State program seeks to provide grants to artists

19 rural counties will see grants of approximately $3.5 million

Increasing public awareness as it pertains to issues such as public health, water and energy conservation, climate mitigation, and emergency preparedness, relief, and recovery is the goal of a new artsrelated agency.

The California Creative Corps program — an investment in arts by the state of California — seeks to provide $60 million for artists, as well as arts and social service organizations that will employ artists between spring 2023 and spring 2024. Grants of nearly $3.5 million will be available for artists in 19 Northern California counties, including Butte, Glenn and Tehama, through the Nevada County Arts Council, which administers the program for this region.

The launch of a statewide Creative Corps pilot program is the first of its kind in the nation. Gov. Gavin Newsom recommended such a program as a part of his economic and jobs recovery task force.

Grant applications are now open and will run until April 14, 2023. There are multiple mechanisms in place for support in the grant application process, both regionally through Upstate Creative Corps, and locally, through county arts partners.

“The project has come on the heels of difficult times globally,” Nevada County Arts Council executive director Eliza Tudor explained. “The program is based on the wonderful success of the Works Progress Administration” of the 1930s — referring to the New Deal agency President Franklin Roosevelt created to help the nation in its recovery from the Great Depression.

The WPA, among many of its functions, conducted the Federal Art Project, which helped sustain approximately 10,000 artists of all disciplines from 1935 until 1943.

“We’re putting artists to work with this program,” Tudor explained. “Artists have stories and know how to shed light and create meaning for issues that are relevant to all of us.”

Other counties in the region served include Del Norte, Siskiyou, Modoc, Humboldt, Shasta, Lassen, Mendocino, Trinity, Lake, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sierra, Yuba, Colusa and Sutter.

Butte County’s partner is Chico-based Friends of the Arts; contact for more information is Ray Laager, raylaager@juno.com. In Tehama County it’s the Tehama County Arts Council; contact is tcacarts@gmail. com.

Background, application procedures and information on the entire project is available at www.upstatecreativecorps.org.