Creative America: Fighting the Radical Right
At Creative America the thought is that creativity should be a national value.
“It should be priority,” said the organization’s founder Tom Tresser. “We know that there are tens of thousands making a living in the creative field but there are also teachers, scientists, educators, architects, people who develop products, advertising reps, people who work in the technical field of the internet – all these people work in creative fields, too.”
Creative America is making presentations to different organizations in the country with this motto: “The politics of creativity: A Call For Service.”
“We try to make the case that creativity is part of America’s national heritage,” said Tresser. “We start out by having people read a little bit of the Declaration of Independence at our presentations. We make the argument that when the Declaration was read aloud in the summer of 1776 that that was actually public performance, political art.”
Tresser said that reading in the public square in the colonies actually is the first time that people were hearing that there was a U.S. and that by hearing it and agreeing to it it was a collective performance.
“It was actually real and that to me is a mammoth act of audacious creativity,” he said. “And so we start off at that pint and if that resonates with people attending than that’s the foundation, that America was founded on creativity and that creativity is the American way. That sort of sets the stage that tells us creativity is important and how we have the need for innovation. And that there is a mindset that was in order to have a creative society we need to have an open mind. We can’t shut out new ideas and new ways of being. That puts us in opposition to others who have a different point of view. For many people in the arts and cultural field they need to be reminded about some of these adversarial organizations because of the cultural wars from the 1990s.”
Tresser said the group reminds people about 1990 through 1992 happenings like the Christian Coalition and others who were actively opposing the National Endowment for the Arts and generally organizing an anti-gay, anti-intellectual organization. There were letter writing campaigns all over the country directed at arts organizations objecting to some art. The consequences were very negative.
“The far-right extremist groups were identifying bases, training people, and encouraging them to run for local offices which they did all over the country,” said Tresser. “We’re talking about people in these organizations getting themselves trained, fighting local races, running for the school, library boards; etc. And pretty quietly with not a lot of fanfare from 1980 to 2002 we won lots of local races moving up the food chain. While all this was happening the arts and cultural communities were not doing this. They were not organizing in that manner.”
Tresser said Creative America tells people about this history to get them interested, worried, and tells them if they don’t agree they need to do something about that.
“We give a final part and tell them ‘We already think you’re a leader,'” said Tresser. “People in the creative professions have a lot of leadership skills. They just need to think about translating those skills and accomplishments in a different way.”
Tresser said when he does a presentation that maybe a third of the attendees will say they’re a leader which is good. Another third will not be sure. And other third will firmly believe they’re not leaders. Creative America does an exercise called “Leadership Assets Inventory.”
“It’s the stuff you have and networks that you posses that tells me you’re a leader and that if you decided to do something in local politics you might be doing better than you think you know,” said Tresser. “Anyone who puts their hand up when asked if they’re a leader it’s clear in five minutes after I pull them up on stage that they’re a leader. The idea is to raise the flag about leadership, get people alarmed, and inspire them to their own potential.”
Creative America just presented at Arts Midwest and is going to New Jersey soon. They have a full training program that they have conducted three times that goes into tactics and mechanics of running for office including how to put a campaign together and how to run for local office. They also do performances and have a simulation where people speak to candidates, give speeches, pretending they’re running for local city council.
For more information, go to creativeamerica.us on the web.
