Home Is WhereThe Art Is

For one week every year, Ventura County bands together to celebrate its creative resources. Galleries embrace painting, prints, photography and sculpture with the work of local visual artists filling their spaces, and theaters hosting a myriad of performing artists who take to their stages performing everything from Gilbert & Sullivan classics to historical trips along the Conejo. Classical music rings out across the county while mediums merge in collaboration.

There is no doubting that Ventura boasts a wealth of artistic talent. And in browsing the calendar of events for the 2008 installment of Ventura County Arts Week, one quickly gets a sense of the depth and diversity of it as well. For a county that prides itself on being a dynamic cultural destination, this annual undertaking is aimed more at the local community itself. It is a chance for us to embrace the creative spirit that is alive and well here in Ventura, and it also offers an insight into what it offers the community as a whole.

“Ventura County is like a perfect pearl that is often overlooked in a jewelry box that includes gems like Santa Barbara and Los Angeles,” says Margaret Travers, executive director of the Ventura County Arts Council (VCAC). “Even its own residents don’t always take the time to examine it closely. The Ventura County Arts Council celebrates Arts Week each year because part of its mission is to keep reminding county residents of the wonderful variety of cultural opportunities that are available here.’ ”

Between Oct. 3 and 12, venues across the county will provide an interactive artistic experience. Supplementing the traditional exhibitions and performances will be a host of displays, talks and workshops. It is a chance for the county itself to roll up its sleeves and participate. An essential component of the VCAC’s charge from the California Arts Council is to build both the visibility and participation in the arts. And Arts Week is a vital way of contributing to both.

“It’s more than the opportunity to be an audience for the arts. The real value in our county’s lively arts community is the number and variety of opportunities for our residents to participate in the art,” she says. “The VCAC hopes that by giving visibility to the organizations in all of our 10 incorporated cities — and the unincorporated communities in between — it will move people from, ‘That looks like fun,’ to ‘This is fun, I’m so glad I got involved!’”

There is probably no more important time to be raising the awareness of local art than there is right now. With the nation currently in the grips of its toughest economic period in recent history, the arts are feeling the pinch. Not only have federal and state budgets cut support for countless artistic organizations, but artists across the nation are suffering from a downturn in business. When times get tough, it seems that art is typically the first to suffer.

For 52 years, the Buenaventura Art Association has encompassed the collective talents of emerging and established local artists alike. Not only will the organization present exhibitions at both its Harbor Village Gallery and Love House sites as part of Arts Week, it will also host the First Friday Gallery Crawl. As it is an artist-based co-operative, Executive Director Christine Beirne is only too aware of the current fiscal impact.

“None of us in the arts think that we are going to be superstars or extremely wealthy,” Beirne says. “We are in it because we love it. I think fine art is different than mass entertainment, as the demand for mass entertainment goes up when the economy is bad. The film industry is doing really well at the moment because the demand is there, but fine art, that is something that people feel that they can drop when times are bad.”

While times might be tough for artists and organizations alike, the impact of the economic downturn is of no small concern for the county as a whole. The arts not only offer emotional service to the community, but the myriad artistic organizations and institutions here in Ventura also provide a very real financial one as well.

“Just knowing what’s going on [creatively] isn’t enough to convince people that they need to support it,” Travers says. “What we are trying to do is to show exactly what economic impact the arts have in our community. Last year we did a random listing of 30 of our most visible art organizations in the county, and their combined budgets was $49 million. Now that’s a lot of money.”

And it is a lot of money that gets spent right here in Ventura. The budgets not only pay the salaries for personnel to staff those organizations, but also allow for the purchase of supplies and materials and advertising. It is money that is being channeled back into the local community, which is something the cities within the county are now starting to glean — but perhaps not as quickly as such a considerable resource might suggest.

“We do have an economic impact [that] the City of Ventura is capitalizing upon,” Travers says. “They realized it, they understand it, and that’s sort of their industry; and a number of the other nine cities are beginning to realize that the arts are contributing considerably to the economic well-being of this county.”

In embracing artistic endeavors that span the county, Arts Week is also a way of bringing attention to undertakings in those areas of the county where the economic potential of the arts might not yet be fully realized. Similarly, in bringing together events into a central and focused undertaking, it is also a way to introduce the public to organizations and institutions that they might not have previously encountered.

One such organization is the Studio Channel Islands Art Center in Camarillo. Boasting four exhibition galleries, as well as over 20 artist studios, the center is a creative and cultural hub. Having now been the gallery director for four years,

Michele DePuy Leavitt feels that opportunities like Arts Week are vital in raising the awareness of artistic destinations that aren’t downtown.

“We are out on the campus of Cal State Channel Islands and are off the main drag,” DePuy Leavitt says. “With the Arts Week calendar and the fliers distributed at all the various venues, it makes people aware of different art venues in their own backyard that maybe they weren’t aware of before. And having it tied together under Arts Week makes it a little more special to people who otherwise might not have made the effort.”

While raising the profile of arts organization can only help broaden the county’s artistic scope and that of its artists, DePuy Leavitt feels the economic climate isn’t the only hurdle currently being negotiated by the arts. She feels that, while the artists are definitely here, the solid base of collectors and buyers might not be.

“I think there is the raw material for Ventura to keep calling itself the new art city,” DePuy Leavitt says. “The artists are there, the interest is there, but there isn’t necessarily the collector base yet. Maybe it is just a matter of an organic growth process. Maybe it is the matter of the people who do have the means to collect — and they are here — having more belief in their own local artists.”

As Arts Week enters its eighth consecutive year, there is no questioning its resolve, intent or the benefit it provides to the community. And while art in Ventura is a living, breathing entity that injects so much socially, emotionally and financially into the local community, it is not restricted to one week each year. What Arts Week does afford is an opportunity to celebrate that creative spirit and to perhaps broaden our own artistic scope even further. It is an awareness we can carry through the other 51 weeks each year.

“Whether we realize it or not, the arts are a big part of this county’s environment,” Travers says. “Almost every weekend, there is at least one outside art show, concert or special event going on. So that’s why the VCAC celebrates Arts Week

— it’s a time to step back, appreciate the artistic talent that’s grown here over the years, and see what’s out there to do next weekend.”   

For more information on Arts Week, visit www.venturacountyartscouncil.org.