Call To Action

To Whom It May Concern: June 9, 2020

We are writing to you as former Work Center interns in solidarity with Fine Arts Work Center fellow Joy Priest and all others who have spoken up and are represented in the FAWC Fellows Call to Action Letter. Priest detailed some truly egregious violations of safety and humanity she experienced while at the Work Center in a twitter thread on June 6, 2020. We are writing to affirm the points that are made in the FAWC Fellows Call to Action Letter, which responds to both Priest’s experience and addresses various other experiences of racism and ignorance inflicted by FAWC staff members and the greater Provincetown community. We are also writing this letter in order to express that we as interns not only witnessed many of the issues discussed within the FAWC Fellows Call to Action, but also attempted to address these and other issues with staff members at FAWC during the summer 2019 season, proof of which is provided at the end of this letter. When approaching the staff at FAWC to address these issues by presenting concrete plans of action, we were not taken seriously. Despite our multiple attempts to meet and address the issues at hand, we were ultimately ignored by the staff. This previous dismissal in combination with the numerous other experiences of racism that the FAWC Fellows Call to Action details demonstrates that the staff, directors, and trustees have never shown active interest in addressing these issues.

The Fellowship is advertised as “a unique seven-month residency for emerging writers and visual artists in the crucial early stages of their careers.” The Work Center touts the fellowship as “the gift of time, space and community” and claims “the grounds of the lumberyard had long been a haven for artists.” The very mission of the fellowship, providing writers and artists with resources, space, and community to create, is undermined by the Work Center’s blatant disregard for the safety, security, privacy, and basic needs of its fellows. The mission statement fails to include that these provisions are only guaranteed to white fellows. It is impossible for a fellow at the Work Center to make use of the “time, space and community” or this “haven for artists” if their safety and comfort is very actively neglected and diminished by the institution and the larger outside community of Provincetown. How can an artist be expected to focus on their art when they are constantly having to focus on their survival?

These sorts of events are atrocious and unacceptable. The Fine Arts Work Center attempts to present itself as a diverse and inclusive institution but, as is all too common, proves itself not to be when the institution and the larger community do not make room for the safety, comfort, and needs of artists of color. To claim that this institution has any genuine stake or interest in the safety and lives of artists of color, especially when this sort of behavior is present time and time again, would be a lie. Another issue being ignored by FAWC administration is the racism present in the larger Provincetown community. Provincetown is made up of an overwhelmingly wealthy, white population. During our time as interns it was clear that, because Provincetown has such a large LGBT+ population, many community members felt exempt from facing and dismantling the racist structures present within the town. The fact that white LGBT+ residents are also a minority does not mean that their whiteness and their desire to uphold structures of whiteness are not enacted every day. In addressing racism with FAWC staff within the Work Center it often felt as if FAWC believed that because the surrounding town was largely LGBT+ that the community was safe and inclusive for people of color and that racism in the community was not an issue. This is not the case. To place artists of color in a community that is so obviously dedicated to upholding structures of wealth and whiteness necessitates an administration that is ready to care for, protect, and provide resources to those individuals. The Fine Arts Work Center is failing on the most basic level to be responsive to these needs.

As interns at FAWC during the summer of 2019, our cohort witnessed innumerable micro- and macroaggressions being committed against people of color. First and foremost, the FAWC board is overwhelmingly white. The administration and staff is overwhelmingly white. Even the interns during our summer were all white. When we met to voice our concerns about diversity education at FAWC, the staff initially attempted to quell our concerns on the basis of the executive director having a black husband. We met with staff several times with specific, actionable plans to address the needs of artists of color and low-income artists and were repeatedly dismissed or told that the problems were already being addressed. We voiced concerns about the urgent need for a more diverse staff and board, diversity training for staff, ways to fund artists of color who would benefit from a residency, handicap-accessible facilities, and transparency from administration and staff and attempted as well to address their complete disregard for changing their racist, transphobic language and behaviors.

