Episode 10: CA Arts & Culture Summit - “Highlights Show Part 2”

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2024 CA Arts & Culture Summit “Highlights Show Part One” - Photos Courtesy of Doug Cupid Photography

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"Artists are entitled, just like every other worker, to a livable, predictable, sustainable wage." – Jennifer Laine

Join host Eric Estrada for the grand finale of Voices of the Community’s Where Art Meets Impact series. Recorded at the 2024 California Arts & Culture Summit, this highlight reel weaves candid interviews with Jackie Melendez, Tracy Hudak, Josiah Bruny, Jennifer Laine, Kristen Sakoda, Shira Lane and more! Together they reveal how policy wins, equitable funding, and creative youth leadership rebuild economies, improve public health and spark climate-smart innovation—proving again that artwork is real work for all Californians. Watch the full video here or Listen to the full audio here and join the movement for equitable, arts-powered community revival.

Jackie Melendez-Assistant City Manager, City of Chino

A passionate urban designer, Jackie Melendez is on a life mission to open (and unlock) doors. She is a thought leader and doer focused on disrupting vicious cycles of poverty through economic development, strategic planning, healing and human centered design. Ms. Melendez is the Assistant City Manager in Chino, CA. In 2023, she created the Melendez Urban Design Lab (MUDLab) to build inclusive regional economies through community empowerment, collaboration and mutual respect. A graduate of UC Berkeley, Ms. Melendez studied Chicano Studies and Community Development. She also has a Masters of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) from Cal Poly Pomona.

Tracy Hudak-Director Field Engagement, California for The Arts

Tracy is an artist, advocate and consultant who has worked at the intersections of art and economic and community development for over twenty years. She is a painter and theatre artist who specializes in collaborative devised works. Her artistic practices have informed the numerous creative placemaking and civic imagining platforms she has produced. Some of her favorite projects include developing the Creative Community Thomas Fire Recovery Programs, producing and facilitating the Westside Community Innovation Exchange, serving as Arts Impact Director for Downtown Oxnard and directing We Source, a youth-led devised theatre project. As a consultant, she has contributed to the success of creative businesses and cultural nonprofits through the design and management of programming, marketing, fundraising and organizational development systems.

As a creative economy advocate, she has organized campaigns and forums, developed policy language for local land use and economic development plans, produced cross-sector collaborations, published reports and articles and has served as a keynote speaker in various venues. Tracy has a Masters in Public and Policy and Administration from California Lutheran University and a BFA in Performance Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She was called from Chicago to Los Angeles to work as an intern at Highways Performance Space and never left. After 13 years in LA, she and her husband John moved to Ventura County in 2006 to raise their daughter Ruby in the wild. They currently call Santa Paula home.

Josiah Bruny -CEO, Music Changing Lives

Josiah Bruny is a trailblazer committed to systemic change through arts and culture. As CEO and Founder of Music Changing Lives, a nonprofit celebrating 26 years of innovation, Josiah is on a mission to build new-age community centers worldwide for at-promise youth and creatives. A multiple award winning social justice leader and music industry pioneer, Josiah is changing lives one note at a time through the Each One, Teach One philosophy. With programs like the Urban Garden, the Know Justice, Know Peace Mural Tour, and Concerts Under the Stars, Josiah is building a legacy of economic empowerment through the arts. Josiah is a Board Member, CA for the Arts / CA Arts Advocates

Danielle Brazel-Executive Director, California Arts Council

Brazell’s career spans over thirty years as an artist, teaching artist, presenter, arts administrator, and public official. Brazell has a knack for building new cultural infrastructure and innovating within arcane systems and bureaucracies. From 2014 to 2021, Brazell served as the General Manager of the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs; she was the founding Executive Director of Arts for LA, transforming the ad-hoc group of executive arts leaders into a new model for local arts and arts education advocacy. In addition, she served as the Artistic Director of Highways Performance Space and the Director of Special Projects for the Screen Actors Guild Foundation. Currently, Brazell is leading Super Creative Strategies, a consulting firm specializing in organizational strategy, cultural planning, and inclusive community development. Danielle utilizes her vast knowledge of the arts and cultural sector in this role to advance the support systems needed for creativity to thrive. In addition to learning how to throw pottery, she serves on the World Cities Culture Forum Board of Advisors and the DataArts Advisory Board.

