Based on the sheer number of creative-geared organizations, Flint already has a reputation as a playground for artists. Just to provide a likely incomplete and insufficient glimpse, here’s a quick list:
- Visual arts and galleries: Flint Institute of Arts, Buckham Gallery, Greater Flint Arts Council, The Audacity Gallery, Riverbank Arts, the Mott-Warsh Gallery, Factory Two, Flint Public Art Project, and Westside Arts District.
- Theatre groups: Flint Repertory Theatre, McCree Theatre, Flint Community Players, Buckham Alley Theatre, Intrepid Theatre, and UM-Flint Department of Theatre.
- Music: Flint Institute of Music, Flint Local 432, the Machine Shop, Buckham Alley Fest, Carriage Town Live, Carriage Town Porchfest, and countless bars, restaurants, festivals, and other venues that regularly provide stages for musicians to perform live.
But although there’s no shortage of outlets for artists of all types in the city, coordination between those institutions and groups can sometimes be a challenge. That’s where a newly formed initiative, Art City Flint, comes in.
“Art City Flint is actually part of a movement throughout the country to bring together in your community all of your arts organizations,” said Chuck Gurden, a Flint resident and organizer behind the initiative. “All these entities work on their own and do great things, but there isn’t really anybody to kind of coordinate or bring them together, so that if one group is having an event, all of the other organizations in the Flint area can be aware and share.”
Before retiring, Gurden worked locally in higher education enrollment and marketing for more than 30 years and became connected to the Flint arts scene as part of his community involvement during his career, including chairing the Flint Art Fair for several years. Although he’s not an artist himself, he has a deep appreciation for what a thriving arts scene does for a community.
“I’ve always been involved in the arts, but I’m no artist,” Gurden said. “I have no artistic talent whatsoever, but I thought I could appreciate art and I can use my talents to get others organized and functioning and working together.”
Art City Flint introduced itself to the community for the first time during Flint’s monthly Art Walk on October 9, setting up in front of Greater Flint Arts Council and greeting passersby. Eventually, they’ll have a website and plan to have a larger kickoff event in the spring. For now, people interested in helping build the group up can contact the Greater Flint Arts Council at (810) 238-2787.
Although they’re starting with Flint organizations, Gurden says ultimately they’d love to include different arts organizations county-wide to better share information and cross-promote events. Art City Flint won’t exist to fundraise or provide those types of functions, rather it is intended to create collaboration, bring more attention to events, exhibitions, and performances, and bring more people into Flint’s artistic and creative scene.
“We’re here to support all the arts organizations,” Gurden said. “Basically we want to bring everybody together. A good example would be the Flint Public Art Project, when they’re sharing out what’s going on with their yearly mural project, we want to help make sure everybody knows about it. It’s a way to bring everything together. We’re gonna start with the city of Flint and everything that’s going on here. Some people don’t realize there’s over 200 murals in the downtown proper by artists from all over the world. We want to be able to share all that type of information and say, ‘Look what we’ve got in our community, look what we can share with you.’”
Pulling all of Flint’s creative resources together and creating mechanisms to better share information benefits the organizations here, but it also creates upward momentum. Cities that invest in the arts scene have found major economic successes. A huge part of Detroit’s revival, for example, has been their heavy investment in supporting the city’s arts and culture scene. It also gets state and national attention, which can also lead to more funding and economic opportunities for cities.
“We’re just excited to get this underway and see where it goes,” Gurden said. “We’ll eventually look to see if there’s actually a national designation that the city of Flint can get for being an art city, kind of like the old ‘Cool Cities’ initiative, which could allow for more statewide funding to come into the community for different art projects.”
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