ARTS
COUNCIL RECEIVES NEA GRANT FOR CULTURAL PLANNING
by Colleen Schenck, Executive Director, ACMC
The
Arts Council recently received notification from the National
Endowment for the Arts of a grant award of $5,000 from the
Challenge America Fast Track Grant Program. The award was
based on ACMC's application for funding support to create
an Arts Assessment and Cultural Plan for Mendocino County,
the objective being to strengthen the arts and develop vital
and creative communities.
The arts
bring people together through festivals, public-private partnerships,
and community projects. In our schools the arts enhance academic
learning, develop creative problem solving skills and promote
cross-cultural understanding, all of which eventually contributes
to the local economy by creating jobs, generating income and
adding to the local tax coffers, and creating a vitality that
attracts new businesses, revitalizes neighborhoods and creates
a sense of pride in our communities.
The creation
of an Arts and Cultural Plan begins with community wide information
gathering and consensus building. The data identifies the
art and cultural resources as well as community needs, but
beyond that, it becomes a tool to map cultural resources and
gaps, to analyze the economic impact of art activities, to
evaluate cultural activities in school curriculum and to develop
partnerships for new community based programs. In addition
to increased public awareness of arts and culture as community
assets, it generates advocacy for greater political and financial
support for the arts.
Cultural
planning is not a new idea in Mendocino County. In 1978, The
Ukiah Cultural Arts Commission, led by the consulting firm
of Adams, Mandel & Goldbard, produced a very thorough
report with recommendations addressing the need for cultural
facilities, special programs for under-served groups, individual
artists and economic development, communications and information
coordination, and historic preservation, public art and city
planning.
In 1982, a countywide cultural and arts plan was published
by the Cultural Advisory Committee, an ad hoc committee appointed
by the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors. The plan outlined
recommendations for the implementation of the plan, which
included the development of the first county arts council.
Both were important documents, but it has been twenty-three
years since the Ukiah Cultural Plan was developed and nineteen
years since the county plan. Though parts of these plans were
implemented, other goals were never realized.
As the
designated county partner to the California Arts Council,
ACMC has an essential role. Although it will take a full year
to complete the process, ACMC has already begun to meet and
network with arts organizations, small groups of artists and
community leaders. A series of Town Hall meetings will be
held this fall and surveys will be distributed through the
mail and at meetings.
Let your
voice be heard. The arts and culture represent who we are
as a people. Participate in the Town Hall Meeting in your
community. As a kick off to the cultural planning process,
the Arts Council is hosting a video screening of California
- State of the Arts and a community wide meeting on Arts Day,
October 10th at the Grace Hudson Museum, 431 S. Main St. in
Ukiah, from 7:30 - 9:00 PM. The video was produced by the
California Arts Council to show the importance of the arts
to education, the economy and the health of civic life in
our communities, and in our state. The meeting, the first
in a series of Town Hall Meetings, will give the Ukiah community
an opportunity to voice their opinions.
Other
meetings are October 17th for Anderson Valley at the Boonville
Fairgrounds Dining Hall, 6:30 - 8:30 PM; October 23rd for
the south coast at the Gualala Arts Center, 7:00 - 8:30 PM;
and November 2nd for the north coast at College of the Redwoods
Campus in Fort Bragg, 6:30 - 8:30 PM. Meetings in Covelo,
Laytonville and Willits are still being planned. For further
information call the Arts Council office at 895-3680.
