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Real Art Ways (RAW) is a contemporary arts organization dedicated to providing emerging and established artists with the resources needed to make and show new, innovative and experimental work, while serving the Northeast region as a showcase for, and advocate of, art at the forefront of current disciplines. Community and art are at the core of its mission. RAW was founded in 1975 and has evolved into one of the Northeast's best respected interdisciplinary presenters of innovative and experimental art, with programs in Visual Arts, including both curated exhibitions and commissioned art projects, as well as a summer educational program for neighborhood youth, Performance, Music, Spoken Word and Film and Video.

Real Art Ways is developing a $2.5 million arts center in a renovated factory building in Hartford's industrial and residential Parkville neighborhood. The Real Art Ways Arts Center currently includes a 155 seat movie theater (first run films are shown 7 nights a week), 5,000 square feet of gallery space our Loading Dock Lounge, a place to hang out before and after events, and the Real Room, a combination of exhibition and live arts space..

The development of the Arts Center is a significant come back. A 1989 eviction left the organization staggered and on the verge of going out of existence. In 1990, Executive Director Will K. Wilkins was hired, and under his leadership, in conjunction with a committed Board, Real Art Ways has charted a course which has seen it through the national funding crisis and the severe local economic woes.

RAW seeks an overall balance among artistic disciplines, between emerging and established artists, and among work of local, regional and national significance. Artists whose work has been presented by RAW, often early in their careers, include visual artists Ana Mendieta, Carolee Schneeman, Mel Edwards, Ida Applebroog, Jenny Holzer, Robert Longo, David Salle, Cindy Sherman, Bill Viola, Christo, Lorna Simpson, Nicole Eisenman, Louise Bourgeois, William Wegman, Nan Goldin, Ashley Bickerton, Mike Kelley, Sol LeWitt, Grahame Weinbren, Jessica Stockholder, Fred Wilson, Terry Atkins, Carrie Mae Weems and Mel Chin, and performing artists Laurie Anderson, Amiri Baraka, Cecil Taylor, Eric Bogosian, Anthony Braxton, Martfn Espada, Eliot Carter, John Cage, Spalding Gray, Ethyl Eichelberger, Danny Hoch, Holly Hughes, John Fleck, Henry Threadgill, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Terry Riley, John Zorn, Steve Reich, Sonia Sanchez, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Ornette Coleman, Allen Ginsberg, David Murray and many more.

Since 1989 Real Art Ways has produced 27 commissioned visual art projects. "RAW Specifics" typically takes art out of the confines of a gallery and museum, and projects involve community participation. "RAW Specifics" has commissioned work by Mel Chin ("Ghost"), Ericson & Ziegler, Danny Tisdale, Pepón Osorio ("En la Baerbería no se Llora (No Crying Allowed in the Barbershop)"), James Luna ("Sacred Colors"), Yong Soon Min, Ellen Driscoll, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Robert Peters, Karin Giusti ("The Green White House"), Jessica Diamond, Mark Dion, Group Material, Josely Carvalho, Matthew McCaslin, Rachel Berwick, Carl Pope, Jr., Liz Miller, and Verandah Porche, among others. Several of these projects have toured to other cities. Notable group exhibitions self-curated include "Negative Energy," featuring work using photographic materials and processes, "Garbage," (40+artists) featuring work created with refuse materials, "Psy-Fi," featuring work which explored psychology and science fiction, "The Shape of Time," featuring work which addressed the complications of history, and "Purpose Built New England," 23 English artists made work specifically for the exhibition. Real Art Ways Curators have included Leslie Tonkonow, currently a gallery owner in New York, Anne Pasternak, currently Directof of Creative Time in NYC, and artists Jackie McAllister, J. Anderson, and our current curator, Steve Holmes.

The quality and diversity of the organization's work has earned it repeated funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as support from national foundations including The Andy Warhol Foundation, Lannan Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Lila Wallace Reader's Digest/Arts International, and its projects have generated regional and national media coverage, including pieces in Art in America, National Public Radio, the New York Times, Associated Press, Scuplture, Details, the Source, and Rolling Stone.

RAW's presence in a working class neighborhood is a vital element in reaching urban young people, many of whom have little experience making and seeing quality artwork. For the past 8 years RAW has offered free, summerlong art and music-making workshops for neighborhood children, coordinated and taught by artist/educator Ayanna Spears. Over the 13 years we have been here, Real Art Ways has put down roots in Parkville, a culturally-diverse, urban neighborhood with a population including African American, Asian, Portuguese, and Puerto Rican families. Real Art Ways is an active member of the Parkville Revitalization Committee and the Parkville Business Association, and is active in a number of neighborhood planning and development initiatives.

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