- A Community Handworks project deliberately and consciously REACHES OUT across one or more "division" in the geographic community - age, class, race, religion, income, etc.
- It strives for more than one "win." By reaching out, we create or teach something that can then be used by or for something that will help something/someone else. The challenge is to PLAN for that WINNING CHAIN to continue as far and as long as possible. One person or group hands it off to another and another...
- It involves HANDMADE processes. Handcrafted items are as essential as the face-to-face process of making them. The time and effort to create something imbues a meaning that should not be ignored.
- It involves FACE-TO-FACE creation (folks gathering who might not otherwise have met) and ANONYMOUS DONATION (recipients given items handcrafted by anonymous members of the community). In this way, folks who participate in creativity sessions may get to know new folks, and recipients may be given the gift of privacy as well as the joy of knowing only that someone out there in the community gave time and effort to create the item.
- Although selling or auctioning items to raise money for a cause is always a possibility, these activities tend to end a winning chain rather than continue it. Community Handworks projects should strive to add links before bringing money into the picture.
- My ideal project would also include a handwritten journal that includes the handwriting of everyone involved in the chain. And this book should find a resting place somewhere that would be accessible later (not stuck at the back of a bookshelf of someone who happens to end the chain.) The journal itself becomes a handmade item with the potential of starting a new chain.
- The creative process is always flexible. Plans for the winning chain of events will change along the way. But the intention to reach out and across should always be present.
It is entirely possible that many Community Handworks efforts may wither after the enthusiasm of the initiator fades away. I don't see that as a failure as long as some part of the plan is carried out. It is hard for a winning chain to continue between people who have lives to live. But the real challenge is to push that winning chain outward. By doing that, we reach across more and more peoples' experiences and knit more and more cohesion in the community.
An Imagined Example
A group of adult artists or crafty friends invites a similar group from 'across a divide' to make a small set of handmade objects from donated or found materials. They pass these objects on to a high school drama club in yet another part of town. The drama club writes an original children's theatre script inspired by the objects. They recruit another group to help them perform the play at a children's shelter or nursing home. The newly recruited group then takes over, and they lead the children (or seniors) in a craft activity inspired by the play. These new objects are donated to the cancer hospital. The original inspiration pieces can then be spun off to another group... And possibly the entire process can be documented by a photography or videography class. The images can then...
The point is to make use of creativity to benefit someone else AND to build community ties across groups of people who might not ordinarily interact. The point is not to bring these folks together to discuss difficult issues; rather, they come together via two things they have in common - being members of a geographic community and having an interest in being creative.
If anyone reading this has other ideas, please share them! I would especially love to hear from folks involved in fine art and performing art and from folks who work with so-called "harder" materials - wood, metal, etc.
Email me at communityhandworks yahoo.com (add the @).
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single minute before starting to improve the world.
-Anne Frank
