Craig Watson, Executive Director of the Arts Council for Long Beach, has been at the helm for a short but challenging time. With the Council under increasing scrutiny, and without an Executive Director for many months, he came in knowing that budget cuts were likely, and that the international financial crisis would hit the local arts scene hard. Still, with the support of an active and invigorated Board, he's successfully navigated some significant challenges, and helped produce some exciting opportunities for the creative community.

One such opportunity was October's celebration of GLOBAL, or the Greater Long Beach Arts Lab. In addition to 'rebranding' the national Arts and Humanities Month festivities, he changed the scope and focus to foster inter-organizational collaboration, and utilize forward looking strategies. I began by asking him about how that collaborative spirit arose.

Craig: I think it started with our earliest meeting at MoLAA. We invited artists and organizations of various sizes to attend, and the spirit of that inclusiveness was infectious. We also made it clear that, on the most basic level, GLOBAL was a platform that could handle and promote big and small plans equally. The interactivity established on the GLOBAL website through the participant guide helped foster this as well.

Sander: Were there any surprising synergies that developed as a result?

Craig: A few come to mind...the success of SAM [Summer And Music] made it easy for Justin and Ashley Hectus to help us program some of the world music that occurred during 2nd Saturday of GLOBAL. The Phantom Galleries were already established and willing to take on new projects like the "Healing" photo exhibit by Linnea Linkus, and the Port was delighted with our ability to "exceed their expectations" when GLOBAL agreed to organize and manage the children's art area at Green Port Fest.

Sander: This was GLOBAL's first year and, in many ways, it was a test run. What were some of the challenges that arose during its planning and implementation?

Craig: Our first meeting to discuss GLOBAL was held in June! So the relative shortness of time was the first major hurdle to overcome. But given the result, we are very pleased with our first year. I think with more time, we would have expanded our social media promotion and would have had more time to stimulate events or projects specifically designed for GLOBAL. Also, key to something like this will always be sponsorship. We were scrambling to line up sponsors, but in the end, the sponsors were great (DLBA, RDA, Port, Supervisor Knabe, Seaside Printing, Evalyn Bauer Foundation, etc.). So for next year, we are already starting conversations with sponsors and there are some exciting new pieces coming into play.

Sander: What about the response to GLOBAL from the community, the government, and the media? How was it received?

Craig: Like any new effort we are still helping to define what GLOBAL is. For each of the events and activities that chose to affiliate with GLOBAL in some way (and there were nearly 350 listings in the GLOBAL calendar by the end of October!), we brought more promotion and awareness to each one. I think the media coverage of the arts in October was huge, and several of the big weekend events were very well attended. Things like SoundWalk, Mid City Studio tour, Phantom Gallery art walks, Green Port Fest...each was a big success this year...not "because" of GLOBAL, but certainly helped by the increased awareness. And feedback from the City itself was very positive as they could see the quality and quantity of great art experiences occurring in their midst.

Sander: And the great thing about the GLOBAL concept is that events that are heavily marketed or well established, like the ones you mentioned, help increase awareness of the other GLOBAL events.

Craig: I have always liked that phrase..."a rising tide lifts all ships"...and it is certainly true that as we build more and more of a focus on the arts-rich community we live in, the interests will spill over to art experiences of all types. Or goals include being able to demonstrate that residents are trying new things and attending the exhibits or performances of artists and groups that they might not otherwise know about.

Sander: One of the challenges one faces, especially when resources are limited, is targeting an audience. How did you find a balance between outreach within Long Beach, and the LA and OC audience base?

Craig: Back to some of our limitations...we did not really have the budget to do much marketing outside of Long Beach this first year. However, we did commit a fair amount of resources to targeted Facebook ads. We developed six different versions of these and they were linked via "keywords" to appear on Facebook profile pages throughout 'So Cal' for anyone that showed an interest in an arts-related discipline. This is an area we will expand in 2010 and, assuming our budget allows it, expand more aggressively in traditional media. We also expect to partner more closely with the LB CVB to get information out to any and all of their clients who are here for conventions or meetings in October, 2010.

