photo of the No. 7 train by eastvillagedenizen

Last Wednesday, I spent the day in Queens with David Gonzalez who writes for the New York Times.  He brought with him two things:

1) a desire to know how and why art is important to people in communities

2) a prayer for parking spots.

Sounds like a journey.  Or a knowledge quest.  I immediately saw it as a Dance Floor and Balcony moment.

I read about this intriguing metaphor on Beth Kanter’s blog which is a must read for anyone with a passion for changing the world.  The term comes from titled Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading with Marty Linsky and Ron Heifetz .

The idea is the “balcony” is the overarching, big picture and the “dance floor” is when we’re in the thick of operations or “on the ground”.  Creative thinkers  need to shift between the two viewpoints to be effective.

In our case, we were shifting between perspectives from the single unifying train rumbling above us to the densely diverse neighborhoods below the tracks.

We went to three places located along the route of the No.7 train, “the International Express”,  and the sites of our upcoming Queens Art Express spring festival this June.  David’s dance card included a business owner, a local gallery dealer, a community activist/art presenter, a cafe owner and the community development manager from Queens Public Television.

In Long Island City, we had coffee at Dorian’s Cafe with Brian Adams of the Hunters Point Merchants Association and Mark Dean of the Dean Project.  An interesting question we discussed was:  Is art the reason or the vehicle for people to cross the river to Queens?

Thank God for GPS.

It got us to Jackson Heights where we found the place we were looking for and we found a parking spot.  Azval  Hossein, the owner of Espresso 77 and Bryan Pu-Folkes, a lawyer and a presenter of the Jackson Heights food and Film Festival talked about how the closing of the only two theatres in Jackson Heights forced the festival to cancel its events last year.  However, what the members of the community were doing to seek alternative spaces and holding impromptu artist gatherings are perhaps blessings in disguise.

Finally, in Flushing.  We met Catherine Lee of Crossing Art Gallery and Ros Nieves from Queens Public Television and got into a conversation about niche.  Catherine will be holding a workshop to interest doctors in investing in art.  Her building is filled with doctors who are currently not investing in real estate or stocks.  That sounds like a niche to me.

David got to talk to a lot of people with all kinds of relationships with art and community.  What did I get?

A prayer for parking spots that goes like this:

Mother Cabrini, Mother Cabrini

Find me a space

For my little machini

It worked for us.