About this Blog
The goal of the Cultural Master Plan is to create public consensus around a vision for how culture and creativity in all its diversity can contribute to community and quality of life in Los Angeles.
Olga Garay, DCA Executive Director
The Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) is in the middle of a planning process to articulate a shared vision for arts and culture in Los Angeles and develop a Master Plan. We need your input! Through months of research and conversations with people about what is inspiring about arts and culture in Los Angeles, what is missing, and what we can imagine for the city’s cultural future, we have developed a preliminary framework for the plan.
Now, we are working to refine that framework with input from the public community meetings this past October and November in addition to feedback written on this blog.
Please read the Cultural Master Plan Overview and tell us what you think:
- What would be the impact on the city/your neighborhood?
- How would it impact you/your organization?
- What already exists that could be built upon?
And anything else!
on November 15, 2008 on 6:57 pm
MURALS ARE A PART OF LOS ANGELES HISTORY!
IM A MEXICNA ARTIST AND I HAVE A VERY BIG MURAL’S PROYECT TO LOS ANGELES !
LET ME GIVE MY ART TO THE MOST “MEXICAN” CITY IN USA!
FRIENDLY:
RAFAEL RAMIREZ
on November 22, 2008 on 1:30 pm
We Angelos are one of the most diverse, successful,cities in the U.S. We have withstood earthquakes and fires and remained united. I have no doubt this program will be a blast….Bravo to the commitee.
I am currently a student in an Interior Design Architecture Program, and have become familiar with the architecture of California and Los Angeles. As a class we visted alot of sites but none included the Towers of Watts. I have suggested to my instructor that it would benefit for the class to include a tour of the Watts Towers. Meanwhile, some of us students will be venturing out on are own.
If I can be of help in any way please let me know.
I Love LA
M. Williamson
on November 25, 2008 on 4:57 pm
Thanks for your feedback Rafael and Michelle.
We appreciate your enthusiasm about our diverse culture and love for the city.
Please tell a friend about our blog and keep the comments coming.
on November 30, 2008 on 8:07 pm
Q: What would be the impact on the city/your neighborhood?
A: The impact would be in better awareness by the public of the existence of finer culture and equal opportunity for participation in cultural persuits.
Q: How would it impact you/your organization?
A: It will impact my organization that is a CBO only if DCA created a small grants administration that funds local art projects for $1000 to $1500 per proposal, without necessity to spend one week to fill out the proposal form and attachments.
Q: What already exists that could be built upon?
A: Los Angeles has an abundance of unemployed painters and jazz players.
on December 12, 2008 on 2:21 am
I agree with Lewis Wong , his November 20th comment. It would be really great if there were small grants awarded on a more casual and immediate basis. the Durfee Artists resource grant is a great example.
One thing they do is rely on the organization to field the artists.
What if we nominated arts organizations- non-profit and also grass roots galleries and theatres that are, nominally for profit- and asked them to nominate artists who need 500 or 1000 to get a project started or finished at their venue? And from those nominations, already fielded by cool, small community arts organizations, you award a small grant- 1-2 page application? For example, I would nominate Echo Curio in Echo Park, a small art for art sake venue on Sunset Blvd. the DCA could say to them, hey Echo Curio, which musicians, painters do you want to nominate for this small grant? they’d say, oh, yeah how about so and so the great singer songwriter guy and so and so the great sculptress gal? And then those two fill out the applications. I think that would be a great way to feed and nurture the small organizations and the artists who work through them- give them strength to grow, without having to jump through alot of hoops. there is certainly a place for the jumping through hoops sort of grant initiative and accountability is of course, important. However, I think artists need more help doing what they are ALREADY doing anyway,rather than having to invent a proposal to fulfill a specific social agenda. In the end, that social agenda- of a vibrant, inclusive arts scene that serves people in every neighborhood in every walk of life might be even BETTER realized by this looser, proactive and more organic approach. That said, it looks like you’ve got some great new initiatives started and I wish I could’ve made it to the public community meetings – Iwas involved in the presidential campaign.
on December 12, 2008 on 5:10 am
Leora, You may want to take a look at Baltimore’s arts commission and their plans. It is a significantly smaller city, but it has many of the same issues that are at play in LA. They have done amazing things to support artists and small, nontraditional creative organizations that have proved to really help Baltimore and help the arts scene at the same time. Check it out.
Good work on the blog.
on December 12, 2008 on 2:36 pm
Dear Heather and Lee,
Heather, that is a great idea. Thank you for your input. The ideas are important to creating new offerings on our end. There are many factors involved.
In the mean time,
we do offer small grants for artists. Please take a look:
http://www.culturela.org/grants/index.html
Lee, thanks for the eyes on Baltimore. One of the most interesting things about the process for me is hearing not only what other cities are creating for a master plan, but what each individual neighborhood within Los Angeles is doing.
When you get a chance, please take a look at what Venice has come up with. I encourage you to get involved with your immediate area to make great art things happen. Collectively this will make LA great.
on December 31, 2008 on 7:51 pm
Many contemporary visual artists in the city use street art as a channel to reach Angelinos, using their own financial resources to fund these projects, and although some times these works might be considered an encroachment or vandalism due to there location very often they actually add and highlight the cultural diverse esthetic of the city. PBS (California Connected) recently aired a segment on all these illegal billboards that the entertainment industry has put up everywhere, and their dirty tactics to pressure City Council members to allow them to continue, they pay almost nothing to the city.
The DCA and perhaps CRA or some other entity of the city can work together to make at least 5% of the cities billboards available to artists of all styles and genres, there can be a new theme every month or quarter, and this would show the world that the city cares about Art and is not just fixed on the superficial and commercial, but that we value our diversity and artistic expression. The DCA could submit a proposal to council that would make CBS, Time Warner, and the others that make millions from these billboards share there space with emerging, mid career, and established artists of Los Angeles, or to pay extra so and that can go into grants, I think the political will exists in the people to make something like this happen, I’m a community organizer for affordable housing when I’m not making art and I know that people are really starved of art, they are bombarded everyday by corporate propaganda often the only art that low income families can enjoy is street art, murals, etc . …Art is the only thing that keeps many people sane.
help us dilute the visual terrorists
Spartacous Cacao
on January 12, 2009 on 6:22 pm
My name is Anacia, I am the founder and Artistic Director for ACFCLA – Artist Community For Change La a non-profit organization of artists dedicated to using their individual artistic expression to influence and inspire others in a positive way on global,environmental and humanitarian causes.
ACFCLA has a professional contemporary lyrical dance company that consists of 7 professional dancers, a wide variety of some of LA’s most talented musicians, as well as, nationally recognized visual artists.
Anacia Weiskittel
Artistic Director / CEO
ACFCLA – Artist Community For Change LA
http://www.acfcla.org
on January 12, 2009 on 9:22 pm
When is the report coming out, I cant find it on the DCA website
on January 13, 2009 on 2:58 pm
Hi Jorge,
The Mayor’s consultants are working on the Master Plan and hope to have something to present
the Advisory Committee in late February. From there, there may be a few more revisions to make sure everyone is on the same page before we make it public.
Please check back regularly and if you have any specific input or ideas please share.