November 1, 2022
County arts agencies across California’s Upstate Region are thrilled to be working alongside one another on a new workforce development opportunity for artists and cultural practitioners, arts and social service sector organizations, led by Nevada County Arts Council.
On Tuesday, November 8 at 5:15 pm, Nevada County Arts Council will host a California Creative Corps
Listening Session at The Black Box Theatre at The Center for the Arts in Grass Valley to present key
information and invite a conversation on how artists can help communities tackle issues most critical to them, as part of an Upstate Listening Tour across 19 counties.
The 2021-22 State Budget included a $60 million one-time General Fund allocation for the California Arts
Council to implement the California Creative Corps pilot program, a media, outreach, and engagement
campaign designed to increase awareness related to issues such as public health, water and energy conservation, climate mitigation, and emergency preparedness, relief, and recovery.
The California Creative Corps program follows an unprecedented period in which communities globally
have suffered as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. During these years, creative sector professionals
across the United States have been proposing ways to employ artists in programs similar to the Works
Project Administration and the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act. The launch of a statewide
Creative Corps pilot program is the result of a recommendation from the Governor’s economic and jobs
recovery task force, and is the first of its kind in the nation.
Nevada County Arts Council is inviting community members to come together with artists, arts and social
service organizations, movement leaders, civic and business leaders, County and municipal staff, and policy makers for this critical conversation.
Eliza Tudor, Executive Director at Nevada County Arts Council, says: “We will be introducing what the State sees as a new method of evaluating the relative health of communities. Using the California Healthy Places Index, we are identifying issues that are specific to Nevada County, inviting input on solutions, and inviting artists to position themselves to create awareness around them.”
The California Creative Corps Upstate Listening Tour is taking place county by county from now until mid-
December. Upstate populations suffer from among the worst health inequities in California and almost
without exception – including the few tracts with overall health scores in the upper quartiles – there are
health equity measures that fall within the lowest quartile of ‘Community Conditions.’ The fascinating part
are the indicators that determine a community’s health, and which provide us with vital clues about how to move the needle.”
California Arts Council has selected fourteen organizations to administer the California Creative Corps
across nine regions with a grant activity period that launched on October 1st . Nevada County Arts Council has been chosen to create a regranting program for Upstate California, putting to work $4,230,216 in workforce development funds for artists, as well as for arts and social service organizations who will employ artists between early 2023 and late 2024. Supporting local outreach with local knowledge, as well as technical assistance for artists, and program development and evaluation, are multiple county arts agencies serving what amounts to the largest, most diverse, geographic area in California, with more counties than any other Creative Corps region.
Tudor continues, “Within the Upstate Region we are one of a network of agencies who serve as State-Local Partners with California Arts Council. While we each serve distinct communities, we are connected through a coalition that works to benchmark, consult, and gain from peer learning and support, with equity at our core. In this sense, we do not work in isolation. In applying to be an administering organization for the Upstate Region, it makes perfect sense to place our State-Local Partnership in service to the largest and most diverse geographic area within California.”
California Arts Council sees the California Creative Corps program primarily as a job creation and human
infrastructure development opportunity. The hope is that, region by region, the program will increase the
ways in which artists are engaged in public work, so that they can continue build upon intersectional public interest goals beyond the program’s pilot funding timeline.
Nevada County Arts Council invites solution-oriented individuals who have first-hand knowledge of
vulnerable communities, either because they represent one, or because they currently serve one, to join
the conversation on November 8 at 5:15 pm.
