"keep it simple, take the long view, make goals realistic and sustainable." PK

"How can we make the art community in Youngstown stronger?" asks Mary K. Farragher of  The Karma Lab

Have the "art community" define "stronger".

Have Mahoning Valley define it's "art community".
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Other idea:
Start with a hugely expanded version of Karen Fry's TAA simple paper monthly newsletter. Of course I am personally prejudiced in that I get all my art schedule hints from it -- where to show what when (I can't keep up with all the hanging opportunities in this Valley) - and what's/who's who in the art community - but that aside - I know she doesn't even use water-proof ink, & I believe she assembles them all herself, so imagine what difference a little more manpower/funding would make?

Although I wonder if the artists of the Valley do not read newsletters? And there is a fee ($7 ) to have it mailed. It'd be nice to be able to leave free copies around like some ... mini - ? Voice or something.  It's online (free)#, also, but I like to circle things, & refer to old issues since there's often too much stuff to do in 1 month.   # Correction: http://www.artgally.com/taa/  doesn't seem to be up-to-date

I think almost a *census* of the culture of the area should be taken - gather a sheet of info from *every soul that has even the least interest* in culture in the Valley.  I think that we *don't know* exactly who "we" & "us" are!  This would take some time: Re: above, below... sort of a circle we have, haven't we (sadly). And maybe people need to feel they've either been counted, or that they count.  Then again attempting a herding of the "artist" part of the community is of course, like herding cats...  And the third overheard complaint (out of order) "Who listens? Who's in charge?" Who is going to do the Big Listening? I believe the *community* has to hitch up its trousers and *decide* that it *has* an identity and that it is going to listen *to itself*.

One needs to know what people desire! List as many checkboxes as one can come up with - we need help putting all our wants into words, getting from vague "I want to make a living" & "arts add value to life" to concrete ("I want to have 6 people visit my studio/gallery every day") - have to tally them all up...  Need to gather all the data in one place.

And then maybe drawing from that gathering of data, assemble a directory of ... ? culture persons? I was just viewing http://www.lvartscouncil.org/directory/index.cfm and it gets *very* complicated very quickly ... Although these people pay annual $32 fee for it. Not sure if that cost would go over too well here.

I guess my personal thought keeps coming back to the newsletter because I wish I had a dollar for everytime I've heard a local artist say, "I didn't know about this or that".  Even I would like to see a once a month Art Walk like some other cities have, and even a few times a year An Open Studios tour/thing. It'd probably have to alternate between Trumbull & Mahoning since hard to cover both areas in 1 visit - for either a Walk or Studios Tour.

Having the monthly ArtWalk would (well, hopefully) give the Valley some kinda stamp of Art Value Authenticity in the broader world... maybe.

That is the second thing I would like that dollar for: everytime someone has said, "Why don't we have art aficionados/writers/buyers from all around, even NYC, acknowledging/promoting how great our art/ art community is here?"
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"What would you like to see The Karma Lab grow into?"  (KL : A Green, Multifunctional Outlet for the Creative Arts which Under an informal business model will be offering an Art Gallery, Yoga Studio, Education, and Entertainment in downtown Youngstown)

It should include as many persons and entities who are interested in the arts & cultural scene in the Mahoning Valley as possible.   (There are so many tools available to every user that it can be whatever the user wants - from sharing new artwork, posting events on bulletin board, or reading artists' blogs to maintaining a personal portfolio, networking, or chatting. Although if it becomes a One-Stop Place for art community it may become unwieldy -- just another bulletin board with streams of posts to wade through. Susie B has been looking for a long time for the most palatable way to circulate the monthly schedule of all the cultural events - nothing seems easiest... everything has its pitfalls. Text, pages, links, clicking, scrolling, - no wonder I cotton to the paper TAA newsletter - what a relief!