Individuals and Communities

Social Artists

Art can challenge us.

Art can take risks.

Art can show us our humanity when we don’t see it ourselves.

Art can help us hear our own voices and other people’s voices, sometimes for the first time.

Art can teach us.

Art can help us experience beauty.

Art can push us.

Art can make trouble.

Art is dangerous in all the best possible ways.

From Chicago Tribune

Communities

Songia

Fred Lanphear wrote Songaia: An Unfolding Dream – The story of a community’s journey into being (2014) telling about a twenty-year journey of creating and living in the Songaia co-housing community in Seattle, Washington.

“Out of Control in Colquitt, Georgia”, Richard Geer writes about Swamp Gravy in Colquitt, 1996

Social artists “… work to re-pattern human nature … think like a planetary citizen, appreciating cultures and cultural stories while searching for the emergence of a new myth  …  offer new models and paradigms  …  exhibit joy of being a lifelong learner  …  bring laughter and delights in learning and change. Social Artistry uses diverse techniques to help individuals, groups, and communities to discover core values, purpose and vision”. (Wikipedia)

In the past few years many colleagues have become social artists, stirring our images and sometimes changing them. As said by LiDona Wagner in Eve’s Imprint, “… visual art – similar to storytelling – resonates with the human heart and inspires acts of caring and daring in modern times.”

• Painters:

  • Elizabeth Caperton has a number of awards from her still life paintings.

  • Beverly Enright dedicated a piece to the Judy Chicago Exhibit dedicated to the women of the ICA.

  • Beret Griffith is an expert photographer.

  • Ellen Howie’s art has graced covers of The Directory.

  • Ellen Howie and Judy Lindblad, Signs of Life: A collaborative journal of poetry (1984)

  • Cheryl Kartes is a professional graphic artist.

  • Paul Noah is a computer graphics expert and has painted the Uptown mural across the street from ICA GreenRise

  • Lucy Smith is a watercolor artist and educator

  • Rob Jennings-Teats is a watercolor artist.

  • LiDona Wagner published Pilgrimage: Wonder, Encounter, Witness with paintings reflecting on the cultures of Human Development Projects globally. In 2019 she published Seed of Imagination: An Ancestral Creative Journey; her exhibition of this writing is available here:  “Celebrating Our Maiden Migrations“.  

• Playwrights and producers:  Donna Woodard Zeigenhorn creates and produces plays.  Michael May produces Interior Mythos Journeys.

• Sculptors:  John Kroeger and Carl Johnson, wood sculpturing

• Writers:  John Cock writes a daily blog called Journey Reflection; celebrate with John his posting of 6,000 blogs by November 26, 2020!  A list of books colleagues have written can be reviewed under Authors.  Let us know about other books being published to add to this list.

See Human Development Collection for other community examples of imaginal education.

• Burna Dunn (with a caste of thousands) created the Machakos Simulation Game: A Guide Book for various educational settings.
• Carol Fleischman facilitated a Statewide Superintendent’s Task Force in Louisiana; this is their State Plan for Arts Education Summary (2000-2001)
• Jan Sanders sharing social artistry in Aruba and other places:  Sustainability Leadership through Social Artistry Approach, June 2011 (for printing)
• Ronnie Seagren writes about women becoming preschool teachers and health caretakers in Imaginal Education in El Bayad, Egypt.

• Meida McNeal, as asocial artist, has produced a one-woman play about 5th City Revisited: stories of its origins in 1800s, the 5th City Human Development Project, and questioning its future. She hopes a second production of the play will be held at the Church of the Brethren in 5th City in June or September of 2020.
• Earthrise Pedagogy: Englisch language development course, Jaime Vergara (2017)
• For many years Carol Fleischman (Fleischman Associates) worked in New Orleans facilitating educational institutions resulting in some of the following documents:

• •  Parish-wide Strategic Planning in St. Tammary Parish Public Schools, February 1995 (print version)
  •  Procedures for “Winning” Refocus Event (print version)
  •  Louisiana Arts Education Success Summary, 2000-2001 (print version)
  • Machakos Simulation Game – a guidebook, ICA Houston, 1986