Community Art & Gift-Making for the Holidays

Finger Scarves, no knitting

required; yarn will be

available for purchase

or bring your own

The late musicologist Christopher Small (see earlier posts) spent most   of his 84 years trying to understand the meaning and significance of art.  In the process of writing three seminal books on the subject, he said, "All art is action--performance art, if you like--and its meaning lies not in created objects but in the acts of creating, displaying and perceiving."  Objects can be commodified and sold on a hungry and acquisitive market; but the more meaningful and personal processes of  art making cannot.

From the earliest cave drawings to the anarchy of today's street art, Small observes, "It is an activity--an urge-- in which human beings take part in order that they may come to understand their relationships--with one another and with the great pattern that connects."

The role of art, he explains, is to "Explore, affirm and celebrate the relationships of the living world that bring us together."

Nesting Orgami Boxes, for wrapping or as presents
Will use heavy scrap booking paper

This is made most clear during this approaching holiday season.  It is interesting that at least three of the world's major religions--Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism--celebrate sacred events in the approaching months, and their art during these times reflects a great communion amongst ourselves and with the mysterious.

You have the opportunity to add this kind of meaning to your gift-giving by crafting your personalized holiday gifts for your loved ones.  While your hand-crafted gift may lack great market value, it is priceless in personal and communal value.

Two community arts organizations in Signal Hill are
holding holiday gift making workshops:

---  On December 3, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. the Greenly Art Space will be holding its "Handmade Christmas Gift Workshop," for all ages, at 2698 Junipero Ave, #113 in Signal Hill.  Click here for a flyer on the event, and for more information or to register call Kimberly Hocking 562-533-4020, or email her at kimhocking@aol.com.  Click here to learn more about The Greenly Art Space.

---  On December 11, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. the Friends of Signal Hill Cultural Arts will host its "Winter Art Workshop," for children ages 4 to 15, at the Discovery Well Park.   For more information you may call 562-989-7330 or go online to the City of Signal Hill Website .

Happy Holiday Creating!


--- RCH

Click on the labels "art" and "arts and culture" below for more posts on those topics.

Spain: Meeting Christopher Small, III

This is the final post of our meeting with Professor Christopher Small in Sitges, Spain.  Again, those of you with an interest in the Arts in Our Communities may find this particularly interesting.  Next we move on to Madrid and Andalucía.


Once in Barcelona, I telephoned Small and arranged a day, time and location where we would meet.  He said he would be waiting for me at the train station.  Instead of the giant man of letters I expected to meet, I found a small, somewhat shy, graying older man holding a cane; a gentleman of delicacy and reticence, ready to receive strangers from abroad as his guests.  It was this meeting of Christopher Small, the person, that explained the "heart" I had seen in his work -- its deep core of humanity and compassion that is evident throughout.


As we gathered in the living room of his apartment filled with books, artwork and a piano, Chris (at his initiative, we quickly moved to using our first names) talked about Sitges, a charming seaside village, where there is always something interesting to do, usually something connected with the arts.  He also talked fondly of his long-time partner, Neville, who died in a local hospital some four years ago, from a brain tumor.  He dedicates Music of the Common Tongue -- which I think is his most passionate work -- to Neville, writing: "To Neville Braithwaite, who taught me what it was all about."  Chris praised the Spanish healthcare system, thankful that their European Union passports gave them both access to it.


Sitting comfortably in the living room and sipping the good local red wine Chris brought out, we began talking about his work, and I gave him the letter of gratitude Irvine Foundation's Director for the Arts, Josephine Ramirez, had asked me to deliver.  As he read, it was clear that he was moved.  He quietly said he is pleased that his work is being put into practice, not limited to being read in academia.  It has been only in the last ten years that his books have received much attention, which still surprises him, he said.  He pointed out, too, that none of the books have ever gone out of print.


Chris seemed reluctant to talk much about the substance of his work, seemingly satisfied with my simple -- perhaps simplistic -- summary of it.  He refuses to be pigeonholed, however.  When I asked if he considers himself a musicologist, he simply said, "I'm a musician who thinks about his music," refusing, even, to contend that his music is art -- maybe because even that would be too much of an abstraction.


He did venture one strong opinion:  He said he doesn't much care for the music of John Cage.  He said music requires "human intentionality" that is missing in the chance and random ambient-sound orientation of much of Cage's work.  He didn't say this, but from his comments in Music of the Common Tongue,  I think Chris might have added, if given the chance, that Cage is too much the precious and disingenuous elitist for his taste.


Chris disagreed with me on one point.  I had suggested that lagging ticket sales at performing arts centers would make for a good reason to apply his ideas.  My argument was the more "everyday" people are encouraged to engage personally in the arts, the more likely they will also increasingly support and attend professional performances that arts centers promote.  He wasn't specific about his reasons for challenging this, but Josephine Ramirez agreed with him in a later letter to me, saying "[E]verybody wants to do that but, at least originally, when we created it, our [Active Arts] program was never supposed to do that."  Further, she said "In my years of looking at these things, there's no data yet to solidly suggest that programs like Active Arts ... are helping to remedy falling attendance at PACs."  She also expressed concern that the acceptance of that argument might even lead to giving undue attention to "the old butts in the seats" model of PACs.


