CALIFORNIA—Each year, California Assemblymembers and State Senators are invited to honor a Nonprofit of the Year for their district.
Under the direction of CFTA Board Member Josiah Bruny, California District 31 Senator Richard Roth has honored Music Changing Lives as the 2021 nonprofit of the year.
Read MoreNATIONAL—Alma Robinson is the Executive Director of California Lawyers for the Arts, where she leads a multi-faceted, statewide organization with offices in Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Berkeley. While overseeing CLA’s legal referral, education, advocacy, and alternative dispute resolution programs, she has led several groundbreaking initiatives including the Arts-in-Corrections Initiative, a collaborative effort that resulted in an initial two-year $2.5 million contract between the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the California Arts Council for arts programs in 20 California prisons in 2014.
Read MoreORANGE COUNTY—Thirteen months after the Segerstrom Center for the Arts halls lay shuttered and dormant by the COVID-19 pandemic, an 18-member corps of American Ballet Theatre dancers jump-started programming in front of live audiences Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Read MoreFONTANA—“Providing more high quality and affordable arts programming in our communities would really help to both nurture the amazing, innate creative abilities of so many and to develop the next generation of creative change makers not only in our Inland Empire, but in the world at large,” she said.
Read MoreLOS ANGELES—The Music Center in downtown Los Angeles is expected to announce Thursday that it is the first performing arts organization in the country to receive a UL “healthy building” verification, representing high standards for air quality at four venues — Walt Disney Concert Hall, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Mark Taper Forum and Ahmanson Theatre.
Read MoreLOS ANGELES— “We need to find a different way to fund the arts, because at this moment … multiple arts agencies across Los Angeles are fighting to keep their budgets in place,” said another speaker Gustavo Herrera, executive director of Arts for LA, an organization that advocates for equitable access to the arts. “And these are the organizations that are most connected to the community, and if we can’t get our local arts agencies funding to be able to continue to support the arts workers, then how can we call ourselves the creative capital of the world?”
Read MoreDUBLIN— During the discussion Rachel Osajima, Director of the Alameda County Arts Commission reported that yesterday she accepted the proclamation from the Board of Supervisors that we celebrate March as Art IS Education Month and April as Arts, Culture and Creativity Month.
Read MoreHOLLISTER— Organizations like Californians for the Arts, where Arts Council Executive Director Jennifer Laine serves as a board member and co-chair of the Programs Committee, is working with elected officials to develop reopening guidelines for the arts sector and also on several initiatives to activate and employ creative industries in service of public health and other public-led campaigns.
Read MoreSAN DIEGO— Riding the edge of the cusp between comfort and resistance positions you to build resilience and keep the learning process at the forefront of your experience. The experience of COVID19 puts this practice into ‘normal’ operations. Businesses literally cannot do what they have always done. Risk taking now is inspiring innovation in all aspects from planning to implementation.
Read More“The Arts Relief Grant Program for Nonprofit Arts and Cultural Organizations supports the role that arts play in getting us through this pandemic,” said Rachel Osajima, ACAC director. “They’re also an important part of our economy. One out of ten jobs in California are connected to the arts industry.”
Read MoreORANGE COUNTY— In addition to the county money, Stein’s organization also partnered with the Orange County Community Foundation and Charitable Ventures to create its own fund, the OC Arts & Culture Resilience Fund. The newly created fund has already dispersed $159,000: $750 grants to 70 individual artists, as well as 19 grants for nonprofit arts organizations ranging from $1,000 to $14,000 each. It is through this fund that the District 3 and city of Santa Ana grants are being managed.
Read MoreLAGUNA BEACH— This is the second round of relief payments. Over $150,000 has been handed out, including payments to 19 Orange County arts organizations. Richard Stein is the president and CEO of ArtsOC. He said that the money will hopefully help Orange County artists pull through.
Read MoreSAN DIEGO— Earlier this year, the Commission for Arts and Culture committed to evaluating its role in contributing to systematic inequities in the arts. We are moving forward with that work, which extends to our support of and investment in individual artists.
Read MoreSACRAMENTO— Sacramento’s Latino Center for Art and Culture, for example, maintains and promotes the cultural traditions of the Latinx community through their programming such as El Panteón de Sacramento/Día de los Muertos each November. One of the region’s largest employers of Latinx artists, in a typical year their exhibitions, performances and festivals draw together 15,000, predominantly low- and middle-income latinx and other families in a shared cultural experience.
Read MoreSAN DIEGO—Tara Graviss understands the importance of the arts in people’s lives because they’ve been such a large, critical part of her own life.
As someone who was artistic growing up, later becoming an expressive arts therapist and leading an arts education nonprofit, she’s seen and experienced how being able to express yourself through the arts can lead to healthy growth and development.
Read MoreThe world desperately needs workers and leaders who are creative, disciplined and visionary. The arts—music, dance, theater and the visual arts—foster those qualities in today’s students and tomorrow’s workforce.
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