Portsmouth Listens

History, Arts, and Culture In Portsmouth

Portsmouth is a community that is teeming with artistic talent, brimming with historical ambience, and bubbling with cultural events. In each of these areas, we have an embarassment of riches. Our peculiar problem, which surely many communities would envy, is to decide how to organize and disseminate information about our cultural riches, so that we (and our visitors) might best enjoy them.

The information is out there, but so abundant and dispersed as to be almost invisible. Over and over during our group meetings, came the familiar chorus, “I didn't even know that (fill in the blank: group, event resource) existed. If only there was a way to get this information out there.” Thus, a theme we found ourselves returning to again and again, was the need for a central place to tap into what this town/city has to offer. Further, that central place needed to be physically real, not just a location on the Internet. Not that we are trying to avoid Internet-age tools: far from it. We will propose below a healthy pastiche of ideas drawn from technology, such as electronic calendars, digital maps, and Internet kiosks. But ultimately, everything we are proposing should be available, and reachable, by starting at this central place.

At it's heart, this central place is a nexus of information. Then, arranging themselves like circles of widening diameters, there are more elaborate versions of this core idea. Make it a little bit bigger, and it's a place to show historical photographs, maps, and artwork pertaining to the city, and maybe a scaled down diarama of the town. A little bit bigger, and we have a place for historical presentations and lectures. Bigger still, and we have a place for community classes that implement the “Rec Department of the Mind”, a Free University (all volunteer teachers) offering courses in history, art, culture...

What follows are some proposals to make it easier to find, maintain, and develop the cultural, historic, and artistic riches of Portsmouth.

The Creative Economy

There is a concept gaining increasing currency within the non-profit and creative communities, called the Creative Economy. The idea is that the economic impact of artistic and cultural offerings goes far beyond such traditional measures as ticket receipts. For any artistic or cultural event, there is in fact a ripple effect that has a profound influence on a town or region's bottom line. According to a report by the group Americans for the Arts, Portsmouth New Hampshire gets particularly high marks when measured in this way. As it turns out, our local creative economy is a $26.1 million industry.

So, aside from any ephemeral quality of life concerns, which we certainly value, there are the cold hard economic facts. What Portsmouth has, in terms of artistic and cultural resources, is worth serious money, and should be given priority in civic economic planning.

And let's not forget that the Creative Economy encompasses more than just the "traditional art forms". It extends to the local electronic musician who spins records in Boston on the weekend, and patronizes Bull Moose, as well as the professional orchestra player who performs at the Music Hall.

What's good for the arts, is good for our econmic health as a city. And what's good for that special mix of arts, culture and historic interest that we offer, is even more vital to our economic health. Thus, an investment in stewardship and enhancement of these items makes good fiscal sense.

Goals: Find, Collaborate, Disseminate, Tasks to Goals

Given the desirability, both aesthetic and economic, of nurturing our creative economy, how can we best promote History, Arts and Culture? We boil it down to three words: Find, Collaborate, and Disseminate.

Find

Even longtime Portsmouth citizens in our study circle expressed exasperation at not being able to keep track of all the artistic offerings, and cultural events in Portsmouth. What emerged was a resolve to create rich sources of information along the fundamental axis of Space (a map) and Time (a calendar). For details on these deliverables, see the section on dissemination, below. Here, we discuss, the idea of a developing a rich repository of information, on which other processes and activities can feed.

The idea of developing an artistic/cultural/historical database did not originate with us, since variations of this proposal have come out of other groups, such as ArtsSpeak. We are just lending our voice to the rising clamour.

This database can become a foundation upon which other operations draw. For example, we'll be able to publish a directory, in online, and possibly paper form, of all the artists and historical and cultural groups. In this way, we'll be able to foster connections between artists and those able to provide venues, or those wishing to sponsor displays or put on events.

In fact, we feel that the need to develop this repository, and keep it up to date and comprehensive, is so vital that the resources should be sought to fund a fulltime person to perform this and related tasks. This person should have a special mix of qualifications, being part evangelizer, part networker, and part web master. There'll be more in a later section about some ways we propose to come up with those funds.

Collaborate:

It would indeed be presumptious of us to maintain that the ideas in this report are totally original. We would like to acknowledge the work of others, in particular the Mayor's Commission on the Arts, and its more recent embodiment in ArtsSpeaks, who have advanced proposals very similar to those contained here. But the very fact that we are walking on trodden ground suggests that it's really time to join together to build a path.

We'd like to help bring together disparate groups, such as Strawbery Banke, and the Downtown Association. We'd like to contribute to an atmosphere where ideas can be spawned, like more history trails, and more ethnic and cultural festivals. And in the same vein, we'd like to encourage tandem events, as studies in contrast, like offering contempory music concerts in historic old houses and buildings.

Our group is a relative newcomer to this process. We don't want to reinvent the wheel, or worse, expend unecessary energy on manufacturing redundant wheels. Rather, we want to give those wheels a push, and make them roll. We believe that our concrete proposals, such as the information repository, the maps, and the calendar, do just that.

Disseminate:

Once we have our reliable, up-to-date source of data, the next step is dissemination. Our proposal is to identify a central, downtown location, a source where people will come to learn the kind of information we are talking about devleoping.

Electronic Kiosk

For a location with a minimal footprint, consider the notion of an eletronic kiosk. This could be implemented with a touch screen display, programmed for browsing a central web site, but restricted from more far-flung web surfing. While WiFi for laptops at Cafe Brioche might be just the thing for computer-toting techies, we would like to avoid placing hardware requirements on passing pedestrians.

There are of course hurdles to clear with this idea, such as bringing in a network connection, and providing a secure location, plus acquiring the terminal. But once these challenges are met, consider the following kinds of possibilities.

Electronic Master Calendar The calendar would provide the latest information about events occurring around Portsmouth. It would be linked in the basic artistic/cultural/historical data repository, to give detailed contact information and locations, and whatever else was relevant. Perhaps it would also be linked to the electronic map.

Electronic Map The electronic map would be keyed to important artistic, cultural, and historic locations that populate the information repository. It would be wonderful if we could give this map a historical flavor, perhaps basing it on one of the well-known Portsmouth historic maps.

Historical and Background Information- The kiosk web browser could also tap into whatever archives of historic photos, historic accounts, and the like, are deemed interesting and appropriate by our dedicated Portsmouth Information Developer staff person, alluded to in earlier sections.

Non-Electronic Dissemination

For those less comfortable with “artificial dissemination”, we have other proposals we are no less enthusiastic about. To help shepherd them along, we'd like our Information Developer to have a flair for the tangible.

One idea is to offer a printed map, perhaps just a nicely produced version of the eletronic map above. We should explore if there is an economical way to superimpose modern locations over something like the Portsmouth 1877 map, in such a way as to not totally bewilder the viewer. If this could be done, it would certainly place our culturual map into a category by itself. It would be interesting to explore whether this could be done in such a way as to generate revenue for our other projects.

And we would hope and expect that the electronic calendar could be deployed into the physical realm as well. There's nothing like being up there on the refrigerator, to get people's attention.

Another idea is to create a brochure, perhaps funded by advertising, that identifies artistic/cultural/historic trails. Something similar has been done in Manchester, for example.

Funding Sources

We offer a few ideas for funding the proejcts proposed here:

Create Membership Organization

One way to generate revenue, and to insure the constant flow of fresh ideas, is to create a membership organization, based on dues. The dues can be on a sliding scale, with corporation, artists, and lay citizen's paying appropriate fees.

UDAG Funding

Another revenue source can be the UDAG money, administered by HUD. These are funds dispensed by the city for civic projects. For more information on UDAG, see the link at the end of this document

Corporate Sponsorship

Local corporation could sponsor, or contribute to, some of the projects mentioned in this document. For example, local computer companies might be able to provide technical assistance with the electronic kiosk, or host the web site and repository.

Voluntary Culture Tax

One idea was to collect a voluntary 2% or so "culture tax" at restaurants.

Links And Examples

Historic Maps of Portsmouth

http://www.seacoastnh.com/yesterdayandtoday/res/1850.jpeg

http://www.seacoastnh.com/yesterdayandtoday/res/1877.jpeg

Electronic Calendars

Harborlights

http://www.portsmouthchamber.org/calendarnew.cfm

Partnership For Effective Nonprofits

http://www.partnershipforeffectivenonprofits.org/Master%20Calendar.htm

The State House: Suitable as a Central Place?