ARTWELL Spring/Summer 2020 | Fresno Arts Council Newsletter

ON MEDIUM @ARTWELL

ISSUE NO. 2

ARTWELL A FRESNO ARTS COUNCIL PUBLICATION

ADAPTING TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC Executive Director Lilia Chavez forecasts changes to public arts programming at the Fresno Arts Council headquarters & gallery

SPRING/SUMMER 2020 | FRESNOARTSCOUNCIL.ORG

FRESNO ARTS COUNCIL

JUNE 2020

MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Hello, from the Fresno Arts Council! We hope you are managing okay during the ongoing pandemic that has truly disrupted many of our lives this year:

CONTENTS 1 2 4 7 9 12 13 14

MESSAGE FROM LILIA CHAVEZ BLACK LIVES MATTER HIGHLIGHTS JANUARY-JUNE 2020 ARTS ALIVE IN AGRICULTURE 2020 FRESNO ARTIST SAFETY NET FUND FRESNO POET LAUREATE: UPDATE UPCOMING OPPORTUNITIES BREAKBOX THOUGHT COLLECTIVE

On March 19, 2020, the City of Fresno enacted shelter in place orders as a response to the emerging novel coronavirus COVID-19 crisis. The Fresno Arts Council staff complied with these orders by working remotely from home until the orders were lifted on May 26, 2020.

During this period, our staff truly embraced online digital tools and approaches to innovate new ways to keep you connected to Fresno County's local arts community, public arts programming, and to present our annual juried art exhibition, Arts Alive in Agriculture, online during the month of April. Our board also worked dilligently to fundraise emergency relief funds for local artists and arts organizations based in Fresno County.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Bruce Kalkowski, President Olga Gutierrez De Nuñez, Treasurer Laura E. Ward, Secretary Polly Brewer Thomas Whit Ellis Jolene Telles Tiffany Mangum Sal Lucatero

Karen Takeda Simpson Morgan Woolf Ellen Armour Julia Copeland Mary LaFollette

STAFF Lilia Chavez, Executive Director Cassandra McGuire, Operations Manager Carlos Aparicio, Program Manager Lisa Herrick, Media Specialist Elisa Flores, Administrative Assistant Harpreet Gill, Accountant

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As a community benefit organization managed by a volunteer board of trustees and dedicated staff who are wholly invested in sustaining and advancing the arts for all in Fresno County, we are proud to be the official local partner to the California Arts Council and help provide access to work opportunities and other resources for artists to achieve success. We hope you will stay united with us through the year to help us preserve, promote, and advocate for the arts in Fresno County.

Revel in the arts!

LILIA GONZÁLES CHÁVEZ, M.A. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

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The Fresno Arts Council stands in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, and similar social justice organizations and movements that, through non-violent protest, seek justice for the wrongful loss of Black lives, and to end the inequalities designed to oppress communities of color.

We recognize the important role that the arts and culture play to resist systemic racism and oppression, to preserve values and traditions, to promote healing in times of crisis, and to unleash our collective power for justice.

On the behalf of the Fresno Arts Council Board and Staff, Lilia Gonzรกles Chรกvez Executive Director PAGE 3

ARTWELL

12 FRESNO COUNTY ARTS & CULTURE | ISSUE NO. 2

Moments In Art We Celebrated

Winter/Spring '20 Written by Lisa Lee Herrick, Media Specialist

We won't sugar-coat the truth: it's been a difficult first half of the year for us, too, at the Fresno Arts Council.

However, there are many individuals, businesses, and organizers in the Fresno County arts community who are simply aspirational and inspirational because of their unflagging optimism, courage, and can-do-ness in the face of adversity. We'd like to share some arts highlights from January 1 through June 1 here . . . .

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FRESNO ARTS COUNCIL

JUNE 2020

photos (left to right): Jackie Doumanian and Joyce Aiken (StoryCorps); Poetry Out Loud regional competition at Bitwise on January 23 (Lisa Herrick)

1

Idea Farm, a community-based arts workshop series for teens founded by former Fresno Poet Laureate Lee Herrick (and his teen-age daughter) kicked off Jan. 21 featuring poet & professor Brynn Saito.

2

The regional Poetry Out Loud competition was held January 23 at Bitwise, directed by former Fresno Poety Laureate S. Bryan Medina, featuring high school students from San Joaquin Memorial (SJM) and Washington Union (WU) high schools.

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Isabella Garcia (SJM) took first place at the regional Poetry Out Loud competition; Zia Acevedo (WU) took second place; and Ivan Manriquez (SJM) took third place. Garcia competed remotely for the state championships on March 15-16, 2020.

