their expressive artwork. Allowing learners to choose a piece of their artwork
to contribute to the local art show gives learners another venue to share, reflect, express, and
connect with other artists. The teaching artists also considered the requests made by local
citizens for other class offerings such as a colored pencil class. The suggestion provoked a
conversation about who would teach such a class, who was best skilled, and what would be the
best way to teach it.
The literature review in this study supports community-focused and social justice
curricula as a means to revitalize and to educate the community on the local issues at hand.
Studies by Asher (2012), Buda, Fedorenko, and Sheridan, (2012), Hutzel (2007), and Song and
Gammel (2011) centered on community needs and issues of place. The results were more
student awareness of the community issues, social issues, increased classroom community
support of one another, and an increased sense of agency within the neighborhood community.
These results contribute to a revitalized community. As Estelle said, “I keep coming back [to the
arts events and programs] because I love to see how the Arts Planning Council is working to
revitalize our community and to give new meaning to our community.” The structural meaning
of the arts as expression is understood by the Arts Planning Council and the implication of that
understanding is manifest in a normative communitas of a community based art education
curriculum. It is another building block in the ecology of education being established in City
Township.
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The Arts as Connection
The joy of spontaneous communitas continues its thread through these four themes of
understanding voiced by the Arts Planning Council. It contributes heavily to the third theme of
the arts as connection. This theme draws on Buber’s (1975) definition of community imbued
with existential responsibility of humans for each other. Most significantly, this theme directly
creates an “ecology of education” marked as a web of interlinked partnerships connecting
education with civic life. Connecting with each other in the township through arts events and
programs is how the Arts Planning Council understands its work to be done. As Elizabeth said,
“It is human nature to feel a sense of belonging.” Estelle believes the Arts Planning Council is
the “lead system to make this work. Therefore, we have to engage more individuals.”
The connections for the Arts Planning Council happen on at least two levels. The
spontaneous communitas that occurs due to the joy of the arts is one level connecting humans
with humans. The implication for this is the normative communitas embodied in the structure of
the arts series the Arts Planning Council has created. Such a structure serves to continuously
connect humans on an individual level. The Arts Planning Council invests in their events in the
hopes to connect their diverse and fragmented township. Mitch said, “We wanted to bring the
community together because we have such a disconnected community.” Rick explained, “Our
township is very diverse today, but I think we would like to get more diversity in who is coming
to our events…”
The connections that occur on this level are the essential aim of the Arts Planning
Council and the City Township trustees. They understand individuals need to connect to each
other to feel comfortable where they live. But, Buber’s (1975) explanation of existential
connections illustrates the deeper level and implication that this type of connection has for the
ecology of education in the township. In Chapter 4, I reiterated Buber’s answer to the human
crisis of the 20th century, which is for humans to have contact with each other and to develop a
feeling of fraternity. This can only come from trust in each other and having meaning in each
other’s lives. Then humans can feel solicitude or concern with life surrounding them. Solicitude
is derived from direct, whole relations between humans, in this case through arts events and
programs. When liminal, aesthetic encounters provide opportunity for individuals to seek
connection points with personal stories objectified in artistic media, further and deeper
connections transpire allowing empathy for individual situations. Connections between
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individuals contain the capacity to grow into relationships. Relationships can lead to support,
mentoring, modeling, or, one could say, educating. William commented about the variety of
skill levels among his watercolor students, “That is nice to have a lot of different people because
they are all at different levels. They all learn from each other.” The literature of this study refers
to many other studies reviewed indicating connections, awareness, empathy, and various skills
gained through aesthetic experiences, which serve to create a regard for and an understanding of
each other in group situations (Asher, 2012; Buda, Fedorenko, & Sheridan, 2012; Hutzel, 2007,
Krensky, 2001).
In City Township, I observed many connections happening between individuals. Some
were between individuals of the same age, such as two women who met at a concert and talked
to each other about their adult children, the music they were hearing, and their dogs at home
(field journal notes, 6/9/2015). Others were between individuals of different generations such as
the connection made between a drawing student who was 18 and another who was 70. They
began a conversation with mutual admiration for each other’s glasses that led to more supportive,
artistic conversations (field journal notes, 4/7/2016). Even the artists and musicians who
performed made connections with each other. For example, Tim, the musician who wrote songs
with the children in City Township, hung out and made friends with the members of the blues
band that followed his performance on the Arts Sampler Weekend at City Township (field
journal notes, 2/27/2016). Connections developed between audience members, performers,
artists, learners, teachers, and board members. What is most important to note is that individuals
are also connected to larger institutions, further drawing together the entities and communities of
individuals with other’s entities and communities. The arts are then a public, democratic good
growing a web of interlinked partnerships connecting education with civic life.
The second level of this implication is the connection that must occur between
institutions for the structure of arts events and programs to exist. The empirical literature in this
study illustrates the necessity of this level of connection to the success of the normative structure
of arts events and programming. Arts collaboration can occur between several community
institutions. The term for this is a community partnership where an organization or individuals
share needed resources, ideas, connections, and expertise (Serig & Hinojosa, 2010). The Arts
Planning Council understands that its funding is derived from grants given to them from the local
public arts fund, the Greater City Foundation, and the State Arts Council (all pseudonyms given).
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Community members and businesses can sponsor events and programs, but the bulk of the
funding for these programs is derived from other non-profit entities. Lisa confessed, “We found
an income source through Currents in Art that helped us really bring in things that we would not
have been able to.”
The programs themselves are extensions of the total body of work of non-profit groups
such as the Artists Guild, the Children’s Puppet Theater, the many semi-professional acting
groups, the semi-professional orchestras, bands, and musicians, and artists’ studios. The cycle of
partnering becomes a cycle of interlinking benefits and an extension of education into the local
public spaces. Many of these entities have education directors who work for them. These
directors have an aim to educate the public in the artistic medium they perform, the etiquette
involved in viewing the art medium presented, and the understanding of the aesthetic experience
created by the art event and programming. When these groups perform at City Township, they
are educating the township members through the aims of their arts education programs, further
extending the ecology of education in the township. Frank commented:
There used to be this untouchable. You had to be on a certain caliber to go to the
theater…What does it mean to come into a theater?... I even see what Jake
(pseudonym given) is doing at [the Artists Guild], the programming he has done
with Peter and the Star Catcher that is bringing in a lot more, younger families…
I think it is breaking down the barriers. I think you have to. I don’t think the arts
have to be this untouchable thing that only certain amounts of people with this
certain socioeconomic background can take advantage of. I believe that theater
and arts are what form the well-rounded community. I think that through the arts
is the only way we are teaching the cultural etiquette. The Emily Post days are
gone. We don’t teach that anymore. I think that through different pieces of theater
that you do, you learn a totally different respect than just running amuck.
