Downtown Raleigh is going through cultural growing pains. Restaurants, bars and other forms of nighttime activity are cropping up as never before, yet galleries and places to hear live music still struggle to stay in business.

And don't even mention public art. After last year's fiasco with the proposed conceptual piece by internationally renowned artist Jaume Plensa -- when bureaucracy and politics won out over philanthropy and risk -- Raleigh has developed a cultural identity crisis.

Yet even as the Plensa project was falling apart, a group of people had begun thinking out loud about what Raleigh could become if enough intellectual and creative juice were applied.

They picked a weekend, gathered an array of spirits and called the four days of workshops and performances SparkCon.

It wasn't clear what this intentionally vague and decentralized event accomplished, but organizers declared that Raleigh and the rest of the Triangle could be artistically vibrant in ways not yet imagined.

Sparks will fly again from Sept. 20 to 23 in a variety of venues, most of them in the Moore Square neighborhood in downtown Raleigh. Wrap your right brain around the creative process or enjoy the product of someone else's: music, visual art, sidewalk painting, fashion, body art, film and food. Get details at www.sparkcon.com.

"Igniting the creative hub of the South" is the conference's theme. So far, it's the best idea out there.

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