For the final installment of Great Expectations's The Big Canvas event, approximately 90 people came out to Moore College of Art & Design on July 30th to discuss the future of the Arts in the region. To read up on the first four installments, check out the posts from bloggers from the Malvern, Villanova, Conshohocken and Doylestown. Above, the Inky's Chris Satullo explains the history of the project to date.
Penn's Harris Sokoloff took the mic and in his professorial role, broke the evening down into its various components. The large group in the auditorium was broken up into 11 groups and took over most of the college. I tagged along with a group headed up to a 4th floor studio classroom which just happened to be the coolest room of the lot.
My group of 9, 45+ except for one under 30, (plus 2 moderators) eased into quick introductions and right into the agenda which can be seen here. The lovely, open and airy space was nice and conducive to creativity. The brainstorming group was overwhelmingly in support of exposure to the arts, especially at an early age to which Anne added, "What else is living about?". After exposing the youngsters to art, they must also be inspired to become artists by passing along artistic knowledge to them. Herb, a lifelong lover of the arts when his neighborhood playmates were more interested in Phillies box scores, not only wanted access to art for all, but also, forums to discuss.
Kimberly pointed to Mural Arts Program and their building of community involvement to put up murals all over the city. In addition to simply exposure, Danielle (the youngest in the group) wanted to see art education so that people can better understand what they see. Anne wanted to have groups put pressure on City Council to put more money towards the Arts in schools to which Walden noted that so much money has been taken out of education. Pru closed out the brainstorming session by advocating in "seeing the original" instead of a picture in a book. The entire group became excited, just as a first-time visitor to the Sistine Chapel might. They all agreed that the fluttering of the heart upon entering the space where the original hangs is part of the experience as well as seeing that object in person. The definition of 'art' was questioned as well and the group wanted to see culinary, performance among other non-classical arts to be a part of the conversation.
The moderators shifted the conversation to barriers to the Arts. The group brainstormed a few ideas: money, transportation, parental disinterest, peer pressure, time, not knowing what's going on and poor publicizing of events. Anne shared her perspective: as an adult, she likes to go out for a drink and some dinner before a show/event. She needs bars, restaurants and transportation available to her as she lives out in the Chestnut Hill area. She said that trains stop running back out to her area at 10.30p on the weekends preventing her from seeing many shows and the $30+ cab ride, if she misses the last train, is even more discouraging. Extending SEPTA hours on the weekends seems like a reasonable solution. I lived in D.C. when they started expanding service on the weekends. It was wonderful. Later on, they extended service during the week and even later on the weekends. No city is going to have the 24/7 service NYC has, but a city of first class like Philadelphia should have a proportionately available form of mass transit.
Part 4 of the evening was discussing what to do with a $60M/yr specifically for the Arts. Eyes lit up and the ideas flowed freely: niche museums, educational integration of the arts, regional theaters, paid internships, affordability for families (packages), ticket subsidization, youth music lessons, more money to efficient/successful programs, community art centers, historic building preservation. All these great ideas. But not a single person suggested giving money to the artist. [crickets] Thankfully, the Malvern group suggested microgrants for individual artists! How to get that money is another thing, putting it on the board is a great start. I'm not sure how many artists there were in the group I was in, but given the responses, it was clear that there were lots on the administrative and patron side of things.
The group was split up into 2 smaller groups to whittle down the big list to the most important ones to receive that $60M/yr. The 2 groups voted, with each person getting 3 voting dots, to rank them. The top 4:
- Developing arts in education interdisciplinary integration (a mouthful)
- General operating money (as opposed to money given for specific parts of an organization)
- Community art centers
- Paid internships
The group was then told that the budget was cut to $20M/yr and voted again, this time with a single dot. The results were the in the same order as with a $60M/yr budget. And there was one final exercise, the one I thought was most important: what other priorities are there in the region and are those priorities more or less important that arts & culture funding. The bullet points below should be read as: "______ is ↑/↓ important than arts & culture" to start off, the group voted that violence is a more important issue than arts & culture funding
- ↓ public utility accountability
- ↑ violence - safety/crime
- ↓ development of the waterfront
- ↑ healthcare
- ↓ poverty/homelessness
- ↓ continuing education
- ↑ environment (you gotta breathe!)
- ↓ transportation
- ↑ public education
- ↓ youth welfare
- ↓ community development
- ↓ encourage retired to work with kids
- ↑ attracting corporations to Philadelphia
- ↑ race relations / cross cultural issues
With that list in hand, the final part of the group session was how to convince lawmakers that an investment in the Arts would enhance the points above. Herb argued that an investment in the Arts is an investment in an outlet for kids to stay out of trouble and the streets. Danielle said that arts & culture are community building and an investment in arts & culture along the riverfront would instantly build community. Pru suggested that the School District not be allowed to get their hands on money dedicated for children; instead, have museums and institutions receive the money and go into the schools with programs. Kimberly capped off the night questioning how to get into the communities and find out why they are not currently involved in arts & culture programs.
Once the whole group came back together in the auditorium, Satullo and Sokoloff ran through what was covered and what is to come. Satullo noted that there was one topic came up in every session in the burbs and he was surprised: transportation. He figured that transportation would be the largest issue within city limits (it was a big issue with the Philly crowd), but it was high up in the burbs as well. Sokoloff encouraged the participants to expand the conversation online at the Great Expectations website and to read the writeups from each breakout group to see what fellow forum goers were thinking. Satullo mentioned the final Big Canvas event which is to take place at the Valley Forge Convention Center (a few miles past KoP). I didn't catch the date, but there were certainly groans from the Philly crowd about the location. It was noted that there would be shuttles going out to Valley Forge for those who want to make the trip but are car-less. So keep your eyes out for that one. Hopefully the turnout there will be a big one comparable to the big turnout at the forum at the convention center which brought out 500 in the snow. See you there.
The full set of (larger) photos from the forum can be seen in this flickr set.