(Interview with Frank, 4/6/2016)
As Frank referred to the education of cultural etiquette, he is acknowledging the
need for the community to educate its citizens on the topics that may not occur in the
school setting. He understands the need for the arts as connection and for the ecology of
education in the public.
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Conversations with the trustees and the Arts Planning Council members in regard to the
future Cultural Arts and Events Center always fall back to the necessity of connecting and
forming partnerships in order to even have the center exist. Mitch explained, “Whether you are
talking about funding of the staff or the funding of the facilities, it is going to require a
partnership of a lot of different entities both from within the township and beyond the township.”
The township may be the main tenant in the building, but a local university could rent space for
arts education. A local music group could rent space for rehearsal as could theater groups, dance
groups, or local philanthropies. Mitch even explained part of the building could possibly house a
fire or police station. The building itself would be an objectification of the connections and
partnerships necessary for the survival and existence of the arts in City Township. It would
become more than a reification of the community of practice, but a literal destination for the
ecology of education of the township.
A large implication of the theme of the arts as connection is the township’s desire to
connect with and support the schools. Again, the literature in this study contributes evidence to
this idea. Collaboration with institutions already established by the local community was cited to
positively transform schools by extending educational opportunities for students (Bains & Mesa-
Bains, 2002; Campbell, 2001; Eckhoff, 2011; Hoffman-Davis, 2010; Phinney, Moody, & Small,
2014). Lisa initially wanted to support the schools by using local artists as mentors for students
struggling with state testing. Discussions with superintendents and arts teachers led to other
avenues of possible support. Two years after the initial discussions of partnering with the
schools, an arts forum was created as a discussion space for local arts educators in the school to
come together and brainstorm for how the township could further support the formal arts
educators. The initial forum led arts educators to further awareness of the opportunities for each
arts program through the existing Arts Planning Council events and programs. Possibilities for
grant writing, performance space and time for music, theater, and choral groups, display
opportunities for the visual arts programs, and artists in residence programs in the schools were a
few of the many points of connection the arts educators have with the Arts Planning Council. A
desire of the arts teachers was to have professional development that would be beneficial to their
professional and curricular growth as arts educators. Conversation about a possibility for teacher
workshops with local and nationally known artists began and has been in the works since the first
forum (field journal notes, 9/22/2015).
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Estelle commented on her experience volunteering in the schools:
When I see how eager they [the students] are and I see the teachers who are doing
a great job to broaden their horizons [with the arts], I think this is an excellent
way to broaden their horizons. How would we [the Arts Planning Council] do
that? Getting more involved with the schools, especially with high risk schools.
(Interview with Estelle, 4/15/2016)
The Arts Planning Council is in the beginning stages of creating these connections. It is a
new idea for this township, and it is taking time in order for the arts teachers, even any teacher,
to accept the support. Mitch tried to explain the situation when he said, “I really think part of
that is the nature of what the three school districts have gone through. They have had a lot of
transition with their leadership…. They were trying to maintain and keep things running…”
The understanding the members of the Arts Planning Council have of the arts as
connecting will continue to guide their mutual engagement in this joint enterprise to connect to
other institutions and other entities. These connections will enable the normative and ideological
communitas to be established and to further the township web of interlinked partnerships
connecting education with civic life.
The Arts as Public Good
The three aforementioned themes enlighten the understandings the members of the Arts
Planning Council have of the arts events and programming and how community is created
through those events. Those three themes lay the foundation for the final and fourth theme, the
arts as a public good. The joyous desire to continue the spontaneous, existential communitas of
the aesthetic experience found within the normative structure of arts events and program series
enables the arts as expression and connection to, ultimately, become owned and given as a public
good within the township.
Arts events and programs that create community connection are not perceived in City
Township as a public need. Public needs are determined in a political process and have to do
with the public’s idea about what needs are important. City township members did not
politically decide through an elective process to utilize the arts events and programs to create a
closely connected community. Instead, the joyous desire to continue the spontaneous,
normative, and ideological communitas is an idea of the township trustees and administration.
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Lisa stated, “When we did different events that brought in elements of the arts, we had higher
attendance.” Their passion for these aesthetic experiences within arts events and programs has
developed into collective action to create the arts events and programs as a public good to give to
the township members as a “gift” (Interview with Estelle, 4/15/2016). John said, “…one of the
reasons we are pursuing it, is for the public good, for the development of the community.” The
arts have become a collective good serving many people at the same time without diminishing
the supply.
Collective action occurs in a political society where people talk to each other and enter
into cooperative efforts that generate perpetual energy to sustain more collective action (Stone,
2012, p. 237). The implication of the trustees’ and administration’s desire for arts events and
programming to create community evolved into the Arts Planning Council to manage the
common resource of the arts in City Township. The Arts Planning Council is a cooperative
effort between the township trustees, administration, and volunteers of the township. Township
members who participate in this voluntary organization hold feelings of trust, loyalty,
reciprocity, and altruism and have become civically engaged. Lisa described the concert
committee and its creation from township volunteers. She stated:
…it is residents taking an active role… This year, our concert committee already
has four new people, and I have not even met them yet. They called, and they
want to be part of it. To me that is really cool to groom this team to create
something for the community on a bigger scale. (Interview with Lisa, 4/6/2016)
Social capital is built and can harness individual energies for the common good (Stone,
2012, p. 237). Thus, a consciousness of communal life is sustained and perceived as a group
singularity. For Dewey (1927), communal life embodies the idea of democracy. “Democracy is
the work of free citizens involved in everyday politics where ordinary people are creative
decision-makers and actors in all aspects of public life” (Longo, 2007, p. 4). In City Township,
the aesthetic experiences created from arts events and programming are part of public life.
