Social Environment 8.4: Arts and Culture

The beauty, character, and quality of life have inspired the creative expression in many residents and visitors, and attracted many creative people to move to the Vineyard. The Island has a thriving arts and culture community, involving and supported by both the year-round and seasonal populations. For a small community, the Island has a remarkably broad range of cultural institutions, including a museum, playhouse, arts center, dance center, nightclubs, chamber music, native culture center, and several institutions focused on nature and farming. In addition, there are many libraries, historic buildings, museums, festivals, fairs, lecture series, and galleries. Venues for performing arts include the 791-seat Performing Arts Center at the High School, and about twenty smaller locales.

The arts and culture are important to the Vineyard economy, both directly in terms of the business they generate, and more substantially, indirectly in terms of their contribution to the Vineyard’s role as a destination resort which is the foundation of the Vineyard’s property values and economy. Some of the Vineyard cultural institutions and artists are significant on the national level.

Nevertheless, there is a sense that the Vineyard could be doing a much better job supporting the arts and of taking full advantage of the cultural potential of the Island, both for personal fulfillment of residents and visitors, and for the economic benefit of the community.

Objective S4: Increase coordination of and support to the arts and culture community in order to bring various groups together, to foster cultural expression, to support the diverse for-profit and non-profit arts sector, to promote Vineyard culture to the local and visiting community, and to increase cultural tourism.

·  Strategy S4-1: Create an Arts/Cultural Collaborative: An entity could take the leadership in supporting, coordinating, and promoting arts and culture on the Vineyard. The collaborative could offer artists or groups assistance or training in the business aspects of their creative pursuits, such as marketing, group purchasing, inventory, shipping, billing and taxes. It could create and maintain a database directory, help coordinate event calendars (e.g. gallery openings, performances, courses), take on promotion (e.g. weekly show on upcoming events on MVTV or Plum TV), and help solicit funding (e.g. grants, fundraising).

·  Strategy S4-2: Create a Vineyard Art/Cultural website: A single website could provide information about or links to all cultural organizations, instructors, musicians, artists, nightclubs, activities, and events. This could be done by expanding an existing website (such as MVOL, Tickets MV, or Vineyard Voice) or by creating a new site.

·  Strategy S4-3: Set up an Island-wide Arts Festival:  A festival held before the summer season – to make residents, visitors, and hospitality workers aware of the broad diversity of Vineyard culture – might result in them informing their guests and clients throughout the summer. The festival could include an open house with demonstrations at all Vineyard cultural institutions and shuttle buses linking venues. It might be possible to hold this Memorial Day weekend (when there are already several large arts events such as the Family Planning Art Show at the Ag Hall and the Artisans Festival at the Grange).

Strategy S4-4: Foster an increased offering of courses and workshops: Courses and workshops on topics such as writing, painting, music, and cooking -- especially in the off-season – would be of interest to residents, and learning vacations based on these activities could be promoted.