Sign up on the registry! See link below.
Santa Ana, California (September 7, 2016) -- More than 300 artists converged on the Segerstrom Center for the Arts on Saturday, August 27, 2016 to be part of Artists Wanted: Art’s Roundtable II produced by Santa Ana Arts Collaborators. The event gave artists the opportunity to work on an artist statement, take a professional headshot and digitize their work to be registered into a new Santa Ana Artist online site that will launch in fall 2016.
“I’m excited that this event gathered so many artists. I’ve seen some work around the city created by artists from other areas and that’s great but it’s something special to reach out to a local artist and support that person,” said Trinh Mai, an interdisciplinary Santa Ana-based artist who is an Artist-in-Residence for the University of California Irvine’s Vietnamese American Oral History Project and for Cal State Fullerton's Grand Central Art Center.
The Art’s Roundtable began in December 2015 when Madeleine Spencer of the Santa Ana Business Council joined forces with Ryan Smolar, the lead consultant of Downtown Inc. and Robyn MacNair, VAPA coordinator for Santa Ana Unified School District. Their passion to remove barriers and empower artists to live and work in their community drove them to launch the first Art’s Roundtable that took place February 25, 2016, when Santa Ana artists, arts educators and arts organizations started a dialogue towards creating a strong, equitable and knitted infrastructure for the arts in the city.
"This is an exciting model for cities to engage their creative communities," said Smolar. "I've built artist registries before, but every city needs an Artists Wanted event like this to galvanize and organize their creatives."
They asked artists, arts organizations and patrons of the arts how they could work together to create a more inclusive and equitable arts scene in Santa Ana. The answers were loud and clear:
1. Develop a map of Santa Ana's arts opportunities
2. Create a shared index of our most valuable artist resources
3. Get all Santa Ana artists into an Online Artists Registry
1. Develop a map of Santa Ana's arts opportunities
2. Create a shared index of our most valuable artist resources
3. Get all Santa Ana artists into an Online Artists Registry
The Arts Roundtable initiative dovetailed with the City of Santa Ana’s Arts and Culture Master Plan approved by the city council last month, in which residents voiced support to expand arts and cultural programming to engage all populations throughout the community.
“We’re private sector groups working together to provide the tools our artists community asked for in the first roundtable,” said Spencer. “Our main goal is to give our artists work and the registry will help fuel our creative economy.”
The registry will also be a benefit for arts organizations that hire artists, according to Jason Holland, vice president of community engagement for Segerstrom Center for the Arts. During the event he oversaw the creation of a live arts map marking places where artists can work, meet, practice and learn.
"Creating a resource like this helps organizations like ours to support and connect with local artists. We want artists to be able to sustain their work and stay in cities like Santa Ana,” he said. “When we need to find a local musician or artist for a project, for example, this registry will allow us to do so. We can send RFPs out to alert artists to work opportunities. We are excited about this great resource and what it will do for artists in Santa Ana and throughout the county.”
Artists Wanted: Art’s Roundtable II was sponsored by Logan Creative, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, City of Santa Ana and Santa Ana College.
GENE, an artist who grew up in Santa Ana and operates his studio and gallery in the historic Santora Building, has seen the renovation and revitalization of the city’s downtown. But this initiative is different.
“This is the first time we have a proactive effort,” he said. “This is about making something, rather than fixing a perceived wrong. This is creating from an idea and that is what art is.”
Santa Ana-based artists can register online at www.SantaAnaArts.org.
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