If aesthetic experiences are integral to public life as this study has indicated, the idea of a
public good in the mainstream economists’ definition may not fully illustrate the phenomenon of
the arts in City Township. Zuidervaart (2011) developed an alternative definition stating the arts
are “irreducibly social goods” that hold meaning to a culture or a community (p. 41). It is a
mistake, Zuidervaart (2011) claimed, to regard the arts as “decomposable” public goods, as being
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a good because they only deliver satisfaction to individuals (p. 41). The trustees and members of
the Arts Planning Council do not regard the arts events and programs as decomposable goods
that lie in subjective satisfaction or “preferences.” Instead, the township regards the arts events
and programming as cultural products and events of their community, such as artworks and
artistic performances. As Zuidervaart (2011) explained, these cultural products inhabit the
domain of meaning. In the domain of meaning, Zuidervaart (2011) upheld that “goods can be
good and be regarded as good only against the background of meanings” (p. 42) that exist
because of shared, normative practices of a public. In City Township’s case, it is the established
norm of an arts council that brings the aesthetic experiences to the public through arts events and
programming.
Zuidervaart (2011) defined two approaches to cultural matters, such as arts events and
programs, as irreducible social goods rather than individual consumer goods. First, a
“background of practices, institutions, and understanding that form an intrinsically good culture
makes them possible” (p. 42). For example, to say a certain quality of aesthetic experience is
“good” must be to judge the culture in which that kind of experience is believed to be a good
worth cultivating. City Township has conceived of the arts events and programs as a good worth
cultivating by creating a culture of an ecology of education. Zuidervaart (2011) continued, if
such an experience is worth cultivating, then the cultures have to be worth fostering for
themselves. Taylor (as cited in Zuidervaart, 2011) stated, “Being an irreducible feature of the
society as a whole, a valuable culture, unlike the public goods of welfare economics, could never
not be ‘supplied’ to everyone in the society” (emphasis in original, p. 42).
Second, irreducible social goods that are cultural matters are integral to “common
understandings” and are “undecomposable” (Zuidervaart, 2011, p.42). “Their very goodness
depends on their being acknowledged as good” (p.42), not just for individuals, but for the public
as a whole. A good, according to Zuidervaart (2011), is “irreducibly social” because the
“goodness” is the object of a common understanding within a culture (p. 41). City Township has
defined the aesthetic experiences found in the arts events and programming as an irreducible
social good because of their ability to create joy, expression, connection, and belonging for the
township public’s culture.
Zuidervaart’s (2011) argument hinges on the role culture plays in the establishment of
social goods. In general, Zuidervaart (2011) defined culture as that which “denotes human
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activities and products” connected to the “intellectual, moral, and artistic aspects of human life”
(p. 43). “Culture is a dynamic network of human practices, relationship, and products or events”
(Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 43). Such activities and products involve creativity, symbolic meaning,
and the potential for becoming intellectual property. Through the web of culture, traditions form
and are dispensed, social connections are made, personal identities are created, and art, language,
and education are the structures that holds the culture together (Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 43).
Zuidervaart (2011), however, explained the specificity of culture as a relatively cohesive and
complex “configuration of practices, relationships, and products or events where certain habits,
sensibilities, and self-understandings are characteristic” (p. 44).
During the formation and existence of culture, the arts stand as one part of the cultural
structure. Their role is to specifically serve as a “societal site for imaginative disclosure” giving
the arts an important role in society (Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 44). As citizens of a culture, we look
to the arts in order to find cultural orientation, which refers to the “ways in which individuals,
communities, and organizations find their direction both within and by way of culture”
(Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 44). Cultural orientation has to do with finding purpose and meaning and
with learning why those particular purposes and meanings may or may not be present.
City Township has looked to the arts because the arts have developed as “settings for
exploring, presenting, and creatively interpreting multiple nuances of meaning” (Zuidervaart,
2011, p. 44). For the Arts Planning Council, the arts events and programming give the township
societal sites for imaginative disclosure. As Zuidevaart (2011) argued, “This implies aesthetic
judgments about art phenomena pertain in the first instance to the authenticity of artistic
practices, the integrity of artworks as self-referential signs, and the significance of the
experiences that participation in art affords” (p. 44). He explained it is the “authenticity,
integrity, and significance” of arts events and programming to either “articulate nuances of
personal and social worlds we already inhabit” or to disturb those worlds (p. 44). Viewed in this
way, the aesthetic worth of the arts is intrinsic to their being “irreducibly social goods” and
causes the arts to lie within the intersections among economy, polity, and civil society
(Zuidervaart, 2011, p. 44). Zuidervaart (2011) claimed the arts exist in that “intersection”
because of “the societally important aesthetic worth of the arts” as a “specific form of economic
organization,” and they “perform a specific type of political role” (p. 45). That economic form is
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of a legal, not-for-profit association with the political role as a public communicator or educator,
such as The Arts Planning Council.
Understanding the arts as irreducible social goods and the economic form and public role
that a non-profit association such as the Arts Planning Council should take, we can better
understand Longo’s (2007) connection between education, community, and democracy. Longo
(2007) claimed that, as Americans, we have a duty to educate democratic citizens. The layers of
community created both from and around the irreducible social goods of the aesthetic
experiences of the arts events and programs spin a web of linked entities that are mutually
engaged. As I explained in Chapter 4, communities of practice grow naturally among people
who engage with each other. Membership is neither produced through social diversity,
homogeneity, nor geographic location. Instead, the mutual engagement of the participants,
accountability to the joint enterprise, and negotiability of the shared repertoire of the practice
remain the source of coherence. These communities negotiate their meanings through the
democratic work of ordinary citizens, and the institutions of City Township support its members
of all ages in the ongoing process of becoming active and democratic citizens. The result of the
belief in the arts as an irreducible social good is the creation of a civic culture with an abundance
of civic resources (Longo, 2007, p. 5). Civil society is rebuilt and maintained through an
increase in interactional and social connections between citizens. Therefore, revitalizing
community life through the social good of the aesthetic experiences of arts events and
programming through a non-profit association such as the Arts Planning Council could be a pre-
requisite to revitalizing education in general (Longo, 2007, p. 4).
