The Director's Desk: A Message from Luis R. Cancel
This past Friday the US Senate passed an amendment to the economic stimulus bill that would prohibit using any of the funding to support the arts. The Americans for the Arts has set up a response that will allow you to help reverse this decision once the Stimulus Bill goes to conference with the House of Representatives. Please follow this link and help to reject this misguided amendment.
Below you will also learn how the San Francisco / Bay Area cultural community is faring under the current recession – the meeting notes on the “Convening on the Economic Recession” have now been posted. One of the important recommendations from the meeting is the importance of inviting your Supervisors, especially the four new members of the Board of Supervisors, to your events. When you meet with them please be prepared to share how your arts organization serves the community: your involvement with youth or schools, the number of patrons who visit your performances or events and your impact on the quality of life in your neighborhood. There is an urgent need for the Supervisors to hear from you due to the financial crisis that is facing San Francisco. Your actions NOW will help to ensure continued funding of the arts.
Finally, don’t miss Thursday’s (Feb. 12) opening reception and opportunity to celebrate one of San Francisco’s leading artists: Bill Fontana’s Spiraling Echoes at City Hall.
Luis R. Cancel
Director of Cultural Affairs
A Convening on the Economic Recession and its Impact on the Arts Community
Update and Other News in Economic Recovery On January 12th, the Arts Commission in partnership with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts,
ArtsForum and the San Francisco Foundation convened a forum to discuss the economic recession and its
impact on the local arts sector. Over 300 individuals and arts groups gathered and the event was intended
as the first step in a multiple-objective process linking local government, the philanthropic community,
businesses, and the general public. The goal of these organizations' collaborative actions is to ensure
that San Francisco’s cultural community survives the current economic recession. The first of several such
public discussions, the convening served to solicit feedback from the community on four central
questions:
1) How does the economic recession impact you and/or your organization?
2) What are you doing in response?
3) What do you need?
4) What are possible solutions?
To download the complete 26-page notes from the meeting, please click here or visit the Art Forum blog by Theatre Bay Area to add your comments.
BREAKING NEWS
On Friday the U.S. Senate, during their consideration of the economic recovery bill, approved an egregious amendment offered by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that stated “None of the amounts appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, art center, and highway beautification project.” Unfortunately, the amendment passed by a wide vote margin of 73-24, and surprisingly included support from many high profile Senators including Chuck Schumer of New York, Dianne Feinstein of California, Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, and several other Democratic and Republican Senators.
If the Coburn amendment language is included in the final conference version of this legislation, many arts groups will be prevented from receiving economic recovery funds from any portion of this specific stimulus bill. It is clear that there is still much work to be done in the Senate and in the media about the role that nonprofit arts organizations and artists play in the nation’s economy and workforce.
PLAN OF ACTION
Arts advocates need to quickly contact Senators who voted for the Coburn Amendment and express your extreme disappointment with their vote. We need these Senators to know that their vote would detrimentally impact nonprofit arts organizations and the jobs they support in their state. The Americans for the Arts have crafted a customized message for you to send to your Senators based on their vote on the Coburn Amendment. The correct letter, customized to each of your Senators will appear when you enter your zip code. If your Senator voted for this funding prohibition, you can send them a message expressing your disappointment and ask them to work to delete this language in the final conference bill with the House. If your Senator voted against the Coburn Amendment, you can thank them for their support of the arts.
Lastly, if you’re looking for inspiration to express your support of the arts, check out the We Are One Opening Inaugural Ceremonies at the Lincoln Memorial on Youtube. There, where many of the nation’s most celebrated artists and performers spoke out for historical federal initiatives, like the institution of the NEA, Ashley Judd said the following:
“This is a day when artists from around our wonderful country have come to this place to celebrate history and our future. President Kennedy spoke of the role of the artist at Amherst College in 1963. ‘I see little of more importance to the future of our country and civilization than the full recognition of the place of the artist. If artists can nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.’ ”
Bill Fontana’s Spiraling Echoes to launch in City Hall The Arts Commission proudly launches Spiraling Echoes, a site specific sound installation for the Rotunda of City Hall by world-renowned artist Bill Fontana.
Join us in the Rotunda on Thursday, February 12th, 5:30 – 7:30 pm, for the opening reception. Free and open to the public. The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery invites you to experience Spiraling Echoes, a unique work of art created for San Francisco City Hall by Bill Fontana, an internationally acclaimed pioneer of sound art. For the past 30 years, Mr. Fontana has used sound as a sculptural medium to interact with and transform our perceptions of its relationship to architectural and environmental spaces. Mr. Fontana, a San Francisco resident for three decades, has created monumental site-specific aural installations for such iconic locations as London’s Big Ben and Tate Modern, Paris’s Arch de Triomphe and the Lyon Light Rail in France.
Employing an acoustic phenomenon common to bats, dolphins and whales known as echolocation, Spiraling Echoes utilizes cutting-edge technology to transmit sounds in ultrasonic beams as thin as a thread from highly-specialized speakers, or transducers, placed inside the Rotunda’s dome. The audio recordings, which include both contemporary and historical sounds of San Francisco, cascade downward and interact with the Rotunda’s architectural surfaces. Highly directional in nature, the sounds have an ephemeral, almost transparent quality akin to a whisper or an echo. Visitors will encounter these aural experiences in a series of micro-sound samples that are in constant movement throughout the area below the Rotunda’s dome. Spiraling Echoes reinterprets and celebrates the architecture of the famed Rotunda of San Francisco City Hall on the 10th anniversary of this historic landmark’s restoration.
