Lately I’ve wondered exactly how important this is (even though, responsible aspects aside, I’d still <em>like</em> to be able to somehow quantify the felt need). So I have a question for you:

<strong>If we build it, will they come?</strong>

Is it a step of faith to move forward on such a large project without being able to say, “I have the names of 150 people who want to be residents at the center.” Or is it foolhardy, akin to building a tower without a plan?

The retreat in question is called Kalein. Don’t ask me how to pronounce it. If I recall correctly, I attempted to ask him a few questions via Twitter about the retreat center, but wasn’t very satisfied with the answers. This, of course, may be a problem with the chosen mode of communication. Regardless, I revisited the Kalein website this morning in the course of an email conversation and it got me to thinking about some retreat related things again.

While the website isn’t very clear about what Kalein actually is (or if it’s actually up and running yet as a physical place; it does already have a board of directors, but also still lists start-up costs), it’s described on the About page in terms very similar to my own idea:

“Kalein exists to provide a place to encourage and equip gifted artists of all genres (i.e. songwriting, screen writing, sculpting, fashion design, culinary arts, painting, writing, cinematography, communication, comedy, etc.) and leaders to discover, develop and discipline their dreams.”

“An esthetically pleasing and solitary refuge where respected and recognized master teachers provide personal training, encouragement and mentoring to small groups of leaders and artists.”

Mr. Elrod also lists, as I eluded to above, start-up costs for the retreat center. They come to approximately $2.7 million dollars. I did similar math a couple of years ago and came up with a very similar number. Working out the idea from the ground up is not an inexpensive proposition.

Recently my wife suggested we think about starting out in our own house (when we get a house large enough for such an idea). Another more economically feasible idea, it seems to me, is to look for an existing farmstead or acreage, something I’ve mentioned before. The other day I saw this in our local newspaper’s classifieds:

Reduced to $249,000. or possible lease with purchase option. Acreage 12.5 acres. 1.5 acres of bluegrass, w/ underground sprinklers. 3,500 sq ft. home, 4 bedrooms 3 baths, 4,000 sq.ft. Heated Garage.

Of course, we can’t afford $250k at the moment either without a lot of help, but it’s a lot more personally attainable than $2.7 million. The location isn’t my favorite, but it could work and would be plenty large to get going. And I wish it were a 4,000 square foot barn and not a “garage”, but again, it would work.

Another thing Kalein has me thinking about is the number of somewhat similar ideas floating around out there right now. My wife and I are fans of collaboration, partnerships, when they present themselves, and if at all possible we want to avoid unnecessarily duplicating other efforts. There is a limited quantity of both manpower and funding in the faith-based nonprofit realm. We hope to work within the larger Body of Christ as efficiently as possible. If someone else gets around to founding a comparable retreat center before we do that’s just fine and dandy. However, comparable is the key word here. From what I can tell, my idea — the wife and I really need to come up with a name for this thing so I don’t have to call it “my idea” anymore — still bears a number of unique facets that I believe warrant a unique effort. The three facets that most readily come to mind are the longer stays, the strict focus on the tactile or plastic arts (which the church seems to have a harder time with than music, writing, drama etc) and a focus on getting these artists plugged into cross-cultural missions work.

This morning was the first time I realized that there might also be validity in multiples. I like the Great Plains for a location. My wife and I understand and believe in Kathleen Norris’ assertion that the Plains foster a contemplative spirit. We might be somewhat biased though, having both grown up on these flat lands. They are our roots. Other people might might prefer the beach or the mountains for inspiration or meditation (even though Norris argues convincingly for the Plains, despite growing up in Hawaii).

And could it be that multiple smaller retreats scattered around the country could also be more financially feasible, for the artists and the organizers? Artists wouldn’t have as far to travel, and organizers might have less managerial overhead. I haven’t thought this through all the way yet, but it seems like YWAM’s DTS model which has persisted for quite a while now.

