“It is not enough to be a great artist or even a great artist and a great teacher,” says Sara Sniderhan, a pioneer in community arts.

Mentored by Ruth Howard, artistic director of Jumblies Theatre, and shaped by her experiences as an artist working with the Arts For All program at Davenport-Perth Neighbourhood Centre, Sniderhan went on to found and lead an innovative arts program at Parkdale Community Health Centre. She is currently Toronto's first "creative arts coordinator" based in a community health centre. She is also a visual artist. Dan Yashinsky, the Community Arts grants officer at Toronto Arts Council, recently had the opportunity to speak with her.

DY: When did you decide to extend your work as an artist into community settings?

SS: I began working at St. Stephen's Community House when I was 19. I was the lead artist in a Graffiti Transformation Project. I worked with youth at risk to create murals over badly tagged walls in the community. Some of these youth were really "at risk". They would come in every single day at 9 am to paint and try to explore positive options for their futures. I was amazed by their dedication and relentless creativity. I have been hooked on community arts ever since. Teaching in a community arts environment exposes me to folks with deep pasts and an
unfathomable ability to keep going despite trauma, poverty, abuse and so on. They are so grateful for my classes and in a sense give me a space where I feel I belong.

DY: What does a Creative Arts Coordinator do?

SS: It is a full time position, which originally involved working as a TAC-funded artist-in-residence
creating visual arts programs for the homeless, youth and South Asian members of the Parkdale community. However, I saw that in order to truly engage the community we needed to offer other disciplines of art. I spent a few months writing grant proposals and received funding to hire artists to run a creative writing program, a theatre group and an adult and youth choir. I also teach three visual arts classes a week for men, women and Spanish speaking seniors. We also received funding to run a youth mural project for the summer of 2006.

DY: Please comment on how you'd like to see community arts develop in Toronto.

SS: Every health and neighbourhood centre should have a full time position such as mine. I also believe that community artists should have a centre or an institute. I believe that there are
special skill sets that community artists struggle to obtain–all in isolation. It is not enough to be a great artist or even a great artist and a great teacher. We are working with difficult and complex communities and it would be amazing to see a community arts centre that teaches artists about conflict resolution, crisis intervention, holding participants whose abuse and trauma surface, teaching techniques for working with absolute beginners, who often have no confidence.

Since doing the interview, Sara had a baby boy and is on leave from her job at PCHC.

-Dan Yashinsky

Dan Yashinsky is the Community Arts grants officer at Toronto Arts Council. The founder of the Toronto Festival of Storytelling, he is the author of Suddenly They Heard Footsteps–Storytelling for the Twenty-first Century.

TAC provided funding for several stages of Sara Sniderhan’s career. We are currently providing funding for the musician/choir director associated with the Creative Arts program at Parkdale Community Health Centre.

In 2006, TAC’s Community Arts Program has invested $762,000 into arts organizations and projects serving neighbourhoods throughout Toronto.

In 2006, a number of new projects were able to be funded through a unique partnership with United Way as part of their commitment to supporting Toronto’s youth by providing them with hope and an opportunity to build productive lives.