The arts, it seems, are always fighting.
Fighting for recognition, for understanding and, most of all, for funding.
Los Angeles is facing a $212 million budget shortfall in the current fiscal year and a projected $484 million shortfall for 2010-2011. And every city-run department is bracing for deep, deep cuts.
In fact, there was a moment last month when it looked like the city's Department of Cultural Affairs might be shuttered completely.
"It's kind of ironic. California falls last in per capita arts funding but so many jobs in L.A. County and throughout the state are arts jobs," says Camille Schenkkan, development and operations manager for the nonprofit advocacy organization Arts for LA.
"Hello, it's Hollywood," she says.
According to the 2009 Otis Report on the Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region from the Otis College of Art and Design:
And Los Angeles' more than 500 cultural institutions and 26.5 million overnight visitors ranked it No. 2 on the Forbes list of "America's Cultural Tourism Capitals." It sits between New York City at No. 1 and Chicago at No. 3.
For artists, though, L.A. is more affordable and perceived as less entrenched than New York's arts scene, says video installation artist Natalie Bookchin, who lives and works in L.A. and is co-director of the photography and media program in the School of Arts at the California Institute of the Arts.
L.A. has a good reputation among young and emerging artists, she says, but at the same time the arts funding here is "embarrassingly low," and that forces artists to sometimes weigh their vision against work that is financially viable.
L.A.'s art scene is also being recognized across the globe. Spain's ARCOmadrid International Contemporary Art Fair, touted as Europe's largest and must-see art fair, traditionally selects a "focus country" to showcase. This year it didn't just pick the U.S,. but Los Angeles specifically.
But it was most likely the large amount of local outcry since this past December that convinced the L.A. City Council to hold off on a proposal that would have eliminated the guaranteed funding for the city's Department of Cultural Affairs, thus closing down the DCA all together.
That guaranteed funding comes from a hotel room tax (the Transient Occupancy Tax) that's been in affect since 1989. The DCA also receives an annual allocation from the city's general fund.
The TOT tax generates about $8-$13 million a year for the DCA, said Lisa Schechter, legislative deputy for L.A. Councilmember Tom LaBonge, whose Fourth District includes North Hollywood and the Miracle Mile museum district. LaBonge is also chairman of the Arts, Parks, Health and Aging Committee.
With that money, the DCA oversees 18 neighborhood cultural centers, a marketing division to promote the city's cultural events, a public art division that manages the city's more than 2,300 artworks, a youth arts and education program and a cultural grant program.
The grants program, which was also briefly on the chopping block but seems to be safe, awards $4 million annually to more than 280 artists and nonprofit arts organizations. It also awards the artists-in-residence and individual artist fellowships.
"The reach of these grants goes deep into the community," says Arts for LA's Schenkkan, adding that Arts for LA's e-mail list doubled to 16,000 after it began its DCA support campaign.
Last year, 15 visual, literary and performing artists each received $10,000 through the DCA's City of Los Angeles (C.O.L.A.) Individual Artist Fellowship, which not only provides financial assistance, but culminates with a show at the DCA's Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Park.
One of the recipients was Bookchin, the video artist.
"Grants like this allow me to have time away from my day job to make my work," says Bookchin. "And I don't have to be thinking about if it will sell -- that's a different kind of job."
Although the proposal to eliminated DCA's hotel tax funding has been "received and filed" (jargon for trashed), Arts for LA is still worried the idea may resurface. Schechter in LaBonge's office, however, emphatically says that won't happen, but says there will be cuts, as in all departments, to the DCA.
And Schenkkan and Bookchin do empathize with the City Council. They understand there are tough decisions to be made. But they, too, make convincing arguments on why the arts matter.
"It's really important to recognize that putting money into the arts in the long term and the short term will help create a vibrant, dynamic city that people will want to come to and live in," says Bookchin. "Besides just believing in the arts, you have to look at it in practical terms."
Fighting for recognition, for understanding and, most of all, for funding.
Los Angeles is facing a $212 million budget shortfall in the current fiscal year and a projected $484 million shortfall for 2010-2011. And every city-run department is bracing for deep, deep cuts.
In fact, there was a moment last month when it looked like the city's Department of Cultural Affairs might be shuttered completely.