It’s exciting to find properties like this in light of the retreat idea, especially ones that seem within some kind of financial reach (best scenario would be if the property was donated to the effort, probably after we receive 501(c)(3) status although not necessarily). My wife will tell you I become obsessed when I find certain spaces that serve certain functions, which is probably a fair assessment.

But this post isn’t about the building in Hazelton. It’s about the community of Hazelton.

Hazelton, Kansas is a very small community (roughly 130 people) about an hour southwest of Wichita. It’s the type of place most people can’t ever imagine moving to, the type of town that’s dying off in America. From what I can tell in Google Maps, most of the downtown buildings (about 10 of them, seemingly well kept) are vacant. A water tower stands over a green space and what appears to be a water treatment facility lies east of its guard; a highway and railway pass by to the west.

This isn’t the kind of place I would expect to end up in, although the vacant schoolhouse idea could also land the retreat in a similarly tiny town. However, as happens when new ideas present themselves, I’ve found myself daydreaming of what Hazelton might become with an infusion of the arts.

How could the retreat I’m imagining help revitalize this small community? Granted, it’s not going to be the kind of economic boon many of these rural places generally hope for. It won’t be a factory with 50 jobs, but it might (on the high end) employ five people part-time. Instead I’m wondering how an arts related institution can give back to the place that it’s in, large or small. In the case of small, in the case of Hazelton, Kansas, the impact could at least appear more significant than in a larger city.

In my daydream, the retreat is able to employ a few part-time employees (eventually). It hopes to help put the presumably vacant downtown buildings to some good use, even if it’s not installing regular businesses. Maybe one of them becomes a community space available for birthday parties or community wide Thanksgiving celebrations or occasional gallery spaces for movies, music, theater and other art exhibitions. Maybe one of them is transformed into a place where a person with a passion for food cooks a monthly meal for anyone who wants to come. I’d like to see a bonafide park — I don’t think there is one from what I can tell, again from Google Maps — and sidewalks with decorative streetlamps along Main Street from the highway to downtown (donated to the community by the retreat, if God were to ever bless the retreat with such ability).

Adding: Of course, in this day and age of the internet, those buildings could be used for for profit businesses. They would probably be inexpensive to rent for storage for internet sales (thinking of the eBay boom, which is pretty much past now anyhow). Maybe one of them becomes a gluten free bakery that ships breads across the country. These aren’t the strongest ideas related to the point of the internet enabling far flung locations to succeed, but they’re what come to mind off-hand.

My wife was dreaming of creating a library for the community if it doesn’t have one. I would hope to turn the roughly 10 acres around the building into a public, park-like space with a walking trail — preferably one that’s tied to the rest of the community in some form or fashion) — sculpture garden and tennis court (which is already on the property).

This line of thinking is new to me, probably because most of the time (though admittedly not all) I imagine the retreat being on a farm or acreage outside of a city. This enticing piece of property is fostering this new line of thinking. Regardless, for any of the things I’ve brainstormed to happen we’d want to start by garnering interest from the residents. In many ways I’m thinking like a community planner here, a facilitator with the best interest of the place and its people at heart.

As I’ve continued to write about the idea this year I’ve heard from more and more people affirming the idea. Last week I received another email from someone saying

So, I’ve seen some questions/ideas of starting a Christian art commune on the site, and I’m wondering if that is going to happen. I’m looking for one to live at this summer, desperate for one really. Know of any?

I thought of asking the Urbana09 organizers for their list of people who signed up in the Arts Lounge to receive newsletters with the intention of sending them a brief survey. I’m not sure how much they’ll like that idea, but it’s what I’ve got at this point.

The wife and I plan to begin some more serious discussion about the idea in the near future, working out some of the details and continuing to determine feasibility.

