Week 2

First of all, an artist should be working with the community when creating a community project. Duh. I think this can get away from some artists because it is difficult to have someone come onto a project that you don't know and that might not be able to do your level of work, however they work you are creating is not for the artist and is for the community.

On the other hand, the works in her most recent and highly publicized project, ("Culture in Action: New Public Art in Chicago" held in the summer of 1993), were developed, in Jacobs' words, "with the co-participation of an artist, but also with a lot of decision-making happening on the part of constituent-collaborators who are not artists—like students,

and in the case of some of the other projects: factory workers, mothers in a public housing development, AIDS volunteers, gang youth, and so forth." Grant H. Kester

Kester also talks about how community art has to somehow tie into the underlying causes of poverty, social inequality, as well as other issues that are ongoing.

Publicity of the project should not be surrounding the artist and their accomplishments but in what the art is telling about the community, this is art for the community and for the benefit of the community. 

The trouble with a lot of politically motivated art is a failure of nerve. Artists who produce work that they know is not favored by our established regime are not necessarily taking risks, since they can forecast the results. Truly taking a risk means not knowing what's going to happen in the end. Joe Lewis

These artists that take on these projects have no clue how the public will react to the work that they do and in Joe Lewis' mind that is something that is really powerful and organic.