The Rake Magazine

Minnesota's Creative Quarterly, May-July 2008

The word "community" is a casualty of modern parlance. It has become the ubiquitous, near-meaningless catch-all term to designate any group of people, whether they're bound by common cause, bundled by neighborhood, or just united by marketing demographics. For this issue of 10,000 Arts, we're taking a closer look at this slippery notion, with articles that delve into unexpected angles on "arts communities." In "The House that Art Built," artist and curator Scott Stulen offers a glimpse into the DIY passion that fuels the up-and-coming ephemeral gallery, ARThouse, based in New London, Minnesota. Artist Andrea Carlson's essay, "Band of Outsiders," tackles the notion of "ethnic" art head-on, elucidating the pernicious assumptions running through lackadaisical "community" designations. Journalist and architecture critic Todd Melby takes a different approach, collecting the photographs of artists who capture the sublime and mundane — even decrepit — in our structural surroundings.

These collections are created from work on mnartists.com, the very real "virtual" community of artists and art organizations. Have some fun by viewing other collections there, or create your own. Practice makes perfect, and no community affiliation is required.