Sleepy region in central North Carolina needs to make choices.
It seems to me that while good design has universal appeal, it is rooted in specifics — in a particular space or place which often has a special light, notable geographic features, plant and animal life, or a relationship to local history. As a student, I thought the Venetian palette was exaggerated, a result of hyped-up reality, bad color reproduction or enthusiastic retouching by conservators. When I lived and traveled in Italy I learned it wasn’t. After looking at a Bellini and stepping outside it was easy to see the connection between creator and his environment. The same realization occurred to me when I moved to California. The unique light that inspired the Bay Area figurative artists got to me, too. When you throw in the food, people, hills, buildings, and the general energy of the city, it’s easy to feel the connections even if it is difficult to explain them. So if Triad art and culture are to be an organized effort towards innovation and economic revival then an examination of the area's spaces and identity are in order. This might include a review of current practices by artists and designers, the area's training of its visual professionals, the absolute need to develop a language and work process that allows for easy collaboration across many fields, and ultimately, a definition of the role of artists, designers, and creative people in the Triad region.
Here's a short list of essentials that Triad creative types need to address:
Use technology to improve communications among creative workers. This is already part of most companies' internal communications. Similar technologies should be used to get creative people from all parts of the community connected. The more creative people can mix, the more opportunities they have to exchange problems and think about solutions.
When creative people mix with others outside their field, they are forced to learn new terms and conditions, practices, and ways of tackling problems, and they are pressed to apply their own language and terms to novel situations. Probably only a small percent of creative, business, community, education and non-profit people are capable of meaningful cross-exchanges, but whenever these can be arranged, they should be. If such exchanges can be formalized and actual projects executed, it's more likely a new language of collaboration will emerge making it easier for others to follow.
Document successful collaborations. The more examples, the more likely design, collaboration, and innovation will find a place in every aspect of Triad development.
Improve the training of students in the creative fields. Instead of narrowly training them, they need to be able to work collaboratively across many fields and with many different kinds of people.
Finally, creative workers, artists, designers and the like are responsible for pointing out the unique features of a community, its history, heritage, places worth saving, things worth remembering, appreciating, and valuing. More often than not, these go unnoticed and undervalued until they are lost or on the brink of destruction. More often than not, the things that are publicly valued, publicly funded, or commercially developed have mixed agendas. But if the Triad is not just any place but a unique place, then it will need its artists, poets, and creative voices to say why.
Without addressing these issues, we allow the collective imagination of the community to be crowded out by mediocrity. More often than we care to admit, the solutions that have been chosen are the ones ready at hand, not the best ones. Paving over a forest with another shopping mall or gated community is as easy for the imagination as falling down a flight of stairs. It requires no imagine at all, just a willing clumsiness and disbelief that one's own intellect could come up with something more interesting. Yet such choices are regularly made. These become the norm. And in a very short time, the Triad looks no different than Durham or Raleigh or Danville or any other middle-sized city in America.
