It's time to get creative
Towns see arts as boost to economy
Imagine, for a moment, a transformed downtown Framingham.
One laced with art galleries, and with working artists' lofts, all within walking distance of one another. One with artworks regularly exhibited at local businesses, and with hotels filled with visitors eager to sample it all.
As visions of the future go, its advocates say, this one isn't impossible to conjure up, particularly since pieces of art are already beginning to crop up in empty Framingham storefronts.
It's all part of an initiative by arts and business leaders and local officials from communities across the area who want to build a creative economy boosted by the arts.
The effort, headed by the MetroWest Chamber of Commerce, is meant to enliven local economies by promoting cultural tourism and capitalizing on existing arts institutions in the region, say organizers. State and town officials and arts advocates have been meeting for over a year in support of the effort.
Katherine French, director of Framingham's Danforth Museum of Art and cochairwoman of the START Framingham Partnership, established to promote Framingham as a center for the arts, says the area needs to build on its existing cultural assets. Many local arts organizations, she said, have already worked hard to promote the importance of the arts in the community.
"We had great success on the local level, and we're trying to work regionally and have a larger impact on the entire MetroWest corridor," French said.
The MetroWest Chamber of Commerce is conducting two surveys to identify hotels and arts institutions to determine the local impact of the creative economy. In addition to its recent efforts to scatter artworks in storefronts downtown, Framingham is trying to jump-start its role by staging "Spring into Arts," a seven-week-long patchwork of events featuring music, art, and the like. Among the upcoming offerings is "Celebrate Framingham, a Framazing Event," set for June 1.
"One of the things that you try to do when you have a vibrant employment base," said Ted Welte, president and CEO of the MetroWest chamber, "is you want to provide things that equate to positive quality of life, and a lot of that has to do with some of the things in the creative economy. And that helps companies to attract employees and keep employees."
Creative economy initiatives have been carried out elsewhere in the state, including Lowell, and North Adams and other communities in the Berkshires, with considerable success, arts advocates say.
The creative economy is loosely defined as including nonprofit arts and cultural groups, libraries, and educational institutions.
The total impact of cultural organizations on the New England economy in 2002 was $6.6 billion, according to a report by the New England Foundation for the Arts.
Anita Walker, executive director of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, spoke to organizers in Framingham about how to build a creative economy.
"What I heard loud and clear is that there is a sense of identity," she said. "There is a sense of place in MetroWest."
Walker said developing an identity around culture and the arts is key to promoting a creative community that will later spur economic development, an idea first touted by urban-studies theorist Richard Florida.
"The creative economy is not a magic bullet that happens overnight; it requires community output," Walker said. "What's been exciting to me from what I've heard is there's a real sense of participation in city leadership."
Erika Oliver Jerram, a Framingham town planner, said putting art in empty storefronts (one of French's ideas) is part of a broader effort to revitalize downtown.
"The goal ultimately is to create enough critical mass that things start happening on their own," she said. "We're trying to create the right environment."
Other communities have been transformed by the arts.
In 2003, Natick residents invested $2 million to refurbish an old firehouse and turned it into The Center for Arts in Natick, or TCAN.
Art galleries and lofts started to open in downtown Natick, creating an arts destination where there had been none, said David Lavalley, the center's executive director.
But building a real creative economy takes more than just opening an arts center, he said.
"We developed partnerships with downtown businesses," he said. "The real change happened as a result of the partnership between TCAN and all these other organizations."
It's the sort of sea change that requires fresh thinking from both artists and businesspeople.
"I think that they haven't looked at each other as partners, and the creative economy initiative is vital because it gets more of these people into the room," said Dan Hunter, executive director of Massachusetts Advocates for the Arts, Sciences and Humanities.
But there also needs to be more cohesion in the arts community, say arts advocates.
Randi Isaacson, owner of the Post Road Art Center in Marlborough, said she has tried to promote local artists by holding juried art shows, and recently started art appreciation talks that welcome residents to discuss different kinds of art.
Isaacson attended some of the informational meetings and said she is supportive of the creative economy effort, but doesn't know how artists can work together so everyone benefits.
"I think everybody's doing their own thing," she said. "I almost see us as competing for the same audience."
Organizers say it will take time to fit all the pieces together.
"It's the beginning stages," said Welte. "The more people know about it, the more they will want to be involved." 