Sedona AZ (April 16, 2016) – The City Vision Statement defines Sedona as a “city that is animated by the arts”. What does this mean, and what are we doing to live up to this statement?
Sedona is world renown as a place of inspiration and beauty, thus attracting creative and artistically gifted people who desire to live and work in this environment. Our community also attracts visitors who want to immerse themselves in the beauty of our natural environment and find their own personal inspiration.
By capitalizing on the unique allure of Sedona, is it possible to “grow” and “animate” the arts in our community through enhanced opportunities in art education?
On Thursday April 21st, the Sedona Arts and Culture Collaborative will facilitate a community forum to reveal the results of a community arts survey that was conducted in 2015 and discuss how we might unite the arts and education communities in Sedona through expanded art education programming. The theme of the evening will be “United, We Can Flourish”, and will feature presentations, comments and ideas by artists and educators in the Sedona area.
All artists and arts enthusiasts are invited to attend. The forum will be held at the Sedona campus of Yavapai College in West Sedona and will begin at 5:30 p. m. If you or your organization currently provides educational programming in the arts, you are requested to bring a written outline of the programming that you currently offer.
This is an exciting opportunity to begin the process for creating a unique niche for Sedona in the arts world by differentiating our community from other arts communities. United, We Can Flourish!
For more information or questions, please call Rob Adams at 639-3503
2 Comments
Come on guys, get real. Art and art education in Sedona is driven by the market, what people want to buy and learn. In my experience, very few people want to truly learn about how to create art, and are not willing to put in the hard work that takes. Rather, they want a quick ‘how to’ workshop taught by a big name, in the hopes that the famous person will magically confer MORE artistic knowledge (that an unknown can’t). Very few unknown artists are selling their work. The best artists in Sedona, who break the rules on the boundaries of what art is struggle to make ends meet. The only ones making a living are doing 24″x36″ semi impressionistic oils of the red rocks.
Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over …ad naseum. Also known as production painting.
The workshop instructors making a living have a ‘name’ which consists of their spouse marketing them.
One of the best painters in the Verde Valley, doesn’t get to paint, he runs the school of the Sedona Arts Center. Because we have to make a living.
As long as ‘collectors’ and people taking classes and workshops favor the big names nothing changes. And believe me, I lived this having lived for 7 years in Sedona one step away from poverty AFTER being a sucessful artist in Italy for 14 years, AFTER having won an artists grant from the City of Sedona, and I taught at SAC for 7 years. So I know.
People think having a name has something to do with the quality of an artists work. It doesn’t.
It has to do with either being independently wealthy so you have time to both create and market your work, or you have a spouse markets you.
If you don’t believe me check it out.
If Sedona wants to support the arts, how about those of you collecting art step out of the box and buy local artists’ work, EVEN IF THEY DON’T HAVE A NAME. And pay a fair price for it.
Good luck because I can’t see how it’ll change, because America is ALL about the money.
I wish I could go to this meeting, but I am leading a group of artists that evening.
In my experience, the art education direction is a good idea, but not for the right reasons. The purpose should be for arts sake to create an artists community, not for tourism. A The latter will follow if we do some interesting, unique, inventive and different art events here. Interesting artists, always pull other artists and also non- local collectors. We do have a local collector base here but they will only spend about $100-$300 on the average. We also do not have a critic here, which is a staple in an arts community. Nor do we have a Large space to show our work wahich may hang from the ceiling or be 4’x8′.
So I would be for developing an Artists’ Community, and the rest will come. This would mean that this organization (of which I was a part at one time) needs to put some teeth in this idea by helping to arrange art studio spaces; bringing in well know artists like Brian, (the inventive sculpture professor at NAU.) The art work that we have here is quite boring to me, and I sell my art, but not in town. I would like to see
some arts educators who are really inventive, and can start a movement here about
art exploration andintention.