There are exciting changes at the LA County Department of Arts and Culture! In the County, the budget process has several phases. This fall, the Board of Supervisors passed the Supplemental Budget with great news for arts and culture—we are thrilled to receive our budget request in full, and then some, including six new staff positions in our Research and Evaluation, Civic Art, Communications, and Grants divisions, as well as a new Arts Commission Manager role. Each of these new roles will advance equity in the arts in the Department and help us get more programs, opportunities, announcements, and data to you our cultural community. I am thankful this Board wants to invest in arts, culture, and creativity, and I am also very grateful for our wonderful Arts Commissioners and their tireless advocacy during the budget process.

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…

This December, we are reminded these are challenging times, to be sure. Yet I look back on 2021 with a sense of pride and accomplishment about the work at the Department of Arts and Culture, and the resiliency of the LA County arts and culture community. It was a year that required delays and pivots, but also revealed unique moments of opportunity. We stepped up. We acted quickly to support the arts sector, we secured record levels of funding for recovery initiatives, we adopted landmark arts policies, and we continued to advance equity as LA County's artists and cultural organizations delivered healing, engagement, art, and opportunities for reflection and joy…

Earlier this month, a motion authored by Chair Hilda L. Solis proclaimed November as Native American Heritage Month. In keeping with Los Angeles County’s priority of cultural and racial equity, and in recognition of our American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) communities, this month I feature our ongoing collaboration with the LA City/County Native American Indian Commission (NAIC)…

Our Department advances arts, culture, and creativity in and throughout Los Angeles County. As a local arts agency we strive to be reflective of and responsive to the communities in the jurisdiction we serve. Yet, as you will see below, we are also incredibly proud to have LA County's local arts and cultural innovations represented on the national and international stage…

As we work together toward recovery in the creative sector, it is important to celebrate the wins. I am thrilled to share the news that this month the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors adopted the new Public Art in Private Development ordinance. More than two decades in the making, the new ordinance authored by Chair Hilda L. Solis allocates 1% of private commercial, industrial, and residential development project to fund four categories of public art, cultural facilities, conservation, and arts and cultural programs…

As we all continue to navigate the shifting COVID-19 terrain and our road to recovery, I want to take a moment to acknowledge my gratitude to all of you for your resilience as we protect and uplift and arts and creative sector. One of our critical roles in that work is investing in LA County’s cultural life through our grantees and program partners, and there are several points of light on that front recently…

The June Arts and Culture Newsletter was sent out on June 25, 2021. To make sure that you never miss another update from the  Department of Arts and Culture, sign up for our Newsletter. View June Newsletter