ARTS & CULTURE
Society805’s Art & Culture section keeps your finger on the pulse on the arts and the cultural moves inside the 805. We get around the noise and beneath the hype to give you the real issues inside the 805 arts scene and the people in them. We bring you the key events shaping the 805 cultural landscape so you do not miss out on what is important and the direction of the 805 culture in art, theater, music, and film. Remember, you can’t live in style without art and culture.
Society805 does an online interview of Nash Rightmer, a young Ventura artists currently living and working at the WAV [Working Artists Ventura] complex at Thompson and Ventura Avenue in Ventura.
Is the 805 Ready for a Regional Arts Council?
The 805 area has the critical mass in terms of artists, arts institutions, and population of a major city. It is a culturally contiguous region with supporting wine, restaurant, and film industries, plus museum, transportation, and tourist infrastructure. It has a score of small towns and centers facing similar core economic re-vitalization and cultural problems, including tight city budgets and increasing infrastructure costs. Does it make sense to keep pursuing a balkanized arts and culture strategy with each town duplicating vital marketing, staffing, and organizational costs? Is it time for a regional approach instead?
Future of the Arts Putting it All Together: Tracy Hudak, Arts Impact Director at Large
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Society805 recently caught up with artist and arts advocate extraordinaire Tracy Hudak between projects to find out what she is thinking and doing these days regarding the arts in the 805. Tracy is noted for having her finger on the pulse and designing effective partnerships between public and private entities and the arts. In an area where cities and organizations often make expensive mistakes, Tracy has excelled in helping people get the most bang for their buck by creating successful programs that excite artists and public alike. Find out what is working and not working in the arts these days and how that relates to the arts here in the 805.
Pro-arts candidates sweep the recent Ventura City Council elections by overwhelming margins, with the top vote count going to the director of an arts non-profit, affirming the ongoing vigor and electoral strength of the arts in Ventura. It was an instructive test, as the “arts slate” crossed party lines and was not the slate supported by any of the official party
The James Irvine Foundation Arts Regional Initiative, Phase Two, has awarded over two and a half million dollars in grants for 805 regional arts institutions committed to broadening and diversifying their audiences and strengthening their financial sustainability. The organizations represent a mix of artistic disciplines, including music, dance, opera, theater, visual arts and multidisciplinary arts.
Julie Tobiason and Timothy Lynch of Seattle Dance Project
John White has had a blessed life. He is a happy man with a twinkle in his eye and a full heart who understands just how lucky he has been.
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On the 22nd of July , at the closing general session of their 97th Annual convention in New Orleans, the Destination Marketing Association International (DMAI) announced that Ventura, California, along with Miami, Florida, have been selected as the winning destinations for the first Arts Destination Marketing Award for “their innovative collaboration with local art agencies to market their communities as a travel destination.”
Strolling along the streets of Ventura during one of the art walks, Janet Lamb happened upon a kiosk with wonderful brochures advertising a new living and working space. It was called the WAV (Working Artists Ventura) project and its goal to blend art, community, and environment--instantly she thought, "That is for me!"
Luce Patricolo, the Glass Alchemist
My interview with Luce Patricolo was unfortunately held to phone conversation and email. But I could tell from the brief communication, that Luce was an individual full of passion and life. When speaking of the WAV, Luce’s passion is felt though the computer screen. “The WAV’s intent and Chris Velasco’s dream is to keep artists in Ventura who have all but been driven away by lack of affordability, vanished endowments for the arts, and virtual risk of extinction within our current society. Raising the consciousness of Americans that art is essential to humanity and the feeding of ones soul. Where Europe has always been aware of the worth and contribution of the artists role in society, America, I feel is in need of an awakening of its value”.
Catlin Harvey Blair: The Interconnectedness of Art and Nature