2007 at-a-glance

It's not uncommon for organizations to look back on the year coming to a close and reflect on the accomplishments. Often there is a realization that all the goals weren't achieved, but more often there is an appreciation for all that was done.

The Arts and Culture Commission, despite being a group small in number, was successful in carrying out its mission to promote arts and culture as a vital element in the quality of life for the citizens of Contra Costa County. Some of our accomplishments include the following:

• Assisting the California Arts Council (CAC) with their pilot project writing competition "My California Story Slam" by notifying high schools throughout the county of the competition and preparing a press release distributed to local media to publicize the event, resulting in Contra Costa having the largest county participation in the state. AC5 was on hand when Deer Valley High Student Andrea Nguyen was awarded her $1000 cash prize and other recognition by Muriel Johnson, CAC Executive Director at the December 4 County Board of Supervisors meeting.
• Planning and hosting the 12th Annual Arts Recognition Awards event recognizing five artists with a video program aired on local TV.
• Conducting a Strategic Planning Retreat to identify goals for the year.
• Presenting three exhibitions in our Art Passages program, an ongoing series of art exhibits in the public areas of the County Administration Building, including the Board of Supervisors Chambers.
• Publishing Artbeat, the commission's electronic newsletter which currently reaches approximately 260 arts groups and individuals providing a forum to inform the arts community of arts policy issues, study results and local arts issues.
• Co-sponsoring the "Symposium on California Arts and Healthy Communities" with California Lawyers for the Arts, focusing on the importance of restoring arts funding. The video of this symposium has aired on 23 local access TV stations around California.
• Hosting a reception for the talented Contra Costa County students who are selected to attend the California State Summer School for the Arts in Valencia.
• Assisting approximately 40 callers requesting information about local arts, venues, grants opportunities, etc.
• Securing a grant from the CAC for operating expenses, and from Wells Fargo in support of the Arts Recognition Awards event.

AC5 Brings Poetry Out Loud to Contra Costa County

2008 will mark the first year that the National Endowment for the Arts' poetry recitation competition for high school students, Poetry out Loud, will be available in Contra Costa County. County high schools are strongly encouraged to participate by embracing the program (see www.poetryoutloud.org ) and sending their school champions on to AC5's county wide competition slated for late February. If you know high schoolers who would enjoy participating, have them tell their English teacher. If you know an English or Drama teacher, have them contact us. There will be prizes at the county, state, and national levels. The California state champion will be sent to Washington, DC, all expenses paid, for participation in the national competition in April. The national winner will receive a $20,000 scholarship. For more information contact us at ac5@ac5.org.

At-Large Commissioner and Alternate join AC5

What could be a more fitting end to the last issue of ArtBeat for '07 than sharing news that the Arts and Culture Commission of Contra Costa County is "almost" fully staffed with an at-large representative and alternate as well as representatives from each of the supervisory districts save District 5, which remains vacant.

In addition to Christine Callahan, a Concord attorney whom we introduced in the last issue as the appointee from Supervisor Bonilla's District IV, our newest commissioners include at-large representative Shelley Barry and P.J. Shelton as alternate. The alternate position is new to AC5 although fairly common on other commissions in California. The alternate attends monthly commission meetings and can vote for any absent member or vacant seat. Most importantly, given the small number serving on the commission, the alternate enhances the ability to have a quorum to assure business can be appropriately conducted. When a District 5 commissioner is named, the commission will comprise 8 people.

Shelley Barry of San Ramon is an artist, art consultant and gallery owner with more than 17 years experience in the art field. She founded Artful Solutions, a full service art consulting firm specializing in corporate, health-care and hospitality clients. She has served on the San Ramon Arts Advisory Committee where she assisted in drafting the City's public art policy and launched the city's first Art Banner Project in 2006 which is expected to be an annual event. In addition, she is on the board of the San Ramon Arts Foundation. Shelley received her degree in marketing from San Jose State University.

Blackhawk resident, Petural (P.J.) Shelton is a sales consultant in the transportation/logistics field. She previously served on the Danville Arts Commission and is a former board member for the National Defense Transportation Association.

Look for AC5 on your TV Set, CCTV to run two programs

The "Keeper of the Flame" program featuring the five artists honored at our October awards event will be available for viewing on CCTV each Sunday at 8 pm and through the end of December. Most Contra Costans can view the 30-minute program on Astound Channel 32 or Comcast Channel 27.

See artist and teacher Robert Chapla display his paintings highlighting the importance of maintaining open space in our county; watch Joyce Johnson-Hamilton, conductor of the Diablo Symphony Orchestra, play a baroque wind instrument; and cheer teacher and cartoonist Bill Leach in his efforts to inspire his students. Sydney Metrick, PhD, describes her creative community art projects while photographer John Spence Weir recalls the joy of seeing future photographers develop in his DVC classes.

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The second program for which AC5 served as sponsor is a groundbreaking 30-minute TV series produced by The American Avant Garde, a Seattle-based show on independent filmmakers. The show offers a riveting look at the world of cinematic innovation -- an independent film festival in your own living room. The show airs on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday each month at 7 p.m. with a new episode premiering every week.

Each week new films will be shown from emerging and established independent film and video makers, highlighting diverse work not normally seen on TV. Interviews and overviews will be included as well as mini-documentaries about the week's filmmakers, their past achievements and the cinematic directions they are taking.

The American Avant Garde will exhibit film and video that takes creative risks. The program is seeking work that is innovative and provocative,experimental or dramatic. The American Avant Garde is committed to presenting diverse points of view and airing diverse types of film and video styles.

In addition to airing on TV, The American Avant Garde also streams live on the Internet and links viewers to other web sites that further explore the stories featured. The program is truly interactive and allows viewers an opportunity to offer feedback.

Visit www.theamericanavantgarde.com for information and submission guidelines.

A Changing of the Guard

Barry Hessenius was worried about leadership.

More specifically, as the former head of the California Arts Council, he was worried about where the next generation of leaders in arts organizations would come from. With baby boomers retiring and fewer workers in the succeeding generation, Hessenius foresaw a fight to recruit new leadership that often-cash-strapped arts organizations would be ill-equipped to wage.

By last spring, Hessenius had transformed his worries into a plan of action with "Involving Youth in Nonprofit Arts Organizations: A Call to Action," a sixty-two-page study underwritten by the Hewlett Foundation that outlined the problem and proposed some solutions.

Now, after months of barnstorming the state to sound the warning to the current crop of leaders and their boards about the potential crunch, the former arts administrator finds himself guardedly optimistic.

"Sometimes you write these things and everyone says, ‘Hooray!' and then it sits on a shelf somewhere and that's the end of it," Hessenius says. "But I think we touched a chord. Any number of organizations are picking up on it. I don't know if we've reached a tipping point, but we've gotten people's attention." To read the report, go to: www.hewlitt.org . (reprinted from Hewlitt Foundation's December/January newsletter.)

Artbeat Contributors: Joan Trezek, Sarah Michael and Robin Moore

AC5 is partially funded by: