A text portrait of our class at 601 Tully

(photograph of a group brainstorm on Wednesday, September 14, 2011)

As the Fall 2011 semester wraps up at 601 Tully, I asked my classmates to share words and short phrases they associated with our work at 601 this past semester. Here's the network we created together:

spirit, freedom, knowledge, power, interconnectedness, optimistic, improvisatory, enlightening, enriching, collaborative, challenging, engaging, liberating, grounding, butterflies, interdependence, art/science/religion/love, provocative, contemplative, active, contact, scone, collaboration, fun, discovery, color, bloom, wing, mindfulness, growth, alchemical, chaos, development, love, transformation, butterfly, creation, ecology, evolution, art, chart paper, collaboration, sitting in a circle and talking/thinking together, the community, authorship, materials, complexity, open-endedness, reverberations, the intangible, earnest, confused, formulaic, tentative, community, restoration, interaction, confidence, appeal, growth (the good kind!)

Holiday Party today & WORD THURSDAY tomorrow!

Today we had a lively holiday lunch-hour with our Blue Wednesday Holiday Open House. Many of our awesome neighbors stopped in to hang out, along with many other new and old friends alike.

Nojaim's Grocery generously provided scrumptious sandwiches and Maureen Nolan from the Post Standard stopped in to check it out and snap some photos!

We're keeping the high energy going with a poetry reading tomorrow night, starting at 7pm. Our inaugural WORD THURSDAY will feature poet Michael Burkard, and there will be an open reading to follow. So show up with an original piece and gather up the courage to read it aloud!

WORD THURSDAY is sponsored by Govsphere, Inc., which is a management, strategy, and technology services firm that delivers innovative solutions to meet the complex needs and challenges facing today’s government agencies.

check them out online at: http://www.govsphere.com/

December 14th Blue Wednesday at 601 Tully

Wed, December 14th
11:30am - 1:30pm

In conjunction with our bi-monthly Blue Wednesday meetings between neighborhood residents and 601 Tully staff, we will host a 601 Tully Open House on Wednesday, December 14th from 11:30am - 1:30pm. Guests can:

• tour our gallery and the current exhibit, "The Butterfly Effect"

• enjoy a sandwich from Nojaim Bros Super Market and more, and

• share a favorite recipe for our neighborhood recipe archive.

We have a new batch of Painted Lady and Monarch butterflies in our indoor butterfly habitat. As winter progresses, we will transition to a winter
garden complete with blue and black "iron" butterflies.

We hope that you join us at 601 Tully again or for the first time! Thank you for passing on this information.

Best,
The 601 Tully team

P.S. Friends WELCOME!!

Such Potential: reflections on a semester’s project.

Last week, I met a roomful of Say Yes elementary school site coordinators at their monthly meeting. These are the folks bent to the task of improving success in school for all Syracuse kids. Add one more humbling encounter to a growing list of humbling encounters I’ve had as a student in Marion Wilson’s Art and Social Profit class and a resident of 601 Tully.

I am not new to community activism, to working for and with people trying to make a difference in disadvantaged communities. Yet, witnessing other folks’ generous efforts to improve this world is always moving. And 601 Tully is located right in the heart of the movement to make the Near West Side a better place. Community members, artists and activists regularly meet in the center’s light-filled spaces to plot new initiatives. A large handful of neighborhood kids have made the center their “hang-out.” The Butterfly Effect exhibit, 601’s inaugural exhibit, (which my class curated) will hang until February. The coffee at Café Kubal is great. There is such potential in this place!

If you wander down the street and around the corner, you’ll encounter the West Side Learning Center, site of English as a second language classes for over 300 new immigrants from more than 30 countries. Walk in on any weekday and the joint is jumping! Witnessing so much positive energy harnessed to the task of learning a new language, becoming part of a new culture, was humbling encounter #3…or #4. I met the director, Ed Butler, when I asked him to submit photographs (for a class project) of the people, places and things that inspire him. He and Julia Robertson, another Tully neighbor, submitted their photos of loved ones and treasured community landmarks. They are embedded in this video sketch of the neighborhood that Sara Pfohl, Charlette Caldwell and I put together. This was a sketch we made during the planning phase of The Butterfly Effect. Come see the exhibit and absorb the positive energy of things happening in the Near West Side.

WORD THURSDAY at 601 Tully! December 15!

This December 15th at 7pm is our first ever Word Thursday! Word Thursday is our monthly poetry, literary, and spoken word event on the third Thursday of every month, with a featured reader followed by an open mic reading.

Our inaugural reading will feature Guggenheim fellow, NEA grant recipient and S.U. Professor Michael Burkard! The author of several volumes of poetry, including Envelope of Night and Lucky Coat Anywhere, Burkard has a unique literary voice and an ear for language that must be experienced. Come hear him share his genius!

Open reading follows. This is your chance to share your own poetic voice with the community. Come early to sign up as a reader, and bring your original writing.

601 Tully Announcement on Art & Education!

http://www.artandeducation.net/announcement/the-butterfly-effect/