4/14/2022 Case Study FindingsThis website has identified the issues within the museum world. Now let’s look at a leading museum, a county-funded program and a nonprofit organization who are working to bring change. The Getty Museum along with Exploring the Arts are being highlighted in this article because of their dedication to serving communities and funding a new reality in the arts. Los Angeles County Arts and Culture is being highlighted to illustrate the inner workings of a county-led initiative program which aims to assist the arts through providing funding for new projects and training. A reality that consists of diversity, inclusion and arts for all. All of these programs are working to create a new reality of diversity, inclusion and accessibility within the arts. Exploring the Arts Exploring the Arts is a nonprofit arts organization founded in New York by Tony Benett and Susan Benedetto. Tony Bennet is a singer who has won 20 Grammy awards. Bennett has a passion for the art and co-founded Exploring the Arts which now partners with schools in Los Angeles and New York to bring the arts to schools. Susan Benedetto is Tony Benett’s wife, who assisted in the founding of Exploring the Arts. The program aims to “transform the lives of young people through arts education” (Exploring the Arts homepage). The following information is derived from an interview with Maya Mackrandilal, the LA Program Manager at Exploring the Arts. The main goal of Exploring the Arts is achieved through their four year partnership program with Title I schools in Los Angeles. A Title I school is a school that receives federal funding to support students in low socioeconomic areas. Exploring the Arts partners with Title I schools that have a need and desire to develop their arts programming. The schools do need to take the first step and apply to partner with Exploring the Arts. If a school receives the four year partnership they receive a $60,000 grant for four years which goes towards teaching training, development of an art program or to purchase equipment which cannot fit into the school budget. Furthermore, following the four year partnership they can also receive the “Art Access Grant'' which allows them access to funds to build up another art program within their school. During and following the four year partnership, the students at the schools are given access to apply for internships with arts institutions within reasonable distance from their school. Exploring the Arts ensures that they pick institutions which students can easily get to on public transportation or commute without much trouble. Seemingly small details such as this illustrate the commitment and care Exploring the Arts puts into their planning. They ensure they are serving the community as best as they can. The student internships offered through Exploring the Arts are geared towards fitting the same genre of art that the school is trying to develop or any specific artistic connections the school emphasizes. The internships are perceived as a youth development program. They aim to show students the importance of their voice and see their voices within the organization they work with. Furthermore, they serve as work experience where the students can gain exposure to the inner workings of art institutions and allow them to see that they are valuable and prepared for their future career aspirations. Exploring the Arts aims to have the students feel valuable and supported in their future career goals. Aside from their interning experience, interns also attend check in meetings and development workshops with Exploring the Arts which further help their growth as future professionals. It is important to note that Exploring the Arts focuses their partnership with schools as a lasting impact. Exploring the Arts ensures the partnership between themselves and the schools is sustainable even after the four years ends. This is achieved through training teachers, providing relevant equipment, and funding teacher development and coaching on how to run and sustain an arts program. Much of the work behind the scenes at Exploring the Arts is focused around ensuring their investments are sustainable. They do not want to put schools in a position where they are unable to keep their art program running after the funding from Exploring the Arts is gone. It is also relevant that Exploring the Arts does not focus on being secretive in their process, they are actually in a strategic planning phase where they are reflecting on their values and being transparent about their philosophy. By making such moves, the program is breaking down the bureaucratic barrier between themselves, their partnership schools, and the general public. Transparency and allowing folks to understand the inner workings of such a program removes the uncertainty. Furthermore, this can allow the next generation of the art field to have an understanding of the different careers offered within the arts. Oftentimes, we think of museums as the main career path within the arts but programs such as Exploring the Arts illustrate the importance of nonprofit organizations and the lasting change that can be brought by these programs. **************************************************************************** Works Cited: To go to the Exploring the Arts website, copy and paste the link below: HTTPS://WWW.EXPLORINGTHEARTS.ORGCitation“Exploring the Arts.” Exploring the Arts, https://www.exploringthearts.org/. Interview Citation: Acosta, Aubry. “Interview With Maya Mackrandilal.” 