 One, I'm James Malan, welcome to this episode of Talk of the Town. I get to talk to the director of the ACA, the Arlington Center for the Arts, Tom Formicola for this Talk of the Town ACA update. Tom, always a pleasure to welcome James to the studio. Good to see you again. Absolutely. You come solo today for the first time in a while, and we'll try not to be too hard on you. Everybody else is too busy to join me. Well, it is a super busy time of the year. It always is with the ACA. And I know, though, that you're looking at camp next week because it's absolutely, yeah, just like that. And we'll be in summer before we know it, but that's part of what we'll be talking about today. Great. So we always like to use these conversations, obviously, to, you know, actually, sometimes we revisit things that have happened since we last spoke to you. And if that should that come up, we will be happy to hear. But most often, we're looking forward. We're wanting to let people know what's going on specifically at the ACA and specifically probably over the next two or three months or so. So that's what we'll do today. And it's easy to know where to start because the ACA has a major event coming up at the end of this month. I'd like you to start there, if you don't mind. Just about two weeks away. Mark your calendars. Saturday, April 29th, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., we'll be presenting our new fundraiser called Spotlight ACA for folks who loved the blue jean ball. It has all of the great components that were part of the blue jean ball and more. And you can wear your tux. And I'm going to actually go the opposite way because people are like, oh, but I loved wearing my blue jeans. You could still wear your blue jeans. We encourage you to. And there will still be lots of music and lots of dancing. In fact, we'll have three bands with us that night. Made in the shade Trio is going to be playing folks in as they arrive that evening. And we'll have a jug band playing on the first floor to get people sort of warmed up and ready to go, ready to party. And then later in the evening, Tall Mall, which is a very popular porch fest band, will sort of close out the night with a really fun set that includes everything from Bollywood to Abba and everything in between that you can imagine. Wow. Well, that sounds like fun. But it also, in addition to that, it sounds like a lot of fun. But I love the choice in a lot of ways of the music as well because certainly the last two that you mentioned are so kind of interwoven with the ACA already. You were here talking with a guest about jug bands and jug band music not that long ago. Porch Fest is obviously another thing we'll talk about today and something that is huge in town and huge for the ACA. What a wonderful kind of confluence. So it's funny that you should use that word interwoven because that's exactly what we tried to sort of incorporate with this new fundraiser is to try to give folks like a little taste of all of the things that we do all year long. You mentioned the jug band, it's in Talmala's of Porch Fest band. We're going to have several artists that are going to be doing demos. We're going to have a ceramics demo up in the ceramic studio. Somebody will be doing paper weaving. Somebody else is going to be doing embroidery. We're going to have a fun interactive activity that will sort of conjure up a feeling of a camp. People have access to a new exhibit. We'll talk more about that in a minute. In our gallery. So the whole night is sort of dedicated to giving people just sort of a little taste of all the wonderful things that ACA provides to the community throughout the year. Yeah, it sounds like just about like a kind of celebration slash open house where you're really inviting people because again that's also different from blue jean ball as you've said. In the past the blue jean ball has been held quite often in town hall in the auditorium which is as we know a magnificent space for such things. But this means that by placing this event right in your facility people will be able again to explore all the facets of what you do in a single evening. So technically it's in the Arlington Community Center. There you go. Sorry about that. And the funny thing is their address is 27 Maple Street and the Arlington Center for the Arts is address is 20 Academy Street. But guess what? It's the same building. And so it is great to be like at home and doing that event and we get to do that because of the you know the generosity of the town and our great neighbors in that building including the council on the aging and the health department. Yeah, and let's talk for a second about just the importance of this. I mean obviously we've talked about how nice it will be to be there and how proud you are of the kind of components that you've already put together without taking anything away from that. I think I'd also just want to remind people that this is hugely impactful for the community as well, right? Because I remember the fundraising efforts that happened years ago when they're the move to this new space needed to happen and how the town responded at that point. Talk a little bit about that. Sure. Well we're hoping to raise $30,000 through this event and it is I mean it's built to be a fun social event. But it is also meant to like sort of remind folks that we're a not-for-profit organization and we survive because of the generosity and the kindness of community members who participate in that whole range of programs including Porch Fest or who take classes with us or who will drop it and see an exhibit. And this is just sort of a gentle reminder to them that we want them to celebrate us but we also want them to remember that like supporting us is important as well because the work that we do isn't possible without their engagement and without their support. Yeah and I mean it's a different thing right to kind of come together around it wasn't an emergency exactly but it wasn't by you know it wasn't a choice that meant moving from what is now the Gibbs School to this new space. And it's again one thing for the community to recognize oh my goodness this is an important moment for us to reach into our pockets etc. But as you're saying I mean your work goes on every week of every year and in order to do that this needs to the money needs to keep funneling in. Yeah I'm happy to say this isn't an emergency moment we're doing well like we're you know we've come out of COVID stronger than we went into it I think in many ways and we're growing and we're trying to serve more