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A Message From Our Director
Graphic by The Think Farm. |
Greetings,
What an Arts Month it has been! It began with a motion by Chair Lindsey Horvath and Supervisor Solis declaring April as Arts Month in LA County, praising the artists, creatives, educators, organizations, and advocates vital to arts and culture, and highlighting our decades of continued work to ensure the people of Los Angeles County have access to arts. This motion, and other motions before it, also called for support in expanding our flagship Organizational Grant Program (OGP), which supports over 650 cultural and arts organizations of all sizes.
Later in the month, we were elated to learn of a proposed increase for OGP in the County’s Recommended Budget—the first step in the budget process. After various motions from Supervisors Solis, Horvath, and Mitchell which received unanimous support, the Recommended Budget has included a proposed OGP increase of $1.15M. Increasing OGP funding for arts organizations is a longtime goal—which we have been striving to increase for over 15 years—and much needed in the creative sector. This is just the beginning of the budget process, but we are so heartened by the support of the Board of Supervisors, and grateful, as always, to our Arts Commissioners, collaborators, and all of you.
As you can see below, it was a busy Arts Month all-around! We released a new study of the Demographics of the Arts and Culture Workforce in Los Angeles County, welcomed Leticia Buckley as this year's Arts Commission President, announced artist Patrisse Cullors' Creative Strategist residency at the Homeless Initiative, opened the first round of Arts Internship Program positions for college students, set the date for this year's Arts and Health Week Summit, and so, so much more.
Onward!
Kristin Sakoda |
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Explore Arts Month Content
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| To celebrate Arts Month, we have made a few artworks available to download as desktop wallpapers or video conference backgrounds (for programs such as Teams and Zoom), and listed LA County museums and cultural institutions to visit! |
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2024 LOS ANGELES COUNTY
ARTS AND HEALTH WEEK SUMMIT
(L- R) Director of the LA County Dept. of Arts and Culture, Kristin Sakoda; LA Opera Special Projects Advisor Renée Fleming; and NEA Chair Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson at the 2023 Arts and Health Summit. Photo by Samuel Cruz. |
Friday, June 14, 2024
Dorothy Chandler Pavillion
Hosted by LA Opera in collaboration with LA County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis; the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture; Healing Arts—an initiative of the Jameel Arts & Health Lab; and the World Health Organization (WHO), this unique, free summit offers conversations and participatory arts experiences, and promotes creative ways to approach wellness.
Thought leaders including arts practitioners, medical experts and administrators, policymakers, and researchers will be on hand for discussions and presentations that explore how the arts can equitably support health and wellbeing. The event features Special Projects Advisor for LA Opera, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health, and acclaimed soprano Renée Fleming, among other notable advocates for the arts in healthcare. |
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DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE ARTS AND CULTURE WORKFORCE IN
LOS ANGELES COUNTY
East LA Landscape by Star Montana at the Los Angeles General Medical Center - Recuperative Care Center. |
We’re pleased to announce publication of the third study by SMU DataArts, which analyzes the demographic makeup of the nonprofit arts and cultural workforce in LA County. Launched as part of the Cultural Equity and Inclusion initiative (CEII) in 2015, this 2023 study expands our understanding of how workforce diversity and equity have evolved, building on prior studies in 2016 and 2019. It finds a significant shift toward greater racial and ethnic diversity since 2019, particularly at the leadership level. Nearly half of the arts and culture workforce is composed of individuals identifying as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color. While the findings show progress, they also show there is still more work to do to increase diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the arts and creative sector in LA County. We will host a webinar event for this study later this spring.
Additional findings include:
- Hispanic/Latino/a/x workers have the widest gaps in representation relative to the county population (13 percent of arts and culture workers compared to 49 percent of the population)
- Supervisory staff have grown from 34 percent BIPOC in 2019 to 45 percent in 2023
- 72 percent of younger workers (ages 18-24) identify as BIPOC and are more likely to be in non-supervisory positions
- People working in smaller arts organizations rate their employers higher on inclusion than those who work in large arts organizations.
- Among 25 detailed job types, there is statistically significantly higher BIPOC representation among individuals working in project or exhibition functions, facilities personnel, and those employed in constituent-facing roles such as Community Engagement and Programming
- Heterosexual workforce members feel a stronger sense of belonging in their organizations than their LGBTQ+ peers
- Supervisory staff members are least likely to be satisfied or to recommend their job, and report the highest intentions to leave
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Leticia Rhi Buckley Installed as Arts Commission President
Supervisor Solis with Leticia Rhi Buckley and husband Paul.Buckley. Photo by Martin Zamora. |
Earlier this month, Leticia Rhi Buckley was nominated and sworn in as our Arts Commission President! A former Department of Arts and culture staffer, she was crucial in the development of the Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative, and served as interim Executive Director before Director Kristin Sakoda arrived in 2018. She then brought her community engagement and coalition-building skills to The Music Center, and now leads LA Plaza de Artes y Cultura as its CEO.