"It's kind of ironic. California falls last in per capita arts funding but so many jobs in L.A. County and throughout the state are arts jobs," says Camille Schenkkan, development and operations manager for the nonprofit advocacy organization Arts for LA.
"Hello, it's Hollywood," she says.
According to the 2009 Otis Report on the Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region from the Otis College of Art and Design:
"Nearly one million employees work directly or indirectly in the creative economy of Los Angeles and Orange counties. That's one in every six jobs in our region. Last year, even partly in recessionary times, Los Angeles area firms in the creative economy earned an estimated $121 billion in revenues, while those in Orange County accounted for an estimated $18 billion. State and local governments received an estimated $5.1 billion in taxes tied to these activities."
And Los Angeles' more than 500 cultural institutions and 26.5 million overnight visitors ranked it No. 2 on the Forbes list of "America's Cultural Tourism Capitals." It sits between New York City at No. 1 and Chicago at No. 3.
For artists, though, L.A. is more affordable and perceived as less entrenched than New York's arts scene, says video installation artist Natalie Bookchin, who lives and works in L.A. and is co-director of the photography and media program in the School of Arts at the California Institute of the Arts.
L.A. has a good reputation among young and emerging artists, she says, but at the same time the arts funding here is "embarrassingly low," and that forces artists to sometimes weigh their vision against work that is financially viable.
L.A.'s art scene is also being recognized across the globe. Spain's ARCOmadrid International Contemporary Art Fair, touted as Europe's largest and must-see art fair, traditionally selects a "focus country" to showcase. This year it didn't just pick the U.S,. but Los Angeles specifically.
-- news release.pdf"For the first time in the fairʼs 29-year history, ARCOmadrid has selected a city, rather than a country, as its Guest of Honor," states a news release. "'Panorama: Los Angeles,' the keystone section at ARCOmadrid_2010 recognizes L.A. as one of the most prolific and vibrant contemporary arts centers in the international art world by featuring works by over 60 visual artists and 17 galleries from Los Angeles. This honor for the City of Los Angeles comes on the heels of a similar accolade awarded to Los Angeles at the 2009 Guadalajara International Book Fair that took place in November and December."
But it was most likely the large amount of local outcry since this past December that convinced the L.A. City Council to hold off on a proposal that would have eliminated the guaranteed funding for the city's Department of Cultural Affairs, thus closing down the DCA all together.
That guaranteed funding comes from a hotel room tax (the Transient Occupancy Tax) that's been in affect since 1989. The DCA also receives an annual allocation from the city's general fund.
The TOT tax generates about $8-$13 million a year for the DCA, said Lisa Schechter, legislative deputy for L.A. Councilmember Tom LaBonge, whose Fourth District includes North Hollywood and the Miracle Mile museum district. LaBonge is also chairman of the Arts, Parks, Health and Aging Committee.
With that money, the DCA oversees 18 neighborhood cultural centers, a marketing division to promote the city's cultural events, a public art division that manages the city's more than 2,300 artworks, a youth arts and education program and a cultural grant program.
The grants program, which was also briefly on the chopping block but seems to be safe, awards $4 million annually to more than 280 artists and nonprofit arts organizations. It also awards the artists-in-residence and individual artist fellowships.
"The reach of these grants goes deep into the community," says Arts for LA's Schenkkan, adding that Arts for LA's e-mail list doubled to 16,000 after it began its DCA support campaign.
Last year, 15 visual, literary and performing artists each received $10,000 through the DCA's City of Los Angeles (C.O.L.A.) Individual Artist Fellowship, which not only provides financial assistance, but culminates with a show at the DCA's Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Park.
One of the recipients was Bookchin, the video artist.
"Grants like this allow me to have time away from my day job to make my work," says Bookchin. "And I don't have to be thinking about if it will sell -- that's a different kind of job."
Although the proposal to eliminated DCA's hotel tax funding has been "received and filed" (jargon for trashed), Arts for LA is still worried the idea may resurface. Schechter in LaBonge's office, however, emphatically says that won't happen, but says there will be cuts, as in all departments, to the DCA.
And Schenkkan and Bookchin do empathize with the City Council. They understand there are tough decisions to be made. But they, too, make convincing arguments on why the arts matter.
"It's really important to recognize that putting money into the arts in the long term and the short term will help create a vibrant, dynamic city that people will want to come to and live in," says Bookchin. "Besides just believing in the arts, you have to look at it in practical terms."
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