January 2020
Speakers at the "Advancing Cultural Equity Summit", January 2019.
Students at B Street Theatre for the "Youth Creativity Summit", April 2019.
The inaugural "Renegade Literati" program, curated by 2017-2019 Sacramento Poet Laureate, Indigo Moor, June 2019.
Casey Lipka Trio performing at the Sacramento International Airport as part of the Holiday Music Series, December 2019.
Happy New Year From Metro Arts!

Happy New Year!

The new year brings exciting changes for Metro Arts, particularly as we prepare for the new Arts, Culture and Creative Economy Commission. With applications now closed, each Sacramento Council Member will appoint a new Commissioner to represent their District, while Mayor Steinberg will appoint three Commissioners at large. As we wait for the appointments to be finalized, we celebrate our outgoing Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commissioners and highlight some of our accomplishments over the past year.

With the adoption of the City of Sacramento’s Creative Edge Cultural Plan in June 2018, Metro Arts began addressing each of the six goals in the plan:

Provide arts education to all Sacramento’s children and youth
  • We expanded our Any Given Child Sacramento arts education program to reach more districts and students across the Sacramento region
  • More than 34,000 received Any Given Child assemblies or residencies in schools throughout the County.
  • We focused on training our assembly and teaching artists to increase academic rigor when working with schools
  • We hosted the first Youth Creativity Summit with 300 high school students from 10 local schools participating
 
Advance Cultural Equity for all Sacramento’s diverse populations

Build upon and expand Sacramento’s unique creative economy
  • We commissioned a formal assessment of the Creative Economy Pilot Project that awarded $500,000 in project grants in 2017
  • We awarded $295,000 in new Creative Economy grants

Celebrate and infuse all Sacramento neighborhoods and districts with arts and culture
  • We began implementing our first Artists in Residence program, pairing local artists with community centers and neighborhood sites in every city council district
  • We presented the 9th Annual Holiday Music Series in partnership with the Sacramento International Airport
  • We selected the artist Brett Cook to begin community engagement work along the North 12th Street corridor for a new series of community based murals.
  • We worked with British social practice artist Joshua Sofaer and the City of West Sacramento to have over 650 people from around the region to submit nominations to name the public docks in both cities. In the Spring of 2020 light box sculptures will be installed on both sides of the river and a booklet and exhibition will be presented celebrating the nominees. 
  • We commissioned artist Janine Mapurunga to design 15 utility box wrap designs along Bruceville Rd. celebrating Health and Wellness along this well traveled District 8 corridor. The project leveraged public and private funding, including Council Member Larry Carr’s District 8 office, SMUD, Mack Rd. Partnership, Dignity Health, and Kaiser Health. 
 
Expand and solidify Sacramento’s investment in arts and culture
  • We awarded $500,000 in Cultural Arts Awards to 57 organizations for general operating support
  • We launched the first of a six part Mural Speaker Series in partnership with Sacramento City College to begin a city-wide conversation about murals and possible mural policy for the City of Sacramento.  
The New Creative Artist Resource is Here!

To the Greater Sacramento Arts Community:

THIS ONE IS FOR YOU! Sacramento’s story is rich with history, innovation, and creativity, and our arts and creative community is at the heart of it all.

You asked for an industry directory and Sacramento365 is excited to share their new Creative Artist Resource , a joint project of Visit Sacramento and the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission, that is designed to help users find regional creatives, highlight grant and artist opportunities, and search for arts venues available for rent.

This new resource came to be after conversations during one-on-one and Creative Economy meetings, collecting online feedback, looking into what other cities were doing, and aligning their efforts with initiatives outlined in the City of Sacramento’s Creative Edge plan.

Learn more about the Creative Artist Resource here: http://bit.ly/33Ye6rs 

Check out the site: http://bit.ly/340K0DG 

Need to create a profile or venue page or add artist/grant opportunities? Click here to set-up your free account today.

Have questions about the Creative Artist Resource? Contact Karlee Cemo-McIntosh at [email protected] or (916) 808-8642.
Residencies, Artist Calls & Opportunities

RFQ - City of Santa Rosa Public Art Program (Santa Rosa, CA)
Deadline: January 6, 2020
The City of Santa Rosa Public Art Program is seeking an artist or team of artists to design, fabricate, and install site-specific public art at the north end of the Old Courthouse Square.


Residency at Helene Wurlitzer Foundation (Taos, NM)
Deadline: January 18, 2020
The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico is now accepting applications for their residency program for the year 2021.


RFQ - San Francisco International Airport: Terminal 3 West Public Art Projects (San Francisco, CA)
Deadline: January 21, 2020
The San Francisco Arts Commission's public art program at San Francisco International Airport invites artists and artist teams to submit qualifications for 2 large-scale public artworks for the remodeling of the west end of Terminal 3 at SFO.


Call for Entry - Richmond Art Center (Richmond, CA)
Deadline: January 27, 2020
This exhibition will be juried by curator, educator, and artist Kevin B. Chen. Artists who live in California and work in any media are invited to enter.


Residency at StudioWorks Program (Eastport, ME)
Deadline: February 1, 2020
The StudioWorks Artist-in-Residence program at Tides Institute & Museum of Art offers opportunities to visual artists to deepen and develop their practice within a community setting.


Residency at 36 Chase & Barns
Deadline: February 28, 2020
The residency is primarily designed for visual artists, writers, independent curators and art historians. Writers and art historians who are conducting research and criticism specifically addressing the many overlooked contributions of female artists, artists of color and artists from the LGBTQ communities are strongly encouraged to apply.


Residency at Djerassi (Woodside, CA)
Deadline: March 16, 2020
Djerassi Program is designed as a retreat to pursue personal creative work and share collegial interaction within a small community of artists.


Call for Exhibitions - YoloArts (Woodland, CA)
Deadline: Ongoing
The Barn Gallery and Gallery 625 are accepting proposals for each gallery. Proposals are reviewed quarterly by the Arts Committee and recommendations are made to YoloArts staff for approval.


For more calls, residencies, and listings, please check our website , which will be updated regularly with more opportunities.
Articles of Interest

The U.S. House of Representatives Approved the Largest Funding Increase for the National Endowment of the Arts in Six Years
“ This increase is the largest for the NEA since 2013 and brings the organization’s total funding to $162.25 million, its highest since 2010. The spending bills will also increase funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. ”


How the Superrich Took Over the Museum World
"Today’s museum world is steeply hierarchical, mirroring the inequality in society at large. In May, the activist group Art + Museum Transparency, seeking to break “the culture of silence and fear” in the industry, published a spreadsheet featuring salaries anonymously entered by hundreds of museum employees. According to it, MoMA curators seem very well paid; people in more junior positions much less so."