Edit or Publish Saved Feature: ArtStreet
ArtStreet is a program near downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico thatprovides a community based art program for the homeless. It is directlyaffiliated with Health Care for the Homeless and is funded throughnumerous grants and donations. New Mexico Arts (formerly the New MexicoArts Division) and the city of Albuquerque both provide funding. Theprogram is relatively open. Individuals interested in pursuing artworkcome by and start working. The model is a kind of self-directed arttherapy approach that advocates the inherent healing of the creativeprocess. Being able to pursue alternatives to your current situationis dependent on being able to first imagine alternatives. Self imageis very dependent on being able to make and create, be it art orchange.
While the target group are the homeless, artists from all over come byto work or to share their skills. Some folks just want to be in thecreative atmosphere. During the development of the Doll Tales exhibitVirginia Johnson of the Senior Arts Club at the city's Palo Dura SeniorCenter dropped by to instruct in the making of bread dough doll heads; ahomeless woman of Japanese decent came by for a few weeks and helpedwith sewing doll bodies; an artist from Santa Fe comes down to providesupport and encouragement. Timm-Bottos said that things are not plannedout in order to be able to take advantage of the accidental andspontaneous.
The Doll Tales exhibit provides a convenient metaphor for the wayArtStreet works. It is a very fluid population. Folks are constantlymoving in and out of the program. While it is not drop-in program, itdoes ebb and flow with the rhythm of the streets. Folks go to jail,they move on to other interests, they plain just move on. Ideas arefloated, sometimes by the staff, sometimes by the members. Some work,others fall away. Materials are provided by the program, and arepurchased or gotten through donations. Artists drop off stuff, frameshops give them their scraps, people clean out their garage and bring aload in. For a couple of weeks now a French woman has been bringing bysamples of her cooking to share with folks. She’ll be going back toFrance soon, and a space will be left. Something new will fill it.
A recently organized writing group is going to add to DollTales by planning to do readings on opening night. They are going tomove about the exhibit so viewers will catch bits and pieces as theymove about. The dolls will range from the more traditional, to men onmotorcycles made of broken toys and recycle materials, to elaborateassemblages that reminded me of Joseph Cornell. Timm-Bottos, whorecently decided to return to school to work on a Phd., said that she hasfound that there isn’t much literature on dolls. Dolls have prettymuch been a woman’s craft; she was surprised at how this project hadtaken off. She wants to pursue doll imagery in her graduate work. Asthe exhibit becomes larger it is clear that it will begin to flow intothe window display area of the old Krese Building that the developershave let ArtStreet use for exhibit space. The window fronts the maindowntown thoroughfare and returns the art of ArtStreet back to itsroots.