The Barnett Field School is a short-term program that is designed to provide practical training for Barnett Fellows on subjects previously learned theoretically in classrooms. These partnerships are meaningful ways for the Barnett Fellows, arts leaders, and communities to engage in grassroots work. The Field School experience provides a space and opportunity to employ design thinking and human creative capital to develop solutions with communities. The Field School is an experiential programs where the fellows learn primarily by doing. The Barnett Field School can include the following process:
- Identify issues in the field that need to be explored through community outreach sessions with community arts leaders. The goal is to be able to connect those needs to one’s desired research project.
- With arts leader/faculty, decide upon the issues, goals, methodology, products, budget, academic ownership, research schedule and field school leader.
The field school provides opportunities for fellows to:
- Research an ongoing or new issue within the field/community.
- Engage in designing cross and transdisciplinary ideas meaningful to communities and grassroots initiatives.
- Discover ways to utilize existing resources within organizations, communities, etc. in creative ways.
- Provide time and space to build asset maps within and across arts communities to develop strategic direction.
Click the accordion below to watch a recent panel the Barnett Fellows hosted for the 2021-2022 Barnett Field School.
The Barnett Fellows Field School hosted Power & Potentials: Justice, Equity, and Advocacy in the Arts on March 22 in the Barnett Center Collaboratory. Moderated by PhD student and Barnett Fellow De'Avin Mitchell, the panel sought to explore the intersections of advocacy and justice in the arts.
The power generated from collective and community action has the potentials to make change at the local level and beyond. This understanding of power takes into account the systemic and hierarchical structures that affect change. The panel consisted of individuals with unique histories and expertise as educators, practitioners, and innovators in the arts and cultural space. Together, the panel hoped to expand its audience's perceptions of power, justice, and advocacy through research, pedagogy, practice, and civic engagement.
Panelists included Dr. Terron Banner, Manager of Community Learning and Experience at Ohio State's Urban Arts Space; Dr. Tiffany Bourgeois, Assistant Professor in the Department of Arts Administration, Education and Policy at The Ohio State University; Dr. Antonio Cuyler, Professor of Music in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance at the University of Michigan; and Dr. Brea Heidelberg, Associate Professor in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design at Drexel University.
The Power and Potentials of Community Arts
As part of the Barnett Field School, the Barnett Fellows hosted a panel titled The Power and Potentials of Community Arts in March 2022. Moderated by Barnett Fellow De'Avin Mitchell, panelists included Dr. Vesta Daniel, Jackie Calderone, Dionne Custer Edwards, and Courtenay Barton.
The panel explored the power that is harnessed by community arts and community-based arts education. The power generated from collective and community action has the potentials to make change at the local level and beyond. The panel consisted of individuals with unique histories and expertise as educators, practitioners, and innovators in the community arts space. Together the panel expanded its audience’s perceptions of the potentials of community arts through research, pedagogy, practice, and civic engagement.
Panelists
Vesta Daniel, Ed.D.
Vesta Daniel is a professor emeritus of the Department of Arts Administration, Education and Policy. Her research foci are in the areas of community-based art education, issues of diversity and resistance education. Her current research addresses gentrification in a midwest city focusing on the community of Bronzeville. The premise of the research is thatcommunity-based art that is attributed or unattributed to specific creators can function as an element of resistance against community encroachment and a means of interrogating the process and results of embourgeoisement. The intent of this research is to suggest possibilities for educators and community members to include resistance as a welcome educational strategy.
Jackie Calderone
Jackie Calderone is the founding Director of TRANSIT ARTS, Artists on the Move, launched in 2007. TRANSIT ARTS is a citywide youth arts development program of Central Community House and works in partnership with the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education and a host of citywide partners. TRANSIT ARTS is rooted in a rich history of community engagement and enlists young artists, ages 12-21, in intensive programs of coaching by outstanding artists and other creatives. The program provides a variety of FREE, interactive, multi-disciplinary experiences in a safe and empowering environment.
Dionne Custer Edwards
Dionne Custer Edwards is the Director of Learning & Public Practice at the Wexner Center for the Arts where she oversees four major program areas and has pioneered several groundbreaking education programs. Embedded in her art and education practices is Dionne’s commitment to work in diversity, equity, inclusion, and access. Dionne has received awards and fellowships for her work in the arts, including a 12-month fellowship with Americans for the Arts, and two nominations, for a Greater Columbus Arts Council Community Arts Partnership award.
Courtenay A. Barton
Courtenay A. Barton joined the Council on Foundations in September 2017 as a National Urban Fellow and was hired in September 2018 as Program Manager for Arts & Culture. Courtenay has more than 12 years’ experience in nonprofit management in media, arts, and education. Prior to joining the foundation, Courtenay was the Associate Director of Stewardship at the Brooklyn College Foundation. She also had roles at New York City’s public television station Thirteen/WNET and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Courtenay earned a bachelor of arts degree in English, Creative Writing, and African American Studies from Columbia University. She also received a master of public administration degree from Bernard M. Baruch College, Marxe School of Public and International Affairs. Her Master’s thesis, “A Foundation for Equity: Philanthropic Strategies to End Racial Inequity in Cleveland” won a Philip J. Rutledge Award for Outstanding Academic Capstone Achievement.