Issues of accessibility were consistently dismissed. Many students needed the elevator to reach their apartments and classrooms, and it was often out of order. Instead, interns were asked to simply help students that needed the elevator to traverse up and down the stairs. Several times throughout the summer, students in need of elevator access expressed extreme distress over the lack of support. Accessible parking was frequently assigned to students or faculty members who did not require it. Even nights where the FAWC campus was open to the public the spot was often full anyways, and we would have to turn the person that needed the space away. We constantly brought this to the attention of whoever was running the event, but no changes were made.

Despite the work we put in to making FAWC better, it was abundantly clear that administration and staff cared more about not offending their wealthy, white students and donors than about making FAWC a diverse, robust, inclusive artistic community. I speak for all of us when I say we were disturbed by how quickly and easily FAWC staff was able to brush off our legitimate, substantiated concerns.

On a related note, the email that was sent out by FAWC on June 4 quoting Stanley Kunitz, a white American poet, intending to act in solidarity with the current movement in this country seemed more of a way to protect the image of the organization than anything else and is telling of FAWC’s denial of its own exclusivity and whiteness. Structural change, especially in regards to racial justice, can only come about when the person or organization at hand acknowledges their past and current biases and takes action to prevent future grievances committed against people of color at the hands of the individual or organization. Sending an email quoting a white poet is simply not enough. All of this is to say that we corroborate the experience of and stand in solidarity with Joy Priest and the current fellows whose treatment by FAWC has been unacceptable. We echo the fellows in their demands that the Fine Arts Work Center:

1. Grant the immediate request of fellows needing to stay beyond June 15, and refrain from any further actions that disrupt their peaceful living or create a hostile environment. SHELTER IN PLACE SUPPORT FUND

2. Transfer the leadership and administration of the FAWC back to artists through a shared governance model, which was the original condition of the founding and culture of this artist Work Center.

3. Implement an apparatus of protection and support for Black and POC artists and writers who choose to accept this fellowship or attend summer programs.

4. Issue a formal apology as administration acknowledging, and demonstrating an understanding of, their behavior.

5. Establish a culture of transparency by transitioning from a corporate bureaucratic model to a shared governance model.

6. Establish the presence of low-income members of the Work Center community on the Board.

7. Ensure the inclusion of fellows and staff—as elected by recent fellows—from within the last 5 years on a Strategic Planning Committee for the future of the Fine Arts Work Center.

8. Assume real accountability to reckon with how you have handled policing of fellows: All staff, members of the FAWC governing bodies, and fellows must go through anti-racism, anti-classism, and institutional reform training, annually.

If the Fine Arts Work Center is truly dedicated to the growth and development of emerging artists, and if it hopes to continue to have any meaningful role in being a haven or starting place for artists, the organization as a whole needs desperately to do the work required to make it an inclusive, diverse, safe place to live and work.

Sincerely,

Summer 2019 FAWC Interns

Tom Bosworth, Cydnee Devereaux, Dan Roussel, Frances Huntley, Faith Franzonia, Sarah Terrazano, and McKenna Ritter

Receipt of Previous Correspondence with FAWC Staff:

Note: This is the initial letter that the Summer ’19 interns passed on to FAWC staff in July 2019.

Dear Bette, Kelle, Dawn, Richard, and all it may concern,

For those who are available, the interns at FAWC are requesting a meeting with all core staff of the Summer Program and the center. To preface: we love the Work Center. Each of us have found this community kind and welcoming, as well as inspiring. However, we’ve noticed the lack of diversity in the Program—both in faculty and the student population. We understand that no single individual causes this issue; however, the Work Center as an institution seems consistently prohibitive of lesser-privileged artists and writers.

In our time at FAWC, we’ve heard several complaints (from both white students and students of color) about casual racism, ableism, and general discomfort at the current state of the Work Center. While many students are content, there has been a consistent stream of criticism, as well as several faculty and students of color who admitted that their week at FAWC would be their last due to tension in their workshops. Outside of this, students with physical disabilities have been dismayed to find the elevator non-functional, the reserved handicapped spots taken by those without disabilities, and the difficulty of navigating the Work Center in the largely-inaccessible apartments, parking lot, and communal spaces.

