Her tracks lead to cities including Portland, Oregon, and London, England, where she undertook her studies and earned dual degrees in theater performance and design before heading on to work and arts projects in Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Brooklyn.
Yet her tracks lead with the same determination to rural locations not so famous. A few years ago she tossed a tent in a tiny red car and began a backroads trip to interview strangers in small towns and create a photographic gallery celebrating this country’s diversity of lifestyles and landscapes. She traversed mountainous terrain in West Virginia and explored behind-the-scenes life in rural communities for arts projects of her own.
Her current stop is Granite Falls, Minnesota, (pop. 2,734) where she is three months into a one-year venture as the city’s artist-in-residence. This gig comes complete with an office in City Hall. As far as anyone knows, it’s the only such artist-in-residence program in a community under 3,000.
“Overwhelmed by how much there is to discover and how rich this landscape is,” said Prados, 36, of her early impressions.
Small town life comes easy for Prados, who has long appreciated rural living. She had most recently been making Taos, New Mexico, her home. It’s the home of her partner, who she met on that art-inspired road trip in the tiny red car.
She’s produced a television series, “Places,” that offers a behind-the-scenes look at small town life. Her art also includes “This Great America,” a virtual gallery in which she looks at the diversity in the lifestyles and landscapes of our country.
Her accomplishments in art, the fact that she has been living in a small town, and her passion for rural places, were all big selling points to the committee which chose Prados for her new role from among 18 highly qualified candidates, according to Ashley Hanson, founder of the Department of Public Transformation. With help from a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Department of Public Transformation is working with the city of Granite Falls and local organizations to make the artist-in-residency program possible.
The Department of Public Transformation is an artist-led organization working to “develop community connections, civic pride and equitable participation in rural places.”
That, in a nutshell, also sums up much of what Prados is working to accomplish in her new role. “A new friend gave me the phrase: ‘You build the road by walking it,’” said Prados when asked how she will make it happen.
“The key point is civic engagement,” said Hanson of the goals for the artist-in-residence.
Prados is working to get more people involved in civic affairs, especially those who feel disconnected.
Hanson and Prados are optimistic. An informal survey sent out with municipal utility bills in the community found that over 80 percent of respondents indicated that they would like to be more involved in civic affairs. The challenge: Only about one-third of the respondents said they felt invited to do so.
Prados has lots of ideas on how to go forward. She’s already developed a list of 127 different ideas, but is taking her first steps carefully. The first and most important thing, she said of her role, is to listen.
An artist-in-residence has the responsibility of being the community storyteller, the “community knitter” who puts together all the threads connecting people, Prados explained.
“Our community is something to fight for, something to relish and engage with,” she said. “(There’s) enough to go around if we all open up and share.”
An advisory committee of about two dozen residents offers input to her. Prados also makes it a point to meet as many of her neighbors as possible to gather their ideas. She’s working with the local arts community. One of the initial projects will involve developing “creative crosswalks” with artistic designs on roadways near the high school and downtown to slow down the traffic and make it safer for pedestrians.
Prados also produces a weekly “Postcards from Your Artist” segment that appears in the local Advocate Tribune newspaper. It offers some of her poetry, thoughts and photographs of her new surroundings.
Prados is living in the community in a small house. Plans are for her to move downtown to an apartment above a building known as the YES House. The downtown property is owned by the Department of Public Transformation and is being rehabilitated to serve as a gathering place for community interaction and promoting the arts.
Hanson said the long-term goal is to make the artist-in-residency program an on-going one, and for Prados and those who follow to make the downtown apartment their home during the residencies.
Prados was set to return to work for a national television production company when the COVID-19 pandemic forced its cancellation. She saw the national posting for the Granite Falls position and knew it was what she wanted. She rushed together an application to meet the deadline and won the committee’s selection on the very day two other job offers came her way.
These months later, she is convinced that she made the right choice in accepting this challenge in a rural Minnesota community far from so many of her other travels. “It’s exciting, but it’s also a lot of pressure,” she said. “We have to prove that this works, and not just in Granite Falls.” The goal is to see the artist-in-residency program replicated in other, rural communities, she explained.
One area community is already looking to do something of the sort. New London has expressed its interest in hosting an artist-in-residence, said Hanson.
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January 19, 2021 at 07:00PM
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Artist's path takes in big cities, but leads to rural western Minnesota - West Central Tribune
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