Pivoting in a Global Pandemic
Community • Education • Arts (CEArts) is a 501c3 nonprofit Arts organization in Noblesville. President Alys Caviness-Gober and Secretary Sarah E. Morin feel lucky: in 2019 they faced major changes and added digital content to their programming, which helped adapt to COVID-19’s impact. After operating as Logan Street Sanctuary for 5+ years and hosting concerts, workshops, and arts events every weekend, when the property they’d rented sold (2019), they rebranded as Community • Education • Arts. They moved forward with annual projects (The Polk Street Review Project (TPSR) and NICE (Noblesville Interdisciplinary Creativity Expo) Project), and created digital content for CEArts’ website. By Fall 2019, they’d begun recording @theroundtable podcast & short videos series, and hosting online Arts Showcase exhibit opportunities.
“Adapting our programming to include digital content was challenging for me,” says Alys, “because I had to learn ~ am still learning ~ audio and video hardware and software. But it’s exciting, because our digital projects are really fun for us as hosts and for the folks who participate.”
The @theroundtable podcast series airs each Friday at 4pm on the CEArts website, with corresponding videos on CEArts’ YouTube channel. The online Arts Showcase exhibits each have a different theme, and include images, music, poetry, and prose.
Everything changed by Spring 2020 with the COVID-19 quarantine; in March, CEArts transitioned their podcast/video recordings to remote interviews using Zoom. By April, it was clear that potentially all of 2020’s in-person events would “go virtual.” Any workshops for 2020’s NICE and 2021’s TPSR Project, which are all normally in-person events in Summer/Fall, will be virtual.
CEArts’ 6th Annual NICE workshops will be virtual events hosted by Alys and Sarah E. via Zoom in the late Fall of 2020. NICE’s Presentations Reception is still tentatively scheduled for 07 November 2020 at Hamilton County Artists’ Association’s Birdie Gallery, but it might become a virtual event.
The annual deadline for TPSR book submissions is (still) December 31. “We’ll launch the 2021 edition of The Polk Street Review in February, as is tradition,” says Sarah E., “We don’t know yet what that event will look like. It might be a virtual book launch, but we hope it’ll be an in-person event where we gather with friends in celebration of the arts.”
No matter what happens, CEArts will adapt, providing a variety of arts events and opportunities for creatives and art lovers to enjoy.
Quick links for you to follow CEArts:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/4CEArts/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/4cearts/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/4CEArts
@theroundtable: https://cearts.org/theroundtable-podcast/
CEArts online Arts Showcase exhibits: https://cearts.org/arts-showcase/
NICE: https://cearts.org/home/nice/
The Polk Street Review: https://cearts.org/home/the-polk-street-review/
CEArts YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgZpBlXhL-6ZsjS4lqw8bPA?
Email us at info@cearts.org
