Connecting with Community

When I went back to teaching art in elementary school, after a ten-year stint at the university, I had much to learn about the communities of my school (students, teachers, administrators, and parents and families), other art teachers in the district, and the district itself. Fortunately for me, my district had an incredibly supportive, helpful, and collaborative community of art teachers who responded to every need. Even though I was the only art teacher at my school, I never felt alone or isolated. Basically I just added a very important community to my life.

We all belong to multiple communities. In Community Art in Action (Davis Publications, Inc., 2004), Kristin G. Congdon suggests that there are three main community situations in which people share: (1) a specific location or site, (2) a personal group or group identification, and (3) a common purpose or set of beliefs. Other important concepts Congdon stresses are that artistic activities can build community and bind members together, that communities both adhere to tradition and change at the same time, and that what she calls “folklife” or “folklore” is the cultural practice that holds many communities together.

Folklife can include traditional shared languages, cultural practices, or understandings, often artistically communicated through play, storytelling, dance, drama, music, and the visual arts. I am especially drawn to the idea of folk life by my love of folk art and its often playful, colorful aspects. I do also enjoy seeing different traditional, transitional, and transformative approaches to it. One example of such a playful approach to community is found in contemporary artist Oliver Herring’s invention, the TASK party.

The best description of a TASK party is found on the artist’s website:

“TASK is Herring’s improvisational event that relies on the same basic infrastructure: a designated work area or space, a variety of materials (often recycled such as cardboard, plastic and plastic bags, tape, markers, etc.) and the participation of people who agree to follow two simple, procedural rules: to write down a task on a piece of paper and add it to a designated “TASK pool,” and, secondly, to pull a task from that pool and interpret it any which way he or she wants, using whatever is on (or potentially off) stage. When a task is completed, a participant writes a new task, pulls a new task, and so on.”

“TASK’s open-ended, participatory structure creates almost unlimited opportunities for a group of people to interact with one another and their environment. TASKs’ flow and momentum depend on the tasks written and interpreted by its participants. In theory anything becomes possible. The continuous conception and interpretation of tasks is both chaotic and purpose driven. It is a complex, ever shifting environment of people who connect with one another through what is around them. It is also a platform for people to express and test their own ideas in an environment without failure and success (TASK always is what it is) or any other preconceptions of what can or should be done with an idea or a material. People’s tasks become absorbed into other people’s tasks, objects generated from one task are recycled into someone else’s task without issues of ownership or permanence.”

At NAEA last year in New York City, Herring led a community of willing participants through our own version of TASK. Of course we had to cover the floor in the hotel with paper first (paint was involved; you may want to leave that out), but there were plenty of supplies and materials at hand to allow multiple, engaging interpretations of TASK. (To learn more, see the video.)

Whether or not you host your own TASK party in your art room, you can help make your communities and those of your students inclusive, honored, and respected.

Why should art programs focus on community?

• To promote individual and group mental health.
• To promote multicultural art education.
• To recognize and celebrate local customs.
• To recognize local artists and artworks.
• To develop an active citizenry.
• To promote the connection between art and life.
• To understand, celebrate, and build on local history.
• To interact positively with the environment.
• To expand on the aesthetic dimensions of one’s life.

Photo: I'm with artist Oliver Herring at the 2012 NAEA TASK party in New York City and I am wearing the most wonderful necklace made by my dear friend Amy Sue McPartlan.