Conclusion
The Ripple Report’s (2010) conclusion, “A thriving arts sector creates ripple effects of
benefit throughout our community,” positions the understanding of the arts as an irreducible
social good, as more than just a “ripple” in the body of the ecology of education in City
Township. The arts become the tide creating the ecology of education. The community in City
Township is becoming revitalized into a connected web of interlinked partnerships called an
ecology of education; the implication of the belief of the arts as an irreducible social good. This
belief motivates the Arts Planning Council’s mutual engagement in the aim and negotiation of a
shared practice to pursue the enterprise of delivering the arts, in the form of a normative and
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ideological communitas, to the township. Bob’s comment illustrates how their understanding of
the arts as a social good propels their mutual engagement and aims:
Having all of the answers [is our goal]. What is the next partnership? How are
you going to fund this? Does the community even want it? ... I see my position
right now is to make sure the revenues keep flowing to support the facilities so
that we maintain the current program while the council looks to see: what are the
next steps, what are our next options, what are our next partnerships, what is our
next chapter? It is like writing a book. I am trying to make sure that we can still
have pages in the book so that we can start the next chapter. (Interview with Bob,
4/6/2016)
The next chapter is the implication of their work toward the township’s ecology of education.
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Chapter 6: A Final Discussion
The subject matter of the art of the future will be only feelings drawing people to
unity, or really uniting them; another form of art will be such as to be accessible
to everybody. And therefore the ideal of perfection of the future will not be
exclusiveness of feeling, accessible only to some, but on the contrary, its
universality. (Leo Tolstoy, as cited in Day & Hurwitz, 2001, p. 272).
In order to analyze the meaning the members of the Arts Planning Council have of the
aesthetic experiences created by the arts events and programming and its role in community
creation, it was important to hermeneutically investigate the significant statements the members
had made in regard to the phenomenon. Their statements revealed four themes of understanding,
which I employed to create the textual reflection of their beliefs. Van Manen (1990) stated that
to do phenomenological research is to “bring to speech” something in the form of language.
Through the bricolage of understanding that I have attempted to form in Chapters 4 and 5, I have
woven in the Council’s belief of the arts as a public-social good viewed as the aim of everything
the council does as a community of practice and its attempts to establish spontaneous, normative,
and ideological communitas. The belief in the arts as an irreducible social good is the meaning
of their understanding of the arts events and programming toward community creation.
The writing of this text on the aesthetic experience and its ability to create community
has been a form of practical action illuminating what cannot be ignored in City Township. The
Arts Planning Council’s existence is now mediated by the knowledge of the phenomenon of arts
events and programming toward community creation. That knowledge is realized into the
actions and performance of the members of the Arts Planning Council toward community
creation and a resulting ecology of education in the township. The arts are now part of the
structure of the culture in City Township, lying in the intersection of its economic, political, and
civil society.
City Township is a particular township with diverse demographics. As a case study, this
research cannot be generalized to other cases, but it could be compared. As a phenomenological
study, the meanings analyzed and concluded could be transferrable to other similar phenomena
and situations. Other cities, townships, or villages who look to utilize arts events and
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programming to create community may find the understandings of the Arts Planning Council’s
board and trustees applicable to their situations. The arts can be joyful, expressive, connecting,
and a social-public good in other situations. As Zuidervaart (2011) explained, “the arts are an
extension of culture” and, therefore, serve as “societal sites for imaginative disclosures” (p. 44).
The arts indicate the cultural orientation of a public, which are the ways in which individuals,
communities, and organizations find their directions within and by way of the culture.
High Points
There are, however, several points I would like to make in regard to what the Township
did that have been successful for them and could contribute to the establishment of the arts
within a culture of another township.
Listening
I realize that the township trustees recognize the arts as a social-public good to be given
to the township public as a “gift.” However, when I read through the interviews and observed
what and how the Arts Planning Council works, I do not think the trustees would have moved
forward with the project of the arts without noticing the interest of their public. Both Lisa and
Rick mentioned the attendance at the events they held that involved the arts. Lisa mentioned
those were the highest attended and Rick noticed those events were always “sold out” or he
noticed the audience was happy to be there and “enjoying themselves.” They both were
“listening” and sensitive to the response of the people. The Arts Planning Council and township
trustees continue to do so on a regular basis with surveys and conversations with students and
attendees. The feedback they receive from the public guides their decisions about what arts
events and programs to create or present. The Arts Planning Council is open to the suggestions
and vocal feedback from the public and remains flexible within their normative structure of
communitas. I highly recommend that to any township trustee and administration. It is a simple,
conceptual generalization of a meaning of the arts as joy.
A Separate Entity
The establishment of the Arts Planning Council as a 501(c)(3), nonprofit organization
was a clever and important step for the township trustees and administration to make. It
removed the dilemma about which Zuidervaart (2011) wrote in regard to the government support
of the arts. It stopped the “anti-tax group” in the township from attacking them because it does
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not utilize direct public funding from township taxes to produce events or programs. One could
make the argument that the township government is still supporting the arts and, in this case, it is
by creating the nonprofit organization within their township umbrella, by having three paid,
township administrators on its board, and by creating policy that keeps the entity within their
township framework. But, it removes the perception that the township is directly funding it. By
giving it an entity of its own, the Arts Planning Council can utilize “everyday citizens” to make
decisions and to volunteer in the creation of any arts event or program the collective action of the
public chooses. It further allows the Arts Planning Council to raise its funds through
sponsorships and donations, not taxes. The council is awarded grants from other nonprofit
entities and public arts funds. Again, I highly recommend the establishment of a nonprofit entity
to create and maintain the structure of the arts within the township culture. In essence, the Arts
Planning Council, itself, is normative communitas established for the continuation of the
meaning of the arts as joy, expression, connection, and a social-public good.
A Programming Structure
The Arts Planning Council developed their own “programming structure” for themselves
to stay organized with their arts events and programming and to be able to package the social-
public good of the arts to the township members. The creation of a four-program series of family
entertainment, summer concerts, dinner theater, and art education gives the Arts Planning
Council a normative communitas within which they can be flexible, connecting, and expressive.
