Marty Pottenger, director, Art at Work Arts projects that focus on engagement and collaboration outside the arts sector are sometimes the most successful, but are often the most difficult to complete successfully. A practitioner’s seasoned perspective on creating work that engages and transforms communities, we will learn about projects with New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection/Local 147 Sandhog’s Union, a city-wide gathering at Union Square four days after 9/11, and a national arts project with 30 minimum wage workers and 30 multi-millionaires. Presentation will also include Art At Work is a national initiative to improve municipal government and the communities they serve through strategic arts projects with municipal employees, elected officials, residents and artists. Creative Placemaking with people at the center, AAW strengthens community resilience and generates cultural, civic and economic vibrancy by engaging people in making and experiencing art that matters.

1. Creative
Placemaking
with
People
at the
Center

2. Webster’s on infrastructure:
"the basic, underlying
framework or features of a
system or organization."

3. Physical Infrastructure:
Roads, Bridges, Tunnels, Water Delivery Systems +
Info Tech Infrastructure:
Servers, Satellites, Cables, Software, Routers +
Social/Relationships Infrastructure:
Connection, Communication, Understanding,
Empathy, Curiosity, History, Trust

4. • 3 year project City Water Tunnel #3
1993-1996
• Arts Partners +
NYC Dept. of
Environmental
Protection &
Local 147
Tunnelworkers
Union
• Budget $250,000
• On-jobsites
Videos,
Performances,
$20,000 Memorial
Fund, Weekend
Fair for
employees &
families

5. Marty Pottenger
interviewed 30
multimillionaires & 30
minimum wage
workers.
The play toured 7
cities, with over 5000
people participating in
civic dialogues about
money.
ABUNDANCE: a 4 year national arts civic
dialogue project about money and America

6. How much is enough?
What’s
your
earliest
memory
connected
to money
in any
way at
all?
What’s a
lie you
tell
yourself
about
money?
What would be enough for you?

9. A national initiative to
strengthen community
resiliency & municipal
government through arts
projects with municipal staff,
unions, politicians, the public &
artists.

10. THIN BLUE LINES POLICE POETRY PROJECT

11. PUBLIC WORKS
Public Service Employees
Participating Portland hot beverage vendors used
the same to-go cups for three days in March 09.

12. TIES THAT BIND
235 beds, Elizabeth Jabar

13. CITY WRITERS
GROUP
Open to All
City Departments

14. Parking Shift Attendant Donald Burns & his City Writers
Group poster “Livery” at Spring Street Garage

15. Portland Police Chief Craig at Opening of
Regional Crime Lab &AAW Photography
Exhibit at Police Headquarters 2009
Janitors Workroom
door at Police
Headquarters,
Evaluating Impact

16. Indicator: City asks for arts projects
Police officers killed an
armed Sudanese man
who had a history of
run-ins with them.
Primarily African-born
youth saw it as murder,
and expressed their
outrage with over 15
incidents of rocks &
bottle throwing at
police and Public
Service workers.

17. Police Chief Craig asked Art At Work to interview
police officers and create a performance for police
officers to do in local high schools about their work.
Art At Work secured Chief’s agreement to
work with officers more likely to ‘cross a line’
Project expanded to include a parallel performance
by immigrant & refugee youth about their
experiences with the police, “The Weeping City”,
together creating “Forest City Times”

18. The Weeping City & Radio Calls
curtain call after performances for
1100 students & faculty

19. The next few months after the performances…
INDICATOR: officers report scores of
‘youth-initiated, positive contacts’
INDICATOR: violent clashes cease

20. RADIO CALLS

21. Union’s Issue: Respect
Predicted Indicators:
• increase in positive
comments by residents
• increase in positive
media coverage
LINES Portland:
the visible/invisible
lines and labor
that connects us
A panel with artist
Katarina Weslien
& Public Services
road repair crew
Nov.ember 9th, 2010

22. City Hall Chambers Gallery

23. MEETING PLACE
NEA Our Town

24. Meeting Place Partners
Neighborhood Associations • City of Portland •
Creative Portland • Portland Buy Local •
Portland Trails • Maine Historical Society •
Portland Adult Education • Portland Housing
Authority • Aserela Sudanese Association •
Portland Public Library • Maine Muslim
Community Mosque • Maine Irish Heritage
with support from
National Endowment for the Arts, Nathan
Cummings Foundation, Sewall Foundation,
Maine Arts Commission, Gorrill-Palmer
Consulting Engineers and the City of Portland

25. EAST BAYSIDE
COMMUNITY PLANT

26. The ‘real’ Bayside

27. Can
poetry
stitch a
com-munity
back
together?
Here’s Libbytown Story Poems

28. HERE’S LIBBYTOWN CELEBRATION
Traditional Indicators: Attendance, Diversity,
Elected Officials, Residents Volunteering to Tell
Stories, Donations from Businesses, Sales

29. WEST END SNAPSHOTS

30. Each neighbor takes 3 photos

31. West End Celebration

32. EAST BAYSIDE

33. GOOD FENCES FOR GOOD NEIGHBORS

34. Maine Muslim Community Center
Somali Poetry Hour

35. Recycled Materials, Old Fences

36. Colors represent high
water lines for 2050

37. Portland Works: Municipal
Leaders & Grassroots
Community Leaders
Workshops that combine
civic issues & artmaking.
• Poetry/History Ice Age On
• Collage/Demographics
• Storytelling/Crisis Scenarios
• Singing/Leadership Followship
Alfred Jacob, Sudanese Activist, AAW Partner

39. 2013-2015
HEARTS, MINDS & HOMES
Gentrification & Homelessness
All THE WAY HOME PROJECT
Veterans Story Exchange
Art At Work Holyoke:
Civic Dialogue/Arts Workshops

40. THANKS TO ALL THE ARTISTS, UNIONS, CITY STAFF, RESIDENTS,
ELECTED OFFICIALS, FUNDERS, AND ARTS ORGANIZATIONS,
COMMUNITY GROUPS, AND ALL THE REST FOR TAKING THE RISK

41. Art insists we be vulnerable, honest, courageous & connected
. Useful tools to sustain a government that works for all of us