Practitioners will want to keep these tradeoffs in mind as they design projects and programs. If fostering artists’ commitments to hyper-local civic engagement and/or lubricating social interactions of immediate neighbors are the priorities, then diffuse, block-based approaches are more appropriate. If they seek to generate momentum and change a dominant narrative about an area, then a more concentrated, highly visible intervention may be most appropriate. In either case, efforts to promote the interconnections between projects can help community stakeholders understand how their involvement fits into a greater whole and generate excitement.
3. Deep artist-to-artist social connections Even though many artists rated the connections they made with other artists through the AOC and Art Blocks programs as the most valuable aspect for them, mandatory “institute” trainings and work sessions suffered from uneven attendance. In their final reflections, a number of artists pinpointed this as a lost opportunity to learn more from one another. Other artists expressed that in hindsight, they wished that they had made more efforts to attend their colleagues’ events and activities. To the degree that PH+T or other practitioners can foster robust cultures of artist exchange and training attendance, artist-toartist social connections should be maximized. Our impact findings suggest that increased artist-to-artist social connections should directly help increase artists’ attachment to place. In addition, such interactions should allow artists to learn from one another’s successes and challenges and, therefore, indirectly advance all desired objectives.
4. Staying attuned to challenges and value of collaborations with outside partners
Kelly Brazil collaborated with the Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center and interns from Full Cycle Bike Shop in constructing five welded bicycle racks for Arts on Chicago; photo by Ethan Turcotte.
Despite the importance of collaborating with outside partners to increase opportunities to deepen neighborhood stakeholders’ capacity to work effectively together, artists spoke to the inherent challenges of such efforts. Some partners and volunteers did not follow through on their commitments and the process of coordinating these collaborations often took more time than artists anticipated. Nevertheless, outside partners proved instrumental for hosting projects and connecting artists with participants and new resources. We advise PH+T and other practitioners to take these challenges to heart. They might seek opportunities to help manage artists’ expectations, coaching them to anticipate and plan for challenges well in advance. Peer-to-peer based learning opportunities about how to effectively plan for and manage challenging collaborations could also be invaluable.
5. Successful navigation of tight timelines Although nothing motivates like a deadline, a number of artists reflected on the tension of tight timeframes to complete projects and their desire to authentically connect with neighbors and execute a meaningful project. ArtBlock artists are given eight to nine months to develop, plan, and execute their projects, with many timing projects to coincide with the summer months, which condenses the timeframe to five to eight months. In her 2013 final reflection, Soozin Hirschmugl wrote that she wanted to jump right in to sharing poems but realized that “just having an easy going dinner with some social art making was a good
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