The structure allows them to spread out the programming, delineate different events and
programs, organize their grants and funding, and eventually grow with other staff and volunteers
to handle the four different series. For example, if the summer concert series volunteers and the
Arts Planning Council want to grow that program series to attract more of the diverse township
public, they can without exhausting or suppressing the other three parts of their program series.
The normative communitas of the four-program series is a structure that can be generalized to
other townships who desire to sustain spontaneous communitas within their township and
understand the arts as joy, expression, connecting, and a social-public good.
A Self-Sustaining Entity
A precedence had been set in City Township of providing goods and services for the
public without overtaxing the public. City Township created a model to allow the township to
provide a senior and community arts center by utilizing the Banquet Hall as an income stream.
153
By renting the Banquet Hall to the general public for private events, the township administration
is now able to support Bob’s salary and the senior and community arts center’s daily functions
without using any taxpayer money.
Keeping that in mind, the Arts Planning Council has been researching a self-sustaining
model that will enhance their programming and support a paid staff member of the Arts Planning
Council. The researched solution has been to expand the already functioning but small-scale art
summer camp for children in grades 2-6. The research points to a desire for a “premium” camp
in their area that would also fulfill the need of all day child care for working parents in the
“millennial” generation. The all-day summer art camp will last for the 10-12 weeks of the
summer. The plan is that it will generate revenue to support a paid education director and, by
year 4, give the Arts Planning Council an income stream to use to provide higher quality arts
events and programs. The program should continue to grow in both students attending and
revenue generated with the only limit being the space that is available at the Senior and
Community Arts Center. Currently, it only allows for a maximum of 60 students in the camp.
The effort to provide the township public with goods and services sustained with the
entities currently owned by the township but without the further generation of tax money is an
important key to the sustainability of the goods and services the township provides. It guarantees
the spontaneous communitas occurs within the normative communitas through self-sustaining
ideological communitas. Frankly, that is good stewardship of public moneys and goods that
should be generalized to other township entities who desire to bring “quality of life” to their
public.
Limitations
In every situation there are many good points to be replicated and some mistakes to be
avoided. I must admit there are so many great, positive meanings and points to be generalized
from City Township’s establishment of the arts events and programming to create community
within its public, that there are few limitations to their models. Some do exist that they have to
work through and may be limitations that other township entities might also encounter.
The Board
The first limitation to discuss is the structure of the board for the Arts Planning Council.
The township trustees wanted to keep the Arts Planning Council as a separate entity but within
the umbrella of the township. A policy exists, created beyond the township trustees, that the
154
originating entity of a non-profit organization must keep the majority of members on the board.
In this case, the Arts Planning Council is made up of three paid township administrators who
represent the originating entity (the township administration and trustees) as the majority of
members. That allows for only two members at-large from the public. The limited number from
the public stifles the voice of the public in the everyday work of that community of practice. The
limited number of total board members will eventually strangle any growth that can occur with
the Arts Planning Council and its programs. The paid administrators are busy with their full-
time jobs which leave little time for them to volunteer or be in charge of volunteers for the events
and programs the Arts Planning Council plans. The two members at-large cannot be expected to
do all of the work of the whole board. They do what they can but the brunt of the workload falls
on Lisa, the chairperson. This situation gives them the definition of a “working board” and not
really a decision-making board.
I certainly would recommend a bigger board in order for the Arts Planning Council to
grow. In their frustrations, Lisa’s in particular, she has researched and concluded some other
solutions to how they can grow their board without changing their current structure of a five-
member board. By creating an executive board and an advisory board, she can grow both the
volunteer and decision making base she needs to enhance the functions of the normative and
ideological communitas the group desires. Understanding how to utilize the collective power of
the collective agency is an important understanding to generalize to other township entities.
The Space
City Township is blessed with current buildings in which to house events, programs, and
education. The central location and the current space are perfect for the current size and function
of the arts events and programs the Arts Planning Council has provided. Sharing space and
finding space to hold the events and programming is not an abominable difficulty for the Arts
Planning Council but does limit growth and will become a problem in the longer picture of
planning the ideological communitas. While rental revenue provides a terrific income stream to
support the buildings the township currently owns, it limits the times in which the art education
programs, especially the all-day camp, can take place. It becomes a decision about which
program makes more money and limits the times the space can be used. These are normal
problems that a group will encounter when working with so many parts. Having Bob as the Vice
Chair of the Arts Planning Council is integral to their success as he is the director of the Senior
155
and Community Arts Center and manages all of the rentals for that building and the Banquet
Hall. He works directly with the programming of the events and classes for the Arts Planning
Council and it requires a tightly, choreographed dance to pull off the programming that is
currently happening. In fact, things are growing so much for the Arts Planning Council, that a
need for programming software has surfaced and will help with so many entities working closely
together. Eventually, (probably in four or five years) the space will be outgrown and a need for a
bigger space will arise. Lisa has seen this coming for a while and has been working to design,
create, and approve a new Cultural Arts Center for the Township. Where it will be built is an
open discussion. Who will fund it is an open discussion. Who will be housed in it is an open
discussion. All of these points were addressed in this document but it remains an issue in the
Township for now. The size and maintenance of the current space is a limit to the Arts Planning
Council right now and will increase to be a burden in the future. This is, again, a generalized
understanding to other township entities who wish to have their spontaneous communitas
cemented within the ideological communitas of their township.
Conclusion
Understanding what is necessary for a public, its culture, and for its good is important not
just to the life of a township, but to the education of the community through the non-profit
association that serves to communicate and educate. In this case, it is the Arts Planning Council.
This study is not only an example to other townships and cities who choose to create arts
councils to socially connect their publics, but City Township has removed the arts from the role
of only serving to benefit other subject matter within the traditional school curricula. The arts
events and programming in City Township illustrate that the aesthetic experience found within
the arts events and programs can be integral to the ecology of the township.
The ecology of education serves as a model for reclaiming democracy, community, and
education through civic renewal (Longo, 2002). When education happens in the community it
becomes active learning outside of the classroom and intentionally places education in the
context of long-term, community building efforts that are place-based, collaborative, integrated,
problem-solving, curricular approaches. The phenomenon of the arts events and programming at
City Township has revealed that joyful, expressive, intergenerational, holistic, and connecting
situations found in the liminal spaces of arts events and programming creates spontaneous
communitas within the learning environments. The spontaneous communitas, turned into
156
normative and ideological communitas, function as positive outcomes for the public and
connects community learning with civic engagement (Longo, 2002, p. 11).
