When Craig Watson was hired as the part-time Executive Director for the Arts Council for Long Beach, he hit the ground running. Faced with a shrinking financial commitment from the City, a community alternately indifferent or hostile, and real questions about the organization's relevancy, he has worked tirelessly to reframe the Council's image and, more importantly, its role.

Already underway was an update to the City's Cultural Master Plan, created more than 10 years ago. The first phase of the revision has now been completed and, just prior to delivering to the Mayor and City Council members, he took some time to speak with me about it, and the ACLB's recent accomplishments.

Sander: Some time ago the Arts Council began a revision of the Cultural Master Plan. Can you talk a bit about that process, and where it is now?

Craig: With the help of a 75-person steering committee and many, many meetings we have completed Phase One of the plan and it will be delivered this week to the Mayor and City Council. It provides an update to cultural planning that was last done over ten years ago. This first phase provides the broad overview of key themes for how we can improve the environment for arts and culture over the next ten years.

The final product of this first phase is a document we call, "Create Long Beach.” It lays out a vision for improving the arts in Long Beach that includes six categories where the beginning strategies are addressed. Those categories include improving communications inside and outside of the arts community; building on the importance of neighborhoods and our diversity; strengthening arts education; fostering a sustainable environment for individual artist and arts groups of all sizes to thrive; harnessing arts and culture to support economic development for Long Beach, and; building leadership within the community to identify, advocate for and obtain the necessary financial and human resources to grow/support the cultural sector.

Next steps include the convening of several ad hoc teams, each charged with drilling down deeper into the cultural plan, providing more details around tactics and strategies, prioritized with action plans to accomplish our goals.

Sander: But it's still preliminary, in that the details of exactly how to accomplish these larger goals have yet to be finalized. Is that correct?

Craig: We are referring to it as a "framework". In fact, here is what we said in the intro: This framework is the culmination of the first phase of a planning initiative that will continue over the coming months. This phase has been designed to provide the necessary focus for on-going discussions of strategic approaches and, as such, has focused on the "what" considerably more than the "how", which will be more fully addressed in the next phase.

Sander: How many phases are there?

Craig: There are three phases. The first is complete. The second will develop more specific strategies and priorities. The third and final phase is a detailed implementation plan. We want to complete the second phase in October of this year and the third phase no later than early January, 2010.

Sander: Worldwide economic realities are all too local. Are considerations of cost, budget availability, etc. being considered in the development of the implementation plan?

Craig: While the economy and its local impact must be acknowledged, we believe there are many things that can be accomplished without new outlays of funds. Where funds are required, the Arts Council is committed to more aggressively pursue funding that is not currently coming to Long Beach, but should. Our goal is grow the pie, not find ways to cut smaller pieces.

Sander: One concern I constantly hear is that the arts community needs to involve the entire City in developing a vision for the future. How are you approaching this challenge?

Craig: Speaking for the Arts Council, I am trying to get out in front of a variety of stakeholders so we can hear first hand ideas where the arts community can lend support in creating a better city. Small example: Recently I presented in front of a group made up of all the Business Improvement District (BID) leadership. I offered our assistance in getting approval to allow large banners that cross streets in certain, designated areas. Apparently this has been a long-standing interest of the BID's but the City has resisted. Yet, having such banners could be a great boon to promoting special events (think of banners to promote the Summer and Music events) for the BID's and by extension, the arts.

Sander: The Arts Council has been reinventing itself in other ways. Can you talk about that?

Craig: With my arrival the Arts Council is signaling that it will be making significant changes... all toward providing more value to the creative community, as well as the community overall. To accomplish this, we are listening very closely to our constituents: The artists, the arts presenters... as well as the community at large. For instance, our recent launch of the Arts and Culture Registry is directly aimed at serving artists of all disciplines. As a place where artists can be connected to the public, we are seeing real value being provided.

Sander: The Council has also been developing new tools for arts educators, right?

Craig: Correct. We are completing an Arts Education Resources directory that will be available online. This will be a place where parents, teachers, school administrators and youth can find resources for arts learning. Also, as a follow up from the "Create Long Beach" document, we are convening a small working group to look at what it would take for the LB Unified School District to launch a new, standards based curriculum called "Arts for All". Long Beach is the largest district in Southern California not offering or working toward offering this K-12 curriculum.

Sander: What else is in the works?

Craig: One of our most exciting initiatives is Global. As we were reviewing some of our traditional activities, we took a hard look at our annual approach to "October is National Arts and Humanities Month". Past support has generally seen the Arts Council print and distribute a calendar of events being held in October, but not doing much else.

This October we will substitute Global! Global stands for Greater Long Beach Arts Lab and is meant, over time, to be a signature, month-long arts festival that will attract audiences from all over Long Beach and the region and eventually attracting visitors from around the world. Since this is our startup year, we have more modest ambitions, but is does include promoting several unique Long Beach-based activities. They include Soundwalk in the East Village, PortFest at the Port of Long Beach, a Southeast Asian Festival at the Aquarium, free admission on the first weekend to MoLAA and the University Art Museum, and the Mid-City Artist Studio Tour.

We are also taking over the Expo building on Atlantic and transforming the 25,000 square foot space into a showcase for emerging and established visual artists during the month. These are just a taste of the variety and breadth we expect to bring under the umbrella of Global. And this fits one of the goals of our Create Long Beach plan: To showcase our outstanding arts community and, in the process, build audiences for our constituents.

Comments

Click Here to Join the Discussion on this Story

5 Comments so far.

Display Name :
E-mail Address :
Comment :