From artists/entrepreneurs to small businesses to large institutions, the creative workforce accounts for a large swath of California’s economy but there are many gaps in how creative workers are supported and recognized. How are the arts thinking about innovative models to sustain the people who make up our industry to ensure that growth is not just possible, but progressive? In the last year we have seen new programs introduced from guaranteed basic income to pandemic unemployment assistance but the question remains, how do we move these programs from pilots to policy? Meet leading thinkers and organizers from California and beyond that are reimagining how policy and systems can make the arts work for its workers.
Moderator:
David Holland, Deputy Director, WESTAF
Panelsits:
Aisa Villarosa, Senior Director of External Affairs, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Althea Erickson, Director, Rustle Lab
Naia Kete, Singer/Songwriter, AAW Artist - Western MA Pilot
Rachel Chanoff, The OFFICE Performing Arts + Film
Background:
In California, The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reports that arts and cultural production accounts for $232,452,954,000 and 7.4% of the California economy, contributing 779,932 jobs. Arts are ancillary economic drivers also including tourism and a range of small businesses from caterers and dry cleaners to restaurants and porta potties, arts in total employ over $2.7 million Californians. (Source: 2020 Otis Report on the Creative Economy).
In October 2021, Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB-628 to advance California’s Creative Workforce Act of 2021, a law that prioritizes creative workforce development as a state priority. The proposed programs in the bill represent innovative solutions to help build back the arts and creative industries workforce by offering job creation opportunities for the recently unemployed and workforce development for a new pipeline of creative workers with an emphasis on diversifying the workforce. The training and development prescribed by SB-628 will serve people who are at the beginning of their careers in the creative arts, Veterans, and returning citizens, and, among other things, would focus on building marketable skills in the arts and creative industries. CA Arts Advocates are hopeful the 2022-23 California budget will include a $50 million allocation to operationalize the bill, which would be overseen by the California Arts Council and remains a crucial aspect of ensuring its effectiveness in the field.
San Francisco and Sacramento are piloting Guaranteed Basic Income programs specifically for artists, with a focus on artists in marginalized communities. These programs have been rolled thanks in large part to COVID relief funds, addressing the disproportionate impact artists faced during the pandemic but in doing so also recognize artists as essential contributors to cities/economies and attempt to disrupt long-standing systems of racial inequity within arts funding and the gig-labor model most artists operate under.
GBI is a tenet of the Social and Solidarity Economy, a set of concepts reimagining existing systems to create economic and racial justice in the arts and culture sectors. Collectively the models it presents are rooted in: “Community ownership and democratic governance that builds political, cultural, and economic power.” (Source: art.coop)
David Holland, Deputy Director, WESTAF
David Holland is the Deputy Director at WESTAF, where he serves as the primary liaison with public sector arts agencies, regional arts organizations, arts advocacy groups, and other partners and drives the impact of WESTAF’s programs and services. David was previously the associate director of the Arts and Business Council of Greater Boston. Prior roles include senior management positions with the VCU da Vinci Center for Innovation, VCU School of the Arts, ART 180, the Latin Ballet of Virginia, Arts & Business, and the UK innovation foundation Nesta. David's early career included roles with BOP Consulting, a global consulting firm on culture and the creative industries, where he was a senior consultant, and the UK’s National Campaign for the Arts, where he was campaigns officer. He serves as the Co-Chair of the Creative States Coalition and on the Cultural Advocacy Group. He has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, Colorado Creative Industries, Colorado’s Arts in Society Program, the Boston Foundation, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and Virginians for the Arts and as a site reviewer for Massachusetts Cultural Council. David is a graduate of Amherst College and the University of London, SOAS.
Aisa Villarosa Senior Director of External Affairs, Office of Movement Building, YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS
Aisa Villarosa (she/her) is a first generation, queer Pinay activist-artist-attorney and the Senior Director of External Affairs at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Previously, she served as Associate Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Insight Center in Oakland, California, where she examined wealth and income inequality by race and gender. Aisa applies advocacy, research, design, and storytelling to break down harmful narratives undergirding the workforce and economy. A former Skadden Public Interest Fellow and licensed attorney in Michigan and California, she received her B.A. from the University of Michigan and her law degree from Wayne State University. Aisa is a painter, muralist, and instructor of AAPI civil rights history, inspired by the Bay Area‚ Third World Liberation solidarity and activists who sought justice following the murder of Detroiter Vincent Chin.
Althea Erickson, Director, Rustle Lab
Althea Erickson is a long-time advocate for independent workers and the creative economy. She currently serves as Director of Rustle Lab, a new advocacy and policy initiative dedicated to expanding social and economic protections for artists and arts workers. Previously, Althea served as Vice President, Global Public Policy and Impact at Etsy, where she led the company efforts to advance supportive public policies on behalf of Etsy sellers, including COVID relief, portable benefits, tax and regulatory simplification, and net neutrality, among others. Althea also led Etsy‚ ‘broader impact strategy, including delivering on its economic, social, and environmental impact commitments and accountability strategy.' Prior to joining Etsy, Althea was the advocacy and policy director at Freelancers Union where she helped grow its membership into a powerful political force, leading campaigns to repeal unfair tax laws, protect freelancers from unpaid wages, and expand its model of member-owned health insurance. Previously, Althea worked at the Rockefeller Foundation where she focused on strategies to build economic security within the US workforce. She has also worked as a community and campaign organizer for various advocacy organizations. She has a B.A in government and public policy from Wesleyan University.
Rachel Chanoff has been working in performing arts and film for 35 years and is the founder and director of THE OFFICE performing arts + film, her New York City-based programming, consulting, and production company. She is the Curator of Performing Arts and Film for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), Director of Programming of the CenterSeries at the '62 Center for Theater and Dance at Williams College, Consultant to the Feature Film Program for the Sundance Institute, Curator of The New York Jewish Film Festival and The Margaret Mead Film Festival, and the Artistic Director of the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival, New York’s longest running free outdoor performing arts festival. Rachel is proud to serve on the board of the 52nd Street Project and Working Films. She is also a long time participant in the Theater Development Fund’s Open Doors program, which introduces underserved high school students to the theater.
Naia Kete is a Southern California-based singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and social justice advocate with a powerful voice to match her dedication to positive change-making. Born and raised in Western Massachusetts to a family of musicians, she is now leader of the urban-reggae band SayReal, which aims to empower people to change the world by changing themselves. In 2012, she was a contestant on the second season of the NBC television show The Voice as a member of Team Blake, making it into the Top 24. She is also the founder of Song Healing Trauma, which engages the healing power of music to reframe the embodied experience of trauma in a context of safety and courage.
Special thanks to our sponsors for the event:
Safe, Sustainable & Accessible Events are “no accident” - FREE experiential workforce development and learning workshops using festivals as classrooms for event producers and emergency managers. Click to learn more: www.theartofmassgatherings.com Next California Symposium will be in Santa Barbara, CA 29 - 31 May 2022 at the I Madonnari Chalk Art Festival