people and we're trying to serve them in better ways like we're always trying to improve our programs and deepen the experiences that people have and in order for us to do that you know it takes a staff it takes great teachers you know we rent a building you know there are expenses associated with that and and it's it's not enough to replicate that year after year at the end of every year we we look back at what we did we think oh you know we could do that better if we had some more resources so this is about you know growth. All right so let us just before we move on to other topics let's just remind folks one more time Saturday April 29th from 7 to 10 p.m. tickets are on sale now you can get them on our website and and it's gonna be a fun night like it's it's gonna be a really fun night wear your blue jeans bring your dancing shoes. Excellent okay we have some other stuff to talk about too. Let's let's take the rest of it maybe chronologically or something I know that there's a new exhibit opening also around the same time at the end of this month. So we're installing it right now and it's called reunion 10 Iranian artists ten years later we have an instructor who works regularly with us her name is Bahareh Safarani and with her sister together the Safarani sisters are curating this show they are both from Iran they went to the University of Tehran and they studied art there and they have assembled a show that is essentially showcasing the work of their colleagues and they all graduated 10 years ago and it's a it's a beautiful show with a beautiful range of work mostly painting and drawing and it's you know one of the things that's really striking about it is that it's so different from the show that we just took down which was a fiber arts show it was which was very colorful and very playful and this is more thoughtful and contemplative and and provocative and and and the works make you stop they stop you in your tracks and you really want to sort of get inside those images and and understand them better it's it's beautiful work it opens on Thursday the 27th of April so two days before our exhibit and the folks that come to our fundraiser will be among the first folks to actually get a sneak peek at at that exhibit so we're we're really excited about it I do like the fact that you brought up that contrast between the fiber arts you know exhibit that just closed and this one that will be opening because I do think that again it reminds folks of the range of excellent art experiences that are possible within your building there are other galleries in town but most of those are very kind of topic specific or subject specific and yours you kind of run the gamut you said we might take a look backwards and I'll go backwards for a minute so we just closed that exhibit like a week ago maybe two weeks ago and we have in the time that we've been in this building and the time that I've been at the ACA which is going on four years believe it or not I've never seen this kind of response to an exhibit before like there were there were tens of people coming in every day and and that's unusual you know we're on the third floor of a building that's kind of off the main track you gotta know you gotta be getting there on purpose yeah word was out and and people were coming and they were coming back and bringing friends and and we did some really interesting programming with that art as a backdrop you know I think the the thing about this fiber arts show was called labor of life was that the work that was on display was sort of unexpected I don't think the show looked like anything that anybody imagined it would look like the works were really creative and really interesting and and we did a fun fishbowl discussion with the artists nine of the artists from that show sort of sat in a circle and the audience sat in circles around them and they had a conversation and I remember when somebody suggested when someone proposed to me the idea that that's what you're gonna do I thought oh come on that's never gonna work nine people are gonna talk it was beautiful wow and it was so great to hear like these artists not only share information about their own work but to ask each other questions about like their technique and their process and their inspiration I'll bet they had a really good time too I think that they really did and and we also a few nights after that there's a new poet laureate in town I imagine you've talked to not yet okay we will be gene flan again who incidentally is one of the founders of the aca but she assembled the L wife poets to come and they created and presented an evening of poetry and the readings were inspired by the the work on the walls and they came and they spent time with that work and then they did a beautiful reading and again we had it's a small space but even so we had a sold out crowd on a Monday night on a rainy Monday night for that poetry reading I'm really proud of that yeah so you know again as if we needed any more proof this is a good this is a good time right now at daca this is a rich and fertile time yeah good excellent um so speaking well you know continuing I think with the theme um teen artists on the issues is something that you've done before and we've talked about before but I understand there's a new program this year this is our third year and that program changes every year we haven't to date like just run with one discipline we've decided every year to shake it up a little bit uh we are working with an excellent artist his name is Gustavo Barcelona he teaches regularly in our program we knew that we wanted to do this with him in particular he's a super talented um ceramics artist and he's a really thoughtful guy and he's an activist himself and um he's really interested in social justice issues and he just jumped at the chance to work with local teenagers and uh and he so we're doing a program on ceramics and social justice which strikes everybody's ear is a little funny because everyone's like what and he is looking both at functional works and at um symbolic works representational works and so I'm I can't wait to see what comes out of the conversations that they're having and the collaborations that are happening in that classroom but there's a lot of talk about social justice and issues and um and the issues that that these young people care about and then there's talk about how they can engage community members in conversation about those issues you know I don't know that they're going to do any of these things in particular but like you know one example is like you know a