Alletta Emeno of Havertown joined the Great Expectations team at the Big Canvas event in Malvern. This was the fourth of five events scheduled to talk about what citizens think of arts and culture in the Philadelphia region. She writes:

Thirty-nine people braved lightning and drenching rain on July 23^rd to participate in the latest Big Canvas community forum in Chester County.

Their task was to tackle discussion topics such as how arts and culture are used, how they are valued, what should be done about the lack of funding and what are they willing to pay or do to correct the situation. The goal was to “frame the public interest.”

Notes from this event and four others like it will be reviewed. Ultimately, the best solutions to “preserve and extend” the area’s arts and cultural legacy will be discussed at The Big Confab, a meeting of politicians, arts and cultural leaders and citizens, to be held in the fall.

Working in three small groups, participants were led by moderators. Given the limited two-hour time frame, event co-founders Harris Sokoloff and Chris Satullo instructed attendees to “explore and clarify” disagreements, not solve them.

A majority of those in attendance made a portion of their livelihood from the arts. Some worked for local organizations. Others were poets, artists or actors. All of them brought with them a deep passion for the importance of arts and culture in people’s lives. It also left many of them completely nonplussed that people could discount the value of arts and culture.  

Arts and culture are good for the economy, as one participant pointed out. “Yes, but everyone is making money but the artist,” said one gallery owner, who announced his gallery would be closing soon.

It’s clear that many in the group felt their work or their organization was overlooked. Not enough volunteers. Not enough patrons. Not enough funding. And most importantly, not enough love. They pour their hearts and souls into the museum or the theater company or the gallery and not enough people appreciate it, value it or support it. Naturally, you could sense immediate kinship between folks that could empathize with each other. There were lots of nodding heads and knowing murmurs of agreement.

I thought the conversation started to get interesting when the moderators asked participants to list major obstacles to the continued arts and culture diversity of this area. Among the most interesting reasons suggested:

- Failing to adapt as times change. One participant pointed out that some institutions have done things the same way for more than a hundred years. They are appealing to the same audience, which is getting older and smaller each year. The question is “how to engage without compromising,” added another attendee.

- Too much of a good thing. Everyone agrees that the sheer number of arts and culture organizations in the area creates a rich patchwork. However, it can also exacerbate the scarcity of resources, both human and financial. There is a dilution of the qualified leaders, willing volunteers, talented participants and dedicated funding forcing especially small organizations to compete with other groups.

- Standardized testing in schools. In an effort to meet benchmarks mandated by No Child Left Behind schools have been forced to take resources and time away from art and music programs. This creates the risk of a whole generation of young people without the building blocks for life-long art appreciation. 

The list of obstacles generated in the small groups was mostly abstract. It wasn’t until participants were given the exercise of deciding how to allocate $60 million annually to the arts institutions or programs that the conversation moved from the abstract to the concrete.

The discussions of all three groups hit on three common themes: lack of transportation to suburban venues, poor communication about programs and events and the need for arts education in schools. Some of the suggestions for how the money should be spent included:

- Giving cultural passes to students of a specific age
- Subsiding art and culture organization ticket prices
- Designing programs geared toward connecting students to art
- Creating a transportation network to get patrons to organizations far from public transportation
- Funding small, local arts groups
- Developing spaces for artists to live and work
- Providing micro-grants for individual artists
- Publicizing arts happenings with a dedicated daily radio spot and website

One group went as far as creating a holistic three-phase plan that would provide capital and maintenance funding, pay for the build-up of programs by those organizations and then market the improvements. Not bad for a five-minute discussion.

There was lots of talk about correcting the lack of communication, but I was glad when someone finally used the “m-word.” Marketing is about selling, while communication is about conveying information. Clearly, the goal is to promote the arts, not just talk about them.

Many of the participants were tied to small suburban arts groups. So, it’s not surprising that disdain for the major institutions bubbled up. More than once the conversations turned to the well-funded large institutions that get fat on corporate donations while smaller organizations are left to starve.

Generally, the participants were good at keeping to the task at hand. Most tried to stay away from politics. The few political references I heard were met with silence and lots of shifting in chairs. 

There were several light moments, including one that showed the desperation of small organizations. In each group, participants went around a circle explaining why they had attended. One woman, an actress and artist, described how much she missed the vibrant arts and culture in southern California where she used to live. Two chairs away a woman asked to speak next. With a hand out-stretched she introduced herself to the transplanted Californian and invited her to join the board of a local dance company. Laughter ensued to which someone commented “you have to be bold to be in the arts.”

As a final exercise, the groups were asked to list other relevant community issues. Not surprisingly, sprawl, violence, health care, schools, affordable housing, the economy and the environment made it on to many of the lists. Next, participants were asked to decide on spending for the arts verses each of these issues. It was during the show of hands that the dedication of the participants came through. Some were unwilling to yield any funding to other problems. “Not a dollar,” one man said. 

Given that not everyone is quite as passionate, it became clear that arts and culture funding initiatives could be paired with several of these issues needing immediate solutions as a way to get them both addressed. One moderator pointed to a fund created in Pittsburgh that benefits not just the arts, but also libraries, open space and parks.

If these well-designed discussions are to bear fruit, it seems that two key challenges will need to be addressed. 

First, these discussions will need to be more inclusive. Instead of just “preaching to the choir,” more citizens from outside the arts world will need to be involved. In addition, more young people and people of color will need to participate. (Most participants of this discussion were older than 50 and white.)

Second, people with the greatest stake in the success of this initiative will need to figure out how to convince others of its importance. As one participant put it, “How do we make art more relevant?”