San Francisco's historic City Hall has been renovated to be fully accessible to people with disabilities, including the addition of audible infrared signage for individuals who are blind or visually impaired. There is an audio description of the sounds included in Spiraling Echoes for the hearing impaired at the City Hall information desk, as well as large-sized and Braille versions of informational text.
For the optimal experience of Spiraling Echoes, please listen from City Hall’s 4th floor corridors overlooking the Rotunda. The installation runs February 13 – May 8, 2009, and may be heard Monday – Friday, 8 am – 8 pm. City Hall’s address is 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, 94102.
CultureWire
CultureWire, the San Francisco Arts Commission’s SFGTV program, continues to air in 2009. Premiering late last year, two installments are already “in the can”. You can check them both out on our homepage. And be sure to stay tuned for upcoming segments that will feature the Bill Fontana piece (see item #3 in this newsletter); Maya Lin’s new media art installation—her second at the California Academy of Sciences; and other Arts Commission projects
Patrick Dougherty Willow Reed Sculptures in Civic Center Plaza
North Carolina artist Patrick Dougherty is currently installing his willow sapling sculpture in Joseph L. Alioto Piazza, also known as Civic Center Plaza. His ephemeral environmental “stick work” will wind cloud-like through the tops of the trees to transform the plaza. To see the installation in progress, visit the plaza till February 24th, thereafter, the sculpture will remain in place until late November, 2009. For more information on the artists work, visit http://www.stickwork.net.
imPOSSIBLE! Eight Chinese Artists Engage Absurdity at the SFAC Gallery and Mission 17
The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery and Mission 17 present imPOSSIBLE!; an exhibition in two locations featuring eight renowned Chinese artists who engage absurdity and theatricality in video and photographic works that respond to recent socio-political and economic circumstances in China. In addition, the SFAC Gallery and M17 have created a series of events to support this groundbreaking exhibition and have partnered with the San Francisco Chinese Cultural Center in order to present an evening screening of longer video works by participating artists. The show runs February 13 – April 18, 2009, with the opening reception at the SFAC Gallery at 401 Van Ness Avenue on Friday, February 20th, 6 – 8 pm. The companion venue opening reception at Mission 17 (2111 Mission Street
Suite 401) is Friday, February 13th, 6 – 8 pm. For more information, please visit the SFAC Gallery site.
Calendar Items
2009 Bay Area Artists Registry Introducing the 2009 Bay Area Artists Registry, a project of the Arts Commission’s Public Art Program.
The San Francisco Arts Commission invites artists to apply for the 2009 Bay Area Artists Registry. This registry will be used to select artists for a range of new public art opportunities associated with the construction of new civic buildings, parks and playgrounds as well as transportation and streetscape improvement projects. Given the great diversity of public art project opportunities, the Arts Commission seeks to include in the 2009 Bay Area Artists Registry artists working in a variety of media and artistic approaches, and especially those artists who are interested in having their design concepts translated into durable and easily maintained materials.
Application deadline: Monday, March 23, 2009, 5:00 PM (PST)
For more information on the registry and the applicant workshops, go to:
www.sfartscommission.org/pubartcollection Eligibility: Artists residing in the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties
Budgets: approximately $30,000 to $200,000
All application materials must be submitted online via CaFÉ at www.callforentry.org
Also there are 2 applicant workshops open to Bay Area artists:
Interested artists may attend an applicant workshop to find out more about the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Public Art Program and the project opportunities associated with the 2009 Bay Area Artists Registry, and to receive instructions on submitting a registry application through CaFÉ. While attendance at an applicant workshop is not required, applicants to the registry are encouraged to attend. The same information will be presented at both workshops, and applicantsneed only attend one. The workshops are free and open to the public.
WORKSHOP DATES WHEN: Tuesday, February 24, 2009, 6 – 7:30 PM WHERE: 25 Van Ness Avenue, Suite 70 (Lower Level), San Francisco, CA 94102
WHEN: Saturday, March 7, 2009, from 10 – 11:30 AM WHERE: 25 Van Ness Avenue, Suite 70 (Lower Level), San Francisco, CA 94102
Workshop: Creating 21st Century Arts Organizations
Arts Providers Alliance of San Francisco (APASF) announces “Creating 21st Century Arts Organizations”, a workshop on equity and hiring in arts education. The speaker is Dr. Shakti Butler of World Trust.
WHEN: Thursday, February 19th, 3 – 6 pm WHERE: World Arts West, Fort Mason Center, Building D, 2nd Floor
Job Opening: Account Clerk
The Arts Commission will soon be announcing an opening for an account clerk in this department. Among many duties, this position will be responsible for performing routine bookkeeping and financial record-keeping operations within complex City's accounting systems in order to ensure accurate balances and available budgeted funds. Check with sfartscommission.org for the posting.
For more information please visit sfartscommission.org. San Francisco Arts Commission: We bring the arts to you, and you to the arts.
SFAC is a Department the City and County of San Francisco.
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