ARTS PANEL DEMYSTIFIES AWARDS

Some of the state’s wealthiest arts groups learned this week how to improve their organizations as the California Arts Council for the first time in 10 years publicly evaluated major arts groups’ grant applications.

Although various council panels have held more than 60 open meetings since April, the Wednesday and Thursday sessions at the council’s offices here were the first open panel meetings of the Support to Prominent Organizations program.

Twenty-seven music, dance, theater and interdisciplinary art groups were recommended for $2.8 million in grants under the program, an estimated 27% of the council’s total grants budget for fiscal 1986-87. The recommended groups are among the state’s so-called “prominent” arts organizations, and each has an annual budget of at least $1 million.

Final approval of the applications won’t be made until Sept. 26, however, when the full council meets to review the panel’s recommendations.

The grants panel, composed of seven representatives of the state’s arts community, evaluated each of the arts groups’ finances while officers from some of those groups listened and looked on.

Some of the observers acknowledged that watching the review process might have turned into a humiliating, perhaps demoralizing experience, but the onlookers said they benefited from the chance to eavesdrop.

They said they learned most about the council’s emphasis on “outreach” and the efforts other groups make to produce cutting-edge art and to represent, educate and enrich the people in their communities.

“We care, and we know the council cares about maintaining artistic excellence,” said Caroline Colburn, grants manager of the San Francisco Symphony, “but I learned a lot about the council’s concern for outreach. That will help when we plan our new outreach program.”

“Concerts for Kids,” free outdoor concerts and a “New and Unusual Music” series are current San Francisco Symphony outreach programs, Colburn said.

“I think the open panels will help us to know what’s important not only to these (council) people, but to the community,” she added.

Benjamin Greene, executive director of the Sacramento Symphony, said his new awareness of the council’s concern for outreach efforts, particularly regarding the minority population, “will help us not just to write better grant applications, but to take steps organizationally to improve.”

Panelist Gerry Yoshitomi, executive director of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Los Angeles, led much of the discussion about minority community outreach.

“These 27 organizations applying for grants represent about 900 board-of-director members,” Yoshitomi said. “But only about 39 of those 900 are minority individuals.”

Yoshitomi, like the representatives from the four arts groups present at the meeting, praised the open panel process. (No applicants from Los Angeles were present, although eight Los Angeles organizations applied for the grants.)

“We’re talking about public funds,” Yoshitomi said, “and therefore the process should be public. And I think it encourages panelists to talk more frankly and more precisely.” He said he does not feel inhibited discussing the organizations when their representatives are present.

Panelist Darlene Neel, executive director of the Lewitzky Dance Company in Los Angeles, said she felt differently, however.

“There’s a tendency to withhold--not the comments, but the questions,” Neel said. “You don’t want to do damage and ask in-depth budget questions, for example, about an institution that last year was in financial trouble, but this year has made Herculean efforts to change.”

Although the Arts Council’s grant-review panels were held privately for 10 years, the panels were made public in April after council Director Robert Reid was told by the state attorney general’s office that a state law requires all state agencies to conduct meetings in public.

Some Arts Council members initially blasted the open-panel idea, fearing a loss of candor in panel discussions. But after 62 open-panel meetings prior to this week and total attendance by about 20 members of the public, Reid said he is optimistic about the new system.

“I can think of only one negative incident so far,” Reid said. “A panelist refused to talk about an applicant while the artistic director of that organization was eyeballing her in the face. But that kind of thing is very, very rare.

“I think in the long run this will strengthen the (grant review) process. It will certainly demystify it.”