This is an educational and interactive Community ARTS Resource Exchange. Please feel free to download any information that may benefit a community arts program in your area. We would love your input... Introduction Mission and Goals Guiding Practices Events Peace Event Documents Links Click on images to see a larger version. Pages Created by: Paul Hillman 37249 hits since 08/9/2010		The Mission of the Cultural Arts Coalition, Arizona: 501 (c) 3, a nonpartisan organization in existence since 2005: stimulates creative, analytical and leadership development for personal transformation and collective change through celebrations and multidisciplinary learning experiences. Vision: The CAC envisions individuals and communities enriched with practices, tools and skill sets to empower awareness and advocacy for self and others, honoring diverse cultural values, nurturing relationships that support a sense of belonging and respect within a larger community and recognizing the value of each individual. A commitment to documentation keeps stories and milestones alive for remembrance and reflection, personally and collectively, in the form of published documents, media, art works and exhibitions. In Practice: The Cultural Arts Coalition builds upon individual and community capacities and resources through core values and guiding principles of practice (http://artsCARE.org/cac3.text.shtml). Coalition work is collaborative, egalitarian, relationship-oriented and celebrative. Through educational programming the Cultural Arts Coalition provides safe spaces for reflective thinking, dialogue, and action (utilizing the arts as symbolism and metaphor) to explore universal human themes. Experiences are focused on personal growth as well as community action, toward an enhanced quality of life for all. Since ancient human history, people have had a need to represent their beliefs, values and emotions in physical, artistic forms taking the shape of symbols, symbolic objects and performance. These metaphors can be more powerful than language as a means of communication. The Cultural Arts Coalition believes that everyone can use the arts to Reflect, Express and Discover. Every person can Create, regardless of age, economics, social position, education, geography, gender, culture, or any other aspect of human existence. In this purposeful manner of art making, the value of the created object is in the one who created it. The object is a representation of its maker. Practitioners with the Cultural Arts Coalition use art making and cultural forms as modalities to enrich the life journey of every person, individually and in community. "Many community cultural development projects are built around learning experiences. Overall, the aim is to transmit particular arts- related skills while helping to develop critical thinking and establish a clear link between the two capabilities, thought leading to action." Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development. D. Adams & A. Goldbard, p.28. The communities the Cultural Arts Coalition honors are sustained by your participation. Please contact: judy butzine - jhb6@mindspring.com or Melanie Ohm - melanie@conceptsconsultinggroup.com to answer questions.