Summing up the situation:
Read the Sacramento Bee editorial
“Gumballs for the Arts: Creative State Must Do Better”
Useful links:
California Arts Council
Angel City Press
CaliforniaAuthors
Malloy Incorporated
California is the only state in the Union that has flourished beyond all expectations, primarily because it has always been all things to all people. And like the seduction of the Muses, she always appears in the garb of our own desires...
So writes Thomas Steinbeck in “Montalvo, Myths and Dreams of Home,” one of twenty-seven stories featured in My California, an extraordinary creative outpouring from the state’s literary community in support of the beleaguered California Arts Council.
This special anthology is a collaboration between Santa Monica-based Angel City Press and CaliforniaAuthors.com. All publishing proceeds will benefit the California Arts Council, an agency forced to suspend school writing, arts education programs and other grants in 2003 because of massive state budget cutbacks.
To make the project possible, all of the writers donated their work. Malloy Incorporated has generously donated the first printing of the book. The CaliforniaAuthors.com editor and creative director and the team at Angel City Press — including the sales manager and representatives who work with Angel City Press — are also contributing their services and talents. is donating her services, too.
In addition, world-renown artist David Hockney and the J. Paul Getty Museum have contributed use of Hockney’s "Pearblossom Hwy (11-18th April 1986 — second version)" on the cover. Read more about the cover here.
Read more about the authors and journalists featured in My California here.
In the past, The California Arts Council has offered grants to school-based arts and writing programs, individual art projects, symphonies, ballets, theater companies, and urban and rural arts organizations. (Visit the arts council online at http://www.cac.ca.gov/)
The Arts Council has seen its budget slashed from $31 million in 2000 to just $1 million during 2003. To understand how low public support for the arts in California has sunk, consider these figures cited in a recent Sacramento Bee editorial: Canadians spend an annual $145 per capita to fund the arts; Germans, $85; New Yorkers, $2.75; Mississippians, $1.31; Californians, 3 cents. “Pathetic,” declared the Bee editorial. “There’s no other way to describe the current support of the arts in California.” (Read the full editorial here.)
We couldn’t agree more. And that’s where My California comes in.
“We hope our anthology will raise desperately needed money for the California Arts Council, and also raise awareness about the critical importance of supporting the arts and arts education in California,” says Donna Wares, editor of My California and of CaliforniaAuthors.com. “Arts education is disappearing from many of our schools and communities and that's tragic.”
My California debuts at this year’s BookExpo America during the first week of June 2004 and will be in bookstores soon after. Get the latest project news here. Read Pico Iyer’s introduction at CaliforniaAuthors.com.
Contact the project via our handy form.
Editorial: Gum balls for the arts? Creative state must do better
Originally published November 17, 2003
Pathetic. There is no other way to describe the current state of public support for the arts in California.
The California Arts Council, the state agency that used to provide grants to school-based arts programs, individual art projects, symphonies, ballets, theater companies, and urban and rural arts organizations, has had its budget slashed from $31 million in 2000 to $26 million in 2001 to $18 million in 2002 to $1 million this year. To better understand how low public support has sunk, consider that Canadians spend an annual $145 per capita to fund the arts; Germans, $85; New Yorkers, $2.75; Mississippians, $1.31; Californians, 3 cents.
"That's gum balls," says Barry Hessenius, director of the council. Three gum balls a year. Yes, California is in the middle of an epic budget crisis. The arts were seen by many legislators and Gov. Gray Davis as expendable. But in truth they are an integral part of California's economic engine, drawing hundreds of millions in tourism dollars and spurring related spending on restaurants, hotels and transportation. Creativity is what drives a number of lucrative industries that make this state hum, from film and video game production to clothing and software design. The arts in California are in the middle of their own crisis right now. All five traditional funding sources are down: government funding (federal, state and local); foundation support; corporate philanthropy; individual giving; and ticket sales. The state budget crisis has further compromised what paltry arts programs remained in the public school system. This is not a portrait of a state that recognizes the importance of fostering creative talent or understands the sources of its own wealth.
Efforts are afoot in the Legislature to restore Arts Council funding to $7.5 million in next year's budget, perhaps by placing a small surcharge on movie tickets. With 195 million movie tickets sold in California annually, that surcharge would cost just pennies per sale. It's still just gum balls. Why not be a little more ambitious for a cause that feeds not just the state's economy, but also its soul? Why not go for a quarter per ticket, which would raise nearly $49 million annually? Why not 50 cents? How about a surcharge on video rentals or video game sales? Such surcharges, as long as they are related to the cause for which they raise funds, can be enacted by a simple majority of the Legislature with the governor's signature.
And who better to think broadly and strategically about the role of the arts in the California economy than Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose own fortune was made by a Hollywood film industry that depends on creativity for almost every aspect of its success? The governor's challenge ought not to be simply restoring the Arts Council to its former modesty, but putting the arts on a platform equivalent in size and emphasis to their integral place in the state's economy. It's time to think bigger.
Reprinted with the permission of The Sacramento Bee, Copyright 2003.