As a group, we’ve shared these concerns and expressed some of our own. Again, this comes from a deep love and appreciation of the Work Center. As such, we’d like to be part of improving the experience for everyone. These are not just ideas; we’ve come together to create realistic goals, as well as a plan of action. We hope that in this meeting, we’ll be able to share our plans and bring everyone together under a united front. We’ll also be able to address any questions and concerns you may have. Of course, the implementation and approval of these plans will ultimately be up to you. We hope that we can all work together for the betterment of FAWC.

Please feel free to reply to this email and let us know your availability. We’d really like to gather everyone, if possible. Thank you in advance for reading this, and for your willingness to discuss the future of FAWC’s Summer Program with us.

Sincerely,

The 2019 Interns (Claire, Cydnee, Dan, Faith, Francie, McKenna, Sarah, Tom)

June 13, 2020

Dear Board and Staff of the Fine Arts Work Center:

I am a two-time Poetry Fellow at the Work Center. I love FAWC and I am dedicated to the quality, success, and longevity of the residency. One of the elements that makes the Work Center different from other residencies is the cultural historiography of the place: the idea that FAWC is a space for continued community, mentorship, and fellowship towards the development of the artistic practices of all of the Fellows.

There has been a major breakdown in the culture and community ties that, to me, are the heart of the Work Center. This problem has meant that much needed interventions in the actual functioning of the organization (called for in the Current Fellows Call to Action) have gone unheeded. On-site, the Work Center has had a “laissez-faire” approach that no longer serves the needs of the community. The Current Fellows have asked for several changes and actions that encompass a range of issues—to my lights, some considerations are related to one another, others are stand-alone. It is an overwhelming situation for everyone, I’m sure.

With this in mind, I would like to offer suggestions that may be helpful as the Work Center thinks about how to move forward in answering the call put out by the Fellows. The Work Center has an opportunity in the current months, during the pause in the Fellowship, to rethink who we are, what we want to be, what we stand for. I would encourage the Work Center Staff and Board to reach out to any and all former Fellows for other suggestions and ideas they might have for the future vitality of FAWC.

There are eight items on the Current Fellows demand list, and here are a few simple ways these items might be addressed.

1. There are only five fellows left on the FAWC campus. Grant their stay, and allow them to maintain social-distance practices at their housing until August 15th—or whenever the Emergency Stay-at-Home order ends for the state of Massachusetts. There should be transparency about this process: the Board and Committee chairs should be CC’ed on all communications about this extension.

2. Shared governance means that there is meaningful and consequential input on decision-making between the Fellow-community and the Board and Staff administering the program. One idea is to give the Writing and Visual Committees additional voting power on the Board—in addition to both Committees work as the aesthetic stewards of the Work Center.

3. I was on staff at one residency tasked with rethinking how to support BIPOC artists and writers better. There are best practices FAWC can take advantage of. Some basic take-aways from this process were:

· Designate a staff-person to whom BIPOC fellows can turn to voice these kinds of experiences (and compensate that staff-person appropriately). This may or may not be the Visual or Writing Coordinators, but it should be a person who has training in diversity and inclusion facilitation, someone BIPOC fellows can trust.

· Talk through possible solutions with BIPOC Fellows when they encounter racism and other forms of discrimination to find out what kinds of solutions they would like to see—we are not all a monolith.

· Commit to the documentation (and archiving) of such incidents by creating an incident report protocol.

· Make sure Summer Faculty are all equipped to navigate conversations around difference in their workshops.

· Create a “Contract of Respect” so that Fellows and summer participants know that they are being asked to respect one another’s privacy and boundaries. Be specific and clear on the protocol here, and install consequences for betraying these boundaries.

· Doing nothing, staying silent, “letting things work themselves out” is not support.

4. Apologize to Joy. Apologize for failures to support Fellows (especially BIPOC Fellows) in the past. Commit to attend to the ways the Work Center relates to the wider Provincetown community. Install further cultural scaffolding to make bridges between the Fellows and Ptown. Reframe/reform these relationships to make the safety of the Fellows a real priority.

5. Make sure the actual governance (who makes decisions) at the Work Center is transparent to the Fellows and the wider community. Consider adding this information to the Annual Report. Include a Financial statement (income, expenses, assets, losses) in the Annual Report going forward, including Endowment information. This is fairly standard among nonprofits—and a glaring omission at FAWC.