After finishing the bottle of wine, we moved from Chris' apartment to an Argentine restaurant on the water, just a half block away.  Several people warmly greeted Chris as we strolled by, asking not only about him, but also about local activities that they shared an interest in.  Chris is clearly well known and an engaged local favorite.


Returning after lunch, and as I gathered my things to leave, I snapped a few photos -- the ones you see here -- and turned to ask: "And what about your own music, Chris?", pointing to his piano.  "I'm afraid I haven't been much inspired since Neville's passing," he said.


We said our goodbyes and expressed our appreciation for each other with a big "abrazo," a bear hug.  And, as I worked my way through Sitges, back to the train station -- a tad tipsy from the wine -- I couldn't help marveling at this experience; at having come from a half a world away to meet this giant man of letters, with a heart to match.


Here are a few more photos from our time in Sitges.


--RCH 

Spain: Meeting Christopher Small, II

This post continues the discussion of our meeting with Christopher Small in Sitges, Spain.  Once again, those of you with an interest in the Arts in Our Communities, may find this particularly interesting.


Christopher Small was born in New Zealand where he studied piano and, despite difficulties locating a teacher in the then-sparcely populated country, some violin.  On the strengths of a ballet he wrote as a young man, he received a scholarship to study in England.  He completed his studies there and remained, eventually becoming a Senior Lecturer at Ealing College of Higher Education in London.  He retired in 1986 and moved to Sitges, with his partner Neville, a Jamaican-born dancer and promoter of community arts in London.

Small's life's work is reflected in three books.  They are: Music, Society, Education; Music of the Common Tongue: Survival and Celebration in African American Music; and his manifesto, Musicking: The Meaning of Performance and Listening; published in 1977, 1987 and 1998, respectively.

These are scholarly works organized around two broad questions: "What is the nature of music?" and "What is its function in human life?"  He has thought about these questions for years.  Instead of applying conventional abstractions, ideologies or theories to explore these themes, he questions old assumptions and turns to what he sees (and hears) directly in the world.  For Small, music's significant meaning lies in the vernacular.

He draws heavily on the thinking of anthropologist Gregory Bateson and his notion of the "pattern that connects," and finds the significance of music in our social processes that are much more personal, and much more pervasive than those found in the concert hall or on a CD.  Music is not a thing, he would say, not limited to the work or the score, or even the performance.  Rather, when seen broadly, music is a process that explores, affirms and celebrates human relationship.  He coined the term "musicking" to show this.


To fully appreciate these ideas, Small's books -- linked above -- need to be read.  For a quick introduction, and for a taste of Christopher Small, the man and scholar, I suggest reading his lecture given at the University of Melbourne in 1995, linked here.

The next post -- our final installment of our Meeting with Christopher Small -- will describe our actual encounter with him in Sitges, Spain.


-- RCH

Spain: Meeting Christopher Small, I

This launches a series of three posts about a meeting that began in Los Angeles and culminated, a half a world away, in Sitges, Spain.  Those of you interested in the Arts in Our Communities may find this worth reading.


Meet 83 year-old professor and much respected author Christopher Small, who devotes his life to trying to understand the meaning and significance of music in our lives.

I learned of Small at the Los Angeles Music Center where I volunteer in its Active Arts program.  Small's works, among those of others, provide the intellectual grounding for this program that promotes amateur music making in Los Angeles.


When I learned that the now-retired Professor Small lives in Sitges, just 30 minutes by train southwest of Barcelona, I resolved to visit him -- a sort of mission of our tour of Spain.  To do this, I contacted his publisher, Wesleyan University Press, then started a communication with him via e-mail, and also contacted others influenced by his work, including Josephine Ramirez, to make this visit a reality.  She eagerly offered to write a letter of gratitude to him for me to deliver -- this becoming a poignant focal point of the visit.

Ramirez is the individual most responsible for the creation of Active Arts and is the former Vice President for Programing and Planning for the Music Center.  She is now the Arts Program Director for the Irvine Foundation, administering more than $20 million each year for the arts in California.  (You can see her on the video at the Active Arts Web site linked above.)  She discovered Small's works while on a year's sabbatical at Harvard in 2002-03, and from that created a loose theoretical framework about building arts policies and programming with "everyday" people as its focus.

The Active Arts program at the Los Angeles Music Center is putting Christopher Small's ideas into practice, as the Center broadens its mission from being a performing arts center to becoming a civic cultural center for the city.  The program challenges our passive, detached-connoisseurship orientation to music, so often encouraged by performing arts centers, and exhorts us to personally engage in the arts -- to unleash the artist in each of us.  It encourages us to step back to an earlier time of parlors and dusty porches, when we actually made music, rather than simply purchased it.  Small's work provides both a catalyst and rationale for this.

A couple of years ago, I was asked to give brief remarks to the Music Center board of directors, to share what Active Arts means to one of its volunteers.  At the meeting I heard one of the directors ask, "How does this relate to our core programs?"  Josephine Ramirez, who was moderating the meeting, replied spontaneously, "This is a core program."

In our next post, we will present some background on Christopher Small and try to summarize his thinking.


-- RCH