The Inquirer's Suburban Headquarters - Group One

The Big Canvas - July 16, 2008

The group of 11 people consisted mostly of individuals who are very involved patrons of the arts, mostly from the lower Main Line, but a few from the city. -- Moderators Carolyn Chernoff Lafferty and Chris Satullo

For what do people use arts and culture?

Education, engaging students to be future patrons, arts as “natural” not “odd,” encounters with self, new perspectives, “aha! Moments,” to escape the grind, income, tourism, blockbusters (some debate as to whether these are a good thing), entertainment, singing for pleasure, preserving history, lectures, First Fridays, culinary arts, gardens, families going to zoo.

Who are the users?

Children (but not as many as should); minorities (not as many as should because of issues of access), adults, tourists, hedge fund managers, employers, businesses, jazz lovers, “regular folks,” performers, young performers (but what happens after high school?), wild artists who need to be supported, people who draw for pleasure.

What values do you think arts and culture bring to individuals, families, communities? What basic values do they support?

• Discovery

• Brings people to life

• Conversation starter

• Expands your world

• Experience

• Creates personal connections

• Expands opportunities

• Provides role models

• Helps you find a way to make your mark

• A sense of satisfaction

• Fun!

• Enriches life

• Opens you to contact with others you might otherwise never meet

• Things done centuries ago can touch us today; it “reverberates through time.”

• Community building e.g. Mural Arts

• Community pride

• “Art pulls things together”

• Continuity

• Therapy (kids, hospitals, prisons)

• Feeds my soul; I need it!

• Increases cognitive skills

• Improves learning through senses

• Teaches kids basic skills (reading, math)

• Uniting (esp. music), e.g. Our Town at the Arden

• Arts bring Delware Valley. More $ than all the sports teams

• Fun way to engage general public

• Jobs

In our region, what are the barriers to these uses and values?

• Area’s mania for sports

• Too much focus on money

• Crass commercialism and concern with “return on investment”

• Too much money for stadiums and arenas, not enough for art

• Limited resources

• Casinos

• Lack of access

• Exposure.

• Upbringing and lack of exposure

• Limited time

• Economy – people struggling to make ends meet

• Limited art and music programs in schools

• Focus on test scores

• Volunteer energy limited

• Lack of event information – No Neighbors sections anymore!!

• Trouble with PR, getting the word out to audiences and artists alike

• Lack of full time art critics in media

• Lack of timely, positive media

• Fear of certain neighborhoods

• “There can be too many events; you show up at something, and there’s four people there.”

You're part of a committee that's going to decide how $60 million gets spent. What's on your list?

• The Culture Bus – A green, nonpolluting, educational form of mass transit that would link cultural sites, city to suburb, suburb to city, and suburb to suburb. The buses would bring artists out to where people are, as well as bringing audiences to where the traditional performances are. The bus itself would be an art experience – performances, readings, multimedia on the bus. Sometimes it would just do “mystery cruises,” you’d board not knowing where it was going and it would take you to some arts venue.

Other ideas:

• Funding for local public to improve arts education and to engage local arts community

• Funding for Fairmount Park, which is an arts community unto itself

• Arts partnerships with schools, no district excluded

• Subsidized housing for artists in art colonies

• A PR clearinghouse on the Internet to aggregate arts information, perhaps with its own in-house art critics

There's only $20 million to spend. How do you prioritize your list from the previous question?

(Each person got two votes.)

The winners were: the culture bus and the arts partnerships, with the Internet info clearinghouse also getting strong support.

Other major regional concerns or issues? Which of these have a higher or lower priority than arts and culture?

• Transportation – lower

• Safety – lower

• Schools/education – higher

• Casinos – lower

• Environment – lower

• Open space – lower

• Taxes – lower

• Jobs and the economy – higher

For what other issues could arts and culture be part of the solution?

This arts-passionate groups not surprisingly saw arts and culture as complementary with the two goals it rated higher: education and jobs, and transportation as well.