City of Angels (as in Los Angeles, not the musical)

Dianne and I recently returned from a lengthy trip to Los Angeles, where we had many great meetings, took in some outstanding art, and met some very interesting artists.  Fractured Atlas has been doing a lot in Los Angeles recently since we really need to learn more about the city’s arts community in order to more effectively reach out to the artists that reside and make their living there.  There are a few great service organizations in the area – LA Stage Alliance, LA County Arts Commission, and the Center for Cultural Innovation, to name a few — but the city doesn’t have the breadth of service organizations that places like New York and the San Francisco Bay Area do.  At the same time, the LA arts community is both immense and diverse on many different levels, maybe even moreso than NYC and SF.

We’ve been focusing on different disciplines each time we visit, so this trip was mainly focused on arts education, dance, and music.  Unfortunately, we didn’t hear from as many musicians as we would have liked, so we might revisit that group when we return next.  (Any LA-based musicians out there??  Give us a shout out!)  But, most of our meetings went really well — thanks to all who joined us and hosted us while we were out there!

Since my blogs tend to ramble on forever, I decided that I’d just give some bullet points about what we did and what we learned….

- Michael Kaiser of the Kennedy Center (yeah, yeah, not LA, but we heard him speak at an Arts for LA event at the California African American Museum) says that we need to get away from episodic arts education and aim for more systemic arts ed.

- Rachel Fine, of LA Children’s Chorus, introduced us to the thriving arts community residing in Pasadena.

- Teaching artists in LA think an APAP-like event that connects teachers with schools would be very helpful.  But, in the meantime, they are glad to have loads of assistance from the Music Center.

- Fractured Atlas member/musician/composer Mary Lou Newmark thinks that the demise of the press for the arts in LA has resulted in artists being unable to easily build their audience base.

- Dancers in LA know that there is a lot of available space in the area, but don’t know how to connect with the developers to take advantage of it.  Fortunately, many in the dance community are gaining access to helpful new services through the LA Stage Alliance.  Take a look at what Fractured Atlas member Heidi Duckler and her company, Collage Dance Theatre, are doing.  And check out our meeting host, too — Poor Dog Group.

- Administrators of dance organizations and companies in LA wish the local dance community could somehow centralize so they can have a permanent space that presents dance, so everyone uses the services provided by the Dance Resource Center, and so everyone begins to collaborate.  They are looking to Philadelphia-based dance companies for advice, since they seem to be thriving.  Check out LA Stage Alliance, Dance Resource Center, LA Contemporary Dance Company, La Danserie, Pentacle, and Brockus Project Dance Company to see what they are doing.

- Administrators of arts education programs in LA agree with the aforementioned point that Michael Kaiser made.  They are also in need of good technology systems that can help their organizations maintain and organize their lists of rostered artists and schools that they are working with and serving.  Check out what the Music Center, LA Opera, The HeArt Project, and LA County Arts Commission are doing for arts ed.

- Our friends at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) hosted our fiscal sponsorship workshop, where Dianne  provided basic fundraising information to a group of 30+ local artists.  Want more info?  Check out our free online course, Fundraising Demystified, in Fractured U.

- Arts students nationwide desperately need to know about the resources available to them once they graduate (and even before!) and begin working as full or part-time artists.  Beyond just Fractured Atlas, there are so many service organizations that are willing and eager to help.  Fortunately, we were able to reach out to students at CalArts, CalState Fullerton, and The Claremont Colleges.  At CalArts, our friend and colleague, Karen Atkinson, had us speak to her Getting Your $hit Together class, which provides similar information that is included in the software she produces for artists to help themselves maintain their careers (check out a members-only discount to GYST software and services here).  We also had help from Amy Young in their career center, and she hopes to have us speak to students again in the spring.  At CalState, visual artist/professor Joe Biel and his cohort Linda Kroff had us speak to the grad students they teach.  And the Claremont Colleges had a great turnout for a Fractured Atlas event they hosted — thanks to Jessica Wimbley of the lovely Pomona College Museum and Wanda Gibson of the career center for that.

In terms of art, Dianne went to some galleries and heard some live music.  I hit up the Mark Taper Forum and UCLA Live for some theater.  And we both caught an awesome Kathak dance performance by Chitresh Das Dance Company at the intimate Fountain Theatre.

All in all, this was a really informative trip to the LA area.  It’s amazing how spread out the city is, which lends to the diversity of the community, but also seems to hinder a lot of collaboration and a lot of audience growth that could be happening.  But, it seems like the artists there love the community (we do, too!) and love what they do.  Everyone, though, including Dianne and I, hates the traffic.