RACC Blog

Portland City Council adopts arts affordability plan

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On February 28, Portland City Council adopted a set of recommendations to protect and expand affordable arts spaces. You can read the resolution and the adopted plan here:

A Plan for Preserving and Expanding Affordable Arts Space in Portland

The need for such a plan is clear: the cost of living in Portland is rising rapidly. The city’s housing crisis, displacement, gentrification, aggressive development, and real estate market dynamics are contributing to an alarming loss of arts spaces in Portland, and making it impossible for artists to afford to live here. Portland risks losing its soul and identity if we don’t respond to this emergency.

In early 2017, RACC and city leaders agreed that the city itself was in the best position to take the lead and collaborate with bureaus to identify changes that can make a real difference. The resultant plan articulates 24 ideas for city bureaus, RACC, and the broader arts community to address this problem. City Council did not approve or fund any of the specific recommendations; rather, by adopting the plan they codified the city’s intention to pursue these recommendations in the months and years ahead. Each recommendation will come to city council separately as it is pursued—to earmark funding, to change city code, or whatever may be needed.

Commissioner Nick Fish and his staff led the development of this plan, and will continue leading several of the recommendations through the implementation phase. The offices of Mayor Ted Wheeler and Commissioner Chloe Eudaly remain strongly involved, as well as several city bureaus. RACC participated in the process by articulating the arts community’s concerns, contributing ideas, researching national best practices, and convening discussions around some of the recommendations; we will also assist with implementing several of the recommendations.

RACC is grateful to Portland City Council for recognizing this serious problem in our community, and for identifying some ways the city can respond. If you would like to stay apprised of this work moving forward, or comment on the plan, please contact info@racc.org.

 

Other links:

“Can Portland Save Its Arts?” an OPB State of Wonder story

“We Have a Lot To Lose — Portland Commissioners Try To Save Creative Space,” OPB/April Baer’s interview with Commissioners Nick Fish and Chloe Eudaly

 

 

Night Lights on March 1

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Night Lights’ second showcase of 2018 includes work from the inaugural class of Open Signal’s Future Forum program, which provides an in-depth learning experience for socially driven media makers to improve their creative practice and teaching abilities as well as increase their engagement with the community.

This year’s Future Forum artists include ariella tai, Ashlin Aronin, Jalessa Johnston, James Albert, Maura Campbell-Balkits, Fernanda D’Agostino, RaShaunda Brooks, Samantha Cohen, and Sophia Emigh.

This event is free and open to the public, beginning at dusk and lasting around two hours.

“Night Lights Presents Future Forum
March 1 dusk – 8:30pm
411 NW Park Ave (north wall of RACC’s office)

 

Search update for February 27

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Working with our executive search firm, Koya Leadership Partners, the RACC Search Committee has selected four semi-finalists for our Executive Director position.

The Search Committee is organizing a diverse sample of community members to meet the semi-finalists. The sample will include board members, staff members, individuals representing organizations, individual artists, and public officials.

All four semi-finalists prefer not to be publicly identified at this time, and as such, all people meeting the semi-finalists will be subject to non-disclosure agreements.

Members of the sample will meet with all four candidates individually in small groups (5-10 people per session) with two representatives of the Search Committee present as facilitators and observers. These meetings will occur March 14-23, and the stakeholders participating in those meetings will fill out feedback forms. The Search Committee will then consider the feedback and make its recommendation to the RACC Board in early April.

We are excited that we have a candidate pool that is diverse in terms of gender, race and current location of the candidates. We are also proud that we selected our semi-finalists through a deliberative and inclusive process that included listening to the community, implicit bias training and removal of bias-inducing personal information during the initial screenings.

The Search Committee welcomes your feedback. Please send emails to EDsearch@racc.org.

 

 

Privacy Policy

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Your privacy is very important to us. Accordingly, RACC has developed this policy in order for you to understand how we collect, use, communicate and disclose and make use of personal information. The following outlines our privacy policy for www.racc.org, www.therightbraininitiative.org, www.workforart.org and www.portlandartspark.com.

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LINKS TO OTHER SITES – A DISCLAIMER

RACC websites have links to other websites as a convenience to our constituents. These include links to websites operated by other nonprofit organizations, government agencies and for-profit businesses. When you use one of these links, you are no longer on a RACC website and this Privacy Policy will not apply. When you link to another website, you are subject to the privacy policy of that new site.

When you follow a link to another site, neither RACC, nor any officer or employee of RACC warrants the accuracy, reliability or timeliness of any information published by these external sites, nor endorses any content, viewpoints, products, or services linked from these systems, and cannot be held liable for any losses caused by reliance on the accuracy, reliability or timeliness of their information. Portions of such information may be incorrect or not current. Any person or entity that relies on any information obtained from these systems does so at their own risk.

INFORMATION COLLECTED WHEN YOU BROWSE RACC WEBSITES

If you do nothing during your visit to a RACC website but browse or download information, we automatically collect and store the standard data collected by all web server software. That information is as follows:

  • The Internet Protocol (IP) address used. The IP address is a numerical identifier assigned either to your Internet service provider or directly to your computer. We use the Internet IP to respond to your browser request. Example: 122.125.36.42;
  • The domain name (DNS) assigned on the Internet to your IP Address (if there is one). Example: somename.com;
  • The type of browser and operating system you used.
  • The date and time you visited this site;
  • The web pages or services you accessed at this site; and
  • The website you visited prior to coming to this website. (Note: this is included so that summary analysis can be done on how visitors get to our site, i.e., from a search engine, from a link on another site, etc.)

We do not track individual user navigation choices. We do, however, summarize the information listed above to determine:

  • What organizations are our most frequent users, to better target our content for the audience.
  • What browsers are being used on our site to determine what techniques we can use to develop pages that will work with different browsers.
  • How often our pages are being used.
  • By the traffic from organization names such things as the search engines that are good at directing people to the site.

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this site may monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. If security monitoring reveals evidence of possible abuse or criminal activity, system personnel may provide the results of such monitoring to appropriate officials. Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, no attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage habits. Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the state law and federal statutes including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996.

E-MAIL AND FORMS

If you send us an electronic mail message with a question or comment that contains personal information, or fill out a form that e-mails us this information, we will only use the information needed to respond to your request. We will not share your information with any other party unless clearly indicated on the form, or when you specifically approve the sharing of this information.

SECURE TRANSMISSION

For secured-data transmission, this site uses the industry standard encryption software, Secure Socket Layer (SSL). The URL in your browser will change to “HTTPS” instead of “HTTP” when this security feature is invoked. Your browser may also display a lock or key symbol on its task bar to indicate invoked secure transmission. If these indicators are not present, any information is susceptible to interception by other parties. Most Internet e-mail communication will not be secure. If you are communicating sensitive information, you may wish to consider sending it by postal mail.

 

REFUND POLICY

Requests for refunds (ticketed events, donations and otherwise) must explain the reason for the request in writing and be signed by the individual requesting the refund. They will be reviewed on a case by case basis. RACC cannot guarantee any refunds. In the event that your request is honored, please allow 4 to 6 weeks to receive your refund.

ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS POLICY

If you have any questions about this policy, please contact info@racc.org.

Meet our newest staff members

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RACC staff are a talented and passionate lot – and we are here to support you! You can meet the entire staff on our website here, and we wanted to take some extra time to introduce you seven of our newest employees.

Meet Mia, Jack, Eugenie, Yasmine, Sean, Humberto and Alisa! Special thanks to Intisar Abioto and Eugenie Jolivett Fontana for the photos.

 

Mia Braverman, interim development assistant for The Right Brain Initiative

Mia has only been with us a few days now (!) and helps fill a vacancy when Sara Farrokhzadian became the Associate Development Officer for The Right Brain Initiative. In this temporary post, Mia will support strategies, planning and implementation of all fundraising activities, campaigns and special events for our arts integration program. She is also a paper and visual/installation artist working from her home studio in North Portland. Her art practice varies from fine art to interactive public installations, and she has worked as both a teaching artist and administrator at the Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland, California. Welcome aboard, Mia!
Jack Burgess, executive assistant

Jack is the very model of an exceptional executive assistant. He supports the board of directors and the executive director with grace and good humor. Originally from London, England, Jack moved to Portland in 2014 with his fiancé (now wife), Brooke. He studied History at the University of Sussex, and fell in love with the Pacific Northwest during a study abroad program at the University of Washington. He is actively involved in the Portland music scene, and we are all looking forward to his band’s next gig – The Hugs perform at Doug Fir Lounge on April 26.  Jack also enjoys playing squash, performing music, and following the ailing fortunes of his favorite soccer team, the Blackburn Rovers.
Eugenie Jolivett Fontana, digital communications specialist

Eugenie is a creative soul, through and through. After receiving her BA in Theatre Arts from University of California, Irvine, she co-founded a creative interactive design studio – and her passion for design thinking and collaborative platforms continues to this day. Having lived in Portland now for nine years, Eugenie is working to co-create a platform for POC and LGBTQ+ creatives called “w(HERE) we are,” and serves on the board of directors at AIGA Portland. As RACC’s digital communications specialist she straddles the communications and technology functions at RACC, overseeing RACC’s family of websites and other digital communications channels and strategies.
Humberto Marquez Mendez, community engagement coordinator

Humberto became RACC’s new Community Engagement Coordinator in November, and doesn’t appear too daunted at all to be picking up where the irreplaceable Tonisha Toler left off. Humberto is quickly becoming the go-to guy for many people in our tri-county service area as he develops new