Despite Sacramento’s vibrant creative and cultural ecosystem, the creative sector faces challenges to its growth. Recent legislative budget cuts coupled with the enduring impacts of the pandemic and statewide industry job losses show how volatile the arts economy can be.
To gain deeper insights into these challenges and potential solutions, we spoke with Julie Baker, CEO of California for the Arts and CA Arts Advocates — two separate nonprofit organizations with a shared board and staff working to strengthen Sacramento’s creative economy through advocacy at the capital and beyond.
CA Arts Advocate’s mission is “to increase California’s investment in the arts, make creativity an integral part of our economy, and give artists in California a voice in Sacramento.” How do you accomplish this?
Our goal is to make sure that we’re in the conversation, that arts and culture is represented when we’re talking about economic and community development, when we’re talking about a regional approach to building community, when we’re talking about things like Clean California initiatives, when we’re talking about natural resources in the parks, when we’re talking about a small business — all of the different ways that the arts intersect, and health being another big piece.
The key for us is, “How do we show people who are holding the keys to budgets and grants and contracts that this is a part of the solution, and that artists and cultural bearers who’ve been doing this work for decades and hundreds of years are compensated for their contributions to [the] community?” So that’s really where we really focus in on — is ensuring that the artwork is seen as labor and is compensated accordingly.