The Arts Commission supports and advocates for the mission, vision and values of our Department, providing leadership, information, and resources with the community, artists, educators, arts organizations and municipalities in cooperation with the Department. Congratulations Leticia! |
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Patrisse Cullors Selected for CREATIVE STRATEGIST ARTIST RESIDENCY…
Patrisse Cullors. Photo by Ryan Pfluger. |
…TO Increase UNDERSTANDING OF PEOPLE EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS
This month, we announced that artist and abolitionist Patrisse Cullors has been selected for a residency in the area of homelessness as part of our Creative Strategist-Artist in Residence program. This one-year residency places the artist with the County of Los Angeles Homeless Initiative, where Cullors will collaborate with staff to develop artist-led strategies to dispel myths and shift narratives about people experiencing homelessness, highlight the impact of homelessness on youth, and increase awareness and understanding of the complexities and solutions of the homelessness crisis in the region. |
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'Take Action' This May
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| As part of California’s ongoing mental health movement, the Take Action for Mental Health campaign is designed to help you check in, learn more, and get support for your own mental health or the mental health of someone you care about. The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health is collaborating with both our department and community-based organizations to produce special events to help LA County residents proactively get support for their mental health. |
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Creative Wellbeing Training Series
Artwork by Rebekah Rose. |
Infusing Arts into Child Welfare
As part of our contintued Creative Wellbeing work, we're partnering with the Wellbeing4LA Learning Center to offer a three-part training series that will focus on infusing the Creative Wellbeing approach and healing-centered arts education into the child welfare system.
The three experiential sessions will provide tangible strategies and tools to support child welfare system-impacted children, youth, transitional age youth, and the adults who support them. Our goal is to uplift and center culturally relevant and healing-centered arts approaches as strategies to nurture cultures of wellbeing that support both youth and adults. |
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| This retreat series is a collaboration between Creative Wellbeing and the Wellbeing4LA Learning Center. All programming is virtual and will take place on the Wellbeing4LA platform. To access the content library or register for trainings, you must create a free account. |
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We’re excited to report that Arts Datathon: Discovery on May 7 at Inner-City Arts is completely sold out! We’re looking forward to a day of exploration and discovery at the intersection of arts and data.
While this year's Arts Datathon may be sold out, you can still sign up to receive all future Arts Datathon updates. |
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The Nation's Largest Paid Summer Arts Internship Program is back!
Students attend the 2015 Arts Internship Progarm Summit. |
We are pleased to announce that the first round of positions for the 2024 Arts Internship Program are now available! This program will provide 228 university and community college students with paid on-the-job experience in the arts at over 160 nonprofit organizations across the LA region. What's more, all Arts Internship Program internships provide 400 hours of work experience at $17.28 an hour.
If you know an interested student (or students), please let them know to visit our website for the first group of available positions. Students will apply directly to the host organizations via the information found on our website. Positions will continue to be posted on a rolling basis through July 2024. |
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ART CONSERVATORS PREQUALIFIED LIST
Mexican Tree of Life, Barbara Beall, 1979, conserved by Fine Arts Conservation. |
Our Civic Art Division seeks professional conservators, independent or collaborative, and firms to add to an Art Conservator Prequalified List to provide maintenance and conservation services for artworks in the Los Angeles County Civic Art Collection.
This Request for Qualifications will expand the existing Prequalified List that is used to invite selected art conservators to bid on specific conservation projects on an as-needed basis.
Submission Deadline: May 9, 2024 | 4PM (PST)
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ART CONSULTANT PREQUALIFIED LIST
Civic Art project team discussing the fabrication of artist Amir H. Fallah’s artwork for the Vermont Corridor.
Photo courtesy of Judson Studios. |
Our Civic Art Devision seeks qualifications from Art Consultants to establish a diverse Prequalified List of individuals and/or teams with a wide variety of experience to provide curatorial, public programming, community engagement, and public art project management services on an as-needed basis within a large range of budgets, project types, and constituencies.
This opportunity will expand the existing Art Consultant Prequalified List that is used to invite selected Art Consultants to bid on specific projects on an as-needed basis.
Application Deadline: May 10, 2024 | 5PM (PST)
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IN BRIEF
- PBS SoCal premiered Art Happens Here with John Lithgow on PBS, PBS.org, and the PBS app. The show explores how arts education nurtures and inspires students of all ages, and features LA County organizations Self Help Graphics & Art, the Debbie Allen Dance Academy, the Community Center of La Cañada Flintridge, and the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. Director Sakoda moderated a panel at a screening event earlier in the month, alongside Lithgow and PBS SoCal’s Jamie Myers. Learn more.
- We wanted to share an opportunity for the Paris 2024 Cultural Olympiad Sport+Poetry Program. The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs seeks LA-based poets, songwriters, and spoken-word artists for a performance-poetry project produced in conjunction with Paris’ Cultural Olympiad, in the spirit of “passing the microphone” from the Paris 2024 Games to the Los Angeles 2028 Games. Deadline to submit resume and examples is May 9, 2024. Learn more.
- The Guggenheim Fellowship is among the most competitive grant applications. For artists interested in applying for the 2025 award, artists Virginia Broersma, Elana Mann, and Corrina Peipon have put together a Guggenheim Application Cohort intended for mid-career and advanced professionals, which consists of four paid virtual workshops held this May through September. For more information about whether applying for a Guggenheim is a good next step for you, take a look at this checklist. Email questions about the Application Cohort workshops to Elanamann@gmail.com.
- The Department of Economic Opportunity, home to the LA County Film Office, is launching the Business Interruption Fund to help provide relief to small and micro business impacted by both the COVID-19 pandemic and the double Hollywood Strikes. The new $4.1 million grant program, championed by Los Angeles County Board of Supervisor Chair Lindsey P. Horvath and Fifth District Supervisor Kathryn Barger, will provide grants ranging between $10k to $25k to qualified COVID-19 impacted businesses that serve the entertainment industry. Learn more.
- Climate and Sustainability are priorities of the LA County Board of Supervisors. The Center for Cultural Power, in collaboration with their partner BLD PWR, is embarking on a mission to amplify the voices of climate storytellers and artists who champion environmental justice. As part of their Climate Woke campaign, they are seeking artists and creators to develop short-form creative video content that explores the intersectionality of climate change and social justice in the United States. Learn more.
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