American
Institute For Arts
And Communities
Our
AIAC mission philosophy: "Art cultivates wonder that shapes
science, ethics and social interaction, thus gestating the responsible
and wise growth of community."
AIAC
is a facilitator and developer of projects and programs embracing
arts cultivation, environmental stewardship, community improvement,
health and quality of life issues. This is accomplished through
close work with like-minded nonprofits and educational organizations,
businesses, and committed leaders in health, environmental and community
issues. AIAC produces projects for local, regional and national
needs. AIAC dedicates much of its mission to improving the quality
of education in home schooling, private and public schoolsincluding
higher education.
Our
recent move into the California Theatre in Dunsmuir, California
literally and metaphorically opens a lot of doors for us. We have
a home, a mountain eerie for all the projects and people we want
to catalyze. Our offices are on the second floor of the theatre
huge 1926 windows overlooking acres of achingly beautiful
evergreens and peaks still frosted with snow patches. The town,
steeped in lumber history, is tough as nails on being environmentally
friendly. Along our street are art galleries, charming boutique
shops, bucolic cafés, great-chef restaurants, fabric shops,
old-time hardware and antique stores. The performing arts theatre
and media center is below us. The smaller film theatre and spacious
ballroom (with kitchen planned) is above us. Were surrounded
by everything we stand for and work toward.
The
people of AIAC, whove come together as branches of a single
old-growth tree, are highly motivated to help people in the full
spirit of culture and the society motif we call community. This
is a rich pallet on a very broad canvas. And such an encompassing
metaphor of purpose gives us the ability to be extremely fine in
building programs for a small, select group or extraordinarily wide
in catalyzing positive ripples in educational or metropolitan centers.
Surprisingly, there are few nonprofit institutions in America that
bridge all the arts and all the facets of community stewardship
from environment to ethics. Though, obviously as most cultures
recognize, the two worlds of arts and community are as interwoven
as loamy soil and savannah grass. One does not exist without the
other. Or if they do, each is incomplete, bereft of vitality and
evolutionary prospects. And history is strewn with ruins of tribes,
societies and empires in which arts withered and community subsequently
died. So, what could be more natural or necessary than a marrying
of arts and communities into a single protean institute.
In
the nonprofit universe, we are largely a people organization. That
is we strive to have a direct, beneficial, inspiring impact on each
individual person that is touched by us. Or touches us and inspires
or informs us. For this is a two-way street. We love to have individuals
email us, phone us, talk to us in person at the California Theatre
or on the streets of the regional northern California towns or across
the US. Communication in all of its forms including the ecological
dialogue between humans and environment for example is the
bedrock of community. Kerrie Wilson, our founder/executive director,
is one of those people who is a community gravity well. She attracts
a sense of community around hereven in talking with one person
(two people are the beginning state of community). During the day
shes always roping her conversation to the philosophy of community.
Share. Give. Help. Inspire. Elevate. Edify. Protect. Nurture. Create.
Connect. Preserve. Innovate. Push. You hear these words around here
a lot. Put all these into a mixing bowl, throw them into the oven
of a nonprofit institute like AIAC and you have the super-yeasty
bread of life. We feed the mind and spirit.
Neighbors
In Public SpiritGiving
Back To The
Community
While
AIAC is supported by small, moderate and major gifts, grants, theatre/ballroom
event proceeds and sales of very select merchandise; we are deeply
committed to financially and morally supporting the public projects
of Dunsmuir and the greater Shasta region. A designated percentage
of the funding from the public will be contributed to programs we
feel are in consonance with our mission. AIAC is already committed
to Pam Newmans Kids Arts Bus program out of Mt. Shasta, a
small public park project led by Kris Akins in Dunsmuir. The public
tennis court in Dunsmuir needs resurfacing. Were setting up
a Young Directors Editing Studio at the California Theatre for the
youth of the region. Were involved in the planning and funding
of a program to introduce healthy, nutritionally knowledgeable meals
in the local schools. Future public support will go to specific
arts programs, environmental projects, health and well being programs
for the underprivileged, values and ethics teaching programs, and
more.
The
Whole PersonTeaching
Children & Youth
And we are especially cognizant of how essential it is for children
and youth to be awakened to living art, to their own powers of creativity
and imagination. That such immersion, as many philosophers and educators
perceive, brings out the full repertoire of each young person as
a complete human. Art breeds imagination, yes. It also breeds universal
appreciation, integrity and ethics. A young woman or man, who discovers
more of their complete self, is far more likely to be a dynamic
community member. And in the great circle of life, these young adults
will teach others by sheer example and potent words long through
their years.
As Socrates observed, Wisdom starts in wonder. And the
arts from speaking to music, fine art, writing, dance, drama,
stage performingare all crucibles of wonder. And gateways
to wisdom. The American Institute for Arts and Communities sees
that as essential mission statement: art cultivates wonder that
shapes science, ethics and social interaction, thus gestating the
responsible and wise growth of community. This applies equally to
children and teens on up to young adults; and certainly includes
adults of all ages. It is a great process to watch, and we see this
often, how a person in their mid-thirties or mid-fifties will be
gently rewrought by taking up an art, or supporting an artist and
the arts in general. They become more kind. More insightful. More
self-aware. More open to changes theyd like to make within
themselves. It is an interesting law in the public good realm: to
make changes in a group, the individual must first change. Individuals
all making quality changes within themselves are attractors for
creating quality groups. Or change agents for shaping a group toward
more beneficial, engaged expression.
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