Move4ART

When the Fairmount Indigo Corridor Collaborative brought its community "visioning" process to Mattapan last December, the forum was packed.   The Collaborative's Community Action Group (CAG) gathered residents, urban planners, architects and developers around six work tables in the community room at the Mattapan Branch Library ; replete with maps, markers, clips, and questions to prompt the work ahead. The table-sized maps were drawn from the  City of Boston's Fairmount Indigo Planning Initiative  launched in February 2012  to take advantage of the MBTA's expansion of commuter rail service.  The CAG's facilitators wanted to know what kind of "transit-oriented development" Mattapan residents envisioned along the Blue Hills/Cummings corridor. Biggest surprise was how many people there voiced a desire for a more robust nightlife in Mattapan.  Turns out, there was no need to convince anyone that Mattapan would benefit from having a cultural arts ce...

Photo credit: G. Sierra Khan              Wheelock Family Theatre showcased the first cohort of young playwrights to participate in its Emerging Playwrights Program  (EPP) last Friday night at the Mattahunt Community Center .          A large, first-floor activity room was converted into a makeshift, flexible theatre space.  And there, with the Boston mural as a backdrop, actors staged readings of the young playwrights' works.      In rapid-fire fashion, the evening's program cycled through five ten-minute plays:  Eden Beleke's Paradise  took a comedic look at cell phone addiction and the tensions it engenders; Jacarrea Garraway's Our Son  finds parents' new possibilities dashed once their son drops out of college and returns home; Alex Drumm, Jr.'s Worst Case Scenario  traps father- and son-in-law to be in an elevator where they hash out their differences, whil...

Mattapan (Environmental) Action Network's most recent post really captures the mood: Meh! Tuning N2 the Mayoral Race . 'Cause I have been feeling a lil "meh!" about the race; especially as the field ballooned and eventually winnowed. Under the circumstances we'll have to cast our vote based on each candidate's commitment to artists and access to "the ahts"--arts education, arts OST-programming, arts institutions, arts facilities, to arts as a portal to civic engagement.   Tomorrow we'll post our findings here.

Does our want for space simultaneously fill a need for which there is a market demand ? The question is complicated by the fact that Mattapan families clearly want out-of-school time arts programming now ; adding to our pressure for space to work and play.   Of course this is all just anecdotal.  So we're struggling to figure out how we can quantify it.  Thoughts?  Advice?