Dear Fellow Dallasites:
It has been my honor and privilege to serve as the Director of the Office of Cultural Affairs for the City of Dallas during this past year’s cultural planning process. As a native Dallasite who first experienced arts more than 30 years ago in this city, I’m truly amazed at how far we have come and inspired by what I see as boundless opportunities for artistic vibrancy going forward.
In some ways, this Cultural Plan has been one, big year-long conversation about something near and dear to so many of us — arts and culture! How do we experience the arts here in Dallas? How can we participate in producing and creating arts and culture that is relevant to our daily lives? How are artists and creative producers supported and nurtured so that they can thrive and continue to add to our communities? These questions, in addition to dozens of others, were the conversation starters that nearly 9,000 of you discussed and debated and dreamed about.
After our research, benchmarking, financial analysis, and most importantly, listening to the community, six clear priorities emerged. Equity rose the top quickly — Dallas residents intuitively knew that resources and supports for arts have not always been shared broadly across the city and artistic domains. We can do better. And, if Equity is the center of our other priorities — including Diversity, Support for Artists and Spaces — then, our entire City will be more vibrant and creatively inspired. Increasing the Economic Sustainability of the entire sector and improving Communications to audiences near and far will help us ensure that we are creating more opportunities for artists and cultural production and for audiences across Dallas.
Lastly, I am filled with gratitude for so many of you. First of all, thank you to the amazing team of the Office of Cultural Affairs who managed this process and invested personally and professionally to make sure that all parts of our city and its artistic fabric were truly served by this work. Thank you to the Lord Cultural Resources, who led the consulting team that brought an external expertise and analytical framework to help us organize our data and priorities so beautifully. Thank you to the private donors who have already invested generously in Dallas’ arts for supporting this plan to guide the sector for the next seven to 10 years. Thank you to the Steering Committee and the other task force contributors who spent months reviewing research and crafting solutions. Thank you to the Arts and Cultural Advisory Commission and City Council who showed up consistently to lend their leadership and support to this work. And, last but certainly not least, thank YOU if you participated in this Plan — I hope you see how this is truly a culmination of broad community engagement, and I look forward to working together to bring it to life!
All my best,
Jennifer Scripps
Director of Cultural Affairs