The unexpected happens in Cincinnati when the Fine Arts Fund gets involved. Belly dancers shake in the Carew Tower arcade. Bus passengers break out into spontaneous storytelling. A giant flash-mob dances in the rain on Fountain Square. The FAF has been wowing us with these art happenings for the past few years, and now it's doing it again, organizing Sunday's street mural painting in Over-the-Rhine.  

Bigger is not necessarily better, and cooperation might ace competition among arts organizations in our changing culture, according to Diane E. Ragsdale of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, who spoke to an audience of art professionals and supporters at the University of Cincinnati May 6. She urged arts organizations to recognize that "we have a society in which the arts have become marginal" — big attendance numbers might not equal big impact.  

The Fine Arts Fund's Margy Waller wants to have a conversation with you about the kind of community you live in and want to build. About how you want your children to grow up. About how the region's arts and culture resources help you accomplish those goals.