AHA! Kenosha IS Exposed to the Arts

Written by John Nordquist
As published in the Daily Kenoshan

Photo from the Daily Kenoshan

Thursday, 11 October 2007

OCTOBER is National Arts & Humanities Month. Every month has a national designation, or two, or ten attached to it, and this month, officially proclaimed, is meant to raise public awareness of the arts, and of humanities in America. Okay… so you’re probably not jumping out of your chair to celebrate… no days off for reflecting on the arts… no humanities parades… no national Arts & Humanities Month discounts at the local coffee shops… but there is cause to celebrate the Arts & Humanities in Kenosha and Southeast Wisconsin.

There are a lot of people you may know… your neighbors, local celebs, teachers, artists, writers, activists, who are working very hard to bring the arts and humanities to the forefront of Kenosha life, and they are succeeding wonderfully.

On Tuesday, October 9th, AHA! Kenosha held a public meeting at the Kenosha Public Museum as a sort of introduction to their organization and to present themselves as the focal point in Kenosha for artists, writers, musicians, educators, story tellers, and more, to become exposed to Kenosha and the world. AHA! Kenosha points out that as our economic base is moving away from manufacturing and industry, the arts and creative workforce is stepping up. Indeed, in Southeast Wisconsin, approximately 8,359 people employed in the arts shared $164,580,000 income last year for an average annual income of nearly $20,000 each. AHA!’s goal is to be the resource in the region for not only promoting arts and humanities, but to bring artisans and the economy together more effectively.

How can AHA! make a difference in the local arts economy? The answer lies in group dynamics. Hard working people, like Tamara Merfeld, AHA!’s unpaid Executive Director, Francisco Loyola, web developer, and Daily Kenoshan member Tammy Peacy, of www.exposekenosha.com , and a large core of others in the community who are stepping up to make it happen.

Take a look at AHA!Kenosha at www.ahakenosha.org, and www.exposekenosha.com , and you’re sure to be impressed at the depth and breadth of the arts and humanities community in Kenosha. I was. To better understand the shifting economic and social trend toward a creative based economy, visit www.creativeclass.org. Dr. Richard Florida provides

“…an insightful portrait of the values and lifestyles that will drive the 21st century economy, its technologies and social structures. To understand how scientists, artists, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and other self-motivated, creative people are challenging the traditional structures of the 20th century society … success in the future is not about technology, government, management or even power; it is all about people and their dynamic and emergent patterns of relationships.” [- Lewis M. Branscomb, John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University]

Check out the book….

Florida’s first national bestseller received the Washington Monthly’s Political Book Award and was cited as a major breakthrough idea of 2004 by the Harvard Business Review. Toronto’s Globe and Mail called it “an intellectual tour de force, scholarly yet colorfully written,” and its ideas have been implemented and called on for inspiration in communities and cities across the United States and the world.

Rise, as it has been appropriately re-dubbed in the popular lexicon, looks at the forces reshaping our economy and how companies, communities and people can survive and prosper in uncertain times. It gives us a provocative new way to think about why we live as we do today - and where we might be headed. Weaving storytelling with reams of cutting-edge research, Florida traces the fundamental theme that runs through a host of seemingly unrelated changes in American society: the growing role of creativity in our economy.

Just as William Whyte’s 1956 classic The Organization Man showed how the organizational ethos of that age permeated every aspect of life, Florida describes a society in which the creative ethos is increasingly dominant. Millions of us are beginning to work and live much as creative types like artists and scientists always have. Our values and tastes, our personal relationships, our choices of where to live, and even our sense and use of time are changing.

Leading this transformation are the 40 million Americans - over a third of our national workforce - who create for a living. This “creative class” is found in a variety of fields, from engineering to theater, biotech to education, architecture to small business. Their choices have already had a huge economic impact. In the future, they will determine how the workplace is organized, what companies will prosper or go bankrupt, and even which cities will thrive or wither.

John Nordquist is the editor of the Daily Kenoshan