Arts Advocacy

California Lawyers for the Arts

Overview / Arts Action Network / Sample Letter / How to Write to Your Legislator / Advocacy Allies / Advocacy Research Links

ARTS ADVOCACY

California Lawyers for the Arts, in collaboration with Arts Council Silicon Valley and co-sponsors California Arts Advocates, 1st ACT SiliconValley, and The City of San Jose, presents

The Third Symposium on California Arts and Healthy Communities

3 pm to 4:30 pm
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Santa Clara County Office of Education
Board Room
1290 Rider Park Drive, San Jose, CA 95131

California spends three cents per person from the State’s General Fund for the California Arts Council, less than any other U.S. state or territory. How are cities and counties addressing this gap in the California arts infrastructure?    What strategies for local public and private philanthropy are being developed? This Symposium, highlighting the experience of Santa Clara County, will explore the value of the arts for youth development, economic development and the quality of life in our communities.

Speakers include Larry Stone, Santa Clara County Assessor and a founder of Arts Council Silicon Valley; Bruce Davis, Executive Director of Arts Council Silicon Valley; Connie Martinez, Executive Director of 1stAct Silicon Valley; Kim Walesh, Assistant Director of the San Jose Office of Economic Development; Ruth Tunstall-Grant, Member of the San Jose Arts Commission and Director of the Art Education Program at Children’s Shelter of Santa Clara County; and Mark Walker, Managing Director, Global Community Affairs at Applied Materials. Alma Robinson, Executive Director of California Lawyers for the Arts, will moderate the panel.

The Symposium will be taped by the Instructional Media division of the Santa Clara County Office of Education for local viewing and distribution to cable access stations statewide. Funding for this program has been provided by the Quentin Hancock Fund, Arts Council Silicon Valley and the members of California Lawyers for the Arts.

California Lawyers for the Arts is a statewide arts service organization providing legal counseling, alternative dispute resolution, educational programs and advocacy
for the arts.   For more information about C.L.A.’s programs and services, visit www.calawyersforthearts.org.   Information about Arts Council Silicon Valley is available at www.artscouncil.org.

Admission is free, but space is limited and pre-registration is required. Advance registration is available at: http://thirdsymposium.eventbrite.com. Please plan to arrive between 2:30 pm and 2:45 pm. A reception will follow at the conclusion of the program.   For more information, please call (408) 998-2787 x 216 or e-mail sanjose@calawyersforthearts.org.

California is dead last among all fifty states in its allocation of funding for community arts programs. Please view this award winning public service announcement produced and directed by video artist Michael Masucci of EZTV in Santa Monica. This PSA won the nationally acclaimed CINE Golden Eagle Award in Spring of 2007. If you have difficulty viewing our movie file, you can find the same announcement on YouTube.

Read about our Second Symposium on the Arts and Healthy Communities, at Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, in the Contra Costa Times.

Here is some press about this issue:

You Get What You Pay For is an opinion piece by C.L.A. executive director Alma Robinson, published in Benefit magazine Jan/Feb 2007.

In their lead editorial of 12/16/06, Worthy Investment, the editorial board of the Fresno Bee wrote: The health of our arts community directly affects our ability to recruit talent to our businesses. The benefits of the arts go beyond the intellectual to public safety. Arts programs have been shown to prevent recidivism in our jails. It is imperative that the California legislature keep in mind that the arts, like everything else, require infusions of financial support to thrive.
- Read the complete article!

"No increase to California Arts Council in governor's 2007-08 state budget"
by Wendy Butler, 1/10/07, Eureka Reporter

Please read Renaissance in Arts Funding Needed, a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed by our Executive Director, Alma Robinson. She makes a compelling case for the critical need to restore the state's arts infrastructure.

You can download the text of executive director Alma Robinson's keynote speech a the first conference of the UC Institute on Research in the Arts, UCIRA.

Webmaster: Josie Porter