Somerville Stock Exchange, a Year in the Making, Comes to an End

Somerville artist Tim Devin enjoys working on projects that mix media and community, and his most recent project, which has been running for a year, just came to an end.

The Somerville Stock Exchange documented a year in the life of Somerville through the lenses of three "stock" categories: community stocks, environment stocks and creative stocks.

From March 31, 2012 to March 31 of this year, the Somerville Stock Exchange, like its Wall Street namesake, went through bear and bull markets, and certain stocks did better than others.

What's more, the project raised money for three Somerville charities and encouraged residents to share news about the good deeds they conducted over the year.

Throughout the project, Devin blogged about the Somerville Stock Exchange right here on Somerville Patch. His final blog entry was expected to post on April 2.

A year-long journey

When Devin started the project he said the stock exchange was a metaphor. "You put things in, you get things out. That's like a community, too," he said about the project at its inception.

It was the beginning of a year-long journey.

People could earn stocks on his exchange by donating time and money to good causes, and Devin's twice-monthly stock exchange reports detailed bits of news about what residents in Somerville were doing to help out, all of which influenced stock prices.

For instance, if someone told Devin about composting waste in the back yard, the news would increase the value of environment stocks; when someone organized a poetry reading, the price of creative stocks would go up, and if conflicts over a real estate development roiled neighbors, community stocks would take a dip.

People also earned stock—and in doing so influenced stock prices—by donating money to the Somerville Homeless Coalition, the Somerville Arts Council and Somerville Climate Action, each organization representing one of the three stocks "traded" on the exchange.

Devin said his project raised at least a few hundred dollars for each organization, though it's possible not everyone reported their donations to him, he said.

Some real numbers behind the art

In the end, community stocks "beat the pants off everything else," Devin said, though all three stocks, which started trading at one dollar, increased in value.

To a large extent, the project reflected Devin's own beliefs about what's important: art, community and the environment. But there was some level of precision in his stock prices, he said. The movement of 100 shares would have a $0.10 impact on a stock's value, and when it came to monetary donations Devin allocated one share to each dollar donated. If someone donated $50 to the Somerville Arts Council, for instance, they'd earn 50 shares of creative stock, and the price of creative stocks would rise by $0.05.

"I tried to be fair" and "minimize" personal feelings, Devin said.

Stories told through the stock exchange

The most valuable part of the project, for the artist, was learning about organizations he'd never heard of and "how many initiatives people have started" in Somerville.

Through his work, he learned about RESPOND, Inc., a domestic violence agency, Earthworm, a recycling organization, Earthos, an environmental group, and Compost This! which works on back yard composting.

He learned about Sam Christy, who helped start the League of Urban Canners, which teaches people to grow and preserve food on their own property, and about an anonymous person who bought a can of WD40 and oiled swing sets around the city because they were squeaky.

Suzanne Lubeck collected the plastic bags newspapers are delivered in and set them up in the Nunziato dog park so dog owners could pick up after their four-legged friends.

These are the sorts of unheralded small things people throught Somerville do to make the community better, Devin argues.

What next?

Now that the project is over, Devin plans to take some time off from big, long-term projects, but he's working on more community art, including street surveys that you may see around town.

"I've always been interested in communicating with a broader range of people," Devin said of his work.

He plans to publish a PDF booklet, featuring charts, graphs and descriptions, about the Somerville Stock Exchange.

More on the Somerville Stock Exchange

Artist Starts 'Somerville Stock Exchange' to Promote Good Deeds

The Somerville Stock Exchange community art project

Somerville Stock Exchange Reports