4

The Yonsei Memory Project, an arts project supported by the Fresno Arts Council, cosponsored a community screening of the documentary film about Secretary Norman Mineta at Fresno City College on February 18.

5

StoryCorps & Valley Public Radio kicked off this year's mobile recording tour at CMAC on February 20. Fresno Arts Council coordinated interviews featuring local Fresno County artists including feminist art gallery owners Joyce Aiken and Jackie Doumanian, and filmmaker Justin Roman and his mother, Michelle Roman, mayor of Kingsburg.

6

The Fresno Arts Council hosted a workshop on income tax essentials for creative artists and freelancers featuring Christina M. Wyneken CPA, MST, CGMA, on February 27.

7

The Fresno Arts Council interviewed and featured the students of Katie McQuone-Botello's Video Production Academy at Sunnyside High School for their pre-2020 Oscars predictions, and met with student filmmakers whose works were featured in the Fresno Filmworks Festival in November 2019.

8

Fresno Arts Council-sponsored BreakBox Thought Collective premiered a new lifestyle magazine, ASHE, at Dulce Upfront on February 29. See page 14 to meet founder & executive director Jamillah Finley.

9

The rescheduled Poets & Writers' Fresno Literary Roundtable Meeting was hosted inside the Fresno Arts Council gallery on March 10 with Latinx writers, Brenda Venezia and Steven Sanchez, presenting on why uplifting literary voices from underrepresented communities is essential to the arts.

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Due to local and statewide shelter in place orders related to COVID-19, the 2020 Arts Alive in Agriculture Juried Art Show went 100% digital for the first time ever! An online gallery and video tour were created along with the announcement of this year's award winners on Facebook Live. Full list of entries is available online at fresnoartscouncil.org.

The Fresno Artist Safety Net Fund, an emergency releif fund administered by the Fresno Arts Council, raised over $10,000 for individual artist grants. With support from the California Arts Council and individual donors, we will open a second round of grants in June 2020.

ArtHop, a phase 4 event, is cancelled until further notice (as of April 2020).

Opposite: "Got Gloves?" (2018: watercolor on paper, 20x26") by Chieko Delgado of Sanger, CA, voted Best In Show for the 2020 Arts Alive In Agriculture Juried Art Show. ChiekoDelgadoArt.wixisite.com (photo courtesy of the artist)

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"I heard these plastic covers were called 'gloves' for baby orange trees. It's a lot of work to wrap them individually.

This is a view from the street I live on. Every time I passed by it, it reminded me how much farmers had to do to protect baby trees . . . "

"This painting is dedicated to all the hard work farmers did."

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FRESNO ARTS COUNCIL

JUNE 2020

THE 2020 ARTS ALIVE IN AGRICULTURE JURIED ART SHOW Special thanks to Julian Ramos, Ma Ly, and Carlos Aparicio for hanging the entire juried art show inside the Fresno Arts Council gallery, as the Fresno City Hall galleries were closed to the public starting the latter half of March 2020. Thanks to Elisa Flores for coordinating and maintaining accurate records remotely during this process; to Cassandra McGuire for hosting the video tour of the gallery and to CMAC for videography and editing services; to Lisa Herrick for online media announcements; and to the board of directors for diligently fundraising. Most of all, thank you to all the Central Valley artists who made this year's presentation spectacular!

To view the digital gallery, visit fresnoartscouncil.org/arts-alive-in-ag-2020.

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LICNUOC STRA ONSERF /YL AM :OTOHP

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WE ARE DOING WHAT WE CAN TO SUPPORT THE ARTS IN FRESNO COUNTY (THROUGH THE FRESNO ARTIST SAFETY NET FUND)

TWENTY GRANTS WERE MADE POSSIBLE THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING DONORS: Benjamin Pruett, Thomas Spencer, David Parker, Michael Levy, Kaye Cummings (Bonner Family Foundation), ForeFront Radiology, Michael Garcia, Greg Simpson, Evany Zirol (Fig Tree Gallery), Paul Pierce, Laura Garcia, Thomas Edholm, and Shannon Bickford (Gallery 25).

If youis can give, please donate online at: "This painting dedicated to all fresnoartscouncil.org/fresno-artist-safety-net-fund the hard work farmers did."

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GRANTEES SPEAK

Fresno Artist Safety Net Fund Round One: May 2020

From left to right, top to bottom: "I have needed all the help I could get since I'm not just dealing with the COVID-19 threat and necessary shut-down of art opportunities, but I am also battling cancer." Aileen Imperatrice | "I knew I was an artist on my first trip to Washington, DC, [when I] borrowed a Minolta film camera with twenty rolls of film." Ken McCoy | "One of my earliest memories is spending recess in the classroom library associating pictures with words and letters. That was probably where my love for art began." Ziang Her/Slanty Pear Creative | "I began teaching the flute and piano at age 15 in Kingsburg."

