Since its beginnings in Minneapolis in 1979, Artspace Projects, Inc. has created affordable live/work spaces for artists around the country. In October 2007, Artspace began accepting applications for its second Artist Loft community in Seattle. The first Seattle-based Artspace Community was the Tashiro Kaplan Artists Lofts in Pioneer Square, and the newest community is the Hiawatha Artists Loft in the Jackson Place neighborhood located in the Central District.

I learned about the Hiawatha Artists Loft project shortly after being contacted by freelance writer Diana Wurn about the research and writing I’d done in support of the Seattle EcoUrban Village project. Even though Diana’s story never materialized (such is the fate of a freelance writer), it got me thinking about affordable housing again. And as fate would have it, the universe aligned and delivered Hiawatha. Since it’s far better to join a great movement than to try to build one from scratch, I decided to put the SEV project to rest.

I’m working as a full-time artist now, and my art habit is supported by a great day job that keeps me on my toes yet leaves me energized for a weekend of artmaking.

So this is the end of the Seattle EcoUrban Village project, but it’s the beginning of new things for me. I’m keeping this blog active for others who are on the journey of building intentional community. I hope that these SEV files will provide a source of inspiration and information.

Happy trails to you, until we meet again.

~ Alexis Pierre-Louis

Last June, Seattle EcoUrban Village went on hiatus to explore the possibility of forming a nonprofit with two other grassroots organizations. After careful examination, we realized that our core goals varied enough to prevent a successful merger, but we still support each other through information sharing. So where does that leave us?

Seattle EcoUrban Village (SEV) project is in the midst of growing pains. Change is seldom easy but usually both necessary and beneficial. The SEV project still maintains a large email list of virtual supporters, and is in need of actual, physical support in the form of visionaries, organizational development planners, activists, grantwriters, and other general volunteer support.

In light of the lessons learned these past few months, let me tell you who I am, where we are, and where I hope we’ll go. My name is Alexis Pierre-Louis. I’m an interdisciplinary artist (a jewelry artist, painter, sculptor, and writer), and I am the founder of SEV. I organized SEV because I am tired of and fed up with the lack of safe, affordable, green housing and the lack of affordable organic food in my city. The way I see it: a lot of good organizations got started by tired and fed up people, so I feel confident that I’m on the right track.

My work as an interdisciplinary artist is informed by a philosophical framework that includes urban permaculture, futurist theory, Womanist studies, and the fine arts. I’ve been privileged to live abroad (Germany and Japan) and in most states in the U.S.A. I am a graduate of The Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington; I moved to Seattle about four years ago, and formally began my art practice this year.

I have mostly lived in small- to mid-sized towns, I now live in a mid-sized city, and I’m very concerned about the combination of economic disadvantage, environmental racism, and lack of environmental education, particularly in communities of color. I live in a community where there is a large number of people of color and poor people. Although Seattle is renowned for its commitment to environmental issues, I have too often been told that my urban permaculture ideas won’t work in the Central District and Seattle’s other economically disadvantaged neighborhoods because poor people want jobs not green housing and organic food. I believe all of the above are both desired and possible.

Now, after months of talking with local nonprofits, agencies, real estate specialists, and citizens, I realize that SEV’s focus needs to be on environmental education. So, it may take a very long time for the first SEV building to manifest, but it will happen because this idea is like a river: it may change course, but it won’t stop flowing. And like Sam Cooke originally sang, and like Midwest City sings today: A Change is Gonna Come.

(image credit: Garfield High School, Garfield High School Foundation)

Over the past few weeks, SEV had been in talks with two local grassroots about the possibility of merging our efforts into one nonprofit. What we learned along the way is that each of our groups had generated significant public interest, had established solid e-mail lists, and had members whose attendance at actual meetings was sporadic to nonexistent. Building a coalition is a daunting task that requires a singleness of vision and effort, and the degree to which a coalition lacks these qualities will be reflected in terms of solidarity and efficacy. We had much respect for the vision and goals of our potential partners, but ultimately, we decided to pursue different opportunities.

