The arts are a powerful change agent… …lives and communities can be transformed but the fine arts are not the key. Putting the arts into the hearts and minds of everyday people can launch both personal and city-wide positive change. This author, a forty-year community arts veteran, argues that the elitism of the fine arts, the arts relegated to the upper class, excludes the vast majority of the middle and certainly lower class. The city of Hamilton, Ohio was in decline in the 1990s. A low high school graduation rate, racial unrest, a declining economy-yet city and community leaders turned to an arts-for-the-people approach. They searched for the right person to lead this effort. A blue-collar kid understands hard work. He also knows how to complete a task. When that kid decides to make his life in the arts, in the dichotomy of blue-collar and arts, he understands that fine arts will not be enough and will not be the best way to reach the ends his community hopes to achieve. He also knew that if success were to be had, the arts would have to be broadly defined as they were introduced to the public. The implementation of community arts for this author meant entrusting the arts to the hearts and minds of everyday people. The mission would be community excellence through the arts. Hamilton was at the threshold of the town's bicentennial; a cultural plan increased their hope. They listened to the people and decided to build a community arts center. Would this courageous-and many thought dubious-decision work? This memoir by the man who was brought to town to lead this twenty-five-year journey shows how a struggling city utilized the arts to ignite the renaissance the city is now experiencing. This story of challenge, transformation, and hope is an honest and straight-forward account of what is required to lead with authenticity and achieve amazing results. …Rick Jones shows us how this synthesis of arts and creative cities works. It's a message we need to heed now more than ever. -Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The New Urban Crisis Silent Rise is a prophetic story of the power of community arts. This is not about the fine arts, it is about the ability of an arts center to cross divides. It also describes the role the business leaders can play in making a real difference in the cohesion and narrative of a city. One with all the history of class and social distance most of our urban areas are faced with. This should be a lead story from the evening news and central to the promises of our public servants. The arts are not a human interest, but a vehicle of transformation. This shows how the arts, in the hands of everyday citizens, with a little help from people like Rick, can bring us together again. Read the book. -Peter Block, author of Flawless Consulting and Community.
