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So I previously reported on this (when I passed by these two banners), but here's a cool update.

I dropped an email to the mayor and councilors, and got bounced around to Peter Coyle. He was the right person to be bounced to! We met to talk about including more social justice friendly public art in downtown Durham.

Turns out he's "in charge" of coordinating the many, many Durham government departments who need a say in public art projects. He's done some cool work, and is a great storyteller and natural historian. He gave me some seemingly incredible contacts in the Mary Duke Biddle...etc. foundation who may be interested in projects or have great social justice stories about downtown Durham to tell. In the process of an incredible meeting with him, we passed by the new Parrish street site of the historical preservation society.

There I met three more folks interested in public art, traded contact info and learned about what they did!

Went home, and followed up with each one by email. I've set up a meeting with Rachel of the new Sanford Institute center overseeing social justice and history projects. Cool stuff - I've a connection to that project through being a SOL alum, so I'm looking forward to being a resource. I also passed on Dr. Iris Carlton-LaNey's contact info, because she rocks.

Some good practices from this:

using meeting one person to meet lots of folks interested in similar work
committing to follow-up within 24 hours (which nabbed me some follow-up meetings)
always having contact info (business cards or whatever) handy
passing on other resources who's influence I want to increase immediately

Looking forward to see where this goes!

Labels: community projects, Durham, Public Art