Lucy Gellman Photo
Kaphar at Tuesday’s conclave.
Artist Titus Kaphar has an idea for New Haven’s next artistic venture: laundromats.
No really, laundromats. With art on the walls, engaging patrons as they cue up for another spin cycle.
Inspired partly by The Laundromat Project and partly by his own experience on the periphery of art museums, the New Haven based artist presented that idea Tuesday afternoon at the New Haven Free Public Library (NHFPL). He and around 20 others met there for a Connecticut “Office of the Arts Roundtable Discussion” hosted by the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD).
Focused specifically on the department’s READI (relevance, equity, accessibility, diversity and inclusion) initiative, the roundtable marked the first of three sessions exploring diversity, workplace development, and trauma and healing in the arts. All three, which will take place across the state this year, are funded by the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA).
Huddling together as the snow fell outside, attendees focused on where they saw inequity playing out in their workplaces, attempting to provide realistic and timely solutions. Facilitator Linda Yancey pushed the group for implementable ideas for making the arts more accessible.
Enter laundromats. Kaphar’s suggestion — met with a smattering of laughter, and then unanimous approval and enthusiasm at the end of the day — provided a glimpse into the few low-cost, concrete, and readily/READIly implementable solutions that the afternoon produced. Urging fellow attendees to look into The Laundromat Project, which places community artists and educators in laundromats in New York, Kaphar explained how he envisions the program evolving in Connecticut.
“I’m thinking about all of the places that art could be,” he said. “We really need to think about the places that exist in our community that we don’t think of as artistic spaces, as for the arts.”
Laundromats were some of the first among them. For him, it’s a nod to both his approach — heavy on community engagement — and upbringing. Growing up, Kaphar’s mom had three jobs, and little time to ferry him to art museums and cultural venues in his native Michigan. The family also didn’t have a washer or dryer in its home. So as a boy, he ended up spending a lot of time in laundromats. They were, he discovered, pretty boring places.
If they had been teeming with art — and art made by people in his community especially — the experience could have been transformative and magical, he said.
Attendees jumped on the idea, citing examples that could work in Connecticut. Smith floated a community-oriented ArtMobile similar to Boston’s “Studio on Wheels,” filled with making materials, artists’ tools, and a resident artist to give lessons and demonstrations. Taking a page from controversial Metropolitan Opera Director Peter Geld, Adams asked what it would take for arts institutions — and churches, and schools — to partner with the Met and screen performances for free. Office of the Arts Director of Culture Kristina Newman-Scott suggested that artists partner with barbershops and nail salons in their neighborhood, much like New York’s Barbershop Books initiative already has.
Others tried to envision accessibility on a more civic level. Arts in Public Spaces Program Specialist Tamara Dimitri suggested a program placing artists in water treatment plants. Brian Cyr, director of instrumental music for the Meridan Public Schools, went a step further.
“What about the DMV?” tossed out Cyr. “Nobody wants to go there.”