Kristen Sakoda-Director, Los Angeles County Department of Arts & Culture

Kristin Sakoda is Director of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, a local arts agency which fulfills a mission to advance arts, culture, and creativity throughout the largest county in the U.S. The Department of Arts and Culture provides grants and technical assistance to hundreds of nonprofit organizations; runs the largest arts internship program in the nation; coordinates countywide public-private arts education initiatives; increases access to creative career pathways; commissions civic artwork; supports free community programs; leads the LA County Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative; and advances cross-sector cultural strategies to address civic issues. Appointed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Ms. Sakoda previously served as Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. Under her leadership, she led the organization during its historic transition into the County’s first Department of Arts and Culture.

Ms. Sakoda is an arts executive, attorney, and performing artist with more than 25 years in the field. She has appeared on national and international stages including with dance and social justice company Urban Bush Women and in musicals Rent and Mamma Mia! on Broadway. Prior to her work at the Department of Arts and Culture, she served in key leadership roles at the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs overseeing a portfolio of strategic, programmatic, policy, legislative, and funding programs with a $200 million annual budget, and was instrumental in advancing diversity and inclusion; public art; creative aging; cultural facilities; and affordable workspace for artists. She holds a J.D. from NYU School of Law with honors in Entertainment Law, and B.A. from Stanford University with a specialization in Race and Ethnicity and a secondary major in Feminist Studies. As of 2021, she is a Board member of Grantmakers in the Arts, the national association of public and private arts funders in the U.S.

Jennifer Lane-Executive Director, San Benito County Arts Council

Jennifer Laine is a passionate arts advocate and has spent the majority of her career increasing arts and cultural equity at the local, regional and state level. Since 2010, she has served as Executive Director of the San Benito County Arts Council, a local arts agency based in Hollister, California, where she has raised millions of dollars of arts funding for her rural community, built the county’s Executive Director, San Benito County Arts Council Board Member, CA for the Arts | President, CA Arts Advocates Jennifer Laine largest Arts in Education Program and developed dedicated arts programs and services for some of the county’s most under-resourced residents, including students with disabilities, incarcerated youth and economically-disadvantaged families. In 2022, Jennifer was part of a collaborative effort to bring in over $5 million in state arts funding for individual artist grants and creative workforce development to the Central Coast region and is currently working with the California Department of Transportation on two Clean California Highway Beautification Projects in District 5.

Jennifer is a board member with California for the Arts/California Arts Advocates, serving as Board President and Policy Chair of CAA, and is also on the leadership team of the statewide Coalition of County Arts Agencies. Jennifer holds a B.A. in Art History from UC Santa Cruz and a M.A. in Global Studies from the University of Leipzig, Germany. In 2023, she was awarded “Woman on the Year” by Speaker of the Assembly Robert Rivas. Jennifer lives in her hometown of Hollister with her three wonderful children, Henry, Anabelle and Sam.

Shira Lane-Executive Director, Atrium 916

Shira Lane is a serial entrepreneur and the driving force behind Atrium 916, a trailblazing Creative Innovation Center for Sustainability. With almost two decades as a documentary filmmaker, under Unleashed Productions, Shira has journeyed through the most challenging terrains, from war zones to natural disaster sites. Her collaborative work with national nonprofits like (RED), the Founding Executive Director, Atrium 916 Shira Lane National Stewardship Action Council, and Earthjustice, have garnered awards, raised crucial project funds, and catalyzed significant policy changes.

In 2016, Shira founded America’s first upcycle market, Upcycle-Pop. This evolved into the Atrium, a thriving 34,000-square-foot collaborative event and artist co-working space focused on circular economy and zero waste initiatives. Shira initiated Sacramento Creative Economy Meetings and became the forefront of arts advocacy efforts within the City of Sacramento, bridging the gap between the arts community and the city. These advocacy efforts, in collaboration with Mayor Steinberg, led to $30 million being invested into the creative sector, the highest amount of any city in the nation. Atrium 916 continues to push boundaries with creative system solutions, art exhibits, solar-powered mobile activations, educational PBS media, and sustainable economic development programs including an Incubator and an Accelerator. Always working within the community to build a kind, creative, and sustainable future.

