Doing things differently

As we get things rolling with ArtShip’s administration and development, questions may arise focusing on more clear and specific objectives of the project.  As we continue pursuing this venture, we hope to construct a communicable and thorough source that illustrates our ideas.  But one of the most important questions to answer currently is simply: Why are we doing this?  And what that question relates to is “What are the benefits of a project like this?”  “What can we contribute to our community by participating in the ArtShip mission?”  “Why does it have to be on a boat?”  The most important answer we are trying to provide is that art should be publicly accessible and can provide cultural enrichment to all communities around the globe.  Our goal is to collaborate with seaside communities whose presence of public arts vary, and to create local artistic initiatives with cooperating organizations, collectives, and venues in effort to support public artistic expression and offer relevant creative resources to a participating community audience.

We are facing a period of time when domains for artistic opportunity are more important than ever.  If we are to take a big hit in our national spending on the arts, we need to take it upon ourselves to come up with positive alternatives for bringing art to the people and art that can be interpreted and expressed by and for everyone.  Community art projects have had a long history in promoting cultural cohesiveness.  To ask why are community art projects important is like asking why art in general is important.  In my opinion, community and public art is more deeply rooted with artistic expression in its truest form than other artistic motives.  It helps us all to enjoy, challenge, and understand ourselves.  It brings people together, and sparks forums of conversation that clarifies to us all that we have individual strengths, opinions, and emotions that can and need to be shared.  It allows for one person in a small fishing town to come together with his or her neighbor and appreciate aesthetic and conceptual beauty together, and to enjoy the perks that creativity can bring to their home environment.

As far as the reason for taking this idea on a boat, I think the best question to ask is “why not on a boat?”  If there is an alternative setting, a new “so to speak market” that we haven’t tapped into artistically, why shouldn’t we explore this?  What the Artship provides is a new kind of venue; a new insight into viewing, learning, and expressing public art.  Alternative environments are increasingly important in our understanding and insight into the different worlds (yes that is plural for a reason) that art inhabits.  One could easily ask why start an art space in an old factory building.  The reason is that we as viewers interact with unconventional art outlets with intrigue into the space being part of the artwork itself.  Our goal with the Artship is to merge our public community artistic pursuits with this new atmosphere.  Of course all of this is meaningless without enjoyment and engaging motivation.  This is exactly what we see Artship accomplishing. 

Posted by Co-member Gabe Strader-Brown