This year, while taking down the Christmas stuff, I discovered a note which I had somehow overlooked the previous two weeks. The unusual source of the note and its topic make it germane to this blog, and I reproduce it below. My kids have often left notes to Santa. This is the first time Santa left a note about something other than the milk and cookies; and although the envelope was addressed to me, the note inside was to my town....
Dear Winston-Salem:
You have had a good conversation about public art in 2008. I've read your blog and the stories in the papers. I've seen some good ideas, and watched a few cheeks get rosier as visions of public art sugarplums danced in your heads. Why that misty November light show at the old post office got me as joyful as that Tanglewood display always does. Now Santa doesn't do this often...but I really think you can help me give a great gift to yourselves and all who visit you, if you will take a few "next steps" in 2009. You deserve it, Winston-Salem. But even with all my magic, I can't deliver this gift to you without your help. Will you do these five things for me in 2009?
1) Have your city start a public art and design commission. Santa knows it's hard to keep track of goodies unless you have a stocking to put them in. It doesn't cost money to have a place to park and grow place-making ideas with good art and design. But it's hard to grow them, or talk about them, without a place to gather the whole community's wish lists. There, too, you can inventory what you have and take ownership of that idea of yours to be a "city of the arts." Santa's been around. It's hard to be a "city of the arts" if your city isn't organized to make art an intentional part of public life.
2) Hire a nationally-known public artist or architectural design consultant to help do your big transportation projects. Yes, I know you just made a wish list of things for your new president to do with his economic stimulus money. Yes, I know this was not on your list. But think bigger, Winston-Salem. Don't look for new money to do needed things like Business 40 in the old ways. Look for new money to do needed things in better ways. Santa asks for lists for a reason (and no wisecracks about my age). I want to give you what you think is important. If being distinctive, innovative, creative, joyful, and remembered in the way you present yourself on your thoroughfares is important - ask for what you need to make it happen. I always have to remind my older list-writers: dare to believe!
3) Give your first public art gifts to those you see everyday: your neighbors. Santa likes your public art work so much because it is a gift that can keep giving joy and inspiration and specialness every day. (We work so hard to get folks to share that feeling year-round, you know?) You have a centennial celebration coming up in 2013. That's five years to gather ideas, money and talent to make place-making art a part of the landscape in each ward of your city. In the scheme of things, it's like the candy canes on the tree - not a lot of cost, but what a wonderful taste it leaves on the palate. Trust me. It will make you happy.
4) Don't wait - make 2009 a year of public art! Just like my annual visits cause excitement because people know I'm only physically there for a brief time (though I know whenever you've been bad or good, John and Zach), public art can cause short-term excitements. It can be on the streets for a season, and then it will linger as a happy spot in our memories. (Hmmm, I remember first meeting Mrs. Claus at an apple festival. The moment I saw that woman in red, I knew she was for me.) Too often people think of art as tied to an institution or the gallery that exhibits it. Invite some artist folks to town and celebrate with something new every few weeks. You do it every year or so at River Run with films, and at West End's ARTSfest in the fall. Now take the joy to the streets: and just like those wonderful bell-ringers do for me, seasonal public art will cause people to turn their heads, and look and feel better inside.
5) Start a German-style Christmas Market. Okay. This one is personal, I admit. But I look at a place with a pedestrian-friendly arts district and a trail-way to historic Old Salem. I see a community founded by a group of German-speaking immigrants. I know you like to eat (Santa knows his calories). Why not on one or two weekends every Advent have a downtown Christmas market? With outdoor crafts booths, musical performances with UNCSA-types and local choruses, food delicacies Moravian and otherwise, and lay claim city-wide to your distinctive arts, crafts and cultural heritage? You could have tents and booths and stages from Old Salem up to the Arts District. Maybe it's just me - and smelling all those Mrs. Hanes' Moravian cookie crumbs in my beard for six months every year. But if any place in the South could take the holiday experience to - as my younger elves like to say - "a whole 'nother level," it's you, Twin City, it's you.
Well, I'm long-winded and have to scoot. Places to go. Cookies to eat (thanks for yours, btw.). Remember: Santa loves you no matter what. But give some gifts to yourself this year, will you? S.C.
N.B. In south Germany, where I spent a beautiful winter in 1988, the locals write in chalk over the door a New Year's greeting as the old year ends and the new begins - the initials of the three wise men (Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar) in the middle of a "numbering out" of the year arriving. When Epiphany and the wise men get here, down come the letters with other decorations until next year. It's a blessing of the year ahead by the same stewards of good tidings and joy as two thousand years ago, and a tradition I've started doing at our house. (Nice Santa photo by Winston-Salem Journal's David Rolfe.)
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