Community Supported Art: Macon Pick-Up Event

Over the last 20 years, Community Supported Agriculture has become a popular way for consumers to buy seasonal food directly from local farms. With the same buy-local spirit in mind, The 567 Center for Renewal and Macon Arts Alliance are pleased to bring Community Supported Art (CSA) to our community, to support local art, artists and collectors. This local project is modeled on Community Supported Art in Minnesota, created by mnartists.org and Springboard for the Arts.

The goals of the CSA program are to support artists and to create an engaged community of local arts supporters. CSA supports artists: in the creation of new work, to establish relationships with local collectors and patrons, and to participate in the launch of an exciting new model of art support and distribution. CSA Shareholder benefits include multiple works of art from local emerging and mid-career artists at a fantastic value. Additionally, CSA Shareholders have the opportunity to develop relationships with the local artists and art community, discover new artists, explore a variety of disciplines and support artists’ careers and a vibrant community.

Interested consumers/collectors will purchase a share from The 567 and in return receive a crop of locally-produced artwork. Each member share will include one piece from each of the five CSA featured artists. The pick-up evening will be in June at The 567 and will feature live music and food purchased from the Mulberry Street Market.

The selected artists/groups:

Heidi Clinite and Amy Godwin will collaborate on an album/art project. Godwin sings and plays ukulele and Clinite is a visual artist and plays viola. Together they will record songs written by Godwin using ukulele and viola. Clinite will create the album artwork. She plans to embroider the album artwork and even add gold leaf to the cover.

Craig Coleman will create a video animation and one 11”x14” photographic print, using a still from the animation, for each shareholder. The video animation and resulting prints will be created using a DSLR camera with the commercial lens removed in order to capture light refractions and shadows that occur on a small scale and cannot be seen any other way.

Macon Writers Group will create a collection of original written works from it’s members, which will be bound in a short-run literary magazine-style publication, exclusive to CSA shareholders. Along with the physical journal, an ebook of the collection will also be created and made available for download by shareholders.

Katy Olmsted will create 50 Natural Art “Fluxus Kits” for the CSA: Macon program. Each shareholder will receive one kit, made using a cigar-style wooden box, and including several different items with instructions for creating ephemeral art using the kits. Shareholders will be able to use their kit to create art using natural materials. Olmsted will encourage each shareholder to document the artwork they create and submit images to her. Using those images, she will create a blog website documenting the work created by shareholders.

Rachel Veal will create 50 mixed media compositions utilizing photography and printmaking techniques featuring abstracted imagery of the historic buildings, winding streets and icons of Macon and Bibb County.