This perspective permits the township public to invest in the welfare of its members; it is
a reflection of true democracy and the definition of a pragmatic community. To harken back to
Zuidervaart (2011), he concluded, “The battle about government arts funding is simultaneously a
struggle over the shape of a democratic culture” (p. 312). This research supports Zuidervaart’s
(2011) beliefs that cultural institutions created to nurture democratic practices and dispositions,
such as the Arts Planning Council, need “societal room to thrive.” Governments, townships or
otherwise, cannot ignore the correlation between interpersonal participation in arts within a
public and civic engagement. Connecting learning in the community with democratic practice,
according to Longo (2002), “requires a longer view” and “a different kind of politics led by bold
citizens and innovative civic institutions,” such as the Arts Planning Council. The community,
in this case City Township, must be the vehicle for civic learning.
What has begun in City Township, with the hope to connect the diverse and fragmented
population through the use of arts events and programming, will sustain an impact over a long
period of time. It takes time to build community through communities of practice and the work
of regular citizens. City Township can harness the creative powers of their diversity through
their public work to deliver the arts as a social good. It will take the talents and instincts of
everyday citizens as well as the fostering of reciprocal relationships. The township members, as
well as the Arts Planning Council, will have to embrace flexibility and trust in the “messiness” of
the democratic practice they will utilize to continue to deliver the social goods of the arts events
and programming to City Township.
Understanding the whole human being and how humans can flourish is important for
those in leadership positions who make decisions for the members of their public. This research
implies the true understanding of the need of the aesthetic experience toward community
connection for humans and how it spills into other facets of public life. The hope is that the
understandings and the meanings of the aesthetic experiences created through arts events and
programming that lead toward community creation could be generalized to other public spaces in
other geographic locations.
157
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Appendix A
Community Support of Arts Curriculum within the Local Public Schools
Katherine K. Smith
Artistic and creative community support of the regular public school curriculum begins with
conversations of those individuals who have a vested interest in the outcome of such a collaboration.
The more varied the voices that are represented, the more democratic and, therefore, effective the
result will be for the community at large. Not only should the superintendent be present but also
should the individual teachers, parents, business owners, retired seniors and local artists have a voice.
In order to start the conversation, I recommend that the collaboration starts with programs that
take on three parts. The first would begin with creating a community space and support for local artists.
The second part would be direct collaboration between students and local artists. Finally, the third part
of the collaboration would consist of community supported arts workshops for teachers.
The first part of the plan would begin with support for local artists. The community would
provide a space for them to have an open studio where the artists can meet, work, and collaborate
together. Allow the studio to be open to the public with published open studio tours and celebrations
on a regular basis. The community can also provide a gallery space either at the community center or
within the local businesses wherein the artists can sell their work. Arrangement should be made with
the artists for them to donate a small percentage of what is sold within these community spaces to go
back into the maintenance of these spaces or programs. Community sponsored shows or contests for
artists can be created on a yearly or bi-yearly basis to provide incentive to surrounding artists within
other communities to see what is available for artists within the Springfield Township community.
The second part of this community arts recommendation would be to use the pool of local
artists that has been established to partner with the local public schools. Different academic
departments can request to have the local artists work within the school as part of an “artist-in-
residence” program. The artists can work with art classes, science/chemistry/physics classes to provide
an applied extension of the current academic curriculum. For example, a high school chemistry class can
work with a ceramic artist or group of ceramic artists to learn about chemical bonds and hardness,
combustion and silicate content with different clay bodies. The students could work with clay and fire
the clay on which to experiment with hardness and better understand the bonds at a molecular level.
The unit could culminate with a Raku or pit-firing of student created pots. A large and unusual firing
such as those listed would be completed in collaboration with a local group enabling the teachers to do
something that cannot be done within the regular school. Raku firing is part of the Japanese tea
ceremony and could touch on the culture of any Japanese students who are present in the schools.
Sand pit firing is an ancient and Native American type of firing. Again, considering the culture of the
students in the schools, this too could help establish a connection in the community. See attachment B
for detailed lesson plan.
Another example of partnering could happen on a more individual basis where specific students,
such as academically challenged students, could be partnered with individual artists creating a mentor
situation. The school or the community space could be provided for these artists and students. Formal
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programming could be created for them to work together on collaborative projects to enhance
businesses, the schools, or the community at large.
In both of these models of artists/school collaboration, community projects should be the focus
both to enhance public space and to educate the public on the importance of an applied, experienced
curriculum and artistic thought. Again, gallery space should be provided for the results of the
collaboration. Silent auctions and community events can be used to raise monies for these programs or
for the school art programs. A model for collaboration between artists and students can be seen in the
studio/gallery called Visionaries and Voices (http://visionariesandvoices.com/), a space for artists with
disabilities to create and sell their artwork.
A third part of this community arts collaboration would be to provide workshops for educators
of all fields on how to integrate the Arts in general into the existing curriculum. Extensive research and
educational philosophy has expounded on the benefits of integrated and applied, experiential
curriculums for enhancing students’ understanding, confidence in acquired knowledge and overall
academic performance during both the 20th and now the 21st centuries. Education and Democracy was
first linked with John Dewey, followed by the Social Reconstructionists and elaborated on by Maxine
Greene, Eliot Eisner, and Sir Kenneth Robinson in our present time. Montessori and Waldorf schools are
successful extensions from the Social Reconstructionist time period that prove as examples of applied
curriculums. The San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) is a current example of a large public
school district that is meeting the assessment and accountability standards of the present age. SFUSD
stands as an example of how curriculum can still be integrated using the common core standards that
are being brought down on districts from the state government. The SFUSD not only stands as an
example of how to do this successfully but it also provides workshops to community teachers with their
Science, Literacy, Arts and Technology Program (SLANT--
http://education.kqed.org/edspace/2013/01/31/in-the-classroom-a-slant-approach-to-learning-at-the-
paul-revere-school/).
