What came out of this informal talk was a history and debrief of vocabulary that is often used (and often interchangeably) within public art practice. Following this debrief, Cleveland shared a number of various proposals that were submitted to the Dougoether Foundation. As he described each project proposal, the audience had the opportunity to participate as a panel and vote "yay" or "nay" on what seemed feasible. It turned out that all of the proposals were actually funded and realized, regardless of how "out of this world" the proposals seemed. I thought this brought up an interesting discussion on the disparity between artistic visions and funder (or even viewer) expectations. This seems to be a common root cause for either success or failure. I certainly don't have an answer to any of these big questions, but have been learning to consider these and equip in my back pocket to refer for continuous reflection.
Needless to say, the attendees learned about "The Great Neighborhood Challenge," which was announced by the San Diego Foundation. Community awards will be granted to creative projects that will improve the neighborhoods of San Diego. I'm curious to learn more about this challenge and see what creative changes can be made.