Why is it that in times of plenty, we forget how important art is for survival and nourishment, but in hard times we turn to it not just for beauty and aesthetic reasons, but also to help get us through the day? Why is our collective memory so short? American governments, past and present, insist that they have no money to spend on ‘luxuries’, as they erroneously label the arts when things are booming. But in recession and depression, they sometimes remember that art not only comforts and feeds the soul, but can also bring in customers, and indeed, can help a whole business community recover in an economic downturn. Arts projects in communities give artists work, yes, but they do so much more: they help rebuild communities, turn around decaying neighborhoods, bring business to surrounding areas, and often provide badly needed education programs for children and other citizens who might otherwise be disenfranchised. They earn their way; they work – a lesson we seem to have to learn and re-learn.
This is part of the love/hate relationship America has with the arts, or rather, with funding the arts. And if we look at a case study, Artrain USA, we can see an old AND a new way to conceptualize bringing art to the masses – and helping to bring some of our oldest rural areas back to life. Local arts councils all over the country have figured out what the US government still needs to learn, over and over: art is not just for the privileged elite; art belongs to everyone, whether we live in a city teeming with our choice of the world’s best art museums, theaters, music venues, dance performance, and cinemas, or if we live in a rural, isolated, economically challenged community.
In 1971, the state of Michigan was in an economic downturn. This key mid-western state was a plethora of contradictions: an old-economy network of dying inner-city industrial towns, stretches of bucolic farmland, breathtaking lakes and resort areas. Almost three different economies, all of them in trouble in the early ‘70s, when Detroit felt the sting of the first bout of higher gas prices, and Americans first began to turn away from the Motor City’s product.
The Michigan Council on the Arts came up with a new and old idea: bringing arts to the masses. The innovation was to put it on wheels: and the Michigan Artrain, which toured the state for several years, was born. It was then, as it still exclaims, a museum in motion, rotating art exhibitions and art demonstrations mounted on a train that traveled the countryside, most especially aimed that those communities that did not normally have access to art exhibitions. Its audience originally: youngsters who had never been to a museum, or seen a potter at work, and community groups that sponsored outings for members who had little opportunity for exposure to original works of art.
By 1973, the experiment had clearly succeeded, and the mission of Artrain grew in ambition: why not take the show on the road, and a much bigger road at that, and call on a donation from the nation’s rail system to bring art to many rural communities all across the country? Artrain USA was re-born, and for more than thirty plus years has been taking the road less traveled, while bringing art shows to towns that either do not have museums of their own, or to people who might not ordinarily see contemporary work. The project reaches out to children, the elderly, and all who would board the train at stops along the announced route. Train stops are often in the heart of the old downtown.
Artrain partners with community groups, with businesses, with local arts councils, and yes, with the government, for support. This is no agit-prop train, belching smoke and propaganda across the Great Plains. This is a dynamic, artistic, community-action project that has been reminding us all, as it heads into middle age, that one way to bring people into an older, neglected neighborhood, or to bring rural communities together, is by sharing the work of the nation’s artists. Everybody wins.
Volunteers in each community help at each stop; fellowship awards create the working team to set up and strike a show at each venue in the three vintage cars that are part of the train. There is even a museum shop on board. Currently on view in this touring cycle has been an exhibition called Native Views: Influences of Modern Culture. The exhibition provides a dialogue between contemporary works of Native American artists and the pop culture of America that surrounds them. The traveling exhibition continues into the late fall.
Home base for Artrain USA is Ann Arbor, Michigan. But in a real sense, home is
everywhere this movable feast travels– every small town, village, and downtown area where the vintage rail coaches make a stop. All aboard Artrain!
