In this column, ACA staff members reflect on what we are reading, what we are thinking about, and how our work and creative lives intersect. For this issue, we asked Flannery Patton, ACA’s Director of Engagement + Outreach, to reflect on hospitality and what it means to create the structures, spaces, and conditions that allow people to feel supported, connected, and ready to take a leap.
I first walked through the doors of ACA over a decade ago. A big pile of artist handbooks from members sat on my temporary desk—a wondrous list of what artists-in-residence could expect on day one at programs all over the globe. I love that this field asks practitioners to think deeply about holding space for others and what it means to host in a way that is generative, restorative, and vital. Care of people, care of ideas, and care of the land.
A thread that runs through the roles I have held at ACA is setting the table for support for the network that comes to us: individuals at all stages of their careers, programs running with the full gamut of models and budgets, practitioners in various moments of burnout or inspiration. I want ACA to show robust usefulness and offer a generous landing pad of connection, translation, humor, responsiveness, and resources.
I am a big fan of the reality show Couples Therapy. The show adopts a fly-on-the-wall posture toward real therapy sessions in NYC. The show’s central therapist, Orna Guralnik, is a sort of acrobat of space-holding. She brings acute presence and curiosity—eyes alight, hair somewhat askance, leaning in and back in turn as she asks and then listens, asks then listens. The most impressive of her talents revealed through the show is how much pacing, structure, and containment she creates in order to make a shift possible. The sessions don’t spiral wherever they might. There are pauses. There are boundaries. There are moments when she slows things down, stops a sentence mid-flight, or brings someone back to what is actually happening in the room. Precise and beautiful care revealed as structure and navigation.
When my now four-year-old was still a three-year-old, she loved Cocomelon and sang many of the songs with high frequency. One of her favorites went:
About to do something new,
About to do something new,
I know I can do it,
Hop, skip, jump into it.
Let’s go!
She would sing it with conviction and launch into a big jump toward whatever activity or location we were headed for. It was really, really cute. But it also made me unexpectedly emotional in moments—watching her steel herself to bring her full attention to a big leap and give herself the confidence to move forward.
In some ways, hospitality feels like an invitation to engage in newness. To show up with a degree of awe for each other and one’s own role, and an active curiosity about the potential in our being together. To notice what each person is carrying into the room and the ways it might be held. To commit to bringing a well-thought-out structure and container for whatever we seek to further—to plan, to prepare, and to anticipate. And then to show up and take that leap.
Let’s go!
| Flannery Patton is the Director of Engagement and Outreach at ACA. With more than 18 years of experience in the arts and culture sector, she has held fundraising and programming roles at organizations including Rhode Island Public Radio (now The Public’s Radio), the International Institute of Rhode Island, and the Downtown Providence Parks Conservancy. She is passionate about fostering synergies between organizations to build lasting, impactful connections. A 2006 graduate of Brown University, Flannery has made Providence home ever since (with the exception of last year which she spent in Lisbon). She lives with her husband and daughter, Avey. |
We’d love to hear from you. Send your questions or reflections to ebasada@artistcommunities.org for a chance to be featured in an upcoming issue of our newsletter, Waypoints.