Art At Work (AAW) is a part of a growing field of problem-solving projects about how art, culture, and creativity can bridge sectors to bring about community-wide change.
Artist-led initiatives in many communities are stimulating creative responses to complex social and economic issues. In the name of the public, artists are working to break down traditional silos and facilitate increased cooperation among government, nonprofit, and commercial entities.
Art At Work, an ambitious project brainstormed by playwright Marty Pottenger, is a national initiative to improve municipal government through strategic arts projects with city employees, elected officials and community members. Piloted in Portland Maine since 2007, AAW’s most visible project, The Portland Police Poetry Calendar, was featured on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and the New York Times. Other projects include ‘Thin Blue Lines’ through which Portland Police officers are partnered with local professional poets to write poetry about their lives and work. Thin Blue Lines also includes the upcoming performance “Radio Calls” – written and performed by officers for local high school students to address several unprecedented clashes last summer.
It’s probably accurate to say that people rarely put the idea of police anywhere near the idea of poetry. They seem so very different – one internal, the other external; one private, the other quite public; one demanding a flexibility and openness, the other about force and control; but both rely on observation. Both require risk and an intuitive trust in ones own judgment; and both demand courage, the kind needed to head into a scary place – metaphoric or actual – and not turn back.
Bio
Playwright, performance artist, director and political activist Marty Pottenger is a pioneer in the community arts and civic dialogue movement. Her plays have been performed throughout Europe and the United States. The New York Times described her Obie-winning play about a 60 year long public works project as a ‘mix of Studs Terkel, Anna Deavere Smith and Pete Seeger”. Pottenger’s play ABUNDANCE was written after asking 30 multi-millionaires and 30 minimum wage workers “What is enough?” “What would be enough for you?” In 2005, her ‘’home land security’ included members of Portland Maine’s homeless, indigenous and immigrant community, along with the Mayor, State Senate President, and Fire Chief. Pottenger is currently working with the City of Portland as the Director of the Arts & Equity Initiative (AEI), a national experiment to improve municipal government’s policies and practices through strategic arts projects with city employees, elected officials, and unions.
