Healing and truth-telling

Right now we need more joy, more positivity... To change people’s perspectives, to believe and have faith that change is coming.”

Mercedes Yarbrough

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Springboard for the Arts provides career support, empowerment, and “business of art” education to artists working in any medium. Learn more about “Artists Respond” grants at https://springboardforthearts.org/programs/artists-respond/ and @springboardarts.

825 Arts incubates artists and amplifies the voices of all Rondo and Frogtown community members, from their home in the former Victoria Theatre Arts Center. View their current offerings at https://825arts.org and @825arts.

Whether designing educational literature or simply providing physical space for donation drives, individual artists and local arts organizations found creative ways to care for and protect their communities this past winter – and those efforts carry on now. For two St. Paul non-profits, these emergency mutual aid activities uniquely defined the first two months of this year, but also felt keenly familiar.

As ICE raids significantly intensified in January, Springboard for the Arts (262 University Ave W) knew they needed to provide timely support for artistic work that was already organically emerging across the Twin Cities and statewide. Springboard Community Development Director Ricardo Beaird compared artists to front-line responders during times of crisis.

Artists, in a wide range of media, are the ones “getting people together, making resources available, making resources more visible,” Beaird said. They are often “positioned as the chief connectors, communicators, and consultants in their own communities.”

With that reality in mind, the non-profit’s ongoing “Artists Respond” micro-grant program issued a new call for applications in early January, offering grants of about $1000 each to creatives who had fast-turnaround project ideas that fit the theme “Safety in Neighbors.”

Ultimately, 60 artists were funded around the state, with a high concentration in Saint Paul and Minneapolis. Projects included: educational “know your rights” pamphlets in multiple languages, hosted meals for community members who wanted to discuss safety strategies, art kits for families who were sheltering in place, and many more efforts that met unique needs and strengthened connections between neighbors.

Artists Respond has been a crucial community-support tool during other turning-point moments in recent history. It was originally developed to support visual artists who, during the 2020 uprising in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, had begun painting mini-murals on the plywood panels that protected storefront windows. At that time, “there were lots of stories coming from people who didn’t have a relationship to Minneapolis and St. Paul,” Beaird said. “We wanted to make sure that artists had the space to express and tell actual stories about what’s happening and how people are feeling.”

Since then, other micro-grant offerings have supported art that wrestled with social isolation during the pandemic. Another round looked at urban-rural solidarity during an election year. Early on, the program welcomed artists of all media, including but not limited to visual and performance artists, musicians, writers, makers, and culture bearers. Common threads bound them all: Tell the untold truth, and care for those who have been forgotten or harmed.

“Safety in Neighbors” concluded at the end of February, and Springboard immediately issued a successive initiative titled “Rooted and Rising.” Springboard Community Organizer Sam Buffington, who co-leads Artists Respond with Beaird and other staff, explained how they hope this initiative will extend the projects that artists began over the past two months. “Even if all the federal agents left today, which they’re not… there would still be a huge amount of repair work that needs to happen,” Beaird said.

Reflecting on the current call for projects, Beaird invited artists to look for ways to preserve both the literature of this time and the stories of what people saw, experienced, and survived. He said he hopes other projects will also explore “how are we building on these structures that were created, these structures of mutual aid and resistance.”

It’s all art, it’s all happening now and yesterday and tomorrow
About a mile and a half west of Springboard, over at 825 Arts (825 University Ave W), Mercedes Yarbrough serves as community engagement director and is, herself, an artist who has used her talents to nurture and transform her neighborhood for years. Asked how artists supported their neighborhoods during Operation Metro Surge, Yarbrough first shared a story of re-connecting with her neighborhood after being gone for a while.
Rondo had changed while she was away. When she returned in 2021, it didn’t feel like the friendly, tight-knit community where your family and your teachers’ families all knew each other and saw each other at the grocery store. The sense of tight connection had been harmed by pandemic social-distancing, but she sensed something more too.

Yarbrough saw so many people who were unhoused and struggling with addiction. She saw the suffering, and then she got creative.

She invited kids to learn and demonstrate Double-Dutch in public spaces. She brought rope-jumping events into places that had a reputation for being “dangerous.” She wanted to give commuters and passersby a new perception. “Now they’re seeing joy, now they’re seeing happiness, and that energy is very powerful and magnetic… it made it safe,” she said. “People are like, ‘How are you doing this with kids?’ and I’m like, ‘The love created safety.’ I believe love is power, but also safety.”

Time and again, she used diverse art forms and creative events to empower people and transform places – whether a comic book series about the history of Rondo, a Halloween haunted park, or Black to the Future events to teach kids about Black inventors.

That’s how Yarbrough and the 825 Arts community responded to a federal occupation. They stayed course. She described how they used all the skills they already had, to crowd out fear with a bigger love. “Thoughts create things,” she said repeatedly, speaking of the current climate. “When our vibration is very low, that’s when you’re easily controlled… right now we need more joy, more positivity… To change people’s perspective, to believe and have faith that change is coming.”

Along with maintaining that steady, joyful, art-making space, 825 Arts opened their doors to community members who wanted to organize mutual aid efforts, but simply needed a physical location for their activities. They collaborated with other Rondo and Frogtown non-profits and community groups to extend their reach.
825 Arts also continued to host their monthly “Art-B-Qs” every third Tuesday of the month, where community members could gather to enjoy free food and art projects. Those Art-B-Q gatherings were lifelines. One 825 artist member who had been primarily sheltering in place, said: “This is my first time coming outside… Just being here has been healing.”