Laura Zucker, Executive Director of the Los
Angeles County Arts Commission from 1992 to 2017 gave the keynote
address at the June retreat for the SD County Arts and Culture Commissioners. She was there to give advice on how to build
our commission to the juggernaut that is the Los Angeles is the largest County
in the United States, encompassing 88 municipalities and nearly 140
unincorporated areas. Under her
guidance, the Arts Commission funded 364 nonprofit arts organizations through a
two-year $9 million grant program, implemented the regional initiative
dedicated to restoring arts education to 81 public school districts, funded the
largest arts internship program in the country and manages the County’s civic
art policy.
Zucker was very straight forward with her advice. The
commission has to have a budget to function and that budget is achieved only by
using political power. Every year in put on
the county budget is requested
two weeks before the budget is published. At that time the most influential
leaders and campaign donors need to visit each county supervisor’s office and
get them to sign a memo of support for
the requested amount needed. You need three out of the five supervisors to
assure success.
To make sure you can sell your story here is some more
advice:
· Suck
up to the Supervisors big time. Invite them to events to be honored and ask
them to speak. Take their pictures and
get those published. Visibility is important.
· Make
sure that you broadcast all your stories. The arts are always a good news story
and the county has a lot of bad news that needs to be balanced out.
· Be the
solution to a problem, which means you have to know what the platforms of the
supervisors are. What do they want to achieve and how can the arts help them.
· Embed
artists in residence every department of government. Funding can come from
collaborations and having artist knowledgeable about the functioning of all the
issues is so helpful.
· Make
sure that your commission has regional impact.
· Find
out what you can do that no one else can do and broadcast that. Art issues are
life issues.
Now this can’t be done all at once, but there are huge
opportunities in San Diego to make a difference.
The rest of the retreat was spent discussing the strategy
plan and setting new priorities. Most exciting was the discussion about the
project with a $29K grant from the Local Arts Agency Learning Network where it was proposed to hold a series
of County Supervisor Arts Convening listening events.
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| Pictured: County Liaison Giang Meyers, Vice Chair Bob Lehman of San Diego Museum Council, Chair Jim Gilliam, Felicia Shaw of San Diego ART Matters, guest consultant Laura Zucker of AEA Consulting and past director (1992-2017) of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Jennifer Jeffries of FALLBROOK CENTER FOR THE ARTS INC, Ladan Akbarnia of The San Diego Museum of Art, Sharlene O'Keefe of Poway OnStage (aka: Poway Center for the Performing Arts Foundation), and artist Jay Bell. Not pictured: Monica Hernandez of Casa Familiar, Inc., Lucas O'Connor of San Diego & Imperial Counties Labor Council, and artist Renee Richetts. |
Other Arts Advocacy News:
There is a new program in North California (Oakland and SF) called GAAP which stands for Grassroots Artist Advocacy Program. GAAP is part of CA for the Arts' Regional Advocacy Infrastructure Network (RAIN), which seeks to reinforce advocacy capacity and efficacy at the local, state and federal levels by designing new models of collaboration at the local (county and municipal) level. This is a fellowship program for artist with a particular project in mind. San Diego are we ready for our own GAAP? In early 2023, they worked with the San Diego Regional Arts and Culture Coalition now Arts Matter by doing an assessment of what their needs are, and what their advocacy goals were for the year.
Learn the ins and outs of leveraging AB 812 to create affordable housing for artists. There is finally a panel and a tool kit from CA for the Arts. The panelists include Tracy Hudak, Co-Author and Director of Field Engagement and Advocacy | CA for the Arts who last year gave the presentation for NCAN, AB 812 authorizes local governments to set aside 10% of any locally-required affordable housing units for artists within one-half mile of a state designated cultural district or within a locally designated cultural district. In Zoom on Wed, July 23 from noon - 1:30 PM. Learn more here.
In the Art Conversation held for the benefit of the South
Bay by Jonathon Glus in concert with the California Arts Council (CAC). Francisco
Eme of The Front mentioned that border artists wanted to express other
idea besides the border issues. Culture in Mexico is wide ranging and includes
low riders, cuisines and fashion. Dr. Alberto Lopez Pulido agreed
with that. Sean Boyd of the Trinity Theater is having funding cuts so that his
performances can't go to all the school that they visited last year. Bob
Lehman from the Museum Council encouraged sharing resources and even
merging with partners to survive. He suggested that funding be for multi-years
so that some of the unpredictability of budgets could be avoided. There is an
election for a new supervisor to take the place of Nora Vargas and you are
urged to find out about all the candidates and show them how the arts can help
with social issues.
We attended the CAC June meeting which was held in San Diego and also available to attend by zoom. We recommend that everyone attends at least one of these meeting to understand the process that these art profession use to support all of us. We learned so much and were inspired. Here is just one example: Governor Gavin Newson, "We will be at California for All. We will not be divided between rural and urban, or north and south. Or coastal and inland. We will strive for solidarity and face our most threatening problems together. This will take courage, and that's a word that means different things to different people. And to me, courage means doing what is right, even when it is hard. We will strive for solidarity and face our most threatening problems together. This will take courage, and that's a word that means different things to different people. And to me, courage means doing what is right, even when it is hard. There's a spark of California, a hope. And a California courage that is born in all of us. It's up to us what we do with it Because the eyes of the world are upon us. Now, more than ever, America needs California."
