Arts and Culture Staff and Grantees Present on Arts Landscape at National Arts Funders Conference

From October 9 through October 12, San Francisco hosted the annual Grantmakers in the Arts Conference at the Fairmont Hotel. Arts funders from throughout the U.S. and Canada came together to reflect on the current state of arts funding, with a focus on how funders and practitioners in the arts are demonstrating bold leadership by "Embracing the Velocity of Change" in this era of shifting demographics and economic uncertainty.

(Photo caption: TSFF grantee Los Cenzontles performs with David Hidalgo and Linda Rondstadt at the Fairmont Hotel for the closing plenary brunch at this year's Grantmakers in the Arts.)

The San Francisco Foundation collaborated with other local and national arts funders to make this year’s conference a reality. TSFF grantee SOMArts Cultural Center hosted the Social Change and Individual Artist preconference, a day-long series of presentations and conversations about how artists and arts funders can and are creating a more equitable world. Arts and Culture Program Officer Tere Romo, in collaboration with San San Wong, Director of Grants at the San Francisco Arts Commission and Christine Elbel, Executive Eirector of the Fleishhacker Foundation, organized a presentation on how fiscal sponsorship allows established arts organizations to provide access to funding and crucial administrative support to small, cutting-edge organizations and projects. The

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panel featured three local fiscal sponsors (CounterPULSE, Dancers’ Group, and Intersection for the Arts) who were awarded a Nonprofit Transitions Fund grant in 2010 to explore collaborations between their programs.

Arts and Culture Program Assistant Kevin Seaman, working in collaboration with Beatrice Thomas, Program Associate in Cultural Equity Grants at the San Francisco Arts Commission, presented a panel entitled “Queering the Arts: Aesthetics and Economies." During the panel, three local queer artists and arts administrators, including former Arts & Culture Program Fellow Vanessa Camarena-Arredondo (2008-2010), outlined the aesthetics, community impact, and economic realities of queer arts organizations in the Bay Area. The panel also featured a video of local queer artists edited by Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project filmmaker Caroline Le and a performance from Vivvyanne Forevermore’s WORK MORE!

Former Arts & Culture Program Fellow Jaime Cortez (2006-2008) participated on four different panels, including a discussion on the involvement and leadership of artists in relationship to the AIDS crisis, both historically and today.  Additionally, conference attendees enjoyed presentations and performances by representatives from TSFF grantees Cultural Odyssey, Southern Exposure, Performing Arts Workshop, Dancers’ Group, Shotgun Players, Alliance for California Traditional Arts, Center for Cultural Innovation, SFMOMA, Oakland Museum of California, Bay Area Video Coalition, Los Cenzontles, and Youth Speaks, whose artistic director, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, gave the opening keynote address. The conference also was an invaluable opportunity for local artists to showcase their community work to a national audience.