soup bowl is meant to nourish people and um and so there's sort of a representational you know aspect to that by the same token it's you know it's very functional right but there's also you know um sculptures we're gonna be doing I don't have the date in my head but in the middle of June we're gonna we're gonna do a public um conversation with the teenagers and show their work and it's gonna be at the robbins library so people who are interested in that should take and everyone should be interested in that uh uh should take a look on our website and see when that's gonna be but it'll be around the middle of June and these are like really like sharp young people and and Gustavo is so good and they're working so well together and I think they're just going to create something that's going to fascinate all of us yeah you know my my experience here at ACMI and in other ways of dealing with youth in Arlington it they are there are a lot of impressive young kids and their commitment to social issues and issues of great societal impact are is it it's clear I think most people understand what I'm talking about if you're talking if you're interacting with teenagers you know that they care about their world and about the threats to it about the things to celebrate about the inequities there and etc etc so the idea that you would be kind of empower or this this program is going to be empowering them to actually to to let their voices be heard in a different in different media or in a different media over time some of them have experience with ceramics some of them don't have experience ceramics some of them come to this because of their strong interest in ceramics some of them come to this because of their strong interest in social justice so I would also be remiss if I didn't mention that we're this is the third year that we've done a program like this and we offer this program for free and it's an intensive program and it's it it plays out over 10 weeks and you know it's really important for us to to lower the barriers or the obstacles to participation in a program like this and so you know we we we want people to participate also this is by application and we had more this was the first year we actually had more applications than students that we could serve which is exciting and sad simultaneously right of course it's a mark of success obviously in a lot of ways but also you never you don't want to say no to anybody especially around something like this last thing i'll say about that is that i really like the model that you've got there very much again as a former teacher i just like the idea that what you're doing is offering access to everybody at least potentially right but also uh expecting a commitment which is a serious commitment on their part and if they can do their part you're happy to do your part i like that arrangement in case any of those teens are watching i should say this out loud as well the applications were all great without exception i mean we actually asked the kids to talk about the social issues that they're interested in and why they think art is important and we got amazing answers to those questions and we had intended to like all sit down as a group and go through those applications and say this one but not that one and that one but not this one we couldn't do it and so we literally just threw all the names into a hat oh and it was a kind of almost a lottery yeah yeah because there were there were no there was no qualitative way to do it they were all fabulous there's there if we had room for all of them we would have loved to serve all of them but it's a ceramic studio and unfortunately like it just doesn't expand easily that's right well i'm glad that you had uh you know had an opportunity to mention that as well because that's super important and hopefully some are all of those kids are going to tune into this okay a couple more things to talk about one that for sure is already on everybody's radar and that is porch fest of course because who doesn't love porch fest right so saturday june 17th mark your calendars we have the date if it rains it'll be sunday june 18th but it's not going to rain um registration opened about a month ago and we already have a lot of folks registered as porches and we have a lot of folks registered as bands so if you're thinking about it that's an important thing to think about everyone is invited to participate in porch fest and and we you know think of that word banned you know sort of very liberally you know somebody called the other day because they wanted to present a group of dancers great go for it we have visual artists that want to like bring a group together and display visual art terrific sounds fabulous right so it doesn't strictly speaking it doesn't have to be music but you know i always say to everybody that they need to think about the the registration system we have a sort of a kind of dating system like you know porches can register and bands can register and then their job is to to match right and it's their job to match like you know people are always surprised to learn that we don't curate porch fest we don't choose the stages we don't choose the bands like this is very much a community built you know event and and we trust the community to make the choices that like suit them best and so you know we're off to a grand start we had an info session lots of folks showed up with great questions we had 8,000 people last year and we seem to be tracking at a like more enthusiastic rate than we did last year so like it could be big it'll be from 12 until 6 p.m we as the Arlington Center for the Arts is the facilitator of porch fest we're the presenter and and we try to think carefully about just setting down some ground rules that make it easy for people to participate and understand what their roles are and understand the importance of their roles as porches and bands and audience members and one of the things that we talk a lot about is the importance of being a good neighbor and so we have two zones an east zone and a west zone west of town hall is activated from 12 p.m until 4 p.m east of town hall is is activated from 2 p.m to 6 p.m right and then so there's a two hour overlap in the middle and you know that's by design because we don't want to I know you started out with everybody loves porch fest but there are a few folks out there it's not their thing and that's okay yeah good I'm sure they have other interests and that's just fine but like you know it's it's important to us like this is a community building event and so I think everybody