• Focus Areas

  Arts & Culture History & Bicentennial Diverse People Downtown Revitalization Green Community Growth Through Learning Health & Human Services Jobs & Technology Image & Marketing Neighborhoods & Life Safety Sports & Recreation Moving People

  Arts and Culture Focus Group Orientation Binder

  Ten Input Ideas for Arts & Culture
  Thousands of ideas were generated and all will be considered by the Focus Group.
  
  1  Philip - Juneteenth. More
  festivals throughout the year and
  encourage an African American festival downtown including native Africans.
  2  Rory - Red, White & Boom.
  We should create an arts incubator that provides opportunities for our gifted but financially challenged artists in the community. Each major arts institution could be partners in the project and the corporate community could help sponsor the effort.
  3  Mark H. - Juneteenth. Columbus should ensure that its growing African community becomes an asset or the identity of the community, and ensure that they have cultural and arts
  institutions that can flourish and have tax support.
  4  Derrick Dozier - Arts Festival.
  Move the outdoor amphitheater
  to the Whittier Peninsula so it is close to downtown. The brewery district, downtown and German village would all benefit and it could be a beautiful natural setting for concerts while allowing the land to be used in a low impact way. It is very complimentary with the new Audubon center as they draw audiences at different times of the day.
  5  Walker - Arts Festival.
  We have little in the way of a fashion industry, music, television, or movie careers, and few opportunities for high-tech engineers to remain close to downtown.
  6  Brandi - Juneteenth.
  Create an art and culture month where the city focuses on providing art classes and education for citizens, public theater, the art festival, and all other things art. June would be a great month for this so it is in conjunction with the art festival. You could build up to the art festival with a month long program of activities that includes all the artistic resources of the city like the Art Museum and CCAD.
  7  Christian - Jazz & Rib Fest. Have a Columbus “roots” festival celebrating bluegrass, folk, blues, and jazz - and our Appalachian and black cultures which are so strong and so cooperative.
  8  Eduardo - Latino Festival. Since Germain Amphitheater will no longer exist after this season, how about taking the soon to be abandoned Cooper Stadium and make it the new amphitheater? There’s plenty of parking, the stadium could be retro-fitted (remember 7 days of sold out Garth Brooks concerts in the late 90’s?).
  9  Berr - Arts Festival.
  More cooperative projects between city hall, Arts organizations and surrounding and metropolitan schools is needed even though there are in existence programs offered for schools by Ballet Met and the Columbus jazz Arts etc. Currently students are asked to pay for tickets to be involved in these programs. Many talented students who could influence the future of the Arts in Columbus get missed.
  10  Andrea - Greek Festival. We need to do everything possible to encourage the zombie fest that occurred at Goodale Park in the spring. The city should show zombie movies on the statehouse lawn following the march down high street.
  

Arts and Culture

Focus Area Members:

Member	Organization
Councilman Kevin Boyce (Chair)	Columbus City Council
Stephanie Hightower (Chair)	Columbus College of Art & Design
Ann Joyce
Barbara Brandt	Brandt Consulting
Barbara Nicholson	King Arts Complex
Bruce Harkey	Franklin Park Conservatory
Bryan Knicely	Greater Columbus Arts Council
Carter Stewart	Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP
David E. Chesebrough	COSI
Jack Jackson	Wexner Center for the Arts
John Angelo	Short North Business Association
Karen Bell	OSU College of the Arts
Keith Myers	MSI
Lisa Courtice	The Columbus Foundation
Mary Vaughn	Columbus State Community College
Nannette V. Maciejunes	Columbus Museum of Art
Press Southworth	Opera Columbus
Ronald Pizzuti	Pizzuti Companies

Meetings:	Work Session 1 - Notes
	Work Session 2 - Notes
	Work Session 3 - Notes

Focus Area Description: Culture and arts history help to define Columbus and provide a foundation for quality of life and economic development. The Creative Columbus Policy Steering Committee released a report titled “The Creative Economy: Leveraging the Arts, Culture and Creative Community for a Stronger Columbus” and will begin the process of creating a Cultural Master Plan. That effort will occur within the umbrella of Columbus 2012 and should integrate with larger citywide priorities established as part of this visioning process, as well as the 2008 Bicentennial bond package.

Key Question: What does Columbus need to enhance and expand the community’s arts and culture?

Public Input about the Focus Area: There was a strong public response on how to enhance and expand the community’s arts and culture. Contributors universally agreed that cultural activities and institutions are important to the City of Columbus and that existing activities need to be marketed and promoted even more strongly than they are currently. However, survey respondents had many ideas on where and how to expand Arts and culture throughout the city. Many wanted to see stronger financial support for struggling artists while encouraging young artists through formal and informal educational and training programs.

Public Input Themes for the Focus Area:

1. Host more downtown festivals throughout the year. Many respondents want to see more festivals downtown throughout the year to feature the arts and culture community in Columbus. Of particular interest are festivals that are outside of the typical summer festival schedule. Contributors suggest festivals during the winter or fall to keep people active and engaged in the city arts and culture scenes.
2. Develop more cultural activity for every citizen. The affordability of the cultural events is a major concern of many respondents. Citizens make mention of the need for reduced rate tickets to downtown theater and musicals. As well, respondents want to develop a downtown location where local artists could display their work.
3. Increased investment and promotion of cultural activities.
Contributors discuss the need to expand the promotion of existing art and cultural events. Several respondents point out how they did not know about things like the Arts Festival until many years after moving to the city. Also prevalent in the responses was a call for more support of the arts community both financially and through access to public facilities.
4. Create more cultural centers and neighborhood activities including
public art displays. Many feel it is important to support neighborhood based cultural activities that include cultural arts centers. Also, respondents discuss the benefits of public arts projects so murals, sculpture, performing arts, and other types of art are visible and free for communities. Comments call for spaces where youth and local artists can display their art for free and make it available for sale.
5. Increase artistic and cultural educational opportunities especially
for youth. Expanding arts and culture leads respondents towards a desire to have more educational opportunities available for all citizens through free or low cost classes such as the Saturday morning classes at CCAD. Respondents particularly focus on the youth education as a major area of improvement where children are encouraged to pursue the arts at an early age.

 

Think Outside the Box...