The teachers’ workshops provided by the Dayton, Ohio local arts support group called Muse
Machine also provides a nice model for how to use nationally acclaimed artists from all of the different
arts disciplines to work with teachers in order to better understand how artists work.
(http://musemachine.com/index.php/secondary-teachers/teacher-resources/summer-workshop/).
Springfield Township could do this on a local level by first providing workshops with the local artists and
educators in all disciplines and Arts and then moving on to using more nationally and internationally
known artists. A connection could also be established with the local universities and their arts/teacher
workshops that they provide. Space could be given to these universities for training within the local
community or, more specifically, teacher training. (Miami University-Craft Summer:
http://cs.summerartsinstitute.org/craft-summer-2013/).
The three-part program that I suggest is intended to serve as a starting point of conversation
within the Springfield Township community. In order to establish programming that is beneficial to all
parties, all parties who are affected by the programming should have a voice in the creation and
maintenance of these programs. The connection created by the arts between the community and the
schools will be established as an enduring bond when all three of these “parts” are enacted.
Communication between the schools and the community will be a constant part of the programs
167
created and run. The programs themselves, should be dynamic enough to change according to the
changing needs of both the community and the schools.
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Appendix B COLLABORATIVE INSTITUTIONAL TRAINING INITIATIVE (CITI)
HUMAN RESEARCH CURRICULUM COMPLETION REPORT
Printed on 11/10/2014
LEARNER
Katherine Smith (ID: 4460918)
6993 Willowood Drive
Cincinnati
Ohio 45241
United States of America
DEPARTMENT Educational Leadership
PHONE not applicable
EMAIL [email protected]
INSTITUTION Miami University (Oxford, Ohio)
EXPIRATION DATE 11/09/2017
MU SOCIAL & BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH INVESTIGATORS AND KEY
PERSONNEL.
COURSE/STAGE: Basic Course/1
PASSED ON: 11/10/2014
REFERENCE ID: 14299385
REQUIRED MODULES DATE COMPLETED
Introduction 10/14/14
History and Ethical Principles - SBE 10/14/14
Defining Research with Human Subjects - SBE 10/14/14
The Federal Regulations - SBE 10/16/14
Assessing Risk - SBE 10/16/14
Informed Consent - SBE 10/16/14
Privacy and Confidentiality - SBE 10/23/14
Research With Protected Populations - Vulnerable Subjects: An Overview 10/23/14
Internet-Based Research - SBE 10/23/14
Avoiding Group Harms - U.S. Research Perspectives 10/26/14
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Vulnerable Subjects - Research Involving Workers/Employees 10/26/14
Conflicts of Interest in Research Involving Human Subjects 10/26/14
Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) 11/04/14
ELECTIVE MODULES DATE COMPLETED
Basic Institutional Review Board (IRB) Regulations and Review Process 11/10/14
Informed Consent 11/10/14
Research in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools - SBE 11/10/14
For this Completion Report to be valid, the learner listed above must be affiliated with a
CITI Program participating institution or be a paid
Independent Learner. Falsified information and unauthorized use of the CITI Program
course site is unethical, and may be considered
research misconduct by your institution.
Paul Braunschweiger Ph.D.
Professor, University of Miami
Director Office of Research Education
CITI Program Course Coordinator
170
Appendix C
Research Compliance Office 102 Roudebush Hall Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056
Certification: Human Subjects Research Exempt from IRB Review
January 28, 2015
Exempt Research Certificate Number:
TO: Katherine Smith and Dr. Kathleen Knight-Abowitz 01497e RE:
The Effects of Art on the Community: A Case Study of the Democratic Process Involved When
the Arts are a Priority for a Community
The project noted above and as described in your application for registering Human Subjects (HS)
research has been screened to determine if it is regulated research or meets the criteria of one of the
categories of research that can be exempt from Institutional Review Board review (per 45 CFR 46). The determination for your research is indicated below.
The research described in the application is regulated human subjects research, however, the description meets the criteria of at least one exempt category included in 45 CFR 46 and
associated guidance. The Applicable Exempt Category(ies) is/are: 2
Research may proceed upon receipt of this certification. When research is deemed exempt from IRB
review, it is the responsibility of the researcher listed above to ensure that all future personsnot listed
on the filed application who i) will aid in collecting data or, ii) will have access to data with subject identifying information, meet the training requirements (CITI Online Training).
If you are considering any changes in this research that may alter the level of risk or wish to include a
vulnerable population (e.g. subjects <18 years of age) that was not previously specified in the application, you must consult the Research Compliance Office before implementing these changes.
Exemption certification is not transferrable; this certificate only applies to the researcher specified
above. All research exempted from IRB review is subject to post-certification monitoring and audit
by the compliance office.
Jennifer Sutton, MPA
Associate Director of Research Compliance
171
Appendix D Research Consent Form
My name is Katherine Coy Smith. I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Educational Leadership at
Miami University. I am conducting a case study to describe the process and the effects a community
experiences when the arts are placed as a priority.
My research will consist of observations and participation with the Township Administrators, the Arts
Connect Officers and Board of Directors, and the events and classes that are planned through Arts
Connect. I will conduct formal and conversational interviews that could be recorded and published for
use in my doctoral dissertation and possible publications in academic journals. Names and identifying
information will be changed to protect the participants’ privacy and confidentiality unless the Township
agrees that it would want information published. Although identifying information will be collected, the
data will be analyzed for all subjects and presented in aggregate summary form. Data will not be
presented in a way that individuals could be identified. Quotations will only be used with participants’
permission.
Any participation by the board members, officers, or administrators in this case study is completely
voluntary. Participants should be 18 years old or older and should feel free to decline a request for an
interview or ask that information is not recorded.
For questions about the research, please contact me, Katherine K. Smith ([email protected], 513-
378-6708) or my faculty advisor, Dr. Kathleen Knight-Abowitz ([email protected]). For questions
or concerns about the rights of research subjects or the voluntariness of this consent procedure, please
contact the Research Compliance Office at Miami University: (513) 529-3600 or
Assurance/Consent Section:
If you agree to participate in this research project: The Impact and Effects of Art Education on
the Community: A Case Study of a Township with a Priority on the Arts, please sign below,
detach the signature section and return to Katherine Coy Smith. Please keep the information
above for future reference.
