But first, John Kern and Jackie Koney detail the Prairie Ronde Artist Residency Program and how it impacts their community.

Well, today I'm talking with John Kern and Jackie Koney from the Paper City Development and the Mill at Vicksburg, where something big is coming.

Thank you so much for talking with me here today.

- Thank you.

Thanks for having us.

- Yeah, it's a pleasure.

- And you mentioned the Prairie Ronde Artist Residency.

I'd love to hear what some of the artists are saying about that, because that's kind of your baby, right, John?

- It is, yeah.

We are in the middle of our sixth season now, and we have hosted over 80 artists from around the world in Vicksburg.

We've got a new batch of artists on site right now.

The premise of the artist residency is the fact that really, so much of the mill and all of the activities around the mill are in a way a celebration of people who make and do things.

And it's been a really interesting situation to get these artists from all over North America and, you know, globally as well, into contact with the tradespeople who are working on refurbishing the mill and getting them into dialogue with each other where they recognize really soon, really early in the conversation that they have shared skillsets, and they're just applying them in different ways.

And it's really created a great opportunity to make dialogue for people who would not necessarily always talk together.

One of the unique things about the Prairie Ronde Artist Residency is that we make a high recommendation to the artists who are participating, that they use the paper mill and Vicksburg as their muse.

And so while there are people, while there are tradespeople over at the mill, there are also artists that are there, and they're in a controlled environment, and they're working within that space.

We're running three sessions a season between March 15th and December 15th.

And for each of those three sessions, we get in the neighborhood of 70 applicants all vying for four slots basically per session.

So it's a very, very competitive space.

We recognized early on, and we committed early on that it's impossible to say that you support the arts without actually paying artists.

So it's a stipended position.

Participants come to Vicksburg for six weeks at a time, and they are given a tremendous amount of independence.

And we have kind of stacked the deck in a way that forces visiting artists into the arms of the community.

It's a lot of work, but that work is paying off.

We're gaining a national and international reputation as service providers to the arts community, and that is really, really satisfying.

- Why do you think the arts are so important to a community?

Because they are, and especially to Vicksburg, - It's just a way for people to connect and have something to talk about.

So the diverse groups of people we get to come to some of these Prairie Ronde art gallery events is incredible.

And just whether you love the art or you don't love the art, it's something to talk about, and it's a place to meet your neighbor and just hang out.

Or if it's, you know, sculpture on the street or a mural on the wall outside, it's just something to talk about, and it can be unique to each community and special based on, you know, the makeup of their community.

So I think it's just a community builder, and it's just one of those base things that every community should have.

It's like, if you don't have it, you're just not going to succeed at building a really strong downtown.

- For me, it goes back into that celebration of different modes of thought, and the people who have capacity to do things.

Dialogue is everything.

I study a little bit body language, and we recognize that one of the easiest ways to take on a thorny problem is to do it while you're in a car because you're shoulder to shoulder, and it's non-confrontational.

And we can do similar things where we're kind of contemplating a piece of art where it's just kind of like, what do you think of this?

And it's just that opportunity to create dialogue and to look at things in a different way.

And everybody can celebrate divergent thought and beauty.

And I have to say, so many of our trades friends initially when we started moving people through that space at the mill, were like, I don't know art.

I don't really get what's going on with art.

And to watch that evolution over time, where it goes from that into them kind of in the doorway watching the person work, which then evolved into, man, I really like what you did with color here.

- [Jackie] Yeah.

- It's just, it's just so fun and so interesting to see that evolution of thought - And vice versa.

Yeah, it goes definitely both ways.

- And it's a two-way channel.

- Yeah, totally.

- You're absolutely right.

- Two way channel, yep.

- It's always fun to open somebody's mind like that.

You know, people don't know that they have feelings about something until you're exposed to art or music or theater.

But as we get a little closer, we'll check in with you again, but thank you so much for talking with me here today.

- Oh, thank you.

That was really fun to have this nice chat with you.

We appreciate it.

- What a pleasure.

- [Announcer] Support for Kalamazoo Lively Arts is provided by the Irving S Gilmore Foundation, helping to build and enrich the cultural life of greater Kalamazoo.