Top image: 2023 Mentor Artist Linda Yamane (L) is working with apprentice Violet Smith in Ohlone Coiled Basketry. Photo: Linda Yamane. Bottom image: 2023 Mentor Artist Titania Buchholdt (R) is working with apprentice Patrici Flores in Kulintang Music of the Philippines. Photo: courtesy of the artists.

Welcoming ACTA's

2023 Apprenticeship Recipients

For 23 years, the Alliance for California Traditional Arts' Apprenticeship Program has supported California’s cultural traditions with 430 contracts to outstanding traditional artists and practitioners.

Now entering its 23rd cycle, ACTA’s Apprenticeship Program encourages the continuity of the state’s living cultural heritage by contracting exemplary mentor artists to offer intensive training and mentorship to skilled apprentices. Contracts of $5,000 are made with California-based mentor artists to cover their lesson fees, supplies, and travel. Participants work closely with ACTA staff to develop and document the apprenticeships, culminating in opportunities to share results of their work with the public.

The 2023 Apprenticeship Program cohort of 48 artists (24 pairs) represents California’s breadth of cultural diversity and intergenerational learning, totaling a statewide investment of $120,000. The pairs range from mentor artists in their 70s to an 11-year old apprentice, spanning from Ventura to Humboldt Counties. These apprenticeships continue thriving traditions, including indigenous California cultural practices such as Me-wuk and Ohlone basket weaving, or bow and spoon making in the Hoopa tradition. Others celebrate traditions which have taken root in California, including those that originally hail from Iran, Puerto Rico, Peru, the Philippines, and communities including Hmong, Lao, Native Hawaiian, and Zapotec, and others.

Click below to learn more about the 24 apprenticeship pairs participating!

Take Action Now:

Support Artists and Others with Disabilities

Our friends at Grantmakers in the Arts are asking individuals and nonprofits to ask their Senators to co-sponsor the re-introduced SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act legislation here.

The SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act raises the limits on assets people with disabilities can hold before being disqualified from public benefits while also indexing those limits to inflation. The current SSI program punishes disabled and elderly Americans for working, saving for the future, and getting married. Right now, individuals receiving SSI benefits are limited to $2,000 in assets; for married couples it’s $3,000. The average current monthly benefit is $585 for individuals. For approximately 60% of recipients, SSI is their only source of income. The Savings Penalty Elimination Act would raise those caps, which have not been changed since 1984, to $10,000 for individuals and $20,000 for married couples, and index them to inflation moving forward. 

The bill, co-sponsored by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and others, is essential to allowing artists and other people with disabilities to be able to receive grants and other supports for their work while still receiving public benefits essential to their health and survival.  

Please find more context on why this bill is important for disabled artists on the GIA blog.