Santa Ana Arts Council Seeing Strength in Numbers

Santa Ana has joined a growing list of Orange County cities where arts organizations are joining together for greater recognition and government support.

The Santa Ana Council of Arts and Culture, composed of 16 groups, was formed several months ago “to enhance the quality of life in Santa Ana by increasing the community’s awareness of Santa Ana’s cultural resources,” according to Don Cribb, the group’s newly elected president.

Council membership ranges from such large, established, mainline institutions as the Bowers Museum, the Pacific Symphony, the Pacific Chorale and the Santa Ana Zoo to such newer, smaller organizations as the Alternative Repertory Theatre, the Relampago del Cielo folk dance troupe and the Orange County Black Actors Theatre.

Cribb said the council’s accomplishments include negotiating the donation of exhibition space from Hutton Development Co. to the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art (the space opens today at 201 E. Sandpointe, on the ground floor of the Pioneer Bank building) and a lobbying effort that resulted in community development block grant funds from the city to four Santa Ana arts groups: the Black Actors Theatre ($10,000), the Center for Contemporary Art ($10,000), the Discovery Museum ($15,000) and Relampago del Cielo ($7,500). The council itself has no budget.

Projects in the works include an annual awards program for corporate sponsors of the arts, Santa Ana-based arts programming for cable TV (KCTY), and finding new ways to promote the arts locally.

Karen Johnson, executive director of the Discovery Museum and the council’s vice president, said another goal is to keep arts organizations from being lured to other cities, “losing things that could breathe life into Santa Ana.”

Arts groups in Irvine, Cypress, Garden Grove and Costa Mesa also have been exploring different forms of official or semi-official municipal status in recent years.

Times staff writer Cathy Curtis contributed to this story.