When a group or an individual has a vision that will benefit society, natural exuberance abounds, but the key to long-term success requires a long-term commitment and most of all perseverance. As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and so it goes with coalition building. Coalitions are made of people in a trust relationship. Building trust and unifying a vision and purpose takes patience and flexibility because the vision and the reality may turn out to be two very different things.

When all else fails, the core members have to examine their personal level of dedication and their willingness to adapt to feedback as well as their own intuition. These are just a few of the critical elements of building a successful grassroots coalition over time.

In examination of all these things, along with the opportunities before us, SEV will focus primarily on environmental education then resume its role as a community development association at the appropriate time. We feel that in order to put our target community into affordable green housing (bodies into buildings), we must first persuade our target community that change is necessary not only for their own sakes but for the sake of our larger community and most of all for our environment. In that vein, SEV’s lead organizer is working on a three-month research project for Sustainable Seattle, and we are working laterally with established organizations to find opportunities to reach our new goal.

Until then, for those of you working at the grassroots level: take heart, be steadfast, be adaptable, and most of all: have fun!

The past few weeks have been a blur of activity as SEV has established its presence in a wide variety of collaborative sustainability networks both online and in person. These efforts produced a deluge of e-mails and phone calls, and we’re slowly building our network. This week, SEV outreached to government and business leaders while continuing to seek out volunteer opportunities with like minded grassroots and established sustainability groups. Our lead organizer has been appointed state coordinator for a university-based art project, and hopes to introduce a cadre of fine artists to the fold.

This week

• meeting with real estate agent/community activist to discuss possible SEV sites
• meeting with DenCity Research/SUMIT to discuss collaboration
• meeting with Sustainable Seattle to discuss collaboration
• meeting with City of Seattle Neighborhood Service Center rep to discuss local resources

After the week of meetings SEV will regroup to discuss organizing our first public meeting. Stay tuned…

Can a tiny, little grassroots initiative change the world? We think we can! The Seattle EcoUrban Village (SEV) formed in a moment of frustration (as do many great inventions). Constantly denied affordable housing rentals because of graduate student status, yet needing affordable housing because of the same, SEV looked around for a better way and found intentional community then cooperative home ownership.

We feel the cooperative housing model is the best opportunity for artists, students, single mothers, the working poor, and others to obtain affordable home ownership. Recently, in connecting with friends and consultants, we began to examine existing artist housing models (like ArtSpace) to inquire, is the renter-landlord model the best housing model for artists or is it contributing to neighborhood gentrification?

SEV also connected with Alec Hill of the Tree of Life Collective, a bioregional workers’ collective in Central Vermont dedicated to transforming human systems of food production, ecological sustainability, dissipating traditional economy, and making more time for celebrating life!

As our ad hoc consultant, Alec recently gifted SEV with these consideration:

People (from my observations) unfortunately, often feel dismayed and overwhelmed when trying to imagine the possibility of a better world. However, a better world is certainly possible. A lot of attention is misdirected towards stopping bad things: down with capitalism! Down with nondirect forms of democracy! Down with industrialized agriculture, etc.! But the reality is that many of these things that we’d be much better off without only still exist because there are no reasonable options. If housing cooperatives were readily available, how many people would still pay rent to exploitative landlords? (emphasis added)

Housing cooperatives are a great step in liberating ourselves, and could be a step towards a gift-economy. Imagine it, a free world, where everything is exchanged through generousity and gifts. Of course, a share of a housing co-op isn’t usually just given away without strings, but its a step in the right direction and an amazing improvement on the exploitation&domination naturally found in landlord/tenant relationships. What are things that would fit well with a housing co-op? What are other projects that would contribute towards a free society?

how about:

• collectively owned automobiles (for those who would drive them, anyway)
• cooperative studio and workshop spaces
• skill shares and free schools
• clothing swaps
• community potlucks
• more community potlucks
• a volunteer run community bikeshop that has mechanics to teach people how to maintain their bikes and also sells donated and fixed-up used bikes for less money than a tank of gasoline
• childcare cooperatives
• lending program – to facilitate the sharing of things such as snowshoes, rototillers, 18-foot extension ladders, battery chargers, bicycle carriage, bike racks for cars, anything!
• community currency to keep the money/energy local and not going to large corporations
• community gardens
• buying groups — cooperative food (or anything else) purchasing, in bulk, at wholesale prices
• farmers markets
• FREE! markets — really really free. free gift, not “freetrade”. because free trade is not free; it is trade.
• dropin / community centers – somewhere you can go without having to buy anything! a place for music, for loitering, a place with a restroom for noncustomers, a community kitchen, a lending library

Housing cooperatives are awesome! They decrease people’s need for money and they decrease people’s need to work [soul draining] jobs. That means more time for fun! more time for art! More time for celebration, for walking in the woods, and most importantly more time for living!