My wife is all excited this week about a spinning (as in yarn-making) retreat in tiny Harveyville, Kansas, about 45 minutes southeast of Topeka. The host of this retreat is something called The Harveyville Project, which appears to be a two-person operation that includes four buildings: Harveyville Rural High School (1939), Harveyville Grade School (1954), Rural Dist. 5 Eskridge High School (1920), and Eskridge Grade School (1921). From the Project’s website:

Our overriding purpose is to provide an inspiring, energizing environment to foster creative output. Initially, we’ll focus on residents and small workshops and community projects.

Our residence programs range from two weeks to six months and cover living/studio space, utilities, and dinner. Try a short recharge to get past a creative or procrastination bottleneck, or take several months to concentrate on a major project or thesis. By removing your accustomed distractions (shopping, traffic, social commitments, work routine), you can unclutter your mind and focus more directly on your craft. We invite artists, writers, musicians, and craftsmen, both student and professional.

Stellar idea, turning abandoned country schools (likely victims of consolidation) into a retreat for artists. It’s also another potential venue for the faith-based (Christian) art center I have in mind. I’m guessing there aren’t too many vacant school buildings on the prairie, but there are some, apparently.

Screenshot taken from The Harveyville Project’s website.

Previous entries talking about a faith-based art retreat:
Christian art center downtown?
Faith, art and barns
Art, faith, missions and a retreat

This has me thinking again about my role as, employing the phraseology of the IAM Encounter conference, a creative catalyst. I attended the conference as an artist, but ended up being surprised at how much I was drawn to the role of catalyst once I was there. Ideally, and I believe this manifests itself quite plainly on this blog, I would be both a sculptor and encourager of artists.

One of my concerns with respect to the aforementioned proposal is how it will — and it will — cut into my own time working in the studio, time that is already very limited. However, I’ve talked about this kind of project in the past. From a September 2006 post:

I am glad for the plethora of books on Christians in the visual arts, although I have one complaint. Most of these books are not written by visual artists. Elsheimer is a writer. Author Jeremy Begbie is a theology professor with a background in music. Rory Noland, author of two popular books on the Christianity and the arts, is also coming from a musical perspective — and there are three or four more of these examples on the cusp of my keyboard. Schaeffer and Rookmaaker were philosophers and cultural thinkers, and their writing is important. However, they were not visual artists either.

Since posting that I’ve found a couple examples of writing by Christian visual artists; Mako Fujimura’s Refractions was just published last month (It is, in essence, a compilation of his blog entries.). As [an aspiring] visual artist, to be involved in such a publication would further my own desire to see more writing on theology and the arts coming from a plastic arts perspective.

It would also mark a more formal foray into the realm of catalyst, although I don’t really see myself becoming an author. My dream, the idea that mostly makes me think of myself as a creative catalyst, remains: To birth or play a significant part in a center for artists of faith.

Logistically, I had a new thought during this jaunt. I previously assumed the best way to make a retreat/education center like this work would be designing and building from the ground up, a quite costly prospect. Riding across Midwestern farm country last week, however, I wondered if a small cluster of farmsteads wouldn’t work to get the idea going.

I don’t know how many such clusters actually exist in reasonable repair, but the idea is that two or three farmsteads right next to each other be combined to form a campus. The houses would be used for lodging and classrooms, and the barns (and outbuildings) retrofitted for studio space.

I’ve long had a thing for barns (I’d love the opportunity to convert one into living space). I’d like this project to be located in the Midwest or Great Plains near a fairly large metropolitan area (for easy access to a sizable airport). Land is less expensive here than on the coasts and the geography lends itself to contemplation, as Kathleen Norris rightly points out in her book Dakota. On the drive up to Chicago for a wedding last week I also pondered ideas such as leasing extra acreage adjacent to the campus to an energy company for a wind farm to create income for the nonprofit venture.

The chances of finding such a location for sale are, practically speaking, probably very slim. Farmsteads probably aren’t grouped together like this very often. Of course, the whole project — as much as it’s one of a few very big dreams my mind continually returns to — more often than not seems bigger than I can fathom. The whole thing needs some divine direction to come together at all.

Which is, of course, entirely possible.