Janette Erickson | "I was so stoked! Unemployment insurance has not come through yet this will go for basic necessities." Kevin Hill | "I plan on starting online painting lessons soon thanks to the grant from the Fresno Artist Safety Net Fund." Jessica Keller | "It just goes to show that giving does come full circle."

Bobby Von Martin | "I'm currently working on curating live dedication nights--Art Laboe-style." Lina Gonzalez | "I had to put my Immigrant Me documentary photography on hold, although it was already scheduled to exhibit in Santa Maria. I'm in the midst of beginning a new project: BREATHE - The Voice of Minority Men." Marcos Dorado

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FRESNO ARTS COUNCIL

JUNE 2020

MARISOL BACA, FRESNO POET LAUREATE THE FIRST YEAR On May 2, 2020, we celebrated Marisol Baca's first full-year as City of Fresno Poet Laureate.

Here is a recap of how Baca has represented Fresno's literary arts community since then:

photos: LeeAnn DiCicco (courtesy of Marisol Baca)

BIO Marisol Baca is the author of Tremor. She received an MFA from Cornell, was the recipient of the Robert Chasen poetry award, and is a professor at Fresno City College. She teaches in the Resources for American Indian Needs learning community and founded Women Writers of Color in the Central Valley.

May 2019 - Post-Induction Reading & Reception (Fresno), Poets in the Plaza (Visalia) September 2019 - Writers for Migrant Justice (Fresno), Poetry of Resistance (Fresno), Fresno City College Faculty Showcase (Fresno), Poets House (NYC) October 2019 - Indigenous People's Day Ceremony and Reading, Yokuts Plaza (Fresno) November 2019 - Storytelling Reading at Dulce Upfront (Fresno) December 2019 - Valkyrie Slam Reading (Visalia), Fig Tree Gallery Collaboration (Fresno) January 2020 - Claudia Rankine book club discussion (Fresno) February 2020 - Keynote, UC Merced (Merced) April 2020 - California Center for the Book with Poets & Writers Rural Library Tour (Exeter), Fresno Poets' Association reading (Fresno) May 2020 - California Center for the Book with Poets & Writers Rural Library Tour (Mariposa) June 2020 - California Center for the Book with Poets & Writers Rural Library Tour (Coleville)

"I see myself as part of Fresno poetry--a changing and growing community of writers who come to this city, or stay in this city, to connect, work, and learn. How am I connected to outside poetry? From teaching for the California Center for the Book, Poets & Writers, The Rural Libraries Tour, [and] touring the backbone of the southwest and speaking about [b]order issues with Las Peregrinas in 2018 . . . I have been part of a national conversation about poetry, creativity, and social justice issues."

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FRESNO ARTS COUNCIL

JUNE 2020

UPCOMING ART OPPORTUNITIES ArtHop 2021 Logo Design Contest (opens July 1) Horizon 2020 (TBA Summer) Fresno Artist Safety Net Fund: Round Two - Open Call for RFPs for Fresno County-Based Arts Organizations (TBA June)

Find additional arts programs & funding opportunities online at: FRESNOARTSCOUNCIL.ORG

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MEET JAMILLA H FINLEY FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF BREAKBOX THOUGHT COLLECTIVE

It's been a busy year already for Finley, who kicked off 2020 with an ArtHop trunk show and fashion tribute to Nina Simone, Celia Cruz, and Janelle Monae with the Fresno Area Hispanic Foundation and Fresno Metro Black Chamber of Commerce, followed by a release party for her new lifestyle magazine, ASHE', at Dulce Upfront on February 29.

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Finley is a fellow of The San Joaquin Valley Writing Project and Tamejavi, through the Pan Valley Institute. In 2011, she was named Fresno Unified School District's Teacher of the Year, and she won the 2015 African American Heritage Award for Excellence in Education.

She currently oversees a youth internship program with a focus on social change and is currently seeking editorial and business development contributors for ASHE' magazine.

Learn more about BreakBox Thought Collective, a Fresno Arts Councilsponsored community arts program, online at: WWW.BREAKBOXTC.ORG

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Thanks to our sponsors

Fresno, CA 93721 (559) 237-9734 @FresnoArtsCouncil @FresnoArtsCouncil @FresnoArts http://fresnoartscouncil.org

For more information and updates about ArtHop, please visit: http://fresnoartscouncil.org/arthop

The Fresno Arts Council is a State-Local partner to the California Arts Council, designated by the county board of supervisors to serve the county’s citizens.