Arts And Culture Newsletters

It is a busy time of year for all of our divisions, as you can see in the updates below. Our Civic Art Division’s Illuminate LA initiative launched this month, with a first panel, "Current State of Monuments." Three of our grant programs are open, and we have been thrilled to get queries from organizations that have never applied before. We are also getting ready to for the I.D.E.A. WAVE workshops for education practitioners next month.

I write with huge pride and excitement with the news that the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a motion by Supervisors Solis and Kuehl to adopt the Cultural Policy Strategic Plan! As you may have read in earlier dispatches, this is an important next step in our ongoing work to expand cultural equity and access across LA County. Once again, thank you for you for input and advocacy. Please check out our press release in the body of this newsletter.

In this month's newsletter, we are thrilled to share the Countywide Cultural Policy Strategic Plan for Los Angeles County. I am grateful to Supervisors Hilda Solis and Sheila Kuehl, who directed us to develop a plan to implement the Cultural Policy, and to our community for your input, advocacy, and participation. We will share updates soon…

We first acknowledge last month's Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month which we celebrated by uplifting a few of the many remarkable artists and organizations of the AAPI community. We also acknowledge May as Jewish American Heritage Month, as well as June as Pride Month, and recognize all of the rich cultural diversity we have the honor of engaging through the arts here in Los Angeles County—year round. Looking ahead, we are excited to continue to expand our work catalyzing cross-sector arts collaboration to advance equity across civic life.

Thank you for celebrating April as Arts Month! This year, it was launched by a Board of Supervisors motion, authored by Chair Holly J. Mitchell and Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, to designate Arts Month, recognize the role of arts in the work of healing and recovery from COVID-19, and continue the County’s work of ensuring that all the benefits of, and opportunities provided by, the arts are accessible to everyone.

As we advance arts, culture, and creativity under the leadership of the historic all-female Board of Supervisors, I want to wish you a happy close to Women’s History Month! We have spotlights of two incredible women below that we’re proud to have in the Department of Arts and Culture family, Arts Commissioner Madeline Di Nonno, the President and CEO of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and Pat Gomez, an artist and Project Manager whose career has brought incredible opportunity and support to the LA public art world…

I want to first acknowledge February's Black History Month and all our Black-identifying colleagues, communities, artists, and grantees who bring their experience, change agency, and cultural contributions to the LA County field I am so proud to work in.…

As we enter the new year and face its promise and its challenges, we continue to lean in to key themes of recovery, sustainability, and equity. To that end, I invite you to engage in our latest work…