MAC hosts community listening sessions

MENDOCINO, CA » The Mendocino Art Center (MAC) is inviting the public to participate in community listening sessions, May 19 and 21. MAC is eager to hear the community’s ideas for the future of the Art Center, and how it can be a vibrant and dynamic resource for our community as MAC begins the process of healing and emergence after the pandemic.

The arts have played a coalescing role in our community for more than 60 years, and MAC wants to reimagine how it can ensure the joy of art and art creation to the local community and our visitors for decades to come.

There will be three options to participate, with in-person listening sessions on Saturday, May 21, 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., and a Zoom session on Thursday, May 19, 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

MAC has been working with a skilled consultant, Kay Sprinkel Grace, to create new strategies for strengthening the Art Center’s community outreach and presence. She will be facilitating these listening sessions and is very connected with the arts as a volunteer and a consultant — serving on the board of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and chairing the Ghiberti Center for Arts and Culture, a subset of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Kay’s arts-related clients include The Phillips Collection (DC), SF MoMA, SF Fine Arts Museums, SF Asian Art Museum, African American Shakespeare Company, Barter Theatre (Abingdon, VA), ACT, Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Smuin Ballet, and others. As a published writer, she has completed two residencies at Hedgebrook Women’s Writers program in Washington State.

A special grant is supporting Kay’s services, and she has been meeting with MAC staff and board to initialize her work. Essential to the success of this opportunity is hearing from MAC’s students, alumni, teachers, friends, donors, volunteers, community members and others who know that Mendocino and art are historically aligned and want to ensure a strengthened presence of arts in the community. MAC has played a major role in the growth of the north coast’s recognition as

an artistic hub, and the Art Center wants to make sure, with planning into a new era, that the community’s voice is heard.

For more information and to sign up to participate, visit MendocinoArtCenter. org/listening-session.