Introduction: What Are Creative Art Spaces and Why Do They Exist?

What do we mean by “a creative space?” For us it is a physical space where people gather, work, inspire each other, learn new things, and connect. Participating in the space brings us into relationship with like-minded people who stimulate our thinking. It is fun, pleasurable, safe, and healthy. In some spaces collaboration plays a central role while in others it is neither an imperative nor a consideration.

In the creative art space, conformity and support for existing canons are secondary to exploration of the new. In this issue of World Futures we omit commercial places and focus instead on noncommercial art settings where artistic freedom and invention are the central concerns. There is very little reliance on the interpretive community—critics and patrons, for example—and their privileged views. Simply said, there is a lot more room for the artist in the creative environment.

Our authors have been trained in a variety of disciplines including psychology, art history, dance, literature, poetry, creative writing, engineering, and master cabinet making. We trust this transdisciplinary approach will help expand our knowledge and appreciation of human creativity as well as deepen our understanding of inspiration and its sources. We intentionally enter into dialogue with each other knowing that none of us has all the answers and that our collective views are partial and contextual. It is impossible to be objective about art, creativity, and inspiration but we can tell you what we like and why it inspires us and we will unabashedly share our preferences with you. We are much indebted to Alfonso Montuori (2014) who introduced us to the notion of “personal and social transformative practices” (p. 193).

UTOPIAS: VIEWS OF PHILOSOPHERS, HISTORIANS, AND SOCIOLOGISTS

Concepts of ideal places—of which creative art spaces are but one—have been around for a very long time. A much abbreviated survey of these spaces puts our concerns within a broader perspective. We begin with the philosopher Thomas More, who in the early 16th century was the first to describe an ideal place in great detail. His Utopia was an non-existent island far better than his homeland England, which he deemed corrupt. More describes his crescent island, composed of 54 cities, as extremely well maintained and where all live by the same customs and laws and language. All seek both the public good and their own happiness. Boundary disputes are absent because all are content. The island is safe and invasion is impossible (More, 1516/1885).

American Utopian Movements

Many since More have established religious, political, social, gender, aesthetic, and economic communities along Utopian lines. In America utopianism reached its zenith in the 19th century when there were at least 100 experimental communities including the Shakers, the Oneida Community, and Robert Owens's New Moral World (Holloway, 1966; Jennings, 2016). The great “back to the land movement” of the 1970s reversed what was 200 years of urbanization and the sheer numbers of “communes,” as they were called, surpassed even the utopian groups of the preceding century; in Vermont alone there were approximately 75 communes (Dalos, 2016). Of the several creative art spaces described in this issue, two approach Utopianism. As reported by Jonathan Palmer and Maria Trombetta, Black Mountain College was a complete community. Students at the school participated in all aspects of living—they farmed, they studied, they built houses, they danced, they made art. Joycelyn Trigg notes that Yaddo also strikes a Utopian chord; its founder, Katrina Trask, believed the very land on which colony was built was imbued with mystical forces that supported creativity.

Looking back at the host of communities across the centuries we see dissimilar core values, different types of leaders, as well as different reasons for their establishment. Kanter (1972) analyzes why some groups maintained enduring commitments while others disbanded. Many communities were short lived because of both internal and external pressures. All groups struggle with issues of inclusion and exclusion, authority, dependency, projective identification, and pairing (Bion, 1961). Group cohesion, based on shared values and the search for oneness, keeps people together. Communal visions have been beset by multiple problems and adverse consequences, yet there is consensus that, on the whole, the groups have advanced human discourse on issues of equality, cooperation, hope, ecology, and aesthetics.

Michel Foucault: The Philosopher

Michel Foucault (1967/1997) asserts that space is not a “new” concept but one that has a very long history. He distinguishes between Utopias, such as More's unreal place, and Heterotopias, which are real sites that take varied shapes. All cultures form them—they are a constant and part of being human. At the same time the structure of Heterotopias have changed over time. Medieval space was hierarchic and binary: There were sacred places and profane spaces; protected and open; urban and rural. Following Galileo's discoveries where the earth was no longer placed at the center of the universe, “emplacement” space was discarded and replaced with the concept of “the site”—and the relationship among sites. Derrick Cartwright's “Church or Factory” article plays on the “Sacred and Profane” distinction but places it within a 20th-century context.

Foucault identifies several kinds of modern Heterotopias; there are “crises” sites (military bases) and “deviation” sites (prisons). Heterotopias can also juxtapose several spaces into one as in the theater where the audience, the playwright's script, the actors, the stage set, and the lighting are melded. In Margaret Jenkins's article she articulates well the number of variables she contends with in producing a work of dance.

Foucault might consider many of our creative art spaces Heterotopias of “compensation”—a real community that provides a more perfect site than the flawed community in which the individual lives. The site compensates for major deficiencies in the art culture at large; this art culture shifts over time so that “compensation” is context dependent. My article on Alfred Stieglitz and Donald Judd illustrates the cogency of historical context on compensation.

COMPENSATION FOR WHAT?