Meghna Bhat-Founder & Creative Director, Gulabi Stories

Meghna Bhat, Ph.D. (she/her), is an independent gender and social justice consultant, feminist scholar, trained storyteller, and educator based in Sacramento, CA. I am a proud desi first-generation immigrant woman from India who has lived in the USA for the past 18 years. In November of 2022, I was honored to be one of the 45 recipients of the 2022 Seeding Creativity Artist Grant funded by the Office of Arts and Culture in the City of Sacramento. As the Seeding Creativity Grant recipient, I am thrilled to launch this one-year storytelling project centered on South Asian immigrant identities across all diasporas and generations. 

Drawn from my own experiences with gender violence, chronic pain, and other unexpected health struggles accompanied by feelings of isolation, shame, and depression, I aim to create and strengthen a culture of visibility, acceptance, compassion, and collective care around these topics that are considered taboos in South Asian communities and diasporas with storytelling. My intent is to build on existing and ongoing extraordinary work on gender, immigrant, health, and racial justice carried out by South Asian direct service organizations within our immigrant and refugee diasporas. Most importantly, dreaming of designing and launching this storytelling initiative about healing wouldn't have been possible without acknowledging the profound role, legacy, and contributions of Black, Brown, and Native American and indigenous storytellers, circle keepers, educators, and healers who have paved the path for us and our generations. I am deeply moved by their wisdom, and compassion and hope to learn, evolve, and also be accountable to shift the narratives using an ethical and decolonial lens.

Ruben Briseno Reveles-Futurist Chicanx Artist

Sound and color have always informed my artistic work. I am a first generation native Chicano of Sacramento, California with roots in Zacatecas, Mexico. Being multicultural and multilingual, I have always felt that I have had to navigate layers of interpretation and liminal realities. I  often dream in two languages, and work vigilantly to reconcile the inner landscapes of my family diaspora, juxtaposed in an urban reality of acclimation and acculturation. There were times in my youth when I found this predicament challenging, however, these very woven landscapes were essential to forming my artistic identity. I have always been a musician, and have played in bands and recorded musical projects for years. My day job led me to opportunities to travel the world globally, and I began collecting soundscapes of everyday life in various countries. Occasionally, I would thread these sounds into my recorded works with music. Over time, I became interested in photography, film, and connecting images to sound.

Digital and mixed media ethnography is my current medium. I am interested in the anthropology of sound and aural acoustemology. I am inspired by the sounds, images and stories of people experiencing everyday life. 

Emerging technologies have created new possibilities in digital art and media. As someone who has always valued and coevolved with modern technologies, I am preoccupied with bringing the soundscapes and landscapes of ritual, common practice, and the process of nature, into light, vibration, and visuals. Find out more about Ruben’s art work and upcoming shows.

Alex Gallardo Valdeolivar-AIC Coordinator/ Instructor,Arts Council of Kern

Renowned visual artist and muralist Alex Gallardo Valdeolivar brings over two decades of immersive painting expertise to his craft. In addition to his impressive artistic portfolio, Alex serves as the Program Manager for the Arts in Corrections program (AIC) at the Arts Council of Kern (ACK), where he has dedicated over eight years to teaching within California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) institutions. His impactful contributions extend beyond traditional art spaces, as evidenced by the numerous hand-painted murals adorning local eateries and public spaces throughout California, particularly in Kern County. Alex's passion for artistic expression and commitment to rehabilitation through the Arts in Corrections program have left an indelible mark on the cultural landscape.

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Voices of the Community is supported by a grant from the Zellerbach Family Foundation, whose Arts and Culture grants ensure vibrant work is created, new voices are celebrated, and artists and audiences inclusive of the Bay Area’s diverse communities and cultures have opportunities to thrive. Find out more at ZFF dot org

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Thanks to our CoProduction Partner

California For The Arts - Mission: CFA advances arts and culture in California by raising awareness of programs and services for artists and empowering Californians to advocate for the arts in government, business, and communities. Vision: CFA envisions California as the most creative state, where artists and arts workers—from designers to musicians—thrive. California Arts Advocates: This sister organization to CFA ensures that arts are represented in legislation, collaborating with CFA to promote awareness and influence policy decisions. Get Involved: Become a member, explore their programs, and support the arts in your community.

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