2006 was a stimulating and revealing year for The Creativity Network. The Network was a simple idea: it was originally conceived as a networking mechanism through which members of Long Beach’s Creative Community could come together to meet, greet and hopefully launch productive relationships. We began with a series of Salons at Utopia Restaurant in the East Village. Utopia hosted a wide spectrum of participants that engaged in a freewheeling discussion about the state of the arts in Long Beach. The Salons, first inaugurated in October 2005, grew in attendees from 8 to 25. The meetings gave way to more casual networking mixers at other artful locations around the city. Both the Salons and the Mixers encouraged the Network to take on a more proactive advocacy role. Partly this was at the suggestion of various Network participants. But we soon realized that it was a natural progression. We could not avoid the recurring issues facing the Creative Community that were being raised at the Salons and the Mixers. Earlier in the year, we sponsored an online survey of the top priority issues facing the Creative Community in Greater Long Beach. The responses were not surprising and they set the foundation for more discussions and heightened awareness of the critical issues. Then The Creativity Network, in cooperation with LongBeachCulture.org, co-sponsored two very important forums which also revealed some not surprising issues. There were calls for action and leadership. Momentum was building for answers and solutions.
Eventually, this heightened visibility along with sometimes raising uncomfortable issues led to some controversy. Questions were raised about the goals and motives of the Network. For some, my involvement as a member of the Arts Council for Long Beach and as co-founder muddled the waters. Not for me. I understood the difference and have always made clear that I do not speak for the Arts Council and the Arts Council does not speak for me. Clearly.
The end of 2006 hosted the celebration of our first year anniversary and a reassessment of our strategies and goals for 2007. This reassessment, done during December and into January, was framed against several important actions going on in the city as we speak:
- The Arts Council for Long Beach is now undergoing an updating of its strategic plan. This document will, hopefully, provide a more focused set of goals for the organization. A number of us on the Council believe the success of the plan will depend on the level of involvement by the arts community and even the greater community in advising the plan’s development
- There are growing calls for an update of the City of Long Beach’s Master Cultural Plan. That call was strongly articulated in both the On-Line Survey and in the Community Forums. Late last year, the Arts Council for Long Beach voted to take the lead in calling for the updating of such a plan and more importantly its development. I welcome such leadership. However, I would also encourage other public and private institutions as well as members of the Creative Community to get involved.
- This leads me to the third and most troubling of the recent calls for action; the dismantling of arts funding in Long Beach in order to fund more police. I am not going to argue the merits of the position here. What I will say is that we all have a lot of work to do. We must have a Re-Imagination of the role of the arts in the social and political priorities of this city. Not only in the Strategic Plan of the Arts Council or in an updated Master Cultural Plan. We need to debate, discuss, and decide what kind of Soul we want for this city; all of it, not just for the “wine and cheese set” to quote a political leader but also the children of our city, the poor as well the middle class, the residents of the west and north as well as east, south and central. How important is this for us and how will we get there? If you think that the Arts is just about pictures in a museum and a group of musicians in a concert hall, then you’ve never been to Renaissance High School for the Arts or Homeland Cultural Center or the Garage Theater or CalRep or been to my son’s Middle School where magic happens with a group of sixth to eighth graders and musical instruments. Or experienced the tears of joy that come watching a young person’s life changed by theater, dance, film, animation, song, or any number of other modes of creative expression. One more life saved from meaninglessness or worse, gangbanging.
In the months ahead, The Creativity Network will be reaching out with a series of small Salons to continue and encourage this very important Re-Imagination dialogue. We plan to resume the mixers in the Spring. We’re redesigning our website to better reflect our goals and to encourage interactive online participation. There will be more announcements over the next several months. We look forward to another productive and constructive year in 2007.
Visit our temporary website, http://www.thecreativitynetwork.org/, where you can find (after this message) reprints of two important summaries from 2006. The first is the On-Line Survey and the second is from the Community Forums last summer: