Arts briefs
Dollars and sense plus city council candidates meet the artists
By Michel Cicero 10/22/2009
People invested in the future of the arts in Ventura crowded a room at the Crowne Plaza Hotel last weekend to interface with the 16 city council candidates — four incumbents, 12 challengers — seeking election next month.
Representatives from leading arts groups including Focus on the Masters, Ventura Music Festival, Ventura Film Society, Ventura Artists Union, Ventura County Arts Council and Ventura County Ballet Company, were on hand for a discussion process much like speed dating, where candidates traveled from table to table answering questions with only six minutes to spend at each.
Candidates tried their best to appeal to the roomful of creative types — a difficult crowd in any setting — and most of them succeeded. The incumbents were predictably comfortable but the other candidates were clearly challenged by the circumstances, some with little understanding of the arts’ influence on the community they are seeking to serve. Most seemed to agree that arts education is crucial to the development of children, and many tried to evade questions about funding cuts to the arts.
Mike Gibson said the arts “unfortunately fall into the fluff category,” when it comes to spending, while Brian Lee Rencher said the arts lower crime. Neal Andrews believes there will “once again be pressure to the cut arts [funding],” but reminded participants of his history of resistance to that call. Mike Tracy said cuts would be “a terrible mistake” causing Ventura to “lose momentum” as an arts-centered community.
While potential cuts dominated much of the dialogue, there was talk of growth. A few candidates expressed desire to expand arts events beyond downtown Ventura into midtown, the Avenue area and the east end, noting the plethora of large parks available for cultural events. Jim Monahan would still like to see a large performing arts complex a la the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, erected on the west end of Ventura, near the Patagonia offices.
On the subject of money, no one seems to have quite enough of it, and various arts organizations are doing whatever they can to raise it. Elite Theater Company in Oxnard announced it will hold its first fundraiser in the form of a one-act festival at the beginning of 2010 and the Working Artists Ventura (WAV) project is offering 75 handmade ceramic tiles at $250 a pop to people who would like to show their support. The tiles will be installed on a donor wall and will include the donors’ names. WAV is still reviewing applications and plans to make final decisions as to who will be living there, by the end of the October. Focus on the Masters announced that it’s looking for volunteers.
While the outlook for arts funding looks a bit bleak, it’s not entirely so. The city of Ventura recently awarded $90,000 in grants to 14 organizations including Bell Arts Factory, Kids Arts, Peace Thru Music, Ventura County Ballet, Ventura County Master Chorale, Rubicon Theatre Company, and the Alliance for the Arts, a nonprofit fundraising arm of the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, received a $50,000 grant from Southern California Edison to support arts outreach education programs for kids.
Studio Channel Islands (SCIART) will celebrate the grand opening of its new location in Old Town, Camarillo on Friday, Oct. 30 with a reception for “New Beginnings” a juried show that features Sylvia White as a judge. White has a few coveted spaces left in her Nov. 7, Art Advice Workshop. Visit www.artadvice.com to learn more.
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