NEA Disaster Relief Package for the Bay Area : The arts: An emergency matching grant is designed to help artists and arts facilities recover from the ravages of the Oct. 17 earthquake.

San Francisco artists and arts institutions will share $550,000 in National Endowment for the Arts emergency funds in a matching-grant program announced Wednesday that will also include more than $1.6 million in private earthquake-relief monies.

The unusual endowment grant is part of a total of $947,000 in emergency disaster relief grants announced by the agency. The rest of the money is earmarked for arts centers in South Carolina, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands that were damaged by Hurricane Hugo.

“Despite assistance from federal, state and city agencies, the arts community in the Bay Area remains without significant resources for recouping its losses and beginning the recovery process,” said endowment Chairman John E. Frohnmayer in announcing the emergency package.

The endowment disaster relief package includes a proviso that $3 in non-federal money must be raised for every dollar of federal support. The provision--the endowment’s standard matching-grant criterion--is intended to significantly increase the overall arts assistance.

In San Francisco, the federal arts disaster funds will be administered by the San Francisco Foundation, a private group that established the Bay Area Arts Recovery Fund in the wake of the October temblor. The Oct. 17 quake devastated many older buildings in the Bay Area that housed studio and living spaces for hundreds of artists, musicians and performers.

Major contributions have already been received from a foundation operated by the owners of the Mervyn’s and Target department store chains, the City of San Francisco and several local foundations. Christine Elbel, coordinator of the arts recovery fund, said the California Arts Council is also helping to raise money and that arts officials hope to be able to distribute a total of $2.2 million, beginning sometime next month.

Elbel said three major areas for arts assistance have been targeted: the American Contemporary Theater in San Francisco; Santa Cruz County, the epicenter of the quake; the rest of the Bay Area, including San Francisco and Oakland. The American Contemporary Theater sustained $1 million in operating losses because of major structural damage to its theater, forcing the company to move all productions in its next two seasons to alternate quarters. The temblor occurred just as ACT was preparing for the sold-out final weeks of “Right Mind,” by writer-producer-director George Coates.

Elbel said the bulk of the new federal and private money will be channeled to individual artists and performers and to small and mid-sized arts organizations. Large, established Bay Area arts institutions--including the region’s major museums, the San Francisco Opera and other major arts centers--apparently have the greatest ability to raise their own recovery funds, she said.

Margie O’Driscoll, liaison for the arts to San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos, said the overall earthquake relief package “is really quite a fantastic gesture.”

O’Driscoll said the funds would play an especially important role in helping individual artists and performers who have difficulty meeting rigid criteria for Small Business Administration loans.

Endowment funds earmarked in several categories for arts centers hurt by Hurricane Hugo include $200,000 would be earmarked for the City of Charleston, S.C., office of cultural affairs, and $100,000 for the South Carolina Arts Commission. Smaller amounts were earmarked for arts centers in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.