A PLACE FOR THE ARTS

A PLACE FOR THE ARTS


By Steve Wright


Chris Velasco, founder of Minneapolis-based PLACE -- Projects Linking Art, Community & Environment -- has a messianic approach to live-work spaces for artists through sustainable, ethical development.

The president and executive director of PLACE said the arts are important for three reasons:

• "Arts express our human value," Velasco said. "The arts are the single most important and durable statement of human flourishing ever. Artists literally make our quality of life."

• "Arts are very important to the democratic process (small d)," he said. "The genius of the democratic process is that people don't have a solution at the end of the day -- they have the ability to hold two things that are seemingly opposite of each other in a productive tension, which allows people to work on things together. If you can hold two different ideas in your head at the same time, you can be an artist. And holding different ideas together in your head is exactly what democracy allows."

• "Arts provide a reason to come and see this experimental community," Velasco said. "People want to come and see what the artists are doing -- because it is interesting and protean. People say `why not create a community of accountants or teachers?' and I say they are certainly part of what we do, but they are not the draw of an artist."