The Arts Council for Long Beach is expanding its marketing of Long Beach arts and events, including an improved online artist registry and calendar of events, as well as growing its community partnerships, increasing its monthly microgrant funding and launching a citywide public-art database, according to the nonprofit.
In order to meet these achievements, the organization is inviting Long Beach art lovers to donate $40 one time or $40 a month by visiting artslb.org/40thann . Donors of $40 will receive a 40th anniversary notebook featuring part of Craig Cree Stone’s public artwork “Image Emergence: Promenade of Clouds,” and donors who contribute $40 a month will receive the notebook and attendance at a small-group walking tour led by a local expert.
The Signal Tribune reached out to Marco Schindelmann, current Arts Council president who has been an active board member since June 2010, and Joe Herron, a former board member and present member of the organization’s Strategic Planning Committee, with questions about how the council has changed over the years and what they expect for its future.
Marco Schindelmann
How has the Arts Council changed since you became president, particularly in terms of which types of programs/projects/artists get funded?
The economic downturn in 2008 confronted the Arts Council for Long Beach with budget challenges: programs were eliminated. As the needs of communities did not diminish, it became clear that the Arts Council needed to change direction. We recognized an opportunity to address prevailing marketing and resource challenges as well as to enable the arts to spur the city’s economic growth. We embarked on an 18-month strategic planning process. The conclusion: to inform, educate and advocate for the integration of creativity and culture throughout all sectors of Long Beach would be the Arts Council’s new role. As a result, it is now important that the Arts Council is much more engaged with diverse communities and and artists. Diversity and inclusiveness also encompasses diversity of artistic practice and aesthetic approach. Among other things, we have revamped the website and will be launching a public art database. Also, guidelines for our microgrants have been streamlined. Perhaps most importantly, in the area of funding, diversity and merit took priority over historical precedence and institutional status.
What are the main funding sources for the Arts Council’s programs?
The Arts Council receives funding from a variety of sources. The city, county, state and local corporations help fund operations, marketing and provide support to artists through our granting programs; local foundations such as the Evalyn M. Bauer Foundation and the Earl B. and Loraine H. Miller Foundation support our arts education programs. Individual donors in our city have also supported the Arts Council and have directed funds toward the Mobile ArtSpace and our marketing efforts. This year, the Arts Council is celebrating our 40th anniversary and 40 years of funding hundreds of artists, organizations, education programs and cultural events since we were founded in 1976.
As far as the projects that the Arts Council funds, which ones are you most excited about or most proud of?
The new Risk and Innovation grant and the Mobile Art Space are the two that most excite me. Respectively, they have the potential to engage communities and artists on macro and micro levels.
Is there any particular Arts Council-funded project that sticks out to you as being the most impactful, and why?
The Creative Long Beach Internship Program, launched with funding from Linda Gunn of Gunn Jerkens Marketing, stands out in my mind. This new program is aligned with the mayor’s efforts to increase internships in the city. It impacts institutions and creates educational and/or professional development for students. We’re looking forward to strengthened partnerships with Cal State Long Beach and Long Beach City College and including more partners and host sites as we expand the program.
What changes do you foresee for the Arts Council’s future?
We will continue to increase our scope so as to include artists and art organizations that represent the multiplicity of identities, disciplines, practices and perspectives within our city. The Arts Council is also actively working on increasing community visibility: we host a monthly Open Conversations event where we either focus on a topic or resource that is important to artists in the community, or have a completely open dialogue where we can hear and discuss any questions or concerns community members may have; the Arts Council is also very excited to partner with the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) and invites the community to discuss issues about diversity, equity and inclusion in the arts at a town hall meeting, taking place at MOLAA on June 27, 2016, from 7pm to 9pm.
Joe Herron
How has the Arts Council changed over the years?
Due to budget cuts from the great recession and the elimination of RDA funding, the Arts Council was forced to reduce its staff by more than half. We dedicated ourselves to maintaining our grants programs while still striving to be the main arts advocate in the greater Long Beach area. Being in “survival mode” caused us to focus on what our core mission should be. The resulting strategic planning process we engaged in helped tremendously, defining our mission as, “Fostering creativity and culture, enlivening communities and enabling a thriving economy.” We are now much more of a mission-driven organization and, I think, more responsive to the needs of the diverse arts constituencies in Long Beach.
What project(s)/program(s) stands out to you as one/some that had the most impact?
I think the micro-grants program has been very impactful and popular— it’s a much more “user-friendly” program and has a much quicker turnaround than the earlier grant process for community projects.
What do you see as the direction the Arts Council is moving in for the future?
I think the Arts Council is moving toward being much more representative of the diversity of our city and is earning respect as the go-to arts advocacy organization in Long Beach.
