Progress on DVPN's new project, the Pagan Arts Initiative (PAI) is continuing to advance, with the opening of the new web site for the project, http://pai.dvpn.org

According to Bob Bruhin, who sits on PAI's steering committee as well as being PAI's designer and webmaster, the site was targeted to a different audience than DVPN's existing site. "The PAI site is designed to attract the interest of the general public, not just that of area Pagans," he explains. To do this he plans to open two new areas of the site in 2006. "The first goal is to provide an events calendar specifically related to Pagan Arts. This will be where Pagan artists and Pagan- or classically-themed artists will be able to list their events, whether these events be performances, readings, or gallery shows." He wants the site to become a destination for anyone seeking artistic expression in the Delaware Valley.

Later in the year Bruhin plans to launch what he is calling, "The Pagan Arts Marketplace." This will be a shared resource where artists will be able to directly sell their merchandise to the public. "The plan," he explains, "is to share the pain and expense of building an online store with the community as a whole. That way, instead of every artist bearing the full brunt of building an entire web site, many will choose the option of merely becoming PAI Artist Members to gain access to a centrally managed store."

Bruhin makes it clear that there is still quite a bit of work to go on the second project, though. "I expect to be doing initial testing sometime in July, 2006, at the earliest. If we do well, we may have our first full test of the site's capabilities before Yule."

The point of all this, according to Bruhin, is to show the general public how deeply arts penetrate into the Pagan community, as a whole. "I don't know anyone in our community who isn't actively creating something. The number of performers, painters, singers, photographers, and craftspeople I know within our community is disproportionate to our size. We need to learn to capitalize on this reality so that we can better contribute to society as a whole."

According to Franklin Evans, DVPN President and PAI Executive Producer, "PAI started with the realization that DVPN's most successful activity has been community outreach via the arts. It was almost that simple, and we decided to act on this by giving our arts activities as much clout as we could."

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