In November, the San Francisco Mayor’s Office and partner organizations announced theSan Francisco Creative Corps, a pilot program to hire artists to encourage public health best practices such as mask wearing and social distancing in some of the city’s most crowded areas.
Now, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest budget proposal dedicates $15 million for a similar pilot program at the state level. The California Creative Corps would hire artists “to fuel positivity, regain public trust and inspire safe and healthy behavior across California’s diverse populations through a media, outreach, and engagement campaign,” according to theplan.
The proposal allocates $5 million for the pilot in the 2020-21 fiscal year and $10 million in 2021-22.
The Legislature still has to approve the budget — the vote on this fiscal year’s portion may come as early as this month, with the vote on next year’s budget expected in June — and the program would have to find one-to-one matching funds from outside sources (perhaps foundations, corporations or both) in order to get any money from the state.
The proposal does not contain specifics about how the money would be spent.
芳草地艺术中心艺术的首席执行官ficer Deborah Cullinan is a key player behind both the city and state pilot programs. She served on Gov. Newsom’s Task Force on Business and Jobs Recovery, whose Novemberreportto the governor recommended that the state expand public-private partnerships to create programs similar to the S.F. Creative Corps.
She tells The Chronicle that in her conversations with the governor, he has shown an understanding of how artists can meet some of the state’s most urgent needs.
“He really understands that people need joy. We need to feel good. We need to rebuild trust,” she says.
Julie Baker, executive director of Californians for the Arts, says the California Creative Corps is the first pandemic-era program of its size across the country, though Seattle and Wisconsin have created smaller-scale efforts. The program is a spiritual successor to the arts wings of the Works Progress Administration as well as the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973.
Though the program would aid an industry that’s been devastated by the pandemic, Baker sees the California Creative Corps more as investment than bailout.
“We’re not here asking for handouts; we are here saying, ‘Use us in service.’ In this case, the crisis is public health. There are always going to be crises,” says Baker.
If the pilot program becomes permanent, she continues, California can marshal its artists to help combat homelessness, the opioid crisis, climate change and wildfires. No matter the emergency, “we can use the creativity of artists to heal and help communicate.”
Stella Adelman, managing director of Dance Mission Theater, was one of the performers with S.F. Creative Corps, which is now planning its second phase, its pilot having concluded. She also helped recruit other artists to perform with the program.
As both the city and state programs look to the future, she said she hopes they consider hiring artists more as employees rather than as gig workers. She notes also that artists’ performances ought to be tailored to individual sites.
“What Valencia Street needs versus what Mission Street needs is night and day,” Adelman says.It was “kind of odd” to encourage mask wearing in outdoor dining areas, she adds. Similarly, a message about wearing masks could feel like a mismatch for audiences who live with multiple generations in a single unit.
不过,她说,从旧金山那里创造性的反应Corps audiences were full of joy. “With COVID and sheltering in place, people are seeing the value of art. ‘What’s helping me make it through: Is it that song, is it that book, is it that movie?’ ”
These days, when Dance Mission teaches an outdoor class for 11, students often start to cry — both from the power of movement and the community that art creates.
“Art brings people together,” she say, “and that has tremendous value.”