Sander: When you first arrived, one of the first things you jumped into was the planning process for Create Long Beach, which is just a fancy name for an update of the Cultural Master Plan. At that time, the community was promised continued involvement in its development. How has that involvement been achieved?

Craig: The Cultural Master Plan is still "a work in progress". As you know, we wrapped up the first phase this past June by delivering the "Create Long Beach" report. 75 citizens served on the steering committee and many small group meetings and one large forum were held to get input for this first phase. Once that was completed, the Arts Council went about implementing some of the specific recommendations in this first phase, but always intending to reconvene a new process to finalize a more specific and direct plan of action. Our work on GLOBAL, the Arts and Culture Registry and our plan for an Arts Education Summit in early 2010 could be all seen as forms of "implementation" around recommendations found in the "Create Long Beach" plan.

Sander: The new Cultural Master Plan was to be absorbed into the City's 2030 plan. When will that happen?

Craig: We have been in discussion with members of the City Council and with City staff about this. There appears to be broad support for incorporating the Cultural Plan into the 2030 plan. I expect to see that made more explicit in early 2010.

Sander: Let's talk briefly about the Arts and Culture Registry. This evolved from a collaboration between Leadership Long Beach, Doma Properties, and Smolarcorp. Since its implementation, what kind of results has it produced?

Craig: First is the size of the Registry itself! We have over 250 artists and arts organizations now on the registry. Second, we communicate to the registry participants fairly regularly. They often receive notices about upcoming opportunities (i.e. public art commissions, workshops and programs) and this will only expand as time goes by. Right after the holidays we will do a survey to get a better feel for the impact of the registry and what we might change about it. Our feedback is mostly anecdotal at this point. We know that visual artists have been contacted for shows and that some performers have gotten work. But we do not have hard numbers at this point.

Separate from the registry, we intend to revitalize our website and Facebook presence. We currently have two fan pages on Facebook...one for our Arts Learning department, the other for the Arts Council overall. These will be used more extensively in 2010 and our website will have both video, more interactivity and this will include a way to make an online donation.

Sander: Speaking of money, the Arts Council's budget received a serious blow from the City recently. How has that impacted the Council?

Craig: Dramatically! We have reduced staff, cut expenses where possible...but our biggest concern has been on our grantees. The nearly 40% reduction in funding from the City meant that our grant program had to be cut by this same percentage. Just this week we made the specific announcements to our successful grantees. Everyone knew that a reduction was coming, but that made it no less hard to deliver. Each of the 26 organizations who rely in some way on these scarce funds is having to cut back services, programs and activities.

Sander: Of the organizations that have the largest budgets, and who receive the most dollars, can you give me a specific example of how the reduced funding has affected their ability to perform?

Craig: We are gathering some of those impacts right now. It is one thing to say that funding was reduced 40% and keep that as an abstract figure. It is another thing to describe very specifically the fewer number of children (for example) able to experience a musical performance or museum visit due to these cuts. These are stories that need to be understood and we will be telling them.

Sander: The Arts Council had an organizational shift that put it under the Economic Development umbrella. What has arisen as a result of that change?

Craig: The Council has always been closely tied to the Economic Development and Cultural Affairs Bureau and that continues. The head of the Bureau, Robert Swayze is a member of our Board of Directors and has been an unswerving and passionate supporter of the arts and the Arts Council....so really that relationship has not changed.

Sander: What are the big plans for 2010?

Craig: The Arts Education Summit will be a very important moment for our community. With the huge cuts looming for public education, we need to ask ourselves how important are the arts in our public schools. Up until now, the LBUSD has always been able to say, "very important!". Now they need our help with new strategies to keep up this proud position of support. The summit will bring together key stakeholders in that effort.

In the new year we will be partnering with several City Council members to bring forward important arts initiatives. These won't necessarily add costs to our City budget, rather look with fresh eyes on ways to help the arts thrive in the City. The arts are as important as ever, and we will be helping to make that case.

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