WHAT’S THE STORY?
RAC is starting a monthly blog. It is our intention that each month will feature the words of a RAC artist. As Executive Director and as a theater artist and musician, I will go first. Someone has to.
I had never read the Declaration of Independence until today. Sure the beginning was familiar to me:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Though I had forgotten the “endowed by their Creator” part. Yet, I do appreciate that the Creator was left unnamed.
For our 250th birthday of being an independent nation, I thought I should read our declaration. It’s not very long. And instead of mindlessly scrolling, or having other people tell me what it says and means, I realized: “Hey I can read it for myself!” After all, we have the internet which makes it easy(?) to find an original source. I am happy to report: it actually was very easy to find, in the National Archive. Go ahead and read it here.
I had wrongly assumed it was a list of our founders’ ideals, and I am not sure why I thought that. I was surprised to find that mostly it is a listing of gripes and, in their words: “repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States”
Interesting.
It’s quite colorful and forceful and it makes me think: I wonder if those in high positions of power in our government will read it (or hopefully re-read it?) as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of its signing.
As we look back on 250 years from when America declared its independence from Great Britain, I am thinking of the history of RAC. Have we held up the ideals of those who first founded RAC? What was the first mission statement?
From what I have read and have been told, those main founders were Ruth Freeark, Jennifer Joan Taylor, Michael Higgins... But there are others who were there from the beginning: Nancy Kerry, John McDonald.
Then there were so many others who gave their talent and labor to the building of this arts center making it possible for us to enjoy today. People like Garry Henderson, Gail Sellers, Nancy Hejna, John Harmon, Paul D’Amato, and Heather Hug….
While the Riverside Arts Center became a non-profit organization in 1994, a Riverside Arts Council was founded seven years earlier. See this document: signed and sealed by the State of Illinois under then Governor Jim Edgar on August 19, 1987.
What’s the Story?
RAC became a place in our community for artists and for the creation of art. While creating an artwork is often an individual act, art thrives with participation. But we also
An arts center is a place to see, to reflect, to hope, to dream, to resist.
An arts center is a place to create, to make, to tell the story only you can tell.
An arts center exists for all, an art center exists for you.
RAC exists right here, in the center of historic Riverside.
Are you one of those folks who was at RAC from the beginning? Maybe you were here and have a story to tell? Will you share your story with us? We have started an archive to document the artists who came before in postcards and flyers. What’s your story?
Ann Filmer, Executive Director, Riverside Arts Center
