Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Top issues- art and spontaneity

[Lynn Nadeau (welcome]

Gee, these lists make me feel better - not just because we all struggle 
with the same stuff, but because a lot of these haven't been biggies at 
RoseWind. We do fine with meat and vegetarians (though a surprising 
number of Northwest vegetarians DO consider free-range salmon a 
vegetable...), with kids and pets and recycling and organic gardening. 

I think the strongest cross currents around here are between Spontaneity 
and Structure. Kind of like the "no rules" folks referred to in another 
post. 

Spontaneity says if you love me you'll let me do whatever I want, and the 
world has so many darn rules we don't need any more here. Processing 
everything takes the life out of it and kills initiative. If you want 
strong community, you have to support the personal growth of the 
individuals, including their free expression. 

Structure says it will all go so much more smoothly if we first agree on 
guidelines, within which people can "freely" exercise their creativity 
and impulses, in ways that don't upset others. 

Around RoseWind, a major place this pops up is around "art." We have half 
a dozen members who are enthusiastic amateur artists. They get a lot out 
of creating sculptures and the like, and want to use the commons and 
common house as part of their palette, their display space. Some others 
find some of the items of dubious aesthetic value (to put it nicely), and 
are irked that if they don't like something that has appeared, they'll 
have to risk hurting the artist's feelings and probably get branded 
Anti-Art. The art folks do tend to cast things in "versus" terms, and if 
you don't like what you see, you are anti-art, anti-artist, a "critic", 
or even anti-(salmon, raven, Native American, etc) whatever the subject 
of the art is. The art  folks assert that neutral-as-common-ground 
doesn't work for them, because bland is as offensive to them as vivid is 
to others, and act victimized by those who see common space as an area 
not appropriate for provocative or non-consented-to displays. 

In the end, things generally work out, and we are currently trying to 
draft art guidelines defining temporary art and permanent art, and 
guidelines for each. 

But the same undercurrent surfaces around guerrilla landscaping, and 
around how-much -regulation, in general. 

But hey, we all live with a maximum of 2 pets-who-go-outdoors per lot, 
have a good system for use of the common house for functions, and the 
tofu and the sausage lie together in peace on our serving tables!

Lynn Nadeau, RoseWind Cohousing
Port Townsend Washington (Victorian seaport, music, art, nature)
http://www.rosewind.org
http://www.ptguide.com
http://www.ptforpeace.info (very active peace movement here- see our 
photo)

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