Glenside Hall in Glenside - Group Two

The Big Canvas - Sept. 23, 2008

The group was composed of about 15 highly engaged art professionals and arts supporters. All but two were women. Most were early to late middle-age with three university students as the exceptions. Of the students, two were from the University of Pennsylvania and the third, who was blogging the session, was from Temple. Only one member of the group was from Philadelphia with the rest living in Montgomery County. Two participants were African American, the rest Caucasian.

Group norms were respected by all, even during the more vigorous discussions.  Because the participants were either directly related to the arts as their vocation or passionate about pursuing the arts for personal enrichment, there was little disagreement regarding the importance of the arts to the individual, families, community, city and region. There were, however, different perspectives regarding which approaches served the largest number of interests.

For example, there was agreement to the transformative nature of the arts, but there were some participants that felt strongly about the intimidation factor (folks not comfortable attending the more traditional venues) and the limited access to the arts experienced by some groups. The politicization of the arts governance and decision making was clearly voiced.  In addition, participants agreed that The Big Canvas must continue to address diversity in mission, needs for access, and representative views of the full range of culture and ethnicity. 

Finally, the group supported the development of an arts clearinghouse, use of Web 2.0 for more community interaction and an arts passport for families and visitors. 

Moderators: Jean di Sabatino and Chris Satullo