We agree Alec!

The Tree of Life Collective (TLC) is a nonprofit workers collective of artists in Montpelier, VT that works to “create social change around the principles of bioregionalism, social ecology, and spiritual resonance with the Earth”. TLC is offering a opportunity to learn jewelry making techniques in titanium, a reactive metal that changes color when anodized. The intern will also have an opportunity to make a liveable income in a non-hierarchical environment and contribute to social projects. For more information, read the Tree of Life Artist Internship flyer then contact contact TLC.

The Dreamtime Festival is a collaborative festival in Paonia, Colorado that combines the educational aspects of a conference and tradeshow with the celebratory aspects of music, dance, theatre, film and and visual art. With live performances by world-class bands, workshops on themes of sustainability, personal development, individual and social responsibility, holistic healing and gift economy, participants in Dreamtime Festival “dream the future together, and create a magical and unforgettable experience that serves ourselves and the world.”

The festival runs July 19-22, 2007 and tickets can be purchased through the Dreamtime website. To learn more visit the Dreamthefuture tribe.

The cooperative is a resident-owned housing model that has been successful since the first housing cooperative in the late 1800s (NAHC, 2007). In a cooperative, residents own shares (their apartments) and a corporation (a nonprofit or for-profit organization formed by the resident-owners) owns the apartment building. Together the the resident-owners and corporation make operating decisions about their community.

Below is a quick comparison chart that compares cooperative ownership against renting, single family home ownership, and condo ownership

chart: NAHC

References

National Association of Housing Cooperatives, http://www.coophousing.org/about_nahc.shtml

Introduction

Intentional Community (IC) is a way of sharing housing and resources with people who share similar values. The IC model presents a significant opportunity to reduce living costs and pollution intake and output. For these two reasons alone, IC should be one of the most attractive living models for communities of color, which generally experience poverty and environmental injustice in greater numbers than European-Americans (Heiman, 1996) .

But because of some of the preconceived ideas about IC, and because of the traditional values held by many people of color, many intentional communities have a difficult time attracting and retaining people of color.

This Ain’t Your Momma’s Hippie Commune

One of the commonly held preconceived notions about IC in traditional communities of color is that intentional community is just a dressed-up, 21st century concept for old-style, 1960s-era hippie communes where white folks with long-hair do recreational drugs and refuse to bathe. Because of the global dispersion of intentional communities, there are a wide range of communites reflecting a variety of living styles including IC communities with all the amenities of urban living such as high-speed internet, e-mail, public transportation, and cable television.

Read the full paper Increasing Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Intentional Communities

The full paper is a .pdf file that requires Adobe Acrobat Reader. Download a free copy of Adobe Acrobat.

GOALS FOR THE WEEK ENDING 6/1/07

• Connect with CL contacts from week 2
• Write a new CL ad and post in a new category (categories previously used include Artists and Groups)
• Join Flickr Groups
• Post project description on Idealist.org
• Find & join (free) local permaculture, sustainable living, intentional community groups
• Post project description on Intentional Communities
• Re-read Apex’s organizing history
• V-market (through word-of-mouth) on WordPress, Blogger, Flickr, MySpace, etc. and find more viral marketing outlets

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

This week SEV conducted basic, grassroots marketing & organizing efforts to spread the word about this project.

• Updated the blog skin choosing colors to reflect nature’s palette
• Created a Flickr account
• Wrote the Vision, About, and Intentional Community pages on the blog

Flickr not only a means to house photos online, it also has vibrant community groups, and SEV can find likeminded people to share information and resources.