Press Release

June 30, 2023

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Siskiyou County Arts Council Announces Seven Upstate California Creative Corps Grantees in Siskiyou

The Siskiyou County Arts Council today celebrates seven project grantees, most from Siskiyou, who will be working under the Upstate California Creative Corps program.

Autie Carlisle, Kate Jopson, Renée Camila, Jessica Sanchez, Can Foster, Brenda Montaño, Florance Condos, Alan Crockett, Indigo Mack, and the Slater Fire Long Term Recovery Group, Rita Hosking, Water Climate Trust, and Save California Salmon are among 27 partner agencies, 54 lead creative partners, and a total of 1,010 artists and culture bearers supporting initiatives serving California’s least represented peoples, and most vulnerable communities and environments. The Siskiyou County Arts Council, and peer agencies across California’s Upstate Region, led by Nevada County Arts Council, announce $3.38 million in grant awards across Northern California.

Announcing Upstate California Creative Corps grantees follows over seven months of outreach, listening and support before and during the program’s application window. Says Patricia Lord, Executive Director at the Siskiyou County Arts Council: “From the start of this grant program, the Siskiyou County Arts Council has understood the importance of centering and uplifting voices from our least served communities. Siskiyou was one of the only counties in the Upstate Region to host two listening sessions, one in Yreka, followed by another in Happy Camp. I am so proud to be part of a program that sees artists as problem solvers and leaders. The arts have long been overlooked as a mechanism for social change. I think our community will be impressed with what can be accomplished when artists are empowered to develop human-centered solutions to our most challenging issues.”

Projects awarded Funding reaching Siskiyou:

Water Climate Trust, Paddle Tribal Waters Storytelling Collaborative, lifting up voices of Native communities, particularly the multi-tribal youth who are preparing to be the first to paddle the free-flowing river (Multi-county)

Save California Salmon, Northern State Tribal Arts, Cultural and Environment Education Project, arts based educational materials and cultural opportunities for Klamath, Trinity and Sacramento River Tribal communities and schools (Multi-county)

Kate Jopson, Knowledge Springs, five short films creating awareness around water conservation and emergency drought-preparedness

Autie Carlisle, Shasta Stories, 12 episodes of a docuseries highlighting individuals and communities in Siskiyou

Colectiva Seeds of Ancestral Renewal (SOAR), bilingual wellness gatherings in Siskiyou and Modoc (Multi-county)

Florance Condos, Alan Crockett, and Indigo Mack, The Klamath-Siskiyou Art Center’s Summer Stealhead Art and Music Series

Rita Hosking, Climate Country Radio, a mini-album of short, informative songs called Climate Country Radio (Multi-county)

Grantees are collectively part of a media, outreach, and engagement campaign designed to increase awareness for issues such as public health, water and energy conservation, climate mitigation, and emergency preparedness, relief and recovery. California Arts Council views the California Creative Corps program as a job creation and human infrastructure development opportunity. Region by region, the program is increasing the ways in which artists are engaged in public work, so that they can continue build upon intersectional public interest goals beyond its pilot funding timeline. A complete list of grantees can be found at https://www.upstatecreativecorps.org/grantees.

In addition to the grantees funded through the Upstate Creative Corps Program, Mark Oliver, a long-time Siskiyou artist, was selected as part of a cohort of eighteen artists from across California as part of the 18th Street Arts Center’s California Creative Corps Program. Oliver will develop a film version of his Voices of the Golden Ghost project.

“The success of artists in Siskiyou to receive this highly competitive funding speaks to the quality of arts happening in this community,” says Lord. “We live in a state with one of the largest economies in the world, and the arts make up a larger portion of our economy than agriculture, construction, or resource extraction. Yet, the Upstate/Northern California region is the lowest contributing region to arts economy employment and saw the steepest decline in arts employment of all regions in California during the pandemic. This funding is a step towards investing in generative arts jobs, keeping more of our talented artists and culture bearers here, and attracting people who want to keep Siskiyou a wonderful place to live for all.”

Katrina Schneider, a core member of Upstate California Creative Corps’ team, says: “A unique factor in the way we designed our program has been about building capacity for our smallest agencies, who successfully applied alongside much larger more established entities, with or without the support of a grantwriter, as well as a slew of individual artists and culture bearers, working solo and in tandem as serious changemakers without previous access to funds and resources.”

Funded projects serve Upstate’s most vulnerable communities, those identified via the California Healthy Places Index and other valuable local data sources. From place-based urban initiatives to multi-county regional projects that follow watersheds, tribal lands, forests, and some of California’s most remote mountain wilderness areas, projects engage diverse communities around solutions for some of society’s most fundamental challenges – through social practice and an array of artforms.

Within the Upstate Region, the Siskiyou County Arts Council is one of a network of agencies who serve as State-Local Partners with California Arts Council. While each serves distinct communities, State-Local Partner agencies are connected through a coalition who benchmark, consult, and gain from peer learning and support, with equity at their core. Upstate agency partners are Nevada County Arts Council, as administering organization for the California Creative Corps, Arts Council of Mendocino County, Arts Council of Placer County, Colusa County Arts Council, Del Norte Association for Cultural Awareness, Friends of the Arts in Butte, Humboldt Arts Council (and Ink People, working in partnership with Humboldt Arts Council), Lake County Arts Council, Lassen County Arts Council, Modoc County Arts Council, Nevada County Arts Council, Plumas County Arts Council, Shasta County Arts Council, Sierra County Arts Council, Siskiyou County Arts Council, Tehama County Arts Council, Trinity County Arts Council, and Yuba Sutter Arts & Culture.