Portsmouth has always carried a reputation as the artistic heart of the Granite State. Now, the city will have a bona-fide award to back up that reputation. This year, Portsmouth was selected as the recipient of the “Community Spirit Award,” part of the 2005 Governor’s Arts Awards. A delegation of Portsmouth artists, arts advocates and city officials will receive the award on Thursday, April 13 at the Arts on Stage celebration in Concord.

Jane James, president of the board of directors of Art-Speak, says the award is “a matter of community pride.” She’s expecting about 50 people from Portsmouth to attend the April 12 ceremony.

“I want everybody who goes to go up (on stage) and receive (the award), because it’s a community award,” she said.

Portsmouth has been nominated for the award in the past, according to Rebecca Lawrence, director of the State Council on the Arts. What made Portsmouth the winner this time? The entire city’s commitment to the arts, said Lawrence.

“There’s been a great deal of accomplishment in the area of involving the city … in supporting the arts,” she said. “It’s not just private arts organizations and individual artists doing the work.”

Portsmouth is the ninth city to win the award since its creation in 1989. Previous winners are Littleton, Manchester, Claremont, Rochester, Newport, Exeter, Dover and Nashua. When judging the nominees, a selection committee looks at the work a community has done in the past five years to promote the arts.
While Portsmouth has always been known as a community that supports the arts, it hasn’t been until the last five years that the city itself has taken an active role in promoting the arts. In 1999, former mayor Evelyn Sirrell established a committee to develop a cultural plan for the city. The cultural plan was adopted in 2001 and identified six areas where the city could encourage growth of the arts: preservation, space, youth, business, marketing and creation of a cultural agency.

That cultural agency became Art-Speak. Established in 2003, Art-Speak is a quasi-public agency charged with implementing the city’s cultural plan. Since then, Art-Speak has hosted workshops on healthcare, home buying, marketing and other topics for artists, and has worked closely with city officials and private developers on strategies to bring live-work space into the city. Art-Speak’s Web site, www.art-speak.org, contains a directory of Portsmouth literary and visual artists, and in April 2005, Art-Speak debuted “Overnight Art!” a citywide event during which six public art pieces were installed throughout the city over the course of six nights.

Art-Speak is “a real model for others to look at and to learn from,” said Lawrence. “We’re certainly trying to publicize it nationally because it’s a catalyst of participatory arts experiences.”

But even before the formation of Art-Speak, the city was actively supporting community arts projects. The Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program, the first and so far only community-based poet laureate program in the state, was founded in 1998. In 2004, PPLP embarked on the “Voice and Vision” project, which paired poets with visual artists to produce public art installations. These and other projects are outlined in the book “Telling Our Stories: Community Arts in Portsmouth,” which was released earlier this year.

Nancy Carmer, economic development program manager for the city, says the community spirit award is another accolade that the city can use to attract economic growth.

“When we meet with businesses that want to expand or relocate here, we always talk about this type of award and the creative economy here in Portsmouth,” she said.

These sorts of awards highlight Portsmouth’s artistic diversity and can help employers woo potential employees from more metropolitan, culturally diverse areas, according to Carmer. In 2005, American Style magazine selected Portsmouth as one of the top 25 arts destinations among small cities and towns in America.

While Portsmouth can win the community spirit award only once, Carmer said it’s important for the city to continue to promote the arts. A 2000 study by the nonprofit group Americans for the Arts revealed that the city’s nonprofit arts venues generated more than $26 million annually. This year, the city has commissioned another study, this time looking at both nonprofit and for-profit venues.

“We need to be diligent about making sure the things in our cultural plan and master plan that enhance the environment for artists” are implemented, Carmer said.

And though more towns and cities in the state are devoting more financial and municipal support for the arts, Jane James of Art-Speak believes Portsmouth will continue to be an example of how a community can rally behind the arts.

“We’ve been, without even trying, a mentor to the rest of the state,” she said.

For more information, visit www.art-speak.org or state.nh.us/nharts.