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Why get involved with this Delaware Valley arts and culture initiative?

Not long ago, we had Great Expectations / The Next Great City forums, which put lots of issues before the mayoral candidates and invited the general public to give their input on the future paths the city and region should take.

Make no mistake about it”¦ policy came out of those meetings. The candidates listened, and in this age where Americans have become numb to policy being driven by the self interests of big donors, the opportunity for regular citizens to be part of the process was refreshing, and what we’d like to think Philadelphia is all about.

Now, the same folks who brought all that forward, the Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Board and the Project on Civic Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania, are at work on a civic dialog about the arts and culture of the Delaware Valley, calling the project THE BIG CANVAS. We’re now in the middle of a series of forums happening all around the region. Three more are scheduled, listed here.

July 23rd – People’s Light and Theater in Malvern
July 24th – Villanova University in Villanova
July 30th – Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia

I attended one the other night at the Inky printing plant in Conshohocken. Inquirer Op-Ed Editor Chris Satullo was the general moderator, and when we broke into smaller groups, he was also running my sub group. He led us through a number of dialog generating questions, regularly herding the cats back to task. This was difficult, and I give him credit. An assistant took notes on huge presentation paper.

When we broke into even smaller sub groups for an exercise on how to prioitize and direct possible monies in the future towards the arts, I liked what my group came up with well enough, but was totally thrown by what the other group put forward. It then struck me that, being the punk rock boy who is now the grey haired grown up, I was still the kid of the group in age and a comparative wild creature in life experience. The thought that these forums were putting forward ideas and conclusions that will likely become policy when presented to Mayor Nutter, and that nice enough folks much my senior might be central to those decisions made me write this for UWISHUNU.

You, the 20 somethings, 30 somethings, 40 somethings are now the new grown ups. Attend these forums and give balance to the decisions that will come out of these well meaning and much needed dialogs, or the old grown ups will run your world, simply because they showed up and you didn’t.

All kidding aside, you run the world so long as you step to the plate and do just that. Chris Satullo, Harris Sokoloff and Gerry Lenfest have opened the field up to you. Run it, or be run by it.

For more information, read up on The Big Canvas here!
www.greatexpectationsnow.com/content/the-big-canvas