6. Reform Board Member responsibilities/eligibility so that low-income members of the Work Center community can be included.

7. There should be a Planning Committee established to oversee these changes in the culture and the organization of the Work Center. You might establish, also, an Anti-Racism Task Force. I would suggest that the Board consider including former Fellows on this Task Force (who may not currently be on the Board or Writing or Visual Committees) who are invested in the future of the Work Center and may have time to devote to this. Put out a call. I, for one, would love to help, and I know there are other Fellows who would as well.

8. Schedule the anti-racism, classism trainings that are called for in the Call to Action. This is a simple ask. Commit to anti-racism, accessibility, inclusion by making concrete changes on-site at FAWC. There are two professional diversity and inclusion facilitators I can recommend, if you need.

Again, I believe in the community of Fellows whose art practices and lives have been touched by their time at FAWC. I believe we can do better. I hope FAWC takes this opportunity to become the place it will need to be to continue to fulfill its mission going forward into the next fifty years.

Yrs,

-April Freely

To the Members of the Board and Staff of the Fine Arts Work Center,

My name is Rebecca Orchant, and I am a year-round resident and business owner in Provincetown. I write to you in support of the Fellows' open letter and call to action regarding your failure to protect the BIPOC in your care during this fellowship season. I have donated my time, money, and social support to your organization for years, and I am heartbroken and infuriated by the blatant disregard for the safety and mental health of the Fellows in question.

I write to you in (to use your words) full-throated support of the fulfillment of their list of 8 demands of the Center, which in my view, are simply the bare minimum for an institution of this caliber and reputation. The continued harassment, gaslighting, and ultimate dismissal of Black women being reported in this letter should be unacceptable to any donor or supporter who believes in the mission of FAWC. Your repeated decision to side with neighbors and local police over the artists you claim to be fostering and supporting is inexcusable.

Leadership's choice to deal these Fellows a further blow, by denying them respite during a global pandemic, despite being in control of some of the only reliably available year-round housing -- which would sit vacant otherwise this summer, in light of all summer programs being canceled -- can only be seen as a petty, dangerous retaliation against these artists advocating for their own health and safety, during one of the most tumultuous times in our generation's history.

I can't tell you how disappointed I am, and I look forward to your response to the Fellows, and the community at large.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Orchant

Ptown Business Owner

Richard,

This is Kyle Dacuyan writing from The Poetry Project at St. Mark's in NYC, where I serve as Executive Director. I'm writing to you because I was distressed and angered to read about the experience recent Poetry Fellow Joy Priest described in a public Twitter thread posted today.

As administrators of cultural institutions, we have the wonderful responsibility of supporting writers and artists through critical periods in their development. I am so deeply troubled that again and again at moments throughout her fellowship, it is clear that FAWC was creating an actively harmful environment for Joy, where instances of blatant anti-blackness were continually ignored and compounded.

Richard, we are experiencing a national reckoning with race and anti-blackness specifically, and I urgently feel we in the cultural community need to consider our own complicities and failings. We bear a shared responsibility to more consciously support Black writers and artists, and to think about our work with deeper self-criticality, and it is in this spirit I write to you.

I interpret from Joy's thread that the neighbors who demonstrated repeated hostility toward her are donors to FAWC. I am not unfamiliar with the challenging experience of donors exercising their privilege in ways that can range from unpleasant to harmful. But I urge you to remember that in addition to supporting artists, donors are a part of the cultural community we steward --- we have an opportunity and responsibility to think about how we invite all of our community, including our donors, into the work of anti-racism.

I hope to hear back from you about what steps you intend to take to rectify with Joy the experience she has had at FAWC. The grievances she describes are clear, and also clearly documented. I hope that at the very least, she will be issued some sort of intentional and substantive apology.

