CA Arts Advocacy Week

California Arts Advocacy Week is April 25th - 29th! As part of Arts, Culture & Creativity Month (ACCM), Space 4 Art has been hard at work building stronger relationships with our elected officials and reminding them of the many reasons why our resident artists are essential (and not just “nice to have”) for San Diego. Here is what we’ve been up to on the advocacy front:

  • April 1st: Attended the ACCM kickoff at Bread & Salt, where we witnessed Mayor Todd Gloria’s commitment to making San Diego affordable for artists.

  • April 13th: Hosted California State Assemblymember Chris Ward for a grand tour. We are grateful to the artists who opened their studios and talked to Asm. Ward about all the ways Space 4 Art has supported your work and the broader arts community.

  • April 18th: Joined Arts + Culture: San Diego at the City Council meeting, requesting that the council increase the arts funding in Mayor Todd Gloria’s proposed budget by at least $1.6 million. This would restore city arts funding to pre-pandemic levels, which we and other local arts organizations desperately need to recover and thrive.

  • April 26th: We will be meeting with Representative Scott Peters’ office.

  • April 29th: We will be joining other local arts nonprofits meeting with California Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins. This meeting was arranged by Californians for the Arts to address state-level arts budget priorities that will have and impact on our region.

In all of these meetings, we beat the same drum: San Diego MUST follow the lead of other US cities burdened by a sky-high cost of living and create permanent, affordable artist housing. In early May, we will be hosting Jonathon Glus, the Executive Director of Arts and Culture for the City of San Diego.

We are also in touch with Mayor Todd Gloria, Board of Supervisors Chair Nathan Fletcher, and Councilmember Stephen Whitburn, and we hope to host them all in the near future as well. We are grateful to groups like Arts + Culture San Diego at the local level and Californians for the Arts at the state level for all they do so that small-but-mighty nonprofits like Space 4 Art can easily connect with our elected officials and effectively advocate for our mission.

Space 4 Art