“In its own way, evaluation is a process of art.”
Crystal Meneses
My name is Crystal Meneses, and I am an interdisciplinary artist who engages in arts practices that inspire social change. I speak creativity and my dialects are music, visual arts, and storytelling. I am also neurodivergent, queer, and a woman of color – these identities, in addition to being an artist– have meant that I’ve lacked access to or been actively excluded from conversations about what evaluation is, how it is used, or which decisions are made with the findings. I am also not fluent in the language of philanthropy.
When I started with evaluation, I was skeptical. There was even fear at the outset. I understood the colonized practices and historical harm of evaluation, and at the same time, saw and felt the possibilities of the evaluation process.
Something changed for me through the process of becoming a Fields Artist Fellow and then as the administrator of the Fellowship program with the Oregon Community Foundation. These experiences demystified evaluation for me. I realized how much intention there can be in creating an evaluation and how powerful it is. The Fellowship evaluation was used to create direct services and design the program and became a way to support and advocate. I was part of the conversations – I could see how the evaluation was implemented, and how it shifts the Fellowship.
When gathering with the newest cohort of Fellows to introduce evaluation, it felt like a personal experience. I saw that when evaluators are conscious of the questions they ask, it feels different and opens people up. With OCF, we included the people who are being ‘evaluated’ in the evaluation design. We used art as a language to open up and to reflect. The time together helped build relationships, trust, and create community. I’m struck by what was gifted in those moments. So much trust, allyship and camaraderie.
There’s more integration and collaboration—it’s healing because we don’t have that barrier where people aren’t believing and trusting us. Because as artists and immigrants, we are often just surviving. Things that are trusted—there’s so much power. Another Fields Fellow who grew up in a community that settled here told me, “This was the Fellowship I was meant to be a part of.” We integrated our languages and connections were made.
Lessons Learned
I mention this because I have lived all my life witnessing and experiencing people not speaking the same language. I’m the daughter of an immigrant and grew up with a father from the Philippines. In working with OCF and the evaluation, I’ve been able to lean on the same life skills I’ve used as an immigrant:
- Find people who are willing to help you.
- Find spaces of connection to understand.
- Use your lived experiences as metaphors for understanding.
- Create plans for healing to cope with feelings of isolation.
Going forward, we take turns, take risks, practice, come back to center, reflect, make a plan, try again…. This is the creative process! We are now in a place where we have practiced our relationship and have built trust to explore additional ways of evaluating.
This integration of our languages, cultures, and disciplines is creating a community and network to support social change. OCF continues to help me learn and understand their language, and now they are learning mine. We have seeded our community, nourished it through understanding, and now we grow.
We’re looking forward to the fall and the Evaluation 2024 conference with our colleagues in the Local Arrangements Working Group (LAWG). Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to contribute to AEA365? Review the contribution guidelines and send your draft post to AEA365@eval.org. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.