CONSORTIUM CHAMPIONS L.A. CULTURAL DIVERSITY

“A lot of people are saying it’s a great idea,” notes Gerald Yoshitomi, key spokesman for Los Angeles’ new Arts Consortium, “that it’s the right time for people to pull together, and do things in a combined way.”

Yoshitomi, director of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Little Tokyo, one of a quartet of participating ethnic arts or multicultural organizations, adds that he expects “more specific reaction as various projects get under way.”

The consortium--the first such collaborative effort of significant size in the nation--got off to a quiet start late in 1986 with publication of an eye-catching purple, aqua and cream-colored arts calendar exhorting readers to “experience L.A. another way.”

Volume 1, No. 1, published in November, included a billing for an exhibition of “African American Artists From America’s Heartland,” on view at the Museum of African American Art; another for the Pueblo photographs of Charles Fletcher Lummis at the Southwest Museum; a third for a 25-year retrospective of the works of master silversmith Moshe Zabari at Hebrew Union College Skirball Museum.

There were listings as well for Japanese drummers at the Japanese American center and for a play, “Tamer of Horses” at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, about a black couple’s efforts to reform a Puerto Rican teen-ager.

Besides the Japanese American center, consortium organizations are California Afro-American Museum in Exposition Park (not to be confused with the Museum of African American Art, which is in the May Co. department store in Crenshaw), Craft and Folk Art Museum and Plaza de la Raza.

The second edition of the consortium calendar is expected in February. It will primarily be mailed to members of the four participating organizations, but will be distributed, free, at each of those locations.

“There are people who choose to live in Los Angeles because of its cultural diversity, just as there are those who want diversity in foods, religions or philosophies,” says Yoshitomi. Therefore consortium founders decided to champion the city’s cultural diversity.

As the bimonthly calendar points up, publicized events are not limited to participating organizations. The calendar is featuring what is deemed the best among the multicultural exhibitions and performances across Los Angeles’ landscape.

While the participating organizations emphasize that they intend to maintain their individual identities, the consortium is designed to “introduce the ethnic arts . . . to broader audiences . . . and to provide cost-effective programs through joint efforts in the areas of marketing, membership acquisition and services and fund raising.”

As Yoshitomi told the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities in Washington in October, organizations “don’t have the luxury of going it alone.” The consortium evolved out of a regional seminar sponsored by the President’s Committee at Plaza de la Raza nearly three years ago.

Together the four organizations in the consortium have annual budgets of nearly $5 million, combined capital assets of more than $25 million and combined attendance of more than 500,000 people a year.

Over a two-year period, the consortium’s projected budget is $566,000. The W. M. Keck Foundation, which provided $47,000 in the consortium’s planning phase, will be giving another $100,000; the member organizations are contributing $283,000, and another $183,000 must be raised.

In the immediate future, Yoshitomi noted, the consortium is considering:

--A joint marketing plan involving not only reciprocal advertising at each of the four institutions, but sharing of billboard space at key locations.

--Purchasing various hardware and software to make their computer systems compatible.

--Promotions to entice families with young children to experience the varied ethnic landscape. For example, a child who visits the Japanese American center would be encouraged to visit the Afro-American museum, etc., and a child who visits all four institutions might receive a free hamburger, or whatever.

Already each of the institutions has assigned two board members to meet regularly to discuss ideas and problems. The executive directors of each of the organizations meet regularly as well.

Meanwhile, the directors have informally divided up the consortium’s work. Yoshitomi is concentrating on fund-raising. He believes that individuals, foundations and corporations that might not wish to fund one of the four organizations by itself might get involved with the consortium as a whole.

Aurelia Brooks, director of the Afro-American museum, is concentrating on publicity and the calendar publication; Patrick Ela of Craft and Folk Art will be in charge of an analysis of the potential audience and Alida Amabile of Plaza de la Raza is looking into computer systems.