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According to the California Arts Council, in 2023 more than 820,000 people in the state employed in arts and cultural production generated $288 billion in value, or 7.5% of the state’s total economic output.
To encourage further growth of the arts, the council has been sponsoring a series of regional workshops, including a well-attended one held on Jan. 10 at the Watsonville Arts Center.
The workshops are being scheduled across the state. Watsonville’s was held in conjunction with arts councils from San Benito, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and Ventura counties.
Among those attending were members of the local arts community including San Benito Arts Council Executive Director Jennifer Laine, Luna Gallery’s Jennifer Colby and Credo Studio’s co-founder Ramona Hill.
The goal of the workshops, according to moderator Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld, is to “get community voices in the spotlight” while creating an addendum to the council’s first strategic plan for California’s creative economy, already published as “California’s Future Is Creative: Strategies for Cultural Resilience, Economic Growth, and Global Leadership.”
“This plan is so important,” Blumenfeld said, “because it speaks to the investment of the state in our creatives and our creative life here in California. We have to hear from people who are on the ground who are doing the work.”
The 50 participants were encouraged to join one of six breakout sessions during the first part of the workshop to explore a diverse group of themes relating to arts funding, creative work and infrastructure development for the arts community.
According to the plan, participation in the arts and exposure to arts programs has fallen in California. The creative workforce declined 7% from its pre-pandemic peak and the state lost 2.65% of its arts and cultural production jobs between 2022 and 2023.
Laine, who spoke at the session, said that while California leads the nation in creative output, the state ranks below 35th in arts funding and funds the arts at only 66 cents per capita.
Laine said the workshop was intended to be guided by a “north star” that would lead to an inclusive and resilient creative economy that empowers artists, culture workers and entrepreneurs.
“I really believe that we really need to work together,” she said, “to make things happen in the arts. This report can become something that can say, ‘These are very real things that you can do to mobilize in your community.’”
The plan is intended to build on $1 billion of annual funding derived from Proposition 28, the Arts and Music in Schools Funding Guarantee and Accountability Act, passed in 2022 to supplement K-12 public school arts education programs.
The goal of the sessions was to find ways to:
- Prepare and support the workforce for creative economy sectors
- Stabilize and grow creative economy businesses
- Increase revenue to state and local areas through cultural identity and tourism
- Leverage all state opportunities for local cultural and creative development
- Define and track return-on-investment for the creative economy and creative workforce
- Develop capacity and infrastructure to support the creative economy
Issues raised in the workshop included the threat of AI-generated art to the livelihood of human artists; the need for better data to reveal the economic impact of the arts to local government officials; grants that aren’t large enough to cover the labor and materials needed; and creating an infrastructure that addresses the need among artists for financial security.
Each of the groups, while considering different parts of the plan, reached similar conclusions, particularly regarding what Blumenfeld referred to as “the elephant in the room,” funding.
“I’ve been on the community side,” she said, “where we’ve said ‘Do we pay ourselves this month or the phone bill?’ Funding is not theoretical for those working in these fields. It is real and has a tangible impact on the work that is being done.”
Poppy Jasper Festival Director Mattie Scariot, who sat in on the workgroup discussing the creative economy, said there was a huge need for small communities like San Benito County to help identify data and metrics to measure the impact of local arts.
“It’s nice to see that we might be getting some help,” she said, “so I don’t feel so alone. I feel like I have champions around me, and that’s a great thing.”
Hill said she attended the workshop because she has a project that is expanding in scope and is seeking support. She said the workshop “expanded my consciousness” of the state’s perspective on the arts.
“I had not thought much along political lines,” she said, “but it made me think we need art activists. What our society needs now is community-building and the healing aspect of art. Art as less of a product and more of a service.”
Blumenfeld stressed that each of the 25 workshops across the state was likely to yield completely different results, guaranteeing that support could be offered to a broader range of those “doing the incredibly important creative work that we know makes our lives so much more vibrant.”
“This plan will look different based on who’s in the room,” she said. “And so, as we think about how we put it into action, so that it doesn’t sit on a shelf, we need to hear from many artists in order to make that support happen.”
The “California’s Future Is Creative” report is available on the California Arts Council’s website.
The next Central California Creative Hall will be a listening session held online on Jan. 28 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Free reservations are available through Eventbrite.
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