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Kevin Crisostomo Aesthetic Evangelists

Aesthetic Evangelists by Grant Kester is a wholesome introduction to community art and the important part it plays in a larger picture. I haven’t been directly exposed or involved in such activities, but I want to be especially with the recent events of my life and with what’s going on in this country. Before embarking on this class, it’s safe to say I knew nothing about the topic, but reading this text has warmed my heart that community art exists and opened my eyes to the possibilities and positive effects it brings to people. With so much to talk about, I’ll keep it brief with the three key ideas that resonated with me.
First, I’d like to start off with this excerpt from the text: “I'm interested here in a persuasive cultural mythology, grounded in romanticism, in which the artist is imagined as a kind of trans-historical shaman who has ostensibly sundered themselves from all other social and cultural identities, privileges, and commitments. Freed of these bonds, the artist is able to identify themselves with any and all other subjects—the poor, the homeless, etc.—and further, is able to feel their oppression and to express their pain and moral outrage.”

This might sound like it comes from a fictional novel, or an optimistic daydream of a person - such as a superhero artist, but it’s not. It’s real. This is exactly how I feel engaging community-based artists are. In a way, it’s something I’d like to be someday, or use my energy to become, outside of my career as an artist/designer in the themed entertainment industry. It has already affected how I see the world in a more positive way in regards to how I think and how I can use my passions to serve others. My question for this: is the artist sundered from all other social and cultural identities, or perhaps in that moment in time they are immersed in all of it, soaking in all the pieces of the community puzzle that makes it whole?
Second, from the text, “Welfare ‘teaches’ young women to have illegitimate children and to shirk responsibility (for work and for reproduction), while arts funding allows the state to support "deadbeat" degenerates who can't earn a real living and whose works ‘teach’ bad, anti-American values. Both can be viewed as symptomatic of a general cultural and moral decline.”
This resonates with me in regards to why it is important that artists exist and why community-engaged arts is very important. This conservative mindset in the national level is the very core of why the fight is on to constantly battle that text, because it is simply not true. It’s one of the closed-minded things I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard plenty coming from very sheltered groups of people. Community-engaged arts and artists are the light to the darkness, and more so it can even be the spark. My question for this, mostly for those who believe in that text: What is American values?
Third key idea from the text: “The new public art draws, both consciously and unconsciously, from the history of progressive urban reform. This is clear in its concern with ameliorating problems typically associated with the city (e.g. homelessness, gang culture, ‘at risk’ youth, etc.), as well as in the relationship that the community-based public artist takes up with various constituencies and communities. Concepts such as ‘empowerment’ and ‘participatory democracy’ that found political expression during the 1960's in the policies and programs of the Office of Economic Opportunity or the National Welfare Rights movement, are re-emerging in the rhetoric of the community-based public artist.”

I never thought of it as a form of reform, but I can definitely understand how it can be. As described in other parts of the larger text, community-based artists is right there with social workers - almost the same general purpose of work but using different tools. It shows how broad the arts is and how it can be applied to so much beyond canvases and entertainment, but to our own communities and improving the lives of others. Where the government is failing, community-based arts steps in and picks up the weight with whatever funds it can get. If not for the money, all it really takes is the people being involved. My question for this: Can community-based arts be embedded into educational and civic programs permanently, and engage with all elementary and high schools, so that the next generation already has it in their mindset of community in a broader spectrum?

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