Arts chief headed to Africa

Margie J. Reese is leaving L.A. for Lagos, Nigeria, trading her job as the city government’s top arts official for a position coordinating arts and cultural grant-making in West Africa for the Ford Foundation.

Reese, 55, said Tuesday that the decision was not easy, even though she has been limited by lean budgets in her 5 1/2 years as general manager of the Cultural Affairs Department and had to fight off a proposed dissolution of the department in 2004.

That situation should change under Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, she said, because “the arts are a huge part of his agenda.”

Still, Villaraigosa’s first budget proposal increases arts funding by just a fraction, and Reese said the history of frustration, making do and deferring larger ambitions figured into her decision to leave, effective July 21.

She said her new job, program officer for media, arts and culture, will allow her to combine her love of grass-roots community building with a chance to operate on an international stage.

Villaraigosa issued a statement Tuesday describing Reese’s resignation as “a loss to the city” and thanking her for “invaluable” service.

Her new job will involve scouting innovative and promising programs and recommending funding. The Ford Foundation’s arts and cultural grants in West Africa totaled about $2 million in the last fiscal year, less than the $3 million L.A. arts-grant budget, but the money “goes a lot further” in Africa, foundation spokesman Alfred Ironside said Tuesday.