Ask an open-ended question and you’ll likely get a some surprising answers.
That’s what artist Saul Melman and bartender, homeowner and community activist Alex Kapteyn Lattner hoped for when they asked Evansville Arts District residents to finish the sentence: “One change I would make in my neighborhood is ____ .”
The question, posed on cards passed in at “Best of All Possible Worlds, a community event,” generated more than 150 written responses from area residents.
Many asked for more — more neighborliness, more block parties and more lights, trash cans and surveillance cameras. Others called for a grocery, more trees, more landscaping. And others asked for less — less trash, fewer abandoned buildings, potholes, mo-peds, cats, children and “cranky old people.”
Those and lots of other suggestions surfaced at the community event that took its title, its theme and its location from Melman’s acrylic representation of a door, the purchase award winner in last year’s inaugural Sculpt EVV competition.
When vandals destroyed it soon after it went up on the former homesite at 23 Jefferson, Melman responded with “1 Maple,” the Brooklyn, N.Y., artist’s entry in this year’s Sculpt EVV. The piece, a young red maple planted in the concrete outline of a larger tree, grows a dozen yards from where “Best of All Possible Worlds” once stood. The community event took place June 15.
Melman intended for the question, the responses and the community gathering at the site of his destroyed door as part of a continuing work of neighborhood art exploring the past, present and future for the site, the street and the neighborhood, he says.
The artist has returned to Brooklyn, where he works as an emergency room physician, but Lattner has continued with the project, following up with another meeting, last week, at 23 Jefferson.
Her idea is to follow up and push forward with some of the dreams, concerns and concrete suggestions provided by those who filled in the project’s open-ended question.
They were all over the place, but a few themes emerged. Many responses called for more neighborliness, or as one put it, “for more people to be nice to one another. Everyone! Everyday. Always.” “I would know everyone’s name!” wrote one person. Others wanted organized get-togethers, block parties and other community events.
A number wanted perceptions to change about their neighborhood. They called for “a better attitude to the Haynie’s Corner Arts District,” “pride in our city and openness to new ideas” and “to change my neighborhood/community’s perspective on itself.”
Many had concrete requests, for a grocery store with healthy food, neighborhood restaurants, a movie theater, playground equipment, sidewalks and “old fashioned streetlights that provide light but you can still see the stars.”
Lots of respondents called for more art, more art events and one wanted “good graffiti/murals like in Philly, PA.”
Some either misunderstood the question or offered sarcasm, asking for “more hookers and drug dealers” and for “rats, mice, Cats, stray dogs, raccoons, possums.” There was no questioning the concern of one writer with a shaky hand and less-than-perfect grammar, however. “Stop shooting,” read the card. “It bad.”
Lattner assumes the card came from a child who, like many, she said, may perceive the area to be more dangerous than it really is.
She hopes the entire exercise, from writing the notes to discussing them in outdoor forums to encouraging participation in neighborhood associations, can help the community act on their ideas.
“I want people to realize that, to an extent, they can control their own situation. I hope people find something to think about and ways to effect change and become more involved,” she said.
Melman echoed that notion. “I hope that people feel more empowered, as individuals and as a collective, and that people act to be the change they want to see in their community.”
A complete list of the responses is available in the online version of this story, at www.courier press.com.
festival looms
There’s still time to sign up for workshops in the New Harmony Music Festival music camp in New Harmony, Ind.
The festival, which will run from July 7 through 13, offers classes aimed at intermediate and advanced students in Irish and Scandinavian traditional music, musical improvisation and classical chamber music.
The weeklong event also will include free and paid concerts featuring this year’s faculty, who include Natalie Haas on cello, Arnaud Sussmann on classical violin, Patrick Ourceau on Irish fiddle, Martha Waldvogel-Warren on concert and Celtic harp, Eamon O’Leary on guitar and Irish vocals, Mazz Swift on violin and vocals, Paul Woodiel on Scandinavian fiddle and violin and festival founder Christopher Layer on Irish pipes and flutes.
The concert schedule includes free programs July 9 and 10, a community dance in the Rapp-Owen Granary on July 11, and ticketed concerts July 12 and 13.
For details, visit www.newharmonymusicfest.com or call 646-456-7762.
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