Local arts organizations have the power to play a role in everything from community challenges to the vibrancy of national democracy by expanding access to both creating and experiencing art.

That mission drives one of the country's most vigorous and diverse artistic hubs in West Philadelphia.

Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown visited for our series Art in Action,

exploring the intersection of art and democracy and our canvas coverage.

Connection. Oh, right. It was a gathering of gentle movement, some laughs, and plenty of concern.

Never in my lifetime has democracy been more under threat.

Over how small arts organizations here in West Philadelphia and beyond can meet the moment.

Andrew Zitzer, professor of urban strategy at Drexel University, was one of the organizers of the event, titled Democracy in the

Making, with an emphasis on the creative act itself. For us, it means that democracy is not something

that is either an abstraction or an assumption. It's not something that's just out there that's

always been and will forever be, and it's not something that we receive.

It's something that we make together.

Public trust where this group met is one of a number of small West Philly nonprofit

spaces based around a simple but to Zitzer and others profound idea about the role

artists and arts organizations can play in their local communities.

The artist as embedded facilitator and storyteller and a reflector of community experience

is as old as it comes.

And so this culture of democracy is reclaiming a very old paradigm for today's reality.

And the floral sense from Mrs. Eva's manglet trees, hmm, I wish you were here.

One such organization, Writers Room, established by Drexel in 2014 with an unusual goal

for a university, to serve as a place for students and community members to write, share,

and publish their stories together.

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