Arts Alliance to provide representation for voices of local community

Throughout the summer, Bloomington community members have had several meetings to serve as discussions toward reorganization of arts leadership.
Artists, gallery owners and university representatives have been among those participating in these discussions. After several months of deliberation, the formation of the Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington was formed on Aug. 23.

“I think there is a general feeling amongst the Bloomington arts community that there was no mechanism, no place in which the general artists and arts organizations could have their voices heard,” said  Alain Barker, director of marketing and publicity at the Jacobs School of Music. “This alliance is an attempt to create a mechanism for that.”

The alliance will be organized to allow members of the arts community to participate in conversations where they can propose ideas and projects, voice their concerns, and network with other local artists and resources.

The alliance has defined four primary areas disciplines that will receive representation: visual arts, performance arts, literature and festivals.

“The arts alliance is the first time that we know of that there has been an organization made up of artists for artists,” said Patsy Rahn, tour coordinator of the Education Department of the IU Art Museum. “It’s really a representative organization.”

The structure of the alliance will involve four major components. The community at large is invited to participate  and will be considered the “Arts Alliance.” From there artists and organizations can form “guilds” focused around specific
mediums.

A representative from each guild will then be invited to be a member of the “Alliance Steering Team,” a panel of 15 to 25 projected members who will meet regularly to discuss proposed projects and ideas.

Several members will be elected to the “Coordinating Committee,” and will then be responsible for developing technical plans for executing
discussed ideas.

“I think once this art alliance gets going and is really in operation it’s going to be an exciting synergy of artists coming together to create growth and development in the arts community from within,” Rahn said.

A key factor to understanding the role of the alliance is to also understand the preexisting arts councils and organizations in Bloomington and how the alliance will interact with them. Established groups include the Bloomington Entertainment and Arts District, the Bloomington Community Arts Commission and the Bloomington Area
Arts Council.

“They all have very specific and somewhat defined roles,” Barker said. “BEAD is an economic development project downtown and has taken on a lot of the service-related activity that the Bloomington Area Arts Council used to have, but BEAD in and of itself does not represent the full spectrum of arts organizations and artists in town.

Barker described the Bloomington Community Arts Commission as a commission defined by its involvement with the city and government.  

“The Bloomington Area Arts Council, which I would say in some ways historically represented many of the arts organizations and artists in town, or at least was a forum in which organizations and artists could gather, has taken on a much more limited role and doesn’t function in that way anymore,” he said.

The Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington will carry none of the responsibilities of these organizations, but will serve as a representative forum. Once a project has been discussed and organized by the Steering Team it may then prove useful to go out and engage the assistance of an outside organization.

“(The Alliance is) going out to these other groups only when they need to for a specific project, specific event, specific idea, specific suggestion or maybe a partnership with some kind of idea they have in mind,” Rahn said.

Community members interested in participating in the Arts Alliance can visit bloomingtonarts.org for more information and upcoming meeting dates. Individual artists can attend these meetings in addition to representatives of organizations and developing guilds.

“It’s the start of something that I really think could be a healthy part of our arts community,” Rahn said.