Well worth a read…

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. It rained a little  here on the oil-stained Gulf coast, but we still got our share of fireworks.

If you haven’t gotten a chance to check out Scott Walter’s Theatre Ideas blog, or his newest endeavor, Rocking the CRADLE, then spend 15 minutes reading this post commemorating the 100 anniversary of the birth of Robert Gard, in many ways the father of the community arts movement.

Robert Gard (1955)

Here’s one of the many great quotations Scott pulls for his post.

America is coming of age. Note the many changing aspects of America.

A maturing America means a nation conscious of its arts among all its people. Communities east, west, north, and south are searching for ways to make community life more attractive.

The arts are at the very center of community development in this time of change…change for the better.

The frontier and all that it once meant in economic development and in the sheer necessity of building a nation is being replaced by the frontier of the arts. In no other way can Americans so well express the core and blood of their democracy; for in the communities lies the final test of the acceptance of the arts as a necessity of everyday life.

In terms of American democracy, the arts are for everyone.They are not reserved for the wealthy, or for the well-endowed museum, the gallery, or the ever-subsidized regional professional theatre. As America emerges into a different understanding of her strength, it becomes clear that her strength is in the people and in the places where the people live.

The people, if shown the way, can create art in and of themselves.

Robert Gard, Arts in the Small Community (1969)

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