News from The Alliance for California Traditional Arts

The Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) is pleased to announce the publication of Weaving Traditional Arts Into the Fabric of Community Health, a briefing on the potential to promote health through engagement in community-centered traditional arts. The briefing presents an overview of the burgeoning field of arts-for-health, as evidenced by evaluations of two of ACTA's signature programs: the Living Cultures Grants Program and the Apprenticeship Program.

Weaving Traditional Arts into the Fabric of Community Health may be downloaded at http://www.actaonline.org/content/briefing.

ArtPlace: New National Collaboration Funds Artists and Arts Organizations

ArtPlace, described below, has asked ACTA to forward this information to relevant groups working with folk & traditional arts groups who might be interested in art and the connection to economic opportunity and quality of life.

ArtPlace, a new public-private partnership to accelerate creative placemaking across the U.S., is inviting brief Letters of Inquiry from prospective grantees through November 15, 2011. ArtPlace is driven by the evidence that art, culture and creativity expressed powerfully through place can create vibrant communities, thus increasing the desire and the economic opportunity for people to thrive in place.

The James Irvine Foundation's New Exploring Engagement Fund

The James Irvine Foundation announces its new Exploring Engagement Fund, the first grantmaking fund under their new Arts strategy. The Exploring Engagement Fund is an open competitive fund that is designed to support arts organizations to prototype new approaches to arts engagement. Grant awards are intended as risk capital to encourage experimentation with new programming utilizing the "Who, How, Where" pathways outlined in our new Arts strategy. You are encouraged to read more about this new fund, to review application guidelines, and see a list of frequently asked questions on the Irvine Foundation's website.

The Irvine Foundation Arts program staff will be hosting a webinar on November 7, 2011, that will feature background information and a Q&A session focused on the fund.

Creative Work Fund Awards $661,000 to Northern California Artists

The Creative Work Fund (CWF) is pleased to announce that it is awarding 18 grants totalling $661,000 to Northern California artists for the creation of new works in the fields of literary and traditional arts. Each artist has collaborated with a local nonprofit community organization on dynamic and creative projects that will create books, multimedia pieces, exhibitions, podcasts, Pomo regalia, silkscreen prints, and performances of spoken word, dance, and choral and instrumental music.

The California Arts Council and the Arizona Commission on the Arts' recent wager to be the first agency to reach 10,000 Facebook "likes" is receiving national attention. This week the DC Commission on the Arts joined the race and the National Endowment for the Arts published a nationwide press release about the friendly competition.

You can participate by "liking" the California Arts Council's Facebook page.

ACTA can be found on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/actaonline.

Contact ACTA
[email protected]
559-237-9812

   The Alliance for California Traditional Arts is the California Arts
   Council's official partner in serving the state's folk & traditional
   arts field.