How It All Works
Turning On the Lights
Hi everybody! I hope you are as well and as safe as the moment will allow.
I had originally planned to write to you today about social cohesion, a slippery but nonetheless very useful concept in imagining stronger, healthier, happier communities. I am going to push that to next week, however, because we got a lot of inquiries this week about how House Lights, once it is up and running, will actually work.
You can also check out some updates about these ideas on our Instagram, as we’ll be rolling out some new things there today. Remember to follow us on there! I’m still new to Instagram, but Sarah has been managing that with major design assists from Abby and Grace (it truly does take a village!). If you like any of the design work you see from House Lights, all credit goes to them (except our website which was me…which is why it’s not quite as pretty).
So, without further ado…
How does House Lights actually work?
We’re still too far away to say what the day-to-day operations of House Lights will be (will we even be in offices? Remember offices? What a world). BUT we do know what the four key components of the program will be: Recruiting, Training, Connecting and Supporting.
Let’s take each in turn, and look at it in a little bit more detail.
Recruiting
House Lights Fellows need to be artists, entrepreneurs, networkers, organizers, and philosophers all at once. This won’t be for everybody; getting the right Fellows on board, especially in our early years, is going to be key. In order to do that, we want to rely on a network of colleges and universities that graduate a lot of young artists1. We’ll ask the universities to nominate ideal graduating students for this Fellowship- the professors and staff are much more likely to know who would be right for House Lights, and to make sure the opportunity was on their mind. We also want to make sure that the community of service is a part of selecting the Fellow- the library we are partnering with will get to review the applicants, and we would love to have some community partners on a panel to interview the applicants. At the end of the day, we want to make sure we get excellent Fellows, and we know that we will need to leverage the knowledge and interests of our partners to make that work.
Training
Even the most exceptional Fellows won’t be able to walk in on day one and deliver great projects. They need ongoing training to supplement what they got in college, and they want ongoing training in the things they have learned already. To that end, we envision two forms of training. The first is a Summer Summit, where all the Fellows will gather for a few weeks and take skill-focused practical classes they’ll need to be effective organizers, grant-writers, budgeters, project managers, and so on. Think of it like a very condensed version of an MPA. After the summer, during their residency, the Fellows will also receive ongoing training, focused more on their artistic development, including masterclasses, workshops, and showcase opportunities. Think of it like a stretched-out low-residency MFA program. We can’t provide the depth of training a real MPA or MFA would confer (at least not yet!) but we can provide adaptive and individualized training and support. Which leads to the next component…
Connecting
For most of our Fellows, this will be their first “real job”- getting dropped into a public library with a broad mandate and lots of autonomy could be a dream, but without the right connections, it could be a nightmare. In my worst fears, I see a Fellow sitting at a desk in a dusty corner, trying to conjure some brilliant piece of community art from thin air, and not knowing where to start. But it doesn’t have to be that way- we want to provide some key connections that will get the Fellows started on the right track. In addition to the librarians at their branch (who are often very well-connected and know their communities exceptionally well), each Fellow will have guidance from a Community Coach- someone local who knows how things work, and knows who to talk to in order to get things started. Fellows will also have a Craft Coach, an artist who works in their discipline who can advise them on projects, both for House Lights and for their own portfolio. These connections will be the beginning of durable networks that will enable each Fellow to deliver a unique project that uses their own talents and addresses a real need of their unique community.
Supporting
This is, candidly, the component we know the least about right now. Until we have Fellows in place, and until we see the kinds of struggles they might face, it’s difficult to predict what kinds of support would be most meaningful. That being said, I think we know we can rely on our own backgrounds in mentorship and education, and on our communities’ built-in networks of support. What happens when something goes wrong? I don’t know right now. But who steps up to help? That’s much more clear (and many of you reading this newsletter are among the people we’d call for help!).
So that’s how we plan to make it all work. I hope this answered your questions, those of you who asked! You can always get in touch, ask questions, and provide support by emailing us at houselightsfellowship@gmail.com
We appreciate all the kindness and generosity everyone has shown so far, and we look forward to connecting more in the future!
(also PS- does anybody have any leads on summer housing in Delaware? We’re getting the plans for our summer pilot in motion! More to come…)
When we say “artists”, we really do mean the term broadly. Actors, musicians, poets, choreographers, digital artists, filmmakers…if it is a creative discipline, I can imagine a way for it to work.