28 Apr. 2022. The Getty Community Partners: Summer Art Festivals Throughout Los Angeles, the Getty is collaborating with Community Partners to host art festivals throughout the summer. Beginning May 14th, two day festivals will be held at ten different locations throughout Los Angeles. Each location will host the festivals for the entire weekend, Saturday and Sunday; the festival will be free to the public. The Getty creates these programs because they stand by the notion that everyone deserves equitable access to the arts and creative outlets. By going into communities, the Getty is eliminating the barrier of transportation along with communicating with the community that they deserve equal access to art. By exposing the community to the benefits of the arts along with simply creating a relationship between the community members and the Getty, folks may become more inclined to visit the Getty. While the Getty, an overarching and large organization, is hosting the festivals specifically, the J. Paul Getty Trust is coordinating the festivals. The J. Paul Getty Trust is a large, nonprofit organization which is a part of the Getty and is committed to sharing their wealth through supporting programing such as these free summer festivals. These festivals are examples of community outreach programming. This type of programming revolves around going into communities which normally do not have access to a program and providing them with access to the programs. Community outreach aims to create a relationship between the organization and the community in hopes of bridging the gap between the Getty and communities that do not often visit. The Getty chose which communities to host the summer festivals through an audit which researched what zip codes in Los Angeles County had the least visitors. Through this, the Getty saw which communities could benefit from exposure to their programming. The festival locations vary throughout the Los Angeles area. However, a particular location provides some insight into the connection between community partners along with their relationship with the Getty. In the Lincoln Heights/East Los Angeles area the festival will be held at Plaza de la Raza, a prominent arts organization in the area. Plaza de la Raza has been working with the Getty through their undergraduate internship program and through the summer festivals is extending their relationship with the Getty to assist them with their partnership. This exemplifies the true understanding between the Getty and their festival partners to come together through a shared desire to bring the arts to their communities. The follow list shares all the locations and partners for the festivals: May 14–15—Inglewood, Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA), May 21–22—Lincoln Heights/East LA, Plaza de la Raza, June 4–5—Long Beach, Long Beach Creative Coalition: Studio One Eleven, Intertrend, Creative Class Collective, June 11–12—Koreatown, Koreatown Youth and Community Center (KYCC), June 25–26—Pacoima, Pacoima Beautiful, July 9–10—Reseda, 11:11 Projects, July 16–17—San Gabriel Valley, Day One, July 30–31—Wilmington, Avalon Arts and Cultural Alliance, August 13–14—Crenshaw, Destination Crenshaw, August 27–28—Watts, Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC). The Getty’s summer festivals community partners do not have to be connected to the visual arts. However, there is an emphasis on the community partners having a strong relationship with the community and knowledge on what performers and participants to bring into the festival. By partnering with an organization in the community, the Getty ensures they are respecting and best serving the spaces they enter by looking to folks already involved in the community. Lastly it is important to share that these summer festivals are projected to have ten thousand visitors throughout the two day celebration. Furthermore, parking vouchers will be given to folks in attendance, so if they do want to visit the Getty in the future they can do so for absolutely free. **************************************************************************** Works Cited: Copy and Paste the following links to be taken directly to the Getty’s article about their Summer Festivals along with a list of the locations and dates! https://www.getty.edu/news/getty25-festivals-announced/ Citations: “Getty Joins Community Partners to Hold Free Summer Art Festivals across Los Angeles.” Getty, J. Paul Getty Trust, 1 Mar. 2022, https://www.getty.edu/news/getty25-festivals-announced/. Acosta, Aubry. “Interview with Katie Underwood.” 