On Tuesday night, I had the pleasure to spend a couple of hours with leaders of the creative community on the South Shore at MASSCreative’s first regional kickoff meeting. Read about it here.

The purpose of the meeting was for me to energize the attendees with our 2012-2013 Platform and Agenda and our grassroots outreach strategy to bring more resources to the creative community and arts education.  I personally got more than I bargained for.

I came back from Brockton brimming with hope and optimism about the potential of our creative community. The energy and talent in the room was impressive.  Thirty leaders attended from across the South Shore.  Among them - John, the Arts Director from the Abington Public Schools; Anne, a painter East Bridgewater; Jose, the founder of Jose Movimentu Shokanti, an art and social change group in Brockton; Elizabeth who is opening up a fiber store in Easton; Carolyn who is coordinating the Easton Shovel Town Cultural District Initiative, and Titi, the communications coordinator at The Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton.  All from different disciplines, backgrounds, ages and towns – yet all united around the belief that our work is not only nice, but our work is necessary.  They left the meeting that night with a sense of what is possible – for us to not be back on our heels, but for us to be out there boldly asking for what we need.

We learned about all the great work going on all across the South Shore. We discussed the need for leaders of the creative community to engage in public policy and even more importantly the need to engage our audiences and to have their voice heard.

And yes we got to work.  At the end of the meeting we all sat down and wrote postcards to our local candidates and political leaders encouraging them to endorse the MASSCreative platform.  For some, it was the first time they had dipped their toe into the realm of policy and engaged with their political leaders.

With our statewide kickoff meeting in Worcester and the Brockton meeting under our belt, we have taken the first step to engaging and building our base all across the state.

Please spread the word about MASSCreative’s tour of the state. 

A sense of opportunity abounds.

The United States has over 30,000 cities. Last week, the National Science Foundation gave three of those cities reason to boast by awarding them a share of $2.6 million Art of Science Learning grant: San Diego, Chicago, and, Massachusetts' own, Worcester.

For the past six months I have crisscrossed the Commonwealth introducing myself and MASSCreative to the leaders and supporters of the Massachusetts creative community.  I have traveled to more than 40 communities and have personally introduced MASSCreative to more than 400 arts and cultural leaders. 

Entering into this passionate and energetic group of people gives me optimism and hope that MASSCreative can provide the structure and opportunities to build a powerful and robust movement for the Commonwealth’s creative community.

“You cannot do arts and culture in order to have economic development. Do arts and culture for its own sake, but wait for the lovely side effects” Megan Whilden, Director of Cultural Development in Pittsfield, MA

The city of Pittsfield embraced creativity, arts and culture at a time when the city and its residents needed it most. From there, the "lovely side effects" have been incredible.

Here in Massachusetts, revitalization of the Gateway Cities has been a topic of discussion for years. A new report by MassINC shows that cultivating a thriving creative community is a great way to bring prosperity and life back to these cities.

 Nobody likes paying taxes, and the people of Detroit are no different. So why did they just vote to raise their property taxes?

In the past thirty years, Lowell has seen an incredible amount of growth and revitalization. Part of the reason? Creativity.