Black Artists Line Up for L.A. Endowment Share

In another unusually strong show of local art world activism that’s fast becoming the norm, a throng of black artists and arts administrators turned out Thursday night to voice concerns over spending plans for the new $20-million Los Angeles Endowment for the Arts.

The vociferous, standing-room-only crowd of nearly 600, composed mostly of emerging independent artists and officials from small, struggling organizations, gathered at an auditorium near USC. The meeting, organized by actor Richard Elkins and other artists, seemed to affirm a new, active role for the local grass-roots art community.

City officials are starting to design spending guidelines for the endowment, a new program that could increase municipal arts funding from about $5 million to $25 million. Last week, an overflow group of about 350 assembled at Hollywood’s Barnsdall Park for the first meeting of the Los Angeles Arts Congress, an ad hoc multicultural organization formed by local artists to involve artists in shaping the endowment.

The large crowds are an “unprecedented” display of advocacy, said Al Nodal, general manager of the city’s Cultural Affairs Department and chief endowment administrator, after the meeting. “Pretty soon we’ll have thousands.”

The endowment won’t become fully operational for about a year, but some of its funds will be available around July and city officials have encouraged input from the community as they develop plans to distribute the money.

Thursday’s often vitriolic participants talked of a multitude of needs for the black community, many stating that funding parity was a priority for what they called a chronically underfunded constituency.

In an atmosphere that seemed at times like a religious revival meeting, independent TV producer Thomas Reed said: “If you give us $25 million or $30 million, it means nothing because it’s not filtered back to the African-American community. . . . It’s ‘I get the best and you get the rest.’ ”

“That’s right!” called out one member of the audience.

“That’s right!” echoed another.

The need for multimedia cultural centers and youth arts programs to avert inner-city crime were raised repeatedly.

“We need cultural enrichment programs for children who shouldn’t be allowed to die culturally,” said Ismael Parra of the Paul Robeson Community Center. “We have a facility but no money to run it.”

“We really want to see this money go where the blood is at and there is blood in our streets,” said Kamau Daaood, noting two recent gang-related murders.

Support for independent artists was also a common plea.

“TV and movies don’t reflect what blacks are today,” said Elizabeth Rose Nelson, who asked for funds to produce a film. “We have positive role models to project on the motion picture screen.”

“I want to bring to my people our black history in visual form through (my) greeting cards and prints,” said artist Loweta Mack.

“I hope that all African-Americans of all disciplines be given the opportunity to apply for and and receive funds, and not have to be affiliated with an organization,” said Jacqueline Alexander of St. Elmo’s Village cultural center. “The individual artist is the foundation of the art community.”

While most speakers were not known artists, some were, such as Lula Washington, artistic director of the Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Theatre.

“I’d like to be able to put my dancers on salary,” Washington said.

Nodal, reiterating that the “spirit” of the endowment is to fund individuals as well as groups and equally support every geographic, ethnic and artistic community, addressed the concerns expressed, particularly the issue of parity. He stated that he wanted to “plug a lot of” the first endowment monies into areas not supported in the past, rather than larger, better established institutions.

“There are an incredible amount of deficits in the arts community,” he said. “It’s shocking what we haven’t done--in Watts, in South-Central L.A., in the Valley. We’ve got to deal with the deficits before we can deal with equity.”

Nodal also said a 60-member endowment advisory committee composed of arts professionals citywide would soon be appointed and urged continued support from those in the audience, noting that the endowment, whose funds will be generated through a mix of fees on city capital improvements, most non-residential private development and money from the city’s general fund, is not a “done deal.”

The Los Angeles City Council must deliver a final vote on the endowment around July, he said, and staunch opposition has been raised by private developers and from the city’s proprietary departments, such as the Department of Water and Power, which do not want to pay the fee. Loss of private development and proprietary department revenues could drain from the endowment as much as $10 million and $4.8 million, respectively, city officials have said.