Why do we need creative spaces? What is the driving force behind their establishment? One answer is offered by the sociologist Ray Oldenburg (1989). He said that although home and work are the two most important places in our lives, they are not enough. In order to combat the alienation and social isolation that marks our times, we need another space—a third place or what he calls “the great good place”—informal locales such as bookstores, hair salons, coffee shops. In this third space we can unwind, be ourselves, relax and be heard and learn.

Taking the great good space one step further, the Anglican theologian Alan Jones asserts that the art space functions as the Holy Communion does in church. As the church recedes in importance for many, art spaces operate as proxy sacraments, letting us relinquish our pedestrian view for something higher-minded and perhaps even “sacred.” Places such as the ones described in this issue, open us, interrogate us, so that we experience what the religious call the “Presence” (Jones, 2004).

Donald Winnicott (1971) saw early roots of the “creative space” in the mother's interaction with her child. He used the term “Potential Space” to denote a play space where the mother and child, in tandem, learn about each other. Through empathic and responsive play, a secure bond of attachment is formed. For Winnicott, play is universal and inherently exciting and surprising and immensely satisfying. Play is fun and “belongs” to health. When early experiences block the play space, the child's play is thwarted, stuck. Therapists following Winnicott provide a “holding space” where the patient can explore traumatic events that prevented growth. The holding space is metaphorically like a burn center where healing can take place. The creative art space differs from the holding environment of psychotherapy because you do not enter as a “patient”; no promises of “cure” are made and no fees are collected—you are free to enter and free to leave. Yet at the same time the creative art space is eminently safe—one can fail, one can experiment, one can fool around. Black Mountain College is a marvelous example of such a space. Winnicott asserts that “specialized” settings, which are not limited to psychotherapy, can unleash the individual's creative potential and personal growth.

The creative art space is a “specialized setting” and our authors describe many different kinds of inspiring places. In addition we will also tell you of how we were affected by these settings: how we were changed and moved when we visited the sites or were active members in the art space. Margaret Jenkins has constructed many creative dance spaces and she describes what goes on in her mind when she plays with space. Taimi Barty, a member of James Krenov's woodworking school, tells us how he transformed her life.

WHY ARE WE INSPIRED BY DIFFERENT SETTINGS?

I have been baffled, obsessed for years about why people are moved by different types of spaces. I am delighted by spaces others thought ridiculous. When I went to Marfa, Texas to observe Donald Judd's space, which I will report on later, I was thrilled at its grandeur yet a man on the same tour of the grounds said to his wife “Let's get out of here fast, this is nothing.” There were other times when I could not wait to leave a place where others were reveling—parades and circuses and festivals. Why?

I was relieved to find some answers in the work of Robert Searles (1960) who emphasized the importance of the nonhuman environment: nature, the animal kingdom, artifacts made by humans (a book, a chair, a toy, a building) and natural objects (a river, a prairie, a canyon, a cave). Searles considers this kind of relatedness to be a transcendent experience on par with intrarpersonal and interpersonal relationships. At last someone else believed our attachment to space was no trivial matter. Echoing Searles, the agrarian poet Wendell Berry (2011) tells of the profound influence of geography, his Kentucky farm, on his poetry.

The French philosopher Gaston Bachelard (1960) around the same time as Searles independently approached the issue of space from a phenomenological perspective. Bachelard, a philosopher of science, believed that the mind was insufficient to account for his observations about space and thus introduced the “soul” to his inquiries and the idea that pure poetic image of space has no causality—it is basic, primitive, and immediately knowable, much like Jung's concept of the archetype. Bachelard distinguishes between the “intimate” space as seen in the domestic image of the house with its cellar, the stairs, the attic and nooks and crannies and the “exterior” space where images of immensity dominate. Bachelard and Searles explain why both intimate spaces and immense spaces can inspire us and stimulate our imaginations. Bachelard asserts our affinity for these spaces are hard-wired into human consciousness. Cultural anthropologists (Hall, 1968) and design theorists would question whether these attachments are genetically determined. They observed many variations in reactions to space dependent on geography and culture. At the same time all agree that spatial attractions and distance setting arrangements are out of awareness, pre-verbal, and set very early in life.

JUST HOW MANY CREATIVE SPACES ARE THERE ANYWAY?

When talking with artists and non-artists about creative spaces, at first I was surprised at how, almost to a person, the conversation turned to a creative space that the individual knew. A fond memory was resuscitated and a nostalgic place re-visited. An obvious reason for these recollections is that creative spaces are more common than I assumed. My initial assumption was wrong, as Joycelyn Trigg's article proves. There are thousands of registered national and international artist's communities. The number of informal, non-registered groups is myriad.

In conclusion, we, a motley crew of authors, believe that the need for creative spaces connects with a profound urge that desires openness, acceptance, learning, and belonging to a community. We are social animals and as hard as it may be to form authentic connections, we search and we try. Our work, taken together, can be regarded as an open-ended assemblage inviting further additions. You will think of other places that beg to be part of this conversation and other titans of creative spaces that deserve homage. Collaboration, such as the one in which we have been involved, is always an in-progress engagement.

Note that the articles in this issue have been arranged chronologically and range from the late 19th century to the present. Note also in passing that certain artists who are not the subject of any article, Merce Cunningham and John Cage for example, weave in and out of several articles. These artists were especially influential and generative and have left their mark indelibly on the art spaces they occupied.