Know and Go:
WHAT: Upstate California Creative Corps | Sierra County Listening Session
WHEN: Tuesday, November 29th at 5:00pm
WHERE: In person or via zoom(to be announced) at The Yuba Theatre, 212 Main St., Downieville
ADMISSION: FREE
INFORMATION: bj@sierracountyartscouncil.org or www.sierracountyartscouncil.org
Downieville, CA– County arts agencies across California’s Upstate Region are thrilled to be working alongside one another on a new workforce development opportunity for artists and cultural practitioners, arts and social service sector organizations. On Tuesday, November 29th at 5:00pm, Sierra County Arts Council will co-host a California Creative Corps Listening Session at the The Yuba Theatre, 212 Main St., Downieville, CA to present key information and invite a conversation on how artists can help communities tackle issues most critical to them, as part of an Upstate Listening Tour across 19 counties. This listening session may also be attended via Zoom. Information at www.sierracountyartscouncilorg
The 2021-22 State Budget included a $60 million one-time General Fund allocation for the California Arts Council to implement the California Creative Corps pilot program, a media, outreach, and engagement campaign designed to increase awareness related to issues such as public health, water and energy conservation, climate mitigation, and emergency preparedness, relief, and recovery.
Says, B.J. Jordan, Executive Director at the Sierra County Arts Council: “This is an incredible opportunity for our artists to work collaboratively with social service organizations, civic and business organizations, community groups, and local government to play a vital roll in addressing social and environmental concerns locally. We invite all community members to come together with artists to participate in this pro-active brainstorming session. We hope that through collaboration and cooperation between artists and the community we will arrive at new ideas and solutions to address issues affecting our rural communities.”
Eliza Tudor, Executive Director at Nevada County Arts Council, who will be joining the Sierra County Arts Council for its Listening Session, says: “Together, we will be introducing what the State sees as a new method of evaluating the relative health of communities. Using the California Healthy Places Index we are identifying issues that are specific to Sierra County, inviting input on solutions, and inviting artists to position themselves to create awareness around them.”
The California Creative Corps Upstate Listening Tour is taking place county by county from now until mid-December. The California Arts Council has selected fourteen organizations to administer the California Creative Corps across nine regions with a grant activity period that launched on October 1st. Nevada County Arts Council has been chosen to create a regranting program for Upstate California, putting to work $4,230,216 in workforce development funds for artists, as well as for arts and social service organizations who will employ artists between early 2023 and late 2024. Supporting local outreach with local knowledge, as well as technical assistance for artists, and program development and evaluation, are multiple county arts agencies serving what amounts to the largest, most diverse, geographic area in California, with more counties than any other Creative Corps region.
Tudor continues, “Within the Upstate Region we are one of a network of agencies who serve as State-Local Partners with California Arts Council. While we each serve distinct communities, we are connected through a coalition that works to benchmark, consult, and gain from peer learning and support, with equity at our core. In this sense, we do not work in isolation. In applying to be an administering organization for the Upstate Region, it makes perfect sense to place our State-Local Partnership, Nevada County Arts Council, in service to the largest and most diverse geographic area within California.”
California Arts Council sees the California Creative Corps program primarily as a job creation and human infrastructure development opportunity. The hope is that region by region, the program will increase the ways in which artists are engaged in public work, so that they can continue build upon intersectional public interest goals beyond the program’s pilot funding timeline.
Says B.J. Jordan: “We are thrilled to work with Nevada County Arts Council and Eliza Tudor as Administrating Organization for the California Creative Corps and look forward to discovering new ideas and possibilities to help us contribute to the creation of a better future for our rural communities.”
The California Creative Corps program follows an unprecedented period in which communities globally have suffered as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. During these years, creative sector professionals across the United States have been proposing ways to employ and deploy artists in programs similar to the Works Project Administration (WPA) and the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA). The launch of a statewide Creative Corps pilot program is the result of a recommendation from the Governor’s economic and jobs recovery task force, and is the first of its kind in the nation. Information at www.sierracountyartscouncil.org or call B.J. at 530-961-2188
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