This past year, I have been privileged to assist workshops with special needs children. I helped show participants how clay can be formed; I passed out glaze cups and brushes and demonstrated different ways glaze can be applied. Interacting with these children put into sharp focus how the world, as experienced, is different for everyone. Because many of us manage to adapt our personal lens to navigate through life, we forget, and assume that everyone’s view is similar. But barriers do exist. Each one (of us) lives in a unique world—silos, if you will—and yet communication and exchange happens.

In urban planning, education, and funding circles, “silos” and “collaboration” are two popular words, often included in the same sentences, as if they were a binary pair—the first representing the problem, the negative, and the other the signifier for the solution. Dissolving or bridging silos can be well researched, systematically evolving over several years (Say Yes), or lively organic networks like Neighbor Up. Small organizations might not have overarching solutions, but they often freely share resources: time, space, information, skills. It is also the simple gesture that ripples far beyond the moment…like handing a child a brush.

 

 

COMMUNITY CULTURE NIGHT WITH FILMMAKER TED SIKORA | 7–8:30PM FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30

FAMILY OPEN STUDIO | 1–3PM EVERY 3RD SATURDAY

FAMILY CLAY DAY | 10AM–NOON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24 & JANUARY 26

4^TH ANNUAL ABC CHILI COOK-OFF | 1–3PM SATURDAY, MARCH 9

 

Silos (Not sure a caption is really needed here- Driving through Toledo’s industrial section)

Murray Ridge School participant glazing her bowl during their Art House visit.

Art House, Inc.

3119 Denison Avenue

Cleveland, Ohio 44109

arthouseinc.org

216.398.8556