Voices: Oh, Give Me A Home
It is in the shelter of each other that the people live. - Irish proverb
Artists are known to float around with their heads in one proverbial cloud or another. Their eyes may focus more keenly on the future than the ground in front of them but it doesn't mean their feet aren't on the ground.
Believe me, I've been known to trip over shadows.
After more than four years working at electric city, it's been brought to my attention that I live in a different Scranton than most people. The Scranton I live in is an energetic, creative city pulsing with curiosity and desire. It is a community is disproportionately composed of artists, activists and visionaries. And it not a figment of any of our imaginations. Consider that a decade ago it was commonplace to gripe about life in NEPA. Today, it's a major faux pas.
You can chalk it up to economic growth, a restoration of the pride or simply the inevitable upswing of the social pendulum. But at the end of the day, Scranton would still be a boring place to live were it not for the creative soul radiating excitement through the city.
Such creative contributions were taken for granted for decades in cities thought to be more sophisticated than Scranton. That's why I skipped out of last fall's Artspace presentation on a shock wave of affirmation, a huge grin hanging from my dropped jaw.
The Minneapolis-based nonprofit's compelling Chris Velasco spoke to Scranton Tomorrow's visionary leaders about the municipal contributions proven to result from a building constructed or renovated expressly for artists' housing. The premise has been proven time and again -- after making a formerly washed up district desirable to live in, artists have to move out because the real estate values have increased so much they can no longer afford to live there. (That and once something becomes trendy it's just not that hip any more. Real artists would rather move on and create something new. Spread the love, as it were.) This is why Manhattan's cutting edge of cool is always moving - from Greenwich Village to SoHo to the East Village to Williamsburg to Astoria to the South Bronx or Fort Greene or Greenpoint or where ever the hell the hot spot is these days.
Meanwhile, back in Scranton, it seems the movers and shakers actually believe in the value artists bring to the community. They want artists to be part of a thriving downtown scene so much so that they're committed to making affordable housing available to artists - housing that will remain affordable no matter how high property values may skyrocket.
Last week, Velasco gave a second presentation revealing the heartening results of a feasibility study. Apparently our local market really can support such a project -25 to 35 apartments with high ceilings and lots of windows and high speed Internet access connected by a common multipurpose gallery/performance/community meeting space and maybe a retail storefront. Not surprisingly, Artspace's online survey of artists currently residing within 150 miles of Scranton found more than three hopeful tenants willing to committ to moving into the proposed building.
It's not just the prospect of a work/live space with fixed, affordable rent that's got painters, sculptors, writers, actors, dancers, musicians, photographers, etc., waiting in line. Being embraced as an important and valuable sector of society is awfully nice, too. And most enticing, I suspect, is the opportunity to live within a synergistic colony of other creative, imaginative art-producing people in an environment of limitless inspiration.
The Artspace housing project is a beautiful dream that won't necessarily come true. For as promising as the feasiblity study results are, a suitable site has yet to be pinpointed before construction/renovation challenges can fully be fathomed. If and when the project does come to fruition, cons will arise. Naysayers will write disparaging letters to the editor and complain wherever local feedback is allowed. Some artists will be upset when they aren't accepted to move in. Those that do move in will face high stress levels. Results will be expected and they'll be held up to the light of scrutiny. The prospect of so much excitement in the art community is awesome. But the project would essentially be a microcosm. Because Scranton is already a city ehanced by its community of artists.
-- alicia grega-pikul, 24 March 2005
Send email to: apikul@timesshamrock.com.
