Raw Fiction 2015 is underway. The group has met twice, they're working on their vision and they're reading, writing and thinking critically. It's amazing.
I've also thrown an initial fundraiser - and I reached my fundraising goal. The event was beautiful and videos are up on my youtube channel. The photographs from the event are also beautiful and they are up on the website. Today, I registered my receipts from this year into an excel document. I'm organized and productive.
I love doing this and I love the positive feedback I get from just about everyone who hears about Raw Fiction or comes out and supports an event.
And now we come to impending questions: Should Raw Fiction continue and grow? If Raw Fiction continues does it inevitably have to grow? If I don't want Raw Fiction to grow then should I continue it? Am I obligated, as the originator of the vision, to see to it that Raw Fiction becomes a fixture in the community?
Raw Fiction was created in reaction to the rapid gentrification of Brooklyn, a frustration at my inability to get the kind of job I'd love, and a frustration that the kind of job I'd actually really love didn't even exist within non-profit structures. Raw Fiction became a vision that I latched onto as a way to evade the anxieties of existence in this hyper-developed world. Raw Fiction got me through a very rough patch in life and has become an enormous networking tool. I love meeting like minds, however, I resist the definition of networking as a form of ladder climbing.
Recently, I started an application with the end goal of becoming a social entrepreneur. On the one hand, I am thrilled by the possibility of turning Raw Fiction into my form of income. To do it full time, to live off the passion that sustains me … On the other hand, I am daunted by what a successful future could turn my unadulterated grassroots project into.
And then there's the even bigger question: How do I know what kind of autonomy I can maintain over language for grantors if I never even try? How can I resist an opportunity to turn a passion into a career?
Would I stay passionate about the passion if it became my career?
What about my literary pursuits - my own writing? My own desires to live abroad, study languages, flex my imagination into boundless unknowns…
Can Raw Fiction exist as a hobby? Can it be supported primarily by a reading series that brings in a couple of hundred dollars per event? Is that sustainable for me?
Is becoming a nonprofit director sustainable for me?
What is sustainability in this hyper-technological world?
I thought writing here would help me solve the conundrum: to establish or to remain grassroots. But I think this is a question for the universe.
The hard questions can't be answered with the intellect, we must leave the future to chance.
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Monday, January 19, 2015
My Curriculum - A Handbook: How to start a community arts project and no other stories
So one of the purposes of this blog is to create a guide to starting a community project.
And I don't do that. I've mostly been contemplating events. But I think that's part of the process.
The Process:
Step 1: Go out and support your community. I volunteered at 826NYC. I attended events created by my colleagues. I read at events, I met people at events, I followed up with people. I've got a really reliable community of artists who support the work I'm doing and give me a lot of encouragement.
Step 2: Find someone with a lot more experience than you, who believes in your idea, (for me: Tanisha Christie, but you will have to find someone else). Let this person rip apart your first attempt at grant writing. Listen. Learn.
Step 3: Bring the community together and see what happens. Watch. Think. Learn.
Step 4: Don't forget to practice your art. Let the project slide if you've got other things to do and pick it up later. (Obviously don't drop good momentum, but you can do it non-consecutively -- in a way this can help build excitement, at least with Raw Fiction it seems to.)
Step 5: Don't get caught up in the suggestions of other people. Some advisors (and be sure to have several so you can get all sorts of angles and opinions) will ask the perfect questions and others will say confusing things; take it all in, it's all necessary. Figure out your answers for everything, so you can talk about your project in any setting and seem as though you know what you're talking about.
Step 6: Be open to different methodologies. Don't get stuck in a stagnant routine. As in, don't just teach the same stuff all the time. Have a pool of stories, poetry and essay (or a variety of genre for whatever art you're sharing - my focus is postcolonial and I'm flexible within/with that timeframe). Get to know your youth and give them things you think will be exciting specifically to them. Let me choose what they want to read from a bunch of options. And so on. Keep the curriculum full of potential.
This photo of a Romare Bearden piece (on exhibit at Columbia University's gallery through February, check it out) is for the sole purpose of false advertising the true intentions of this blog:
And I don't do that. I've mostly been contemplating events. But I think that's part of the process.
The Process:
Step 1: Go out and support your community. I volunteered at 826NYC. I attended events created by my colleagues. I read at events, I met people at events, I followed up with people. I've got a really reliable community of artists who support the work I'm doing and give me a lot of encouragement.
Step 2: Find someone with a lot more experience than you, who believes in your idea, (for me: Tanisha Christie, but you will have to find someone else). Let this person rip apart your first attempt at grant writing. Listen. Learn.
Step 3: Bring the community together and see what happens. Watch. Think. Learn.
Step 4: Don't forget to practice your art. Let the project slide if you've got other things to do and pick it up later. (Obviously don't drop good momentum, but you can do it non-consecutively -- in a way this can help build excitement, at least with Raw Fiction it seems to.)
Step 5: Don't get caught up in the suggestions of other people. Some advisors (and be sure to have several so you can get all sorts of angles and opinions) will ask the perfect questions and others will say confusing things; take it all in, it's all necessary. Figure out your answers for everything, so you can talk about your project in any setting and seem as though you know what you're talking about.
Step 6: Be open to different methodologies. Don't get stuck in a stagnant routine. As in, don't just teach the same stuff all the time. Have a pool of stories, poetry and essay (or a variety of genre for whatever art you're sharing - my focus is postcolonial and I'm flexible within/with that timeframe). Get to know your youth and give them things you think will be exciting specifically to them. Let me choose what they want to read from a bunch of options. And so on. Keep the curriculum full of potential.
This photo of a Romare Bearden piece (on exhibit at Columbia University's gallery through February, check it out) is for the sole purpose of false advertising the true intentions of this blog:
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