Healing in Community
Signs, Signs, Everywhere There’s Signs
Driving through west central Minnesota, it’s still common to see old campaign signs on trees, fenceposts and buildings, lingering relics from the last presidential contest, now serving as a reminder of our bitterly divided country and how differently neighbors might see things.
Sitting in the Evansville Art Center, my mind can go to these signs. Then I turn back to what’s happening right in front of me. The art on the walls. The music in the air.
Michael Tisserand, EAC Board VP and Author
This is, after all, why I’m here.
I joined the board of the Evansville Art Center on one of many trips here with my mother in the last couple years of her life. I learned to appreciate live music from my mom and was glad to have the opportunity to return that gift to her. Over the decades, we’d been to many big shows together, from the first (John Denver in the mid-1970s) to the final (Bruce Springsteen, the year before Mom died).
But even more meaningful were the small shows — the types of intimate, personal evenings, the kind of gathering where one of Mom’s closest friends could sing her favorite song directly to her.
New Faces Feel Like Old Friends
Having lived in New Orleans for the past thirty years, I’ve learned to treasure nights with musician friends in rooms with not much more than a few rows or tables of noisy audience members, shouting requests, singing along, or getting up to dance around at the edge of the room. These are the kind of nights I’m now happy to be helping to build at Evansville Art Center. This year, the “First Friday” shows (including the rescheduled Jack Norton show this Sunday) will bring new faces and voices to Evansville Art Center as well as local musicians who, the moment they start singing, feel like old friends — because they are.
We need this.
I need this. And this year, I need this more than ever. Some music I’ve participated in over the past few months in Minnesota has been deeply and overtly political in nature, including the Singing Resistance groups and the Minneapolis band Brass Solidarity. Evansville Art Center is different. Here, we don’t promote a particular brand of politics.
Except one: We will always stand for the kind of community where all people are welcome to gather together for art and music, to create alongside one another, and listen to each other.
Find Healing
In Alex Abramovich’s profile of Willie Nelson for The New Yorker last year, Willie’s wife Annie talked about the importance of such a community. “Let’s face it, we’re being divided intentionally,” she said. “That’s part of the playbook—divide and conquer. It’s been around a long time. When somebody’s saying hello to somebody without knowing their political ideology, and they’re just enjoying music together, that’s church. That’s healing. That’s really important right now. Really, really important.”
You can find that kind of healing in a lot of places. One of those places, I’m grateful to say, is the Evansville Art Center. I hope to see you there.
This blog was written by Michael Tisserand, who serves as Vice President on the Evansville Arts Coalition Board. Michael is an author. Read more about him and his work at: https://www.michaeltisserand.com/