agrees that like everybody loves community celebration and so we just try to say you know be respectful tell your neighbors what's going on like no surprises if somebody asks you to turn it down a little bit turn it down a little bit you know just if there's another band playing nearby make sure that you're not competing with one another and and like just enjoy what's going to be a beautiful sunny warm day um and I I really like I don't know if this is happening in other communities as well it probably is but I love what you said at the outset about the fact that you're being very kind of flexible and how you see these performances and that you are going to be inclined to say yes rather than no and try and figure out just you know how how or let folks figure out how well that you know how that will work best but I love that attitude in general the attitude of saying yes it's very ACMI as well and the fact that it is expansive enough it's a truly a community celebration and of course it's it has its roots in and is it is largely a music event as well but there are that you know there's all kinds of possibilities there's no reason to like limit it yeah no I think that that sounds great okay I think we've got one last thing that we should at least touch on you know I remember you giving the date for porch fest months ago because it's something that people do put on their calendars for you know way early this is something else that we've also talked about before because it's just such a big part of what ACA does every year and that is summer camp which you know I know we're not yet at April break very shortly but summer will be here as we all know so we have our dress rehearsal next week with April camp is that right and then all right of course right and then on June 26th we jump in for 10 weeks of camp it'll run through September 1st this year as you know it's a thematic camp we serve uh you know kids from um ages five essentially to high school age students as well and uh registration opened in January and wow the response was like daunting um but our system actually broke down for a few minutes because 300 people were trying to register at once what is this a Taylor Swift concert yes we were making that joke as well um so I mean there's a lot of enthusiasm for this program there's also a lot of need for this program I mean people really count on us you know for the summer to make sure that their kids are having like just really good quality summer fun creative experiences and we take that seriously so we'll have 10 full weeks of really great programming both in our space at Arlington Center for the Arts and at St. Paul's where we've been operating for many years as well over on route two you know lots of great teachers in the mix you know Harry Potter week is back it's always like a really popular week we're like exploring you know underwater creatures and you know worlds of the future and outer space and you know every every week is different than the week before yep yep well it is as I said it's it's it's a lock on a lot of people's calendars and uh as you say it's both exciting time but also a real kind of service to families here in Arlington who want to give you know make sure their kids have really excellent and fulfilling experiences and also want to know that they're taking care of right right and taking care of well and I remember going back some years now uh talking to you about how you were setting summer camp up during COVID and how you were trying and or and just as as we were edging our way out and stuff like that and the fact that it's summer and you can be outside so you can do some more stuff than otherwise but you have to be really and you were so thoughtful and meticulous and careful about all the different components that would reassure parents in the community that you're really doing this right it must be kind of nice not to have to worry about some of those extra constraints but they're still in the picture and we do still have some COVID you know policies because we want to we want to keep our camp community healthy and we want to be able to continue to run our camp program and so but it's it's not it's not like it was yeah I mean we have a lot more room to navigate uh which is great and I have to like say even though there's no staff sitting on either side of me like you know I couldn't do this without like the amazing staff that works at the ACA like really thoughtful people who never stop asking questions and are really comfortable challenging one another which is one of like my favorite things about working with like this team is like you know I will just sometimes this might surprise you but I have a way of just asserting things and um and my staff will just say I don't know about that and I have to tell you I love that I love that the conversation is always ongoing I love that people feel comfortable asking questions and challenging an idea right because it makes us better and start you know and I have to say that kind of culture does come from the top down so I'm glad to hear that I mean it really does and it's really good because it allows it allows and encourages people to be adults and to be able to disagree with each other respectfully and figure out with the understanding that you're going to figure out how to do this best through that and you know that that's true in every context and I learn from my staff every day they they manage up really well you're getting better and better say your staff so good all right well Tom anything that we've missed we've got a minute left don't have any details yet but there's going to be a jug band festival in the fall surprise probably late september early october seems like everything every time you start something new it catches and then you're going to you know you get to do it some more after that somebody said to me the other day when does like summer camp planning start and I said well I used to say the day after the camp ends summer camp ends but actually in the last years it's actually started a couple weeks before that even so it's you know it's you're always looking at the next six months right so maybe in the next aca update we talk about 2025 or something like that we'll see I might be able to do that all right I have been speaking and obviously enjoying myself with Tom Formicola he is the executive director at the Arlington Center for the Arts this has been talk of the town an aca update we appreciate Tom's time he's a busy guy and we appreciate yours as well thanks so much for joining us I'm James Milan we'll see you next time