Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Gauging creative resources
Organization to develop digital directories, online library, message board
Survey to help group develop digital artist directories.
SPRINGDALE — A regional arts service organization will begin a survey this week to gain a better understanding of Northwest Arkansas’ cultural resources.
The Creative Arkansas Community Hub and Exchange will conduct its first Northwest Arkansas Arts and Culture Survey from Thursday to Feb. 10, said Simone Cottrell, Arts Resource Desk manager for the group.
The survey will help develop the virtual desk’s resources, which will include digital directories with search configurations for finding artists in specific fields, an online library with guides for organizational capacity building and a message board for sharing resources like rental equipment and expressing the need for volunteers, she said.
The desk will launch at the end of March, about the same time the survey results are released online, Cottrell said.
There’s a do-it-yourself mindset to many regional artists and organizations, making the development of the desk’s resources all the more important, Cottrell said.
“That leadership grit of trusting one’s art and trusting one’s path becomes stronger because of these resources,” she said.
The Northwest Arkansas Council created CACHE in 2019 to act as the central regional agency committed to connecting, supporting and developing the region’s arts and culture community, according to the organization’s website.
“We realized that a comprehensive survey had not been done of this area,” Cottrell said.
A 14-month study by Artspace, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit arts developer, showed a 123% increase in places where art is made in the region from 2014 to 2018. The study, paid for with a $400,000 grant from the Walton Family Foundation, concluded in January 2019 and examined locations including museums, music venues, restaurants and shops in Bentonville, Fayetteville, Rogers and Springdale.
The study focused primarily on spaces rather than the creative community as a whole, Cottrell said.
“This is more of a broad, comprehensive snapshot,” she said, noting connectivity to resources like materials and volunteers for creative nonprofits, organizations and artists is lacking in Northwest Arkansas.
The survey will focus on regional economic trends and gaps, workforce development, minority hiring rates, creative regional resources and public art, she said.
“Black Lives Matter had a huge impact on the arts community — on whose stories are being told and how that story is being told and who is sitting at the table administratively,” Cottrell said.
Some conversations have included community perceptions of public art, particularly Jim Crow-era monuments, she said.
“What we have seen overall is the love and need and want of public art, but not necessarily the critical conversation about public art,” Cottrell said. “When people put art for public view, there’s an intention behind it.”
Olivia Trimble, Fayetteville Arts Council vice chair, said she plans to participate in the survey as a self-taught muralist and sign painter.
“I’ve had a great deal of trouble connecting with other artists or having resources,” Trimble said, adding she’s primarily relied on word of mouth to understand what’s available locally. “It’s really hard to know who is out there, what resources are out there.”
Initial survey participants will be invited to provide input by email and will include about 130 nonprofits, 900 individual artists and organizations such as Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the University of Arkansas, Cottrell said. Others who are interested can participate through the CACHE website, she said.
Cottrell said she’s hoping for a 30% response rate. CACHE is interested in getting feedback from creative people at all levels, including small, home-based businesses that may not always view themselves as part of the artist community, she said.
“We’re planning on doing a pre-analysis halfway through the survey to make sure that we are engaging communities who have not been heard in a very long time or at all. It’s very intentional that the survey is as broad as possible.”
The survey and subsequent access to creative resources could have long-term impacts on the region, Cottrell said.
“The beauty of Northwest Arkansas’ arts and culture, and I’ll say this until the day I die, is the fact that we want to experiment and explore,” she said. “I just hope that space grows because of the resources and the things that we have learned through the survey.”