1.: How Art and Social Change Shaped My Life

Bad home, Drugs, and prison. A predictable story? Sure, except when you throw in the National Cathedral choir, a geodesic dome, and the stubborn belief that art can save the world. This is the first episode of a new podcast produced by the Center for the Study of Art & Community called Change the Story, Change the World. My name is Bill Cleveland. In this first episode I share the very personal story of how this podcast came to be and try to answer why would anybody want to listen to it. It’s a journey of many decades. It begins in the leafy suburbs of our nation’s capital around the time that America started losing what some have called its innocence---Along the way we encounter hippie communes, the requisite drugs, sex and rock and roll, art colonies in prisons, and armies of artists doing battle with the likes of the Slobodan Milosevic, Pol Pot and the US Department of Justice. This week on Change the Story, Change the World, I share how my story crosses paths with the early history and extraordinary growth of the global community arts movement.THRESHOLD QUESTIONS AND DELICIOUS QUOTES ?Can the creative process be a lifeline for people who are struggling?  "The pervasive, penetrating pulse of all that music was a god damn miracle, all at once a soothing balm, a shattering depth charge, and a transcendent window into other dimensions." ?Can art help us re-imagine and recreate the social and cultural fabric of our communities? "One of the bedrock understandings of the hippie universe was, to coin a phrase “you can’t always get what you want, but if you really need it, well, you can make it yourself.” So, in no time at all, we found ourselves imagining that we could make our OWN music.”?What was CETA and how did it give birth to an ever-expanding community arts movement? "The prison partnerships we forged … were both groundbreaking and challenging. They taught is a whole lot in a hurry about what artists need to do to build trust with new communities and neighborhood organizations."? How can art help change the toxic nature of America’s prisons? "In those instants, we could see prison artists kind of tuning in, you know, moving from static to clear reception." ?How can these transformative stories feed the development of a growing community of creative change agents? "By the end of the Art in Other Places Conference, we had a mountain of documentation on artists and programs from all over the country. We had made a commitment to NEA to produce … a report, but to really tell the story of what was going on we had to do more, much more." ?How can artists help re-build civic infrastructure, heal unspeakable trauma, and give new voice to the forgotten and disappeared? "Art and Upheaval took me on an 8-year global journey, documenting artists working in communities facing intense, real-time conflict and trauma.” ?What is Change the Story / Change the World and why should anyone want to tune in? "We are doing this because we believe that meeting the obvious and daunting challenges of this century is going to require a revolution of thought and deed — in essence, a new set of stories powerful enough to change beliefs and behaviors."...

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