The California Arts Council on Friday announced the award of grants totaling $32.7 million to 856 arts non-profit and state-run arts organizations throughout the state.
PAM KRAGEN | THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
DECEMBER 4, 2023
Lulu Yueming Qu teaches a traditional Chinese ink painting workshop at ArtReach’s headquarters in San Diego in 2022. The San Diego nonprofit received nearly $75,000 in grants from the California Arts Council on Dec. 1, 2023.
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San Diego County-based organization received $2.2 million in total grants. This year’s grants represent the highest amount of grants ever issued by the state agency.
“In this last year, the California Arts Council has been working diligently to listen to our field, to be responsive to the moment, and to do our best to make our investments strategic and equitable,” said California Arts Council Executive Director Jonathan Moscone said, in a statement. “I am proud that we are able to disperse more than 850 grants throughout the state so that the arts can continue to have a deep and positive impact on the vast and diverse communities of California.”
In San Diego County, there were 67 grantees, with individual grants ranging in size from $14,501 to $66,000. Six arts organizations received two grants, one for general operating expenses and the second for its impact programs.
The Aja Project received a combined $81,250 in grants. The City Heights organization promotes youth development through the documentary art of photography. ArtReach received $74,501 in combined grants for its programs, which use visual art in schools and the community to promote the advancement of social, racial, and economic equity.
New Village Arts received a combined $79,000. The Carlsbad theater offers theater education and performance opportunities for the neurodiverse and it promotes diverse hiring for its live theater productions. Disco Riotreceived a combined $72,250. It connects dancers with audience for live events that promote community, justice, and movement as a form of radical expression.`
Healing Rhythms, which offers drum and recreational therapy, received a combined $72,250. And Positive Community Action is a theater group in Encinitas that provides performance opportunities for people on the Autism spectrum.
The City of San Diego Commission for Arts & Culture received $66,000.
With stay-at-home orders still well under way, one local art program is finding ways for its students to continue their lessons.
ArtReach collaborates with students of Pacific View Leadership Elementary to create a distance mural where students painted virtually via Zoom.
When the San Diego Unified School District shut down all of its schools on March 16 to prevent the spread of coronavirus, nothing about the mural planned for a wall on the campus of the Pacific View Leadership Elementary School in Paradise Hills happened the way it was supposed to.