On Vitality, Perception, and Place

Houston Skyline from Tinsley Park

(Enron Building on the far right)

On Houston, its History, and its Bounty

I recently completed an article about jewelry making and metalsmithing in Houston which will appear in the fall issue of Metalsmith. Houston has been my home since last September when I moved here for a one year residency. I am not going to rehash the article here (you'll have to pick up the issue if you want to know about all things metal in Houston), but what I did want to share was just some musings about the research I did for the article. The B roll with director's commentary if you will.

So at first, I admit that I did not want to write the article. When I first started writing seriously a few years ago I didn't want to write for a paycheck, but more as a public service. I have a close friend who is a journalist and he routinely writes about such glamorous and meaningful things as school board meetings, proposed drainage ditches, and neighborhood happenings. All of this is fine and even necessary, but my decision to write was about tackling subjects that held my interest and about which I could provide a unique insight. As a temporary resident of Houston associated with its major craft institution - through my residency - I thought I was throwing my criteria out the window. Well as I already said, I did in fact write the article. I am still conflicted, but I did learn much about the city, its history, and more generally about the development of art economies.

The primary research for the relatively brief article was extensive. I conducted 7 interviews, and talked informally to many more people. What I found particularly engaging was the intersection of the history and development of the city with the tide of metals and craft activity over the same period. For example, as the city began its first major period of growth after WWII the integration of craft and design into contemporary art circles grew. Obviously the bifurcation of art and craft existed in Houston in the 60's and 70's, but interestingly many important galleries had a large stake in contemporary craft (especially glass) until the oil market collapse in the mid-1980s. The 1980s oil market collapse also saw the closure of the closest thing Houston had to a jewelry gallery, Eve France - a gallery-shop that showed the work of many internationally important jewelers such as David Watkins and Wendy Ramshaw. Later as the energy industry began to grow again in the early 1990's, and the city's population exploded - adding almost 1 million new residents in the city proper alone - the infrastructure for craft also increased.

I think I realized very quickly after moving to Houston that the energy and oil industry is about as recession proof as it can get. And yes many of the galleries and museum people that I have talked to in Houston have complained that donations to their organizations have slowed somewhat because of the recession, but compared with other cities, Houston's cultural institutions have been doing well, very well, during the recession.

I moved to one of the most prosperous cities in America at a time when it is - in all likelihood - starting its economic descent. Aerospace, another of Houston's major employers, seems to be low on the current administrations funding priorities, maybe that will change in the near future, maybe not. In the continuing crisis of global warming, and with the more immediate and palpable BP-gulf oil spill debacle in mind, its seems only a matter of time before the fossil fuel industry takes a permanently industry altering hit. My year in Houston has been a snapshot of the local art economy at or near its zenith.

Extrapolations OR Industry Imitating Art Imitating Life

One of the major conclusions of the article was that Houston is an exhibition destination for viewing jewelry because of its institutions. I do not think that this will change at least in my lifetime, because even after a city's economy begins to dwindle the cultural institutions remain viable for many decades hence. Detroit is a potent example of this, whose Institute of Art is in serious trouble only more recently, some forty years after the onset of auto industry decay.

But the real question that burns in my belly is the one of the rise and fall of regional art economies, a subject that I never really had an interest in before writing about Houston. There are so many unique factors that contribute to the understanding of the history and development of such a thing. My cursory knowledge of Houston and the rise and fall of its energy industry has revealed a picture of its art scene (and indeed that of craft and metalsmithing too) following the wealth of the city. The energy industry is a locomotive engine powering across a vast winding landscape, and the art scene, its caboose, inextricably linked to the engine, separated by many cars, compelled to follow the course at some delay.

My interest in the relationship between the financial/ industrial economy of a place and its art economy also extends to other cities such as New York (especially Brooklyn), Berlin, Portland and of course Detroit. These cities alternately agree and conflict with the model that Houston seems to follow. And further examination reveals that the archetypal role of the artist as catalyst in the gentrification process seems only partially accurate.

For example, cities like Portland seem to have attracted artists with regional public policy decisions, that grew out of their 1960's urban sprawl problems. The artist's activities in the city create more cultural amenities. The symbiotic relationship helps to increase both property value and livability. Portland has created an art economy through public policy rather than through the trickling down of resources from major industry. Perhaps there is a reader from Portland who can speak to the accuracy of this characterization?

New York, at its most depressed in the 1960's and 70's, had an art scene that was vibrant, even iconic. Economic growth in the 1980's and 90's corresponded with revitalization in Manhattan, especially during the Guiliani period, and Wall Street financiers saw a series of apices in the late 90's and early 2000's. The rise of Brooklyn as an artistic center seems roughly to correspond with financial industry growth. Is there any real correlation here? The story that I have heard so many times about Brooklyn being the last place for cheap rent and studios in the city seems to hold true, but does the incredible affluence in other areas of the city provide the urban core (and the money) to allow for the re-development of Brooklyn? Perhaps artists create the destination but capital from regional industry creates the change?

Berlin and Detroit seem to be closely related in my mind, though I am sure this is quite inaccurate. Both bygone industrial centers of their respective nations with a low cost of living and a reputation for toughness, the similarities end there. Berlin's size, transportation, public policy, location as seat of government, and reunification have contributed significantly to its rise as the "new Brooklyn" for young artists. Detroit is just starting to bottom out economically, where as Berlin's rise can be pin pointed to the 1989 fall of the Berlin wall. I see Detroit as Berlin only 20 years behind. The ability of Detroit to implement effective public transit, to attract new and more diverse industries, and to promote re-urbanization from the suburbs will affect whether it can stand up to the moniker of the "new Berlin." Somewhere Henry Ford is rolling over in his grave. With regard to Detroit, there is clearly a movement of artists to revitalize the city (groups like Design 99 is one such example), but will the artists be a function of economic growth of the city, or will the economic growth of the city be a function of the cultural revitalization done by artists and community organizers?

Design 99's Talking Fence

Design 99's Talking Fence

I wonder if understanding these relationships - between art and industry in a particular region - might improve regional art advocacy programs or else help design public policy that better serves both artists, and the cities they live in. That is the macro, finding the role of the artist in the community. By situating our practice in relationship to our community, by knowing how local art economies function to support a positive and culturally rich environment, and by being involved in developing arts infrastructure (collectives, community centers, community based practices, etc.), I think we begin to willfully create meaning whose impact can be felt longer than the 20 seconds a viewer might spend with a piece in the gallery.

Comments welcome,

-Gabriel