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Citizen blogger Christine Cavalier took part in The Big Canvas discussion held Oct. 6 in Narberth. She found a group of people willing to listen and share their ideas on how best to fund arts and culture in the Philly region. (You can read her personal blog at http://www.purplecar.net/) She writes:

Ah, Narberth.  Land of 25 mile-an-hour streets, gargantuan stop signs, and commissioned theme songs.   My husband and I, along with our young kids, enjoy the Fourth of July celebration in Narberth each year.  Throughout the summer, we happily pack the car with pails and shovels and drive to the one-big-huge-sandbox park.   Narberth is Main Line Middle Class Upper Crust Division at its best.  Take a drive out there once in a while to see how the other half lives.

The night of Monday, Oct. 6, I was sans kids, sans minivan.  It felt light and almost unnatural having nothing but me, my notepad, and my new digital SLR.  The streets were dark and quiet.  Main street Narberth can get "suburban rowdy" at times (not anything like the flavor on South Street at any given moment of any day), but it was too early for the Narberth karaoke crowd.  I drove around the one-way grid of avenues and found a parking space on the street next to the borough building.  This would be my first visit to the building, although I’ve walked past it numerous times in search of coffee and snacks during park outings.  This night I ended up walking around it one more time because the main door was bolted.  A sign by the side door directed Great Expectation participants to take the elevator to the second floor.

Waiting for the elevator, I could hear the echoing voices of participants upstairs asking if they were in the right place.  The room for the Great Expectations meeting was enormous, perhaps designed to hold every Narberth citizen for town-hall meetings.  Chairs were set up in rows and in two big circles in opposite corners of the room.  There was a refreshment table filled with cookies, cheese, fruit and those ubiquitous boxes of coffee (which weren’t marked decaf; at 8 p.m. at night, I steered clear of them).

»  More The Big Canvas: Exploring emotional ties to art, community

City resident Albert Yee visits Swarthmore to hear what p

Swarthmore College is set on an arboretum, and the people at Great Expectations booked a room in a LEED NC certified building. My first trip out to Swarthmore, and I intend to go back to have a closer look at the scenery. Back to the agenda. If you're looking for some background info on the forums, read up!

Approximately 25 people from the Swarthmore area came out to take part in the evening's event. I don't know too much about Philly's burbs, but I'm going to assume that the sampling was a decent representation of who lives out there - all white.

One person in my breakout group brought up the fact and The Inquirer's Chris Satullo pointed out that the audience at Moore College of Art meeting two weeks prior was a different sight.

During his opening remarks, Satullo pointed out how Philly's Arts & Culture (A&C) programs get about 3 percent ($18M) of it's funding from local governments with the lion share coming from Philly.

»  More The Big Canvas: A different vibe in Swarthmore

The economy is one everyone’s mind these days. You can’t turn on a TV or open a newspaper without being bombarded by apocalyptic images, flip-flopping pundits, or politicians who claim they have all the answers. This barrage seems to be having a profound affect on typical citizens, and nowhere is this more evident than at the Great Expectations’ The Big Canvas citizen forums. People are invited to discuss their views and weigh the pros and cons of four approaches to supporting arts and culture in the region, then vote on which approach they support and which one they think people they know would support. The tagline is “a discussion about arts and culture…and your wallet,” and the results are showing that the third piece of this line is proving to be the star.

When looking at the total votes cast so far, it is difficult to get a sense of the daily ups and downs of living in volatile economic times. The third approach, “Build the Creative Economy,” has the most support. It leads in both total points and in answers to the question, “Which approach would have the most support among people you know?” 

But it is far from a runaway victory. Not far behind are approaches 2 and 4, “Nurture Children’s Futures” and “Foster Quality of Communities,” respectively. The first approach, “Extend the Arts Experience,” though still alive, is not quite kicking.

However, when you compare the results from individual forums to the Dow Jones average on the day of the forum and few days before, you get a better understanding of how the current economic climate is affecting citizens’ perspectives. 

• For instance, in the first few forums, the average was still over 11,000 points (the glory days), and citizens voted heavily in favor of Approach 2, with 1 and 4 holding their own. 
• As the Dow began to teeter, then tumble, then plummet, more citizens voted for approaches 3 and 4.
• And for the most recent forum, held the day after the Dow’s epic 936 point gain, the results were heavily in favor of Approach 4. And, for the first time in two forums, citizens began answering the question of which approach would likely be supported by people they know with Approach 1.

»  More The Big Canvas: Which approach to the arts is winning?

Citizen blogger Alletta Emeno blogs the latest Big Canvas event at Moore College. Participants at the Oct. 5 community forum discussed a regional strategy for funding arts and culture. Alletta first blogged for Great Expectations from the summer community forum in Malvern.

Is there a strategy that can unite big and small arts and culture institutions, provide them additional funding and build consensus with non-artsy taxpayers? It was a tall order for attendees of The Big Canvas event held October 5 at Moore College of Art in Center City.

The 60 participants were overwhelmingly female and active in smaller arts and culture organization. However, there was greater race diversity and better representation of young people than the Chester County event I attended during the summer.

Four approaches, developed out of discussions during the six forums this summer, were presented to attendees. After being divided into seven groups, participants were instructed to work through the pros and cons of each approach. From those discussions they were to identify common ground – those themes that resurfaced in discussing each approach.

»  More The Big Canvas draws a crowd in Phila.

Sitting in a circle of about 14 people, I realized I was one of the only people without an institutional affiliation to arts and culture in the greater Philadelphia region. Some were art or music teachers. Others worked in museums or for the Cultural Alliance. Even though I had worked for and participated in several citizens’ forums as a research assistant for Great Expectations, I knew little about Philadelphia’s art scene. Other than a lone visit to the Art Museum and a few random peeks into Old City art galleries, I know almost nothing about regional treasures and happenings. When it was my turn to introduce myself, all I could muster was that I felt the arts to be an essential piece of my life, and I quickly and shyly looked away. I almost missed the nods of agreement that rippled through the group. Even worse, I nearly missed the point of the forum — that anyone who cared about arts and culture had a right to contribute.

Together, we worked through four approaches, each coming from a different experience and view of arts and culture, and were given a ballot to vote on which option made the most sense and which would most likely be supported by “people we know.” Judging by the tone and momentum of the conversation, I was convinced that one approach would stand out from the others.

However, after seeing the results from this and two other forums, it turned out that we had found more common ground than even the event coordinators could have hoped for! The points (we were given 20 “Ben Bucks” to spend over five choices — the four approaches and the status quo) were distributed relatively evenly, with a fairly clear favorite that was repeated in the second question.

»  More The Big Canvas: A different view

Well hello there Philadelphia!

Recently, I took a drive down 611 and up 309 to attend the evening's Big Canvas event, part of the Great Expectations project. The Big Canvas is an effort by The Philadelphia Inquirer and the University of Pennsylvania to connect the people of the Philadelphia region to their elected officials regarding the state of arts and culture. Both of their web pages, as well as my earlier blog posts, outline in detail Great Expectations and The Big Canvas, their goals, and their overall progress.

Over the summer, similar events to the one I attended brought together people from all over the Philadelphia area to address the issue of reconnecting and revitalizing the arts in Philadelphia. From these meetings (known as Phase One of Big Canvas), four distinct approaches were drafted to be picked apart during later meetings (Phase Two).

The event I attended was just one of many forums scheduled over the fall season to bring together those who live in the suburban areas, giving them a chance to get their opinions and input heard.

»  More The Big Canvas arrives in Glenside