Porter's Final Thoughts

Taking this class has been like riding a roller coaster. At first there was apprehension. What will the professor be like? How many assignments will we have per week? What will be expected? The unknown – it always makes me apprehensive. But then you get in your seat and begin that slow crawl up the first high embankment, and the feeling goes from apprehension to anticipation. You get to meet, or re-meet all the other students. You skim over the course schedule and go straight for the first lesson, because you want to get a head start. The first lesson is always the easiest, and then you are at the top of the hill and reality sets in.

I know, without a doubt, that this class pushed me further and harder than any other class I have taken. Even though it was intense, I can definitely say that I have learned more in this class than in any other class I have taken. Albeit, I would not want to repeat this insane schedule and feel strongly that this type of workload might be more of a deterrent to learning instead of the encouragement for which it was meant. It pushed me out of my comfort zone, as I desperately clung to my seat and tried to keep my hands and eyes inside the car at all times, and forced me to either sink or swim.

One critical realization that I have made during the course of this class is that research is not an individual endeavor. My feelings can be best said by the quote from Isaac Newton; “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” In other words, I can accomplish something that I could not do on my own, by the works, ideas, and thoughts of others. I started this search with my use of the studies of others before me. The wealth of knowledge that was found within journals, books, websites, and even magazines opened up my eyes, first of all, to a knew type of language that I am still learning.

At first I just tried to find articles that ‘matched’ my topic – how art councils can support town revitalization. These articles helped me to see how there were things missing from my initial research statement, as well as from the literature that I had investigated. Even though I found examples, such as those given by Stutman (2001) and Wallace (2011), which spoke of the arts changing communities, the programs used within these studies were quite different. What overarching issue linked these arts councils in their successful choices of programming?

The article by Guetzkon (2002) briefly touched on the topic of how relevant selection of programming would impact the effect of this programming on a community. The topic of relevant arts programming gained more traction with the additional information I learned from a study conducted by Kay (2005) that explored how arts programming was more effective when implemented and encouraged from within the community. The results of my pilot study indicated that a community art council’s intent to inspire their community is made possible through relevant and meaningful programming that considers the needs and desires of their community. All these factors have allowed me to discover that in order to revitalize a community, the focus of a community arts council should be on the needs and desires of their community in order to encourage community engagement through the vehicle of relevant arts programming.

There are two things about my participation in this class that I regret. One thing was being forced to answer and post my reflections so early due to my schedule. In some instances, I realized that my writings would have been totally different if I had been able to take more time, and possibly interact more with the other students within this class in order to gain a clearer focus of the questions that needed to be addressed. Of course, I could probably ‘work on’ my reflections FOREVER, and still not be totally satisfied with them, so maybe this was a blessing in disguise. My second regret was my lack of knowledge when we had to perform a critical review of our friend’s summary. I had no idea what half of the questions meant, much less how to answer them intelligently. If we were to perform the review today, I think I would do a much better job.

As I make my way down the last hill of our ride, I can say that I am looking forward to the normalcy and even the monotony that will be found, once again, in my everyday life. Just as with everything else that has touched my life, this class has left its imprint on me. When I started this class I thought that I just had to find some problem to ‘fix,’ but have come to realize that just fixing a problem is not enough. If that problem is not important to me, then what’s the point? I hope that by ‘standing on the shoulders of others’ I can help change the world positively at least a little, and eventually become a set of shoulders that maybe others can stand on.

Guetzkon, J. (2002, June). How the Arts Impact Communities: An Introduction of the Literature. Paper presented at the Taking the Measure of Culture Conference, Princeton University.

Kay, A. (2005). Art and community development: the role the arts have in regenerating communities. Community Development Journal, 35(4), 414-424.

Stutman, N. (2001). Art changes lives (Urban Art Trail). Letter Arts Review, 16(1), 24- 33.

Wallace, N. (2011). A theatrical ‘gumbo’s helps a small town stir its economy. Chronicle of Philanthropy, 23(7), 20.