Voices from the Field Blog

Newark’s Creative Catalyst Fund, a Case Study in Artistic Resilience

Students participating in the “Piano Bus” program led by Keys 2 Success, General Operating Support grantee through the Creative Catalyst Fund (Image courtesy of Keys 2 Success) In the spring of 2020, artists and cultural institutions across the country were unsure of their future. Recognizing that Newark’s artists and cultural organizations are critical to making the city vibrant and healthy...

Celebrating National Arts & Humanities Month: NJ Finalist in National Poster Competition

Photo Description: Colored pencil drawing of an artist's table filled with paint, brushes and paper. In the center are two illustrated cards. One reads, "Fall seven times, stand up eight" — a Japanese proverb. The other reads, "A journey of a thousand miles starts from beneath one's feet" — Lao Tzu. The 2022 National Arts & Humanities Month poster design competition was open to artists for a...

Catch Basin Murals a Hit for Earth Day in Perth Amboy

Perth Amboy Artworks recently produced five Catch Basin Murals for Earth Day. I sent out an email promoting our project and got a response from Sen. James Kennedy saying “very cool.” That is a real compliment, coming from a former mayor and leader of the NJ Creative Placemaking movement, who used arts to drive the successful revitalization of Rahway. Catch basin mural projects have been used...

Beyond the Boundaries: Arts Education through a Pandemic

“We always have a choice of how we respond to the crisis. That’s what arts does: it gives students a voice.” Since the onset of the pandemic and throughout the past year, the landscape of arts education has changed dramatically. At schools throughout the state of New Jersey, students were forced to communicate and create from home, or through major restrictions. However, in spite of this blow...

The Camden Arts Scene is Growing

Visual ethnographer Michael P. Smith often described New Orleans as a “cultural wetland."1 It is from this framework that I similarly consider Waterfront South, the Camden neighborhood where my organization Camden FireWorks is situated. Often non-residents describe Camden using deficit-based descriptors like “underserved,” “disenfranchised,” or “poor.” Although Waterfront South people implicitly...

Get Involved in the Word, Plant a Seed, and Watch It Grow

Words are important. Words are all around us and with you right now as you read this. Words, to me, are among the most beautiful gifts that I have ever gotten from or given to anyone. I believe this so strongly that I’ve dedicated myself to ensuring that words play an important part in the lives of others. I currently serve as my hometown’s Poet Laureate. As the first ever poet laureate of...

A New View—Camden

The City of Camden, New Jersey has received a $1 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies to clean up blighted areas around its transit corridors and to turn those spaces into showcases for public art. Camden was one of only ­five cities across the United States to receive a Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge grant for 2019-2020. The other cities are Anchorage, Alaska; Coral Springs...

The HeART of Downtown Renaissance

What happens when you get five business leaders in a room filled with hungry learners who want to know the secrets to making their downtowns come alive? This was the scene at the recent New Jersey League of Municipalities Conference where ArtPride and the Housing & Community Development Network of New Jersey collaborated to showcase success stories in progress in Hackensack, Atlantic City, Trenton...

Creative Art as a Tool for Community Revitalization

What does your mind conjure when asked to visualize Trenton’s art scene? Public sculpture concentrated near the State House? Street-style art on abandoned buildings? While both examples can be found across the spectrum of art in Trenton, the reality is much more vibrant and diverse. Creative and performing arts have always played an important role in Trenton over the course of its history, but...

Never Stop Asking Questions

Five years ago, I put a personal and institutional moratorium on making theatre. coLAB Arts had a massive question that had been hanging in the air for the five years since the organization first started: Why do we exist? Why does there need to be another loosely held together group of emerging interdisciplinary artists in New Jersey making work for themselves? And why New Brunswick? We had...