PAINTING BY DOLLARS

PAINTING BY DOLLARS

Cutbacks in arts funding have hit the Los Angeles area hard.
Through an innovative program called Art Partners, corporate
sponsors have stepped in to rescue several local arts
facilities.

Daily Bruin ContributorBY MIMI YIU

TObuild the fantastic monument now known as Watts Towers, Simon
Rodia devoted decades to collecting bits of glass and ceramics,
then painstakingly arranging and embedding them in the surface of
the Towers. The Towers now stand as a testament to creativity and
perseverance.

In the shadow of Rodia’s spires, the Watts Towers Arts Center
continues his legacy of art in the face of adversity. At first,
classes were held on a tarp out at Rodia’s house. Today, children
can enjoy after-school and Saturday programs in ceramics, dance,
print-making and more within the colorfully-muralled walls of the
Watts Arts Center.

A model venture called Art Partners has revitalized the
facility, enabling it to reach out to the community with a greater
variety of programs. Many of these programs are designed for
at-risk youths within the predominantly low-income African-American
and Latino neighborhood.

"It’s a simple concept," says Adolfo Nodal, General Manager of
the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department. "We have these arts
facilities, and there are these arts groups that need space. We
want to fill that space with their energy and resources, so we
formed a partnership. Then we added a third partner, the corporate
sponsors who want to give back to their communities. It’s a perfect
three-way marriage."

Seven arts facilities are involved in the program: Arroyo Seco
Park, Encino Media Center, Lankershim Arts Center, McGroarty Arts
Center, Watts Towers Arts Center, William Grant Still Arts Center,
and Unity/William Reagh L.A. Photography Center. All but the L.A.
Photography Center have already found partners in the corporate
community.

The various corporate sponsors — the Ahmanson Foundation,
American Express, La Opinion, L.A. Times, Mervyn’s and Target
stores, and Sony Pictures Entertainment — will provide their
adopted center with $50,000 per year for three years, with an
option to extend the partnership by two years. This innovative
marriage helps to fill the increasing need for alternative sources
of arts funding.

"Over the last four or five years, there had been a tremendous
attrition in employment and cutbacks in budgets in all
departments," explains Catherine Rice, Director of Cultural
Development and Special Projects at the L.A. Cultural Affairs
Department. "Because of these cutbacks, we had to find new and
creative ways to keep the infrastructure alive. We had before us a
two-fold challenge — to find programming dollars and to staff the
arts facilities."

Inevitably, corporations emerged as the most viable source of
programming dollars as ever-diminishing federal funding made
budgeting an artistic endeavour in itself. The centers involved in
Art Partners would be in dire straits without the support of their
corporate partners.

"The NEA’s recent 60% cuts are a loss of $4-$5 million to the
L.A. area," Nodal says. While state and city funding remain
healthy, Nodal points out that a trickle-down effect could lead to
cuts in those sources as well.

"Our funding is so dependent on the economy," Nodal says. "Right
now, the economy’s down. I don’t think there will be massive
cutbacks, but you never really know."

These critical times create a pressing need to administer the
centers at maximum efficiency. The Cultural Affairs Department’s
solution is to let independent arts facilitators oversee the
centers’ day-to-day operations. At several centers, coalitions of
diverse non-profit arts groups assume that responsibility.

"Reality is that we can’t run all these arts centers and do a
good job," Nodal says. It’s much better for these arts facilitators
to step in and manage the centers. Even if we had a million dollars
for each center, we couldn’t do the job that they do. The
facilitators are worth more than a million dollars."

A passion for the arts and dedication to the community
unmistakably characterize the facilitators who are implementing Art
Partners. Watts director Mark Greenfield, himself an artist, feels
so strongly about the state of arts education that he half-jokingly
claims, "I want to write a manifesto."

Because of a lack of art classes in local schools, arts centers
often become the main source of art education for youths. Art
Partners allows the Watts center to boost its complement of
programming to the level offered ten years ago, before a steady
decline in dollars led to fewer classes. Actually, there are no
real "classes" offered at the center. Due to a technicality in city
definitions, classes must be paid for while workshops may be free.
At Watts, there are only workshops.

The McGroarty Arts Center, on the other hand, follows city
mandates that limit class charges to $1.50 per hour for a child. A
$50,000 start-up grant from the Ahmanson Foundation helps defray
costs, but the center still winds up in the red each quarter.
Nevertheless, co-director Susan Cheyno describes the center as
"doing just splendidly," basing her optimism on enrollment and
membership increases over the past year.

Cheyno and co-director Isabella Barone, life-long residents in
the community, have been intimately involved with the center for
years. As Cheyno says, "I know half the people in this community
and Izzy knows the other half."

The two of them, along with a crew of volunteers, battle to
supply this community with the programs and services that it needs.
The center — the historic home of John McGroarty, former Poet
Laureate of California, congressman and L.A. Times journalist — is
the only facility in the community that offers extensive arts
programs.

"Our biggest fear was that [Art Partners] wouldn’t work and we
would have to close our doors," Cheyno says.

Keeping centers open is probably the primary concern of everyone
involved with Art Partners. At the Lankershim Arts Center, the
doors had already been shut before the Community Arts Coalition,
brought together by Art Partners, moved in and resurrected the
facility. Taylor Gilbert, administrator of the coalition and member
of the Roads Theatre Company, laughingly observes that the building
had "gone to the pigeons."

Lankershim now houses, in addition to Roads, the Martin Dancers,
L. A. Printmaking Society and Synthaxis Theatre Company. Having
witnessed the transformation of an empty building into a vibrant,
creative space, it is no wonder that Gilbert endorses corporate
sponsorship of the arts.

"Because we don’t have to continually search for funds, the
program allows us time for creativity," she says. "It enables us to
grow and to get out to the community."

Greenfield also believes that corporate sponsorship is a step in
a positive direction.

"The arts might have a lot more freedom," Greenfield speculates.
"Governments have restrictions…They’re limited by the demands of
their constituencies. Corporations are willing to take more
chances."

Ultimately, Art Partners allows these art centers to fulfil
their role within the community — to encourage creative
development, especially that of at-risk youth. As Greenfield says,
"Art contributes to a well-rounded individual. It gives them
self-esteem; it tells them that you have the power to create
something."

The beneficiary of Art Partners, then, is not only the child who
has the opportunity to explore art, but the society that profits
from the creation of such an individual.

"It’s about larger issues than finger-painting," Rice notes.
"It’s about the city staying alive under great stress."Comments to
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