Monument art festival. Food truck city block. Summer water festival.

These are a few suggestions community members have submitted to help shape Arts Vision 2030, the Pikes Peak region’s new cultural plan for the next decade.

Through July, residents in El Paso and Teller counties are encouraged to contribute their ideas on topics including education, economy, creative businesses, public art, connecting neighborhoods and more to the plan, which is organized by Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region (COPPeR), Bee Vradenburg Foundation and other creative leaders in the region.

Register online at artsvision2030.com to participate in weekly digital interactives, including click polls, virtual focus groups and discussions, surveys and more. The final plan will be released during an Arts Month event in October.

“Creative vitality is already part of PlanCOS, the Destination Master Plan and El Paso County’s master plan,” said Angela Seals, COPPeR’s deputy director. “Creativity is part of a healthy and growing region. An arts vision complements those larger plans by going deeper. Of course we need creative vitality, but how does that weave into all those different sectors and neighborhoods around the region? It’s a deep dive into the role of the arts and advancing the larger goals of the region.”

The plan was set to launch a year ago, until COVID-19 halted everything and threw the creative sector into crisis. One of the first goals of the new plan is to focus on resilience and recovery in the wake of the pandemic with questions such as: What did the pandemic mean to you in your creative life? How did it affect you? How do you see yourself pull out of it?

“For some it’s unlocked some new opportunities and new ways to think about their works,” Seals said. “There’s some good in among the challenges. It will be healing and unifying for the community to talk about right now.”

This is the region’s second cultural plan. While the success of the 2010-2020 plan is currently being audited, there is at least one shining example of the community’s desires coming to fruition.

“It called for the need for a 600-seat theater space,” Seals said. “When the Ent Center was in development they referenced the cultural plan to guide the scale of that theater. When University of Colorado at Colorado Springs opened it (Ent Center), it was a direct fulfillment of the goals of the cultural plan.”

Contact the writer: jen.mulson@gazette.com

Courtesy of Alberto Leopizzi

Residents in El Paso and Teller counties are encouraged to contribute their ideas to help shape Arts Vision 2030, the Pikes Peak region’s new cultural plan. Pictured is a member of Ormao Dance Company.

Celebrate Arts Month this October (copy)

courtesy of Alberto Leopizzi

Jerilee Bennett/The GazettePikes Peak region residents are encouraged to submit any ideas to help shape Arts Vision 2030, the region’s new cultural plan for the next decade. The final plan will be revealed during an Arts Month event in October. Arts Month typically kicks off with Artini (pictured).

Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette