|
 |
The Arts and Culture Commission of Contra Costa County |  |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The Arts and Culture Commission of Contra Costa
County is accepting reservations for its ceremony
honoring six individuals for achievement in the
arts. The event will begin at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday,
October 22 in the beautiful El Campanil Theatre in
Antioch. The theater is located at 2nd and G
streets, just east of Highway 4.
Reservations may be made by calling the commission
at (925) 646-2278. Admission is a $10 donation.
This marks the 11th year that the commission has presented the achievement awards.
Last year, the Theatre Communications Group, a national theater service organization, chose Theatre Bay Area (TBA), based in San Francisco, as one of three groups to launch the pilot program. The concept: Open the doors of theaters to new audience members for free on or around the same day across the region. TBA reported that the response was overwhelming. Within the first hour, a Free Night of Theater web site received more than 100,000 hits. An initial offering of 4,000 free tickets donated by 80 Bay Area theater companies, were gone within a week. A second offering brought in thousands in additional requests. In all, 7,500 free tickets were handed out to 122 performances presented by 93 Bay Area companies.
A survey revealed that patrons were largely young
(70 percent were under 50 and 36 percent under 35)
and culturally diverse (39 percent were people of
color and 67 per cent were women). Eighty-one
percent had never been to the theater where they
were placing their reservations. More than a third
of the respondents said they have returned to the
theater as a paying patron, and 35 percent said they
have attended more often than in the past.
Based on the success of the event in the Bay
Area, "Free Night of Theater" is expanding this year
to 15 cities nationwide, including Sacramento, Los
Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta and Boston. Participating theater companies will be listed on the Theatre Bay Area website - www.theatrebayarea.org. Free tickets will be available beginning at 6 p.m. on October 3 at www.tixbayarea.com
The money represents donations in her memory from her family and her many friends and colleagues. The funds were presented during a luncheon at AC5's Morrow House headquarters to Kathy Nelson, supervisor of the Walnut Creek organization, and Jordan Simmons, artistic director for the Richmond program. Ms. Ciraulo's husband, Ben, and her parents, Jim and Rosemary Jepson, joined AC5 Chair Roberta Seabury, Commissioner Bob Rezak, and managing director Robin Moore for the presentation. "We know that Karen was a superb artist, specializing in cartooning," Seabury said. "For that reason, her parents, her husband and our officers agree that it is appropriate for the two organizations to earmark donation for scholarships for those students who live in low-income households and, like Karen, are eager to advance their skills in cartooning or animation. We believe Karen would be pleased to be honored and remembered in this fashion." Ms. Ciraulo was fatally injured in a traffic accident on April 1, 2005 in New Mexico while returning from vacation with her husband. The memorial fund was administered by Friends of AC5, the nonprofit support organization for the Arts and Culture Commission of Contra Costa County.
Richmond is mourning the untimely death of Ramona Braxton-Samuels, a civic leader recognized as a "one-woman dynamo" who saw the importance of arts and culture in fostering social change. Ms. Braxton-Samuels died on September 23 after suffering an apparent heart attack in her office, where she worked as executive director of Richmond Main Street, a program designed to help revitalize the city's downtown area, for three years. She was 58.
Last year, the Arts and Culture Commission of Contra
Costa County presented Ms. Braxton-Samuels an award
for achievement in the arts. She was recognized
for several initiatives, including "Music on the
Main," a series of outdoor concerts by accomplished
musicians and dancers. She also arranged art
exhibits in her office, making it a popular destination.
A newspaper story about Ms. Braxton-Samuels said
that she "not only got on board, she drove the
train. She was a kind, generous woman. A true
original, who will be missed."
AC5's art passages program is proud to present "ArtsChange: Almost a Decade" as its third and final exhibition for 2006. Founded as Quilt of Many Colors in 1997 by visual artists, nurses, doctors and other frontline staff at the Richmond Health Center, ArtsChange has followed a steady course of artistic and professional development, producing a range of incredible works dealing with topics such as violence prevention, identity, the art of healing, food and movement. This exhibit, featuring more than 60 pieces, is a glimpse into the heart of the various artworks produced by ArtsChange over the past decade. Viewers will see a segment of ArtsChange's chronicled migration stories featuring various cultural communities in Contra Costa County. Digital images of an Iranian family, vivid photos from a Guatemalan village, Italian and Portuguese stories imprinted on cloth, the Filipino "Waves of Immigration" in bamboo frames, and photo-narratives are some of the representations of the eclectic and rich heritage of this county. Additional selected artworks presented in this exhibit deal with a diverse range of topics, such as the colorful papier-mâché fruits and vegetables from a body of work on food, or the butterflies from the "Color of My Dreams", from the Art of Healing series. Artists represented in this exhibit are: Shideh Ataai, Seyad Alavi, Kim Anno, Tara Cooper, Candi Farlice, Meagan Geer, Tina Gray, Ann Schnake, Ricardo Montoja, Lonnie Shavelson, Taraneh Hemami, Nguyen Thanh, and Ruth Morgan. For more information about ArtsChange, visit their website at www.artschange.org. "ArtsChange: Almost A Decade" will be displayed from September 19 - December 8, 2006 in the County Administration Building at 651 Pine Street, Martinez. The building is open 8 a.m. - 5 p.m., Mon-Fri.
The Concord-based Center for Community Benefit Organizations, serving the East Bay, announced receipt of a $50,000 grant from Chevron Corporation for one of its key nonprofit capacity building strategies: supporting and strengthening nonprofit leaders by creating opportunities for peer learning and support, by "leveraging the considerable knowledge and wisdom of experienced executive directors through a mentoring program for younger, newer executive directors, and by expanding efforts to bring executive coaching to the nonprofit sector." "We believe that this strategy, and particularly executive coaching and mentoring, will make a significant difference in the quality of nonprofit leadership in the East Bay," said Liz Callahan, executive director of the CBO Center. "These programs draw on and leverage the considerable expertise, experience and institutional knowledge of those who have been serving the sector for years. In that way, they align closely with Chevron's core value of promoting self-sufficiency and sustainability through the creation of community-based networks of learning and support." Over the next year, activities will include monthly roundtables for executive directors, board members, development directors and consultants serving the sector, one-on-one mentoring, monthly facilitated peer learning dinners, a resource and support group for founders transitioning into retirement or new endeavors, and a pilot coaching program for seasoned executive directors that will assess the impact of executive coaching on areas such as job satisfaction, leadership, tenure and turnover, and effectiveness. For additional information, contact CBO: (925) 602-6760. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |