Friday, August 27, 2010

HISTORY of Fallout Creative Community


The Dream:
The Fallout Creative Community's history can be traced through the story of a few dreamers being intentional about creating an environment where relationships between variety of people are easily formed. And through the stories of imaginative people who were given the opportunity to share their creativity with a supportive community.

Bruce was the spark:
Bruce was one of the first people to hang out at the coffee house after it opened. He was a guy with physical and mental disabilities who definitely found a home there hanging out for hours like a bump on a log. "Bruce, you need a hobby, man." I told him. So one of us went out and got some paints and canvases for him and he whipped up several unique looking paintings. We featured his works in an exhibition and had a reception... the works. A short time after that he began to tell me about a creative story that he had in his mind. Bruce was adopted so he doesn't know who his real parents are so he imagined this story (which was influenced by all of the Sci-Fi movies he has watched) that fills in his unknown history. It sounded cool so I told him to write it down and we'd make a book out of it. He was bringing me a page every day when one day he brought in a video camera he had just gotten for his birthday. "Hey, let's make your story into a movie!" I said. So we immediately got some plastic forks and spoons and colorful sharpies and made space ships and hung them by wires for flying through space in the opening scene. What we thought would take a couple of days took a year and gathered over 70 people to be a part of this campy low-budget epic film. We had a premiere with a red carpet and a limo... the works. The newspaper printed a big story and the word spread about it so much that tickets were sold out 2 hours before the film started.

A guy named Tom Black was one of the people who couldn't get in because of the sellout, but as he looked in the window at all of the people he thought to himself, "Hmm, people are into locally produced films." This inspiration led him to start a film competition for local film makers and the success of that led him create the SD Film Festival which has debuted a film by Sean Penn and had Kevin Coster as a guest celebrity. All that to say, It's amazing that one guy's spark of creativity along with the fuel of community can set off a blaze.

Creative community empowers people
In the meantime Bruce's Counselor, Job Coach and others working with him were saying, "Who is this guy?" He was doing better in his behavior, at work, more involved, more motivated... it turns out that if you give a person the opportunity to be creative within the context of community that it does a world of good for them.

As a community of creative people that gathered at the coffee house we became more intentional about our purpose. We started a community house for guys to experiment in living together to support each other and to host creative community building events. Eventually a community house for girls started as well. We met every thursday afternoon for "Chat n Chew". This was a time to eat together and talk about our week. This weekly gathering grew a tight community of people that had many creative expressions including Art & Music Parties, bicycle creations, musical ensembles and recordings, films and many other random things.

We needed a mission
At one of our meetings I told the group that I thought what we had doing was great but it seemed that we needed a mission. Being creative and building community was important but it seemed like their was a unifying, empowering element we hadn't defined yet.

Mission revealed
"I have to perform on your stage as soon as possible!" said Richie with desperation in his voice. Richie was an older guy with mental disabilities who had been hanging out at the coffee house for years. "Do you even know how to play guitar?" I asked because in all the years I'd known him he never spoke of a musical talent. Apparently though he had been playing and writing songs for years and when he let me hear a tape he had made I was surprised. "Not bad" I thought and began to think of ways we could help Richie develop his music. I thought it was cool that we could help him like we helped Bruce. Then the light went on. Maybe that's our mission... to help those with barriers to creativity to fulfill their artistic dreams.

As I shared this with the group we all said, "Duh, of course!" This crew that formed and became known as the Fallout were creative types, people who didn't seem to fit into mainstream culture. They had an affinity to people with limitations because they felt like that's what they were. Several of them were working at ATC, a service and support center for people with disabliities. This was a group of people who seemed to always support the underdog whether it was elderly people (like Tom Seth who was embraced as the in-house stand-up comedian), people who couldn't afford instruments or "at risk" youth so a mission of helping people to reach creativity was a perfect fit. So we began to intentionally plan our events and projects with this mission in mind.

Mission engaged
We would have occasional art nights, film projects and competitions, parties with open mics and murals, bike rides, fun runs and other creative happenings. What we wanted it to be turned out to require more time and money than was available. So, we were thrilled to receive a grant from the SD Council on Developmental Disabilities that enabled us to have weekly and monthly creative events that bring a group of people together on a regular basis. This consistent time together has been vital in forming community with a variety of people.

With this new found fuel we are producing a website and publications featuring Fallout member's creations, and we put on large Art & Music Festivals that bring together several organizations and businesses to create an all inclusive and accessible celebration of creativity and community. We are taking our Art, Music and film experiences on the road. We travel to other places and share the elements of our experience that make our community thrive in hopes to inspire others to plant creative communities. I hope to bring members of the community to other towns to demonstrate art & music parties, collaborative arts, creative communication techniques and other way to make a community vibrant.

Into the future
In the future we hope to develop a program to allow artists with disabilities and other limitations to develop their talent as a career with daily mentoring from accomplished artists.

Our dreams for the future include a Fallout visual and performing art center to allow people of varied abilities to create, display and perform their art and ultimately Fallout community housing where people with different abilities live, work and create a beautiful world together.

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