I have held FAWC in high regard for many years. Mentors and friends I remain close to have a long relationship with FAWC (Becky Okrent, Gail Mazur, John Skoyles). I have always felt grateful for the accountability and open-mindedness these fellow writers have shown to me when I speak candidly about my difference from them as a person of color.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Kyle Dacuyan

Executive Director, The Poetry Project

Pronouns: Flexible

To the Members of the Board and Staff of the Fine Arts Work Center,

My name is Olivia Cole, and I am an author living in Kentucky. I write to you in support of the Fellows' open letter and call to action regarding your absolute failure to protect the people in your care. I am a huge fan of Joy Priest’s work and genius, and I am deeply angered and heartbroken by what she suffered while in your care.

I write to you to express my unwavering support of the Fellows’ list of demands, and call on you to go above and beyond as you search your hearts and mission. To repeatedly allow the harassment and belittling of Black women whose art you claim to value, placing them in great physical and psychological danger, flies in the face of everything you claim to believe. Your decisions to side with the police and volatile neighbors – who seem to see the Fellows as convenient targets for racist, predatory behavior – expose you as collusive in the very system your recent email claims to resist. You want to “eradicate racism”?

Start at home, in the mirror, at FAWC.

Our country is facing two pandemics, and you throw your Fellows to the wolves of both. You must not only right the wrongs you stood by to allow, but also extend the shelter of the people you endangered. It is the literal least you can do, and you must do much, much more. I will be waiting and watching for you to do the right thing. I stand with the Fellows.

Sincerely,

Olivia Cole, Novelist

To the members of the board and staff of the Fine Arts Work Center:

My name is Mariana Robertson and I am a year-round resident of Truro. I have been a supporter of the Fine Arts Work Center because of the strength and importance of the fellows’ work. I have felt incredibly lucky to live in the town adjacent to such incredible artists and awed by the work they make while here.

The FAWC must go beyond appearing to support its Black, POC, and low-income fellows and ensure that these demands are met, and that future fellows need not make public statements (putting themselves at risk) in order for their concerns to be heard and acted upon.

I hope that the Fine Arts Work Center will recognize what an incredible gift they have been given. The fact that the fellows have put such care towards a list of actionable demands indicates that, apparently often in spite of itself, the Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship has led to real community. The FAWC has a chance to step up to the plate and fulfill its stated commitment to supporting the emergence of voices calling for change – I urge them not to miss this chance.

Sincerely,

Mariana Robertson

06/9/20

To The Members of the Board and Staff of the Fine Arts Works Center,

My name is Brian Tierney, I am a poet, and I am writing you to voice my unequivocal support for the Fellows’ letter and the eight demands outlined therein, and to throw my weight behind their calls for tangible accountability, apology, and corrective action.

Based on that letter, which outlines a status quo of institutionally racist and anti-black behaviors, as well as active disregard for the well-being of Black, POC, and low-income fellows on multiple fronts, it is clear that you have failed, in even a basic sense, to protect the rights of fellows you have chosen to allegedly “support,” and in doing so, have failed your own inherent mission to support artists by establishing a literal space for them to create in safety and comfort. Joy Priest’s account is particularly damning in this regard and distressing to read, since it bears witness to FAWC doubling harm done to Joy Priest’s dignity as an artist and, most importantly, a sense of literal physical safety as a person of color. I cannot think of a greater failing, on the part of a literary institution, than “failing to be present for, intervene in, mediate or protect fellows against policing and a frequent police presence on property weaponized by neighbors,” as the letter says, or the use of “violent, racist, racially charged, and misgendering language toward or about fellows.” As a poet, I am appalled by these accounts of blatant hostility from a literary institution.

If you cannot create a literal space for your Black, POC, and LGBTQIA fellows to feel safe in, in a bodily and psychological sense, then how can you claim to support their artistry? If a donor is leaning on the institution, weaponizing their whiteness against Black and POC fellows, then your allegiance should be with your fellows, not with money, power, donors, nor whatever else you seem to have been prioritizing over the rights and safety of your fellows.

In a recent letter released by FAWC, one that now feels egregiously if not calculatingly hypocritical, you called upon writers to “lend their voices…to eradicate racism in our country.” I call on you to look in the mirror, look at the letter and its demands, and make the changes necessary to ensure you are no longer in allegiance with corporatized, weaponized whiteness, and that you work quickly and honestly to meet the demands outlined in the letter.

Brian Tierney