Why dad?

Dylan, my 3 1/2 year-old is in the "why" mode of life. I attempt on many occasions to be the omniscient dad only to realize each time that the cycle has no end, not to mention that attempting to fill the Almighty's role is tiring. I can only imagine how fascinating the world must be to my son right now as he soaks up information like a sponge. Everything is fresh. We all know how hard it is to keep that fresh quest for knowledge as we encounter set backs and disappointments during our lifetimes. Personally, I know I have a bent toward the cynical, so I surround myself with 0ptimistic people. The best decision I ever made was to marry the most positive person I have ever met, so she truly keeps me in check. My son is actually teaching me to look at the world from a more novel perspective. When looking at our emerging arts community, my biggest "why"question is why more of our arts groups don't ask more questions? Oh, we have plenty of opinions (me included) and assumptions, but truly asking the questions not only to obtain the right answers, but to truly get closer as a community could improve greatly. An artistic director at one of our theatres said that he hasn't seen the audience base for theatre patrons grow since he has been here for 10 years and doesn't expect that it will grow. When I asked him why he thought that was, he just said that he felt that this market just isn't arts savvy. Is that true or have we not used the right channels to reach a new and broader audience? The old adage is if we keep acting in the same manner that we can't expect change. It is like the person who expects to lose weight, but doesn't change poor eating habits. We just launched redchairproject.com. It is one step to use a different approach to cmmunicate the assets we have as arts community. My biggest disappointment is that instead of engaging the possibilities with questions, many arts groups have chosen to engage in assumptions or not engage at all. Recently seven groups got together to offer a Real Orlando Real Art, a "hopper pass" type package to their events to give potential new audiences a way to experience several types of organizations. That is the fantastic result of asking a question and then searching for a new approach to address it. That is the novel approach. Let's take a page from a 3 1/2 year-olds perspective. Ask questions.