Subject Name (Printed) Signature
date
_______ Please initial if you allow interviews to be recorded or events to be videotaped. The
images are collected only for accurate note-taking and will never be used publicly unless you or
the township gives explicit permission.
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Appendix E November 14, 2014
[Mitch] XXXX
Chief Administrative Officer
XXX Township
XXXXXX
XXXXXX
Dear [Mitch],
I am writing to request permission to conduct a qualitative research case study on the grounds of
your Township Administrative Offices, Senior Center, XXXX Banquet Hall, as well as other
areas within the township where the Arts Planning Council plans arts-related community events.
As a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership Department at Miami University, I am
conducting the case study to describe the process, the impact, and the effects a community
experiences when the arts are placed as a priority.
My research will consist of observations and participation with the Township Administrators, the
[The Arts Planning Council’s] Officers and Board of Directors, and the events and classes that
are planned through the Arts Planning Council. I will conduct formal and conversational
interviews that could be recorded and published for use in my doctoral dissertation and possible
publications in academic journals and conferences. Names and identifying information will be
changed to protect the participants’ privacy and confidentiality unless the Township agrees that it
would want information published. Although identifying information will be collected, the data
will be analyzed for all subjects and presented in aggregate summary form. Data will not be
presented in a way that individuals could be identified. Quotations will only be used with
participants’ permission.
Any participation by the board members, officers, or administrators in this case study is
completely voluntary. Participants should feel free to decline a request for an interview or ask
that information is not recorded.
For questions about the research, please contact me, Katherine K. Smith
([email protected], 513-378-6708) or my faculty advisor, Dr. Kathleen Knight-Abowitz
([email protected]). For questions or concerns about the rights of research subjects or the
voluntariness of this consent procedure, please contact the Research Compliance Office at Miami
University: (513) 529-3600 or [email protected].
Thank you for considering my request. Please send a written reply to me at the address listed
below.
Sincerely,
Katherine K. Smith
6993 Willowood Drive
Cincinnati, Ohio 45241
173
Appendix F
These interviews will be conducted with each member of the Arts Planning Council for City
Township. Please look them over and let me know if and when you, as a board member, would
like to be interviewed.
513-755-7401 home phone number
1. How did you become involved in the Arts Planning Council?
2. What are your priorities for the Arts Planning Council in the Community?
3. Are your priorities the same as the Township’s priorities?
4. How do you see the progress of the Arts Planning Council toward your goals or the
Township’s goals?
5. Do you think that the goals (laid out at the retreat) will be viable solutions for the
health of the Arts Planning Council?
6. Why use the arts to connect the community?
7. How do you see the Arts Planning Council connecting the community?
8. How do you see the Arts Planning Council connecting the schools and the Township
community?
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Appendix G ARTS PLANNING COUNCIL EDUCATION
1. What arts subjects interest you? (Circle all that apply.)
Visual arts theatre arts musical arts dance
culinary arts landscape arts literature/creative writing
2. Have you participated in our education series before this class?
____Yes ____No
3. What classes have you taken? (Circle all that apply.)
Watercolor Design Divas Kids Heart art Fun with Food
Saturdays in 3-D Drawing 101 Eco Fun Fridays Summer Camps
Scratch art Art and Wine Oil Painting Improv
Digital Photography Getting Published
4. What teaching style aids your learning?
____lecture ____experiential/hands-on ____dialogue/discussion
____participatory action in the community
5. How do you feel about yourself when attending Arts Council art classes?
____connected ____proud ____neighborly ____happy
____accomplished ____disconnected ____shameful ____unfriendly
____sad ____frustrated ____neutral
6. How do feel about the xxxx Township community when attending Arts Planning Council
art classes?
____connected _____proud ____neighborly ____happy
____disconnected _____shameful ____unfriendly ____sad
____neutral
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7. When are the best times for you to take a class?
____10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. ____1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
____4:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. ____7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
8. What fee amount do you consider reasonable for students to pay for a single arts
education class?
____$ 5-10 ____$15-20 ____$25-30 ____$35-40
9. Do you have an artistic skills/talent that you would like to share?
____Yes ____No
If Yes, please list your artistic skill/talent_____________________
10. Would you be interested in teaching classes in our educational series?
____Yes ____No
If Yes, please list idea for class_____________________________________________
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ARTS PLANNING COUNCIL EVENT SURVEY
1. How have you heard about the Arts Planning Council?
____I have not heard of the Arts Planning Council. ____I found a link to the Arts
Planning Council on the
____I have attended an Arts Planning Council event. XXXX Township web page.
____I received the 2015 activity guide. ____I am a member of the Senior Center.
____I have seen a poster featuring an ____A friend told me about Arts Planning
Council.
Arts Planning Council event or class. ____I have volunteered with
Arts Planning Council.
2. Which Arts Planning Council series have you attended over the past two years? (Mark
all that apply)
____Concert Series (Summer concerts in the park)
____Dinner Theater Series (Adult dinner and a theater production)
____Family Entertainment Series (Children’s theater productions, Puppets for Lunch,
Mom Prom etc.)
3. How many Arts Planning Council events have you attended over the past 2 years?
____none ____1-5 ____6-10 _____10-15 ____16-20
4. Do you plan to continue attending Arts Planning Council events?
____Yes ____No ____Does not apply
5. If yes, what makes the Arts Planning Council events worth attending?
6. If no, what makes the Arts Planning Council events not worth attending?
7. What events would you like to attend in the future?
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8. Besides the ticket price, how much money did you spend preparing for this event?
(include purchases such as going out to eat, purchasing new clothing, hair appointments,
etc.)
____$0 to $15 ____$16 to $50 ____$51 to $100 ___ Over $101
9. How do you feel about the XXXX Township community when attending Arts Planning
Council events? (Mark all that apply)
____connected ____proud ____happy ____ social
____disconnected ____shameful ____sad ____ anti-social
____neutral Other: _____________________________________________
10. Do you think that a new Arts and Events Center (to replace The Banquet Hall and Senior
& Community Arts Center) would enhance living in XXXX Township?
____yes ____no ____neutral
11.
Please leave us a general comment regarding your experience with the event you are currently
attending:
___________________________________________________________________________