5 May 2022. Los Angeles County Arts and Culture: Cultural Equity Intensive The Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture is dedicated to cultivating the arts within Los Angeles County (Los Angeles County Arts and Culture Website). The department strives to make art embedded deeply into the culture so everyone can enjoy the benefits that come from the growth of art and artistic expression within their day to day life. On the website, Los Angeles County Arts and Culture lists the following words as resonating with with their goals: “collaboration, creative expression, economic vitality, education, equity, diversity, access, and inclusion, innovation, integrity, research and evaluation, social impact and stewardship” (Los Angeles County Arts and Culture website). From this list, I would like to highlight their equity, diversity and inclusion efforts. The department states that they achieve their goals through investing in the arts in Los Angeles. I believe it is important to note that county art operations are bringing change through investing in the arts. In our society, many things come down to budgets and what can be achieved with the funds a location receives. Departments such as the Los Angeles County Arts and Culture are large county funded programs which go into the Los Angeles community and bring change throughout their efforts. A notable program that Los Angeles County Arts and Culture leads is the Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative. This program includes two different branches but I will be focusing on the Cultural Equity Intensive program. This program is a three month program for 8 nonprofit arts organizations (Los Angeles County Arts and Culture Website). The program assists nonprofits in learning to develop cultural equity within their programs, therefore creating programs with more diversity and inclusion. Overall, this leads to more equity in the arts. Participating organizations are guided to create a plan to foster cultural equity within their organization. Furthermore, there is priceless independent guidance given to the organizations so they can bring impactful and important change to their nonprofit. Large county-led organizations such as Los Angeles County Arts and Culture showcase how states or counties can invest in the arts to bring large-scale change. Furthermore, Los Angeles County Arts and Culture does not only work with nonprofits but they also work with civic artists along with folks who aspire to work in the arts, through their internship program and they also provide resources for K-12 educators. The internship program is open to undergraduate students who are interested in a career in the arts. The internship is open to folks of all backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses. The 400 hour internship is paid and participants will receive six thousand four hundred and sixteen dollars which comes out to $16.04 per hour. The internship runs from July to March and interns must submit their applications by April 1st before the program begins. Internships such as the one offered by Los Angeles County Arts and Culture allow for folks to become acquainted with working in the arts. Many times, careers in the arts seem secretive and hard to achieve, but internships such as these allow students to envision themselves working in such fields and grants them access to gaining knowledge in the arts field. Furthermore, Los Angeles County Arts and Culture has a section on their website where they list opportunities for Civic Artists to apply for commission positions. The program is very thoughtful on what their commissions are and goes to great lengths to ensure commissions are perfectly tailored for the community they will be showcased in. This is achieved through picking the right artist and creating a dialogue between the program and the community. Los Angeles County Arts and Culture speaks directly with community leaders regarding civic art installations to ensure they reflect and respect the community in the best way possible. This allows for art to truly belong to the community and serve the community as best as it can. The sensitivity and carefulness practiced by Los Angeles County Arts and Culture illustrates how art institutions can best serve communities through listening and learning from the community itself. To assist in the accessibility of public art within K-12 schools, Los Angeles County Arts and Culture partners with school districts to support them by strengthening their arts programs with art equity in mind (Los Angeles County Arts and Culture Website). Efforts such as these raise the comfort of children and the arts which can feed into the community and create a dialogue between them and art. Therefore, this can also translate into more comfort within museum settings. It is important to note that museums are not the only places that can create change in museum accessibility. Change begins on a small scale level of simply granting equitable access to the arts. This change can inspire folks from all communities to visit more art museums. Furthermore, Los Angeles County Arts and Culture also trains community members with information regarding art, etc. This can allow for folks not in school such as the elderly or parents of young school children to gain knowledge and access to art as well (Los Angeles County Arts and Culture Website). Connecting Los Angeles County Arts and Culture to Exploring the Arts and the Getty, one can see that all of these programs are working to achieve diversity and accessibility within the arts. However, they are all drastically different programs and funded differently yet they all have a large positive impact on the communities they work in. **************************************************************************** Works Cited: To go to the Los Angeles Arts and Culture Website copy and paste the link below: https://www.lacountyarts.org Citations: “Class Meeting with Caroline Lerch.” Art 393 Class. LA County Department of Arts and Culture, 6 May 2022, https://www.lacountyarts.org/. Comments are closed.
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