CATAYLYST INITIATIVE ROUND 2
Artist Joan Lipkin worked with Magdalene St. Louis, a care community that offers a two-year residential program for women who have survived lives of prostitution, trafficking, addiction, and life on the streets. Their work together focused on using Joan’s artistic practice to construct public narratives and increased visibility for an organization serving a population in crisis. Their story over a year of collaboration is one of reimagining outcomes, navigating profound institutional changes, and discovering new strategies for successful collaboration.
St. Louis Center for Performance and Civic Practice
Contents The Partners
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How it Started
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Challenges 6 Questions 8 The Project
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Excerpt 12 Questions 14 Learnings 16 Outcomes 20
THE PARTNERS Joan Lipkin
Magdalene St. Louis
The Partners
Joan Lipkin is a theater artist, educator, and the founding artistic director of That Uppity Theatre Company in St. Louis, Missouri.
Magdalene St. Louis is a residential community for women who have survived lives of prostitution, violence and addiction. Women receive up to two years of housing, support and education at no cost. Women who are coming out of correctional facilities or off the streets are invited into a compassionate and disciplined community where they can recover and rebuild their lives. Magdalene St. Louis is a seedling of the successful Magdalene/Thistle Farms model from Nashville.
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How It Started U P O N C O M P L E T I N G R E N OVAT I O N S O N A H O U S E , Magdalene St. Louis welcomed the first group of women into the residence during the summer of 2015. Board member Steve Turley has known Joan and her artistic work for many years, her interests in issues affecting women, and her experience in creating communitybased performance. Joan began to plan an arts residency with Tricia Roland-Hamilton, Magdalene St. Louis’ Executive Director. Together they created a longterm plan of creative writing, art making, and story sharing. They hoped that as the women began to find physical and emotional stability and health, they would also find healing in sharing their stories.
S H I F T S I N T H E P R O C E S S : Before Joan was able to begin working with the women, the organization experienced several upheavals. Tricia resigned and left Magdalene, two other staff members left their positions, and the board began the search for an interim Executive Director. These rapid shifts, in addition to institutional restructuring, put the organization into crisis. The staff at Magdalene had to shift their full attention to fundraising and serving the women. During this time of profound organizational change, Joan began working with the women in the house.
“Magdalene St. Louis is enthusiastic about developing a formal partnership to explore the use of performance arts as a tool for trauma recovery.” – TR I C I A RO L AN D - H AM I LTON
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Challenges
J O A N B E G A N T E AC H I N G H E R R E S I D E N C Y D U R I N G a time that Magdalene staff and board were focused primarily on keeping the organization’s doors open and making sure the women received the care they needed. Board members Hope Welles Jernagan and Steve Turley both voiced that the organization was geared towards attaining institutional stability. The board president expressed the utmost confidence in Joan and her work and she was connected with another member of the staff as her primary contact. Joan proceeded to visit the women, build relationships with them, and guided them to create a number of artistic works. Even as the residency continued and Joan worked with Magdalene staff, the partnership was in a very different place than where she had started with Tricia. At the beginning of their partnership, they attended the Catalyst Initiative convening in Chicago, Illinois, where they spent two days together in deep conversation about the organization’s mission and needs. Because of the major changes the organization experienced after that, Joan’s new staff contact wasn’t able to give the amount of attention or support that Tricia had previously. Joan provided direct service to the women, but time and circumstances made it difficult for her to form the same type of relationship with her new contact at Magdalene St. Louis. Joan also expressed a disappointment that the staff and board hadn’t tapped her skills more as an artist, producer, and leader to assist them through their transitions.
“It is not the same thing as having two days of foundational and mentored conversation with someone.” – JOA N I N R E F E RE N C E TO T H E C ATALY ST INITIATIVE C O N VE N I N G S H E H AD AT T ENDE D WITH TRICIA
“It’s a tough time. The organization, which is only two years old, and the house, which just opened in June, is in transition. I can’t push them.” – J OA N
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How can an artist balance being in service to both a population in need and an organization facing major institutional changes?
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How can an artist offer support in these moments of transition?
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THE PROJECT ST. LOUIS - 10
The Project The board focused its attention on their fundraiser, which was scheduled for later that autumn. Joan, through her residency sessions with the women, worked on crafting their writing into a script to be used as the benefit’s centerpiece performance. “There have been lots of transitions in the house. None of the women who I started working with are still there. But I have been working with a fairly stable population for the last month.” – JOAN LIPKIN
Because of the shifts in the organization, transitions among the residents, and Joan’s primary point of contact having changed, the residency took on a different shape. “There are many ways to do something and we can start out with a concept and if we can’t realize our initial concept for various reasons, we can still figure out a way to make something artistic that has integrity.” – JOAN
Joan held several writing and drawing workshops with the women at Magdalene St. Louis. The program was structured in a way that allowed flexibility if the number of residents changed from session to session. In November 2015, artwork created by the women was featured at the YeYo Arts Collective as part of the “She Is Strong” exhibition, with the women in attendance at the opening. That same month, the script Joan crafted from the women’s writing was performed at the organization’s fundraiser at the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis. Because they were in early and vulnerable stages of their recovery, the women did not perform their writing. Joan brought together a team of professional actors and a musician for the performance.
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EXCERPT S FROM T H E SC RI PT
“This Is My Heart: The Voices of the Women of Magdalene St Louis” “You think no one understands how you’re feeling, and the only solution seems to be to numb yourself for the moment and hope that somehow things settle themselves afterwards.” “I had to dig deep and deal with ugly truths about myself – and then love myself enough to accept the unique qualities God graced me with that I had been hiding.” “It took 42 years but I realize I need to take care of me first.”
“I’m not homeless for the first time in I don’t know, how long.” The benefit performance had upwards of 250 people in attendance, many of whom had not previously known about Magdalene St. Louis. The board members and staff of Magdalene expressed appreciation for how Joan was able to convey stories, while respecting the privacy of the women, but still told the truth of Magdalene. After the benefit, invested in continuing her work with the women, Joan had some initial conversations with the board about potential next steps, but plans were not solidified.
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This Hand This hand has been braiding for 20 years. This hand always loved to be raised in class. This hand picked apples and slapped others. This hand smoked cigarettes and opened doors. This hand raised my children, cooked food, read books. This hand drove cars, tied my laces and praised God. This hand has shook Mayor Bosley’s hand at a banquet. This hand has written an essay that got recognized at Julia Davis library. With this hand, I will get a job and hold my children. In the future, with this hand, I want to lend a helping hand and invent something positive. I imagine with this hand, in the future, writing a book to inspire women who have been in the struggle.
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How can an artist respond when their desire and capacity to serve is greater than an organization’s capacity to make use of that service?
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NEEDS After the fundraiser, there was a lack of clarity about whether or not Joan would continue her work at Magdalene St. Louis. She was prepared to continue her plan of long-term engagement with the women, but had exceeded the amount of time for which she had been compensated by the Catalyst Initiative funds. At the same time, she didn’t want to disappear without explanation from the lives of the women she’d been working with over the past several weeks. Hope Welles Jernagan accepted the position of Executive Director during this time. She expressed that she didn’t have total clarity about the project until Joan had been teaching the residency for some time. She recognized that the initial plans made with Joan were intended to be more long-term, but that these plans were something the organization didn’t currently have capacity for. Magdalene’s more pressing need was not for direct service, but for advocacy and fundraising.
STRATEGY Hope and Steve both expressed that it would have been helpful to have had CPCP connect with them during the transition to check in and to give them permission to pause the project for a few months while they were trying to get on their feet, but they continued because they felt a responsibility to CPCP as a funder. A new strategy developed. The board wanted to feature the work Joan created with the women of Magdalene St. Louis in a series of small house parties, with the goal of increasing the visibility and raising funds for the organization.
AWARENESS “It wasn’t what I started out to do but it still went really well. We’ve been asked to perform the work now in three different settings as a way of raising more money and more awareness of the organization.”
APPRECIATION Both Steve and Hope expressed how much they appreciate Joan’s skill set as an artist. They were surprised and pleased at what Joan brought to the table and found her work to be very effective. They consider the work she created with the women during this residency to be a successful tool the organization can continue to use. “Audiences have responded very positively and enthusiastically to the performances. I continue to receive positive comments from people who saw the performance. Many people spoke of how powerful the performance was and how much of a picture it gives of the work of our organization. People talk about how it truly tells the story of what we do.” – HOPE
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THE PROJECT
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“In over two decades as an artist who has worked with many populations, this was one of my most challenging projects because of the instability of an organization in its infancy. I am grateful for CPCP’s belief in my work and supporting me through several challenging months with phone conversations and emails. And I am actually very glad that I stayed with the project. The challenges offered me an opportunity to dig deeply into my skill set, experience and resources as an artist, and to offer the women ways to channel their feelings and appreciate
their creative capacity. And through our exchanges, I was also able create a beautiful piece that ultimately did a lot of good. We have done two house parties since our first performance and have a third one planned.� – JOAN
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“The program itself continues to be very strong. Many women are making great strides in their recovery.” – HOPE
As part of the women’s recovery, Magdalene St. Louis is providing the women with opportunities for employment and to develop skills that will empower them to earn a living wage. The women are working to design and sell apparel through a company they are founding called Bravely Apparel.
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