Common Field is closed as of December 31, 2022. This website and its content will remain online through April 30, 2023. We encourage you to browse and download any content you would like to access beyond that date.
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October 26, 2022
Dear Friends,
As Common Field’s membership program comes to a close this month, we want to share our immense gratitude to all our Network members, past and present, who made this community with us. Common Field set out to bring a national network of creative people together and as we close our doors this year, we are humbled and proud to share that our Network will end at its highest mark, with over 900 members!
As part of our intentional sunsetting process, our team has been working to provide Network members with resources and spaces for reflection during the year. This summer we offered a Membership Transition Fund to provide financial support for our members to join new networks. Over the fall, we offered members a chance to update their member profiles to be part of the organization’s archive to be housed at the Los Angeles Contemporary Archive in 2023. And finally, we gathered reflections on closing from Network Members through our Closing Survey, some of which will be shared in our final work later this year.
We know these efforts cannot replace the incredible network built at Common Field but we hope they offer you a pathway to relationship building for the future and serve as a demonstration of our gratitude and care for what we made together with you.
The Common Field community has helped to strengthen the ecosystem of independent artists and organizers across the country and beyond. We know that our work, as individuals and together, is not limited by the constraints of one organization’s life. We believe this Network’s practice and work will continue to move us towards more equitable and open spaces for our creative work - and look forward to the new ways it will connect us in the future.
We are so grateful for how creative, resilient, and powerful the Common Field community continues to prove itself to be. Thank you for your partnership and commitment to this work.
If you have any questions about our sunsetting process, please email us at questions [at] commonfield.org.
We look forward to sharing the last part of our journey with you later this year too!
In community,
The Common Field Team
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Photo: Constance Mensh
Design: Alexa Smithwrick
Image description: Common Field Network members attend the 2019 Convening in Philadelphia, PA. Participants sit in a classroom, oriented towards the front. They review literature and engage with the discussion, joyfully, smiling. In the middle, a young person in a red shirt and black baseball hat looks forward mirthfully. In front of him, a young person with long brown hair wears a denim jacket and does the same. They sit beside a table around which many other participants are gathered and upon which a conference-style telephone rests.. Behind them, a wall with a large wooden double door. Convening participants sit in chairs along the wall. Above them hangs a photograph of the Friends Center meeting space, a large wooden Quaker meeting room. The image has a gold and purple graphic wash overlaid on the photograph.