Zanesville's Artist Community is Thriving - But We Could Be So Much More

Downtown Zanesville's First Friday Art Walk has never been more successful. It's being said from every corner of our community, from city officials and business owners, artists and galleries, that downtown hasn't been 'this alive' since the 1970s, back when the major retail stores where still anchored on 4th and Main. It's been a very long time coming, and we all owe ourselves a huge pat on the back for contributing to it all. 

With this level of unprecedented success comes even more opportunity for us all. One example of this is our effort to establish an arts council. This is a project that has been in the offing for decades, and like so many other dreamy aspirations of the past it spun its own wheels until now. We raised a lot of money to hire an outside expert who nobody was predisposed to dislike, and up to this point our efforts have finally born real fruit. Our first open-to-the-public town hall was probably the best-attended event in our community's history, with virtually every creative group and clique represented, about all of whom verbally contributed to the discission and vision for the arts council. It was truly inspiring.

But the example of the arts council has revealed some things about us that I feel most everybody already knows. We have often been a divided community that has foundered more often than we've been united. 

We often say that we want to work together, but as soon as somebody from our own community tries to unify us to do that - our predisposed dislikes subvert the effort. The success of the arts council, while a surely positive development, nevertheless reveals our own weakness. After years of failing to float our own boat, we discovered that the only way to make headway as a unified community was to hire an able captain who nobody knows, who nobody dislikes and who no one will sabotage. While that is working so long as that hired captain is at our helm, it's a temporary remedy. The wheel will be passed to another captain in the near future. Will that captain be another outsider, or will we, as a community, finally get past the chemistry that has proven to be our own undoing too many times? 

Creative people are passionate people. We also tend to be our own worst enemies insofar as we are often oversensitive and wear our hearts upon our sleeves. While we're often the last people to try and take a lead, we can find it easy, and in fact cathartic, to complain to our friends about the perceived injustices that we feel are holding us back or causing us to feel left behind. As artists we can take things personally and give voice to frustration. While we tell ourselves that negative expressions are held in confidence, and thus do not contribute to a poisoned well, we do know how things migrate in a small town. When we exude positivity, positivity spreads. When we exude negativity, negativity propagates just as surely. When we espouse negativity, even when our grievance might be well justified, we contribute to our own worst problem - we help make our own art community our own bad friend. 

Our own bad friend. I'm pretty sure we all know the stereotype. A bad friend is the one who always takes more than they give, who stands us up for lunch all the time, and who seldom calls us back. But when they are in need then they are the first to complain that we don't do enough, and their own ills are because we are not doing enough for them. 

When it's an individual who meets that stereotype, we might rightfully distance ourselves and give them time to grow up. Trying to force a change for the better with such an individual is likely a futile exercise. But the nature of our own community is a 'friend' that is a manifestation of our own input, our own words, our own efforts every day. We are what we put into ourselves and our community. Do we refuse to work with people who we don't like? Are we boycotting events organized by others we regard as adversaries? Do we not recognize that our best means of personal success, as well as our success as a community, is directly connected to our willingness to put grievance aside? 

First Friday Art Walks are representative of our best efforts, but they are also easy events because they don't demand much from us as a group. Those of us who have studios only have to be open, and those of us who don't only have to interact with one gallery to show our work. But what happens when an event takes place that requires more cooperation and a bit more commitment? 

The 2023 Y-Bridge Arts Festival was a successful local art event by most every measure, and as one of its co-directors it's hard for me to find anything about it to regret. Like all similar events, it was the sum of its parts, and it was a great show. But what were its parts? 

The chart below reveals that barely 15% of the vendors who participated in the festival were local artists. Nearly 78% of participating artists were from outside of our area. It's therefore not hard to argue that our own arts festival was only a success due to artists from elsewhere - and in spite of our own lack of participation.     

Imagine if even half of the artists and galleries that participate in our monthly Art Walk opted to set up at this year's Y-Bridge Arts Festival. Most did not participate. Yes, tables and tents were not exactly cheap. Yes, it's a lot of work to set up and tear down. But most of the local artists who didn't set up with us also did not visit the event at all over the course of its two days open to the public. As good a time as it was - the absence of so many I expected to see was disheartening. 

I want to be fair. I've missed plenty of festivals and other local art events myself. I will point no finger anywhere if I'm not as willing to point a finger at myself. In years past I've succumbed to all of the negative things I've pointed to here and for many of the same reasons. I've been discouraged. I've withdrawn and focused upon doing my own independent things. I've sometimes felt ridiculed and subverted, and I simply became averse to participating in my own art community. When I began to see things changing for the better in downtown Zanesville, however, I felt that it was time to reengage, get past my own seclusion, and step up to the plate. My wife, Erin Cole, and I became officers in ArtCOZ, the Artist Colony of Zanesville. I, along with Mark Goodall, volunteered to be co-director of the 2023 Y-Bridge Arts Festival. My wife and I purchased the Montgomery Ward Building in Zanesville and created Cole Art Center - a non-profit organization to support local artists and drive tourism into downtown. 

There is much more that could be done.  

We stand before an unprecedented opportunity here in Zanesville, with all of this momentum and a strong wind at our backs. It's an exciting time to be an artist! If we are ever going to unify and work together - opportunity is now knocking. Now is the time.   

There will always be cliques among creative people. We will always be emotional beings. Not every slight ought to be completely forgiven. No one can ask that. Not every wrong can be turned into a right. No one is so naive. But I do feel very strongly that we are all capable of being more positive, and less negative. We can be aware that we are the friend that we create for ourselves, for the better or for the worse, and that while artists will rise and fall, we are all inextricably connected to each other in a community such as this. My success is in fact yours, and yours is mine.