Nurturing the 'Nexus'

Expanding access to the arts for all Pasadena residents and helping local artists and arts organizations stay busy are two key missions of the city's Cultural Nexus plan, but getting the job done won't be easy. In many ways, it's an evolving process that will never be complete.

Adopted by the Pasadena City Council in July 2005, Cultural Nexus is essentially the city's evolving cultural plan - the same way there are plans for things like growth and development, traffic management and public parks - and is managed by the Cultural Affairs Division of the Planning and Development Department and the Pasadena Arts and Culture Commission.

At the helm of the Cultural Affairs Division is Rochelle Branch, who has served as its manager on an interim basis since May but was recently appointed to that position on a permanent basis. And just as Pasadena's arts and culture landscape is uniquely full and diverse for a city of its size - other towns may have a museum; we have several, plus many more galleries, community organizations and festivals - Branch's responsibilities to implement Cultural Nexus are also unusually broad in scope.

A longtime arts advocate with degrees in art history and arts administration, Branch has been with the city for 10 years, starting as its public art program manager in 1997. Before that, her pursuits included directing an arts festival, doing curatorial work and running arts education and outreach programs.

"My life's work for 30 years has been spent trying to advance opportunities for artists and to ensure that we have more community inclusion within arts and culture institutions," said Branch of how all of her experience is now coming into play. "I didn't have any other choice, I guess - my father was a writer and playwright, and my mother was in social services."

Expanding residents' access to culture was the theme of the second annual Cultural Nexus summit, held on March 5 at the Jackie Robinson Center. To accomplish that goal, the city has focused on encouraging collaboration and outreach among existing venues and programs.

Even before Cultural Nexus, Pasadena arts institutions were already working together to promote the existing cultural scene. The most visible product of those efforts is ArtNight, a twice-yearly free arts festival now involving more than a dozen organizations. The next ArtNight happens Friday and has become part of an entire ArtWeekend (see pages 24 and 25 or visit www.pasadenaartweekend.com) that includes spoken word performances on Saturday and a local art market on Sunday.

When it comes to ArtNight, which Branch helps to coordinate, not only does the city provide the free shuttles between venues, but this time the evening will feature six performances made possible by $500 mini-grants offered through the city's Cultural Trust fund, which is administered by the Arts Commission to foster arts programs that everyone can enjoy.

The mission of Cultural Nexus also includes supporting those who work in the creative sector, but Branch feels that many artists are unaware of the benefits that may await them at City Hall.

For starters, there's the Pasadena Artists' Resource Directory, an online guide providing information about jobs, grants, exhibition spaces, supplies - even how to find help paying for health care. See www.

cityofpasadena.net/planning/arts/Directory/ARD.asp.

The directory also contains information about grants offered by the city. Last year, the city split $108,000 among 15 different artists or arts organizations and contributed $40,000 to support arts festivals. Grant recipients included a photographer, a sculptor, a painter, a local opera singer, several arts and music education initiatives and events such as the Pasadena Chalk Festival, Pasadena Dance Festival and NewTown's hugely successful Hugely Tiny Festival, which offered a collection of miniatures and short mixed-media presentations in February. Applications for the next round of city grants are due in May.

Another part of keeping local artists employed and making their work more accessible to the public is encouraging - in this case, requiring - the development of public artworks.

The Cultural Trust is funded by developers, who are required to contribute 1 percent of the value of their project to this account funding the city's public art programs.

Annual grants come from the city's general fund, and the Cultural Trust supplements these efforts, funding mini-grants, staffing and publicity for ArtNight, citywide Art&Ideas festivals and the creation of the Cultural Nexus plan itself.

Proposed as part of the Cultural Nexus plan was a Cultural Nexus Trust, but it has yet to exist because no funding has been identified for that account. In fact, Branch isn't even sure how that money would be used.

"It's such an abstract. Having expanded arts funding in the city would be a positive, but there wasn't a specific use for that funding discussed," she said.

A separate fund to supplement the goals of Cultural Nexus could help the city benefit individual artists, as funding for the Cultural Trust is not always consistent.

Developers can choose to pay only a portion of required fees to the city if they opt to create public artwork of their own design - following Arts and Culture Commission guidelines, of course. But when that happens, developers usually have their artistic vision already mapped out, which means Pasadena-based artists often don't get a chance to do the work.

"We're not looking to dictate what art is. We do not tell the developers which artist to use. Our role is to make sure that they understand what our city is, what our city means to us and what some of the important elements are that we want them to consider," explains Branch.

Although the commission does suggest that developers employ local artists and provides them with an artist contact list, results are often unsatisfactory. "I have to tell you, I don't find we've had much success with those lead suggestions," Branch admitted, "and I find it disappointing."

To better help artists, Branch is working on a Pasadena Artists' Registry, where local artists will be able to post what type of art they create or service they provide and even what kinds of jobs they'd be interested in doing.

The registry will be inclusive of all sorts of pursuits, as not every artist is equipped to create or interested in creating public art.

"We're not talking about fine artists or craftspeople," said Branch. "We're talking about people who have instituted public art projects, know how to work projects that are subject to the outdoors, who can work with contractors and architects on infrastructure and know how to really create a public art piece - as opposed to a commissioned art piece that goes into an interior. It's a very different set of skills, and sometimes it's a different aesthetic."

Following completion of the artists' registry, the city will consider sponsoring training and workshops for those who would like to be involved in public art projects.

In the meantime, Branch and her crew have developed an online Virtual Arts Tour of public art around the city, available at www.cityofpasadena.net/planning/arts/homecult.asp. The tour highlights everything from the mural on the wall of the El Centro de Accion Social building in Central Park to the steel and aluminum sculptures outside the Holly Street Apartments and the decorated concrete columns at La Pintoresca Park.

Because projects bringing art to the masses are not for every artist, the city's grant program is designed to bring the masses to art - often through education. There is no art if there is no audience, said Branch, and having an audience means more than finding a group of onlookers.

"People have to be aware of the power of expression that art offers, and the impact that it has and can have on their lives on a firsthand basis," she said.

The Armory Center for the Arts received grant funding last year for Art Central, a program that partners the organization with art teachers at Hamilton and Madison elementary schools. Other grants brought music programs and training to local youth, and $10,000 went to the Pacific Asia Museum for an education outreach program about the culture and arts of Asia.

Branch is seeking to foster more instances of cooperation between organizations like the kind we see on ArtNight. "There are many different pockets of activities happening throughout the city, and they're all successful. What they are not is unified. I think the potential to achieve is greater when we pull together," she said.

Branch's call for arts unification crosses divisions of age, gender, ethnicity and wealth, and depends not only on ambitious moves from City Hall but also an interested public.

When asked about the recent efforts by a group of locals to raise funds for a memorial project honoring late local boxer Canto Robledo, Branch said she was unaware of the group's fundraising efforts, but seemed enthusiastic about finding out more.

"That hasn't come across my desk yet, but I hope it will. We try to find information from all segments of the community and we treat all elements as if they are worthy - because they are. And while that project may ultimately not be something that the Cultural Affairs office can fund, there is certainly an element of community interest and relevance. I can at least be helpful, hopefully, to advise them or maybe link them up with resources and facilitate relationships, which is a key element of cultural affairs," she said.

Much of what the future holds for the Cultural Affairs Department and the Cultural Nexus plan has yet to be determined.

"Because it is so broad and was intended to be broad, [Cultural Nexus] allows us to be very responsive to issues considered relevant and pertinent to the community today. My vision isn't so much focused on City Hall, it's really about reaching out to the community," said Branch. "Our success will depend on strong community collaborations, because I'm not interested in imposing ideas. As wonderful as the ideas coming from Cultural Affairs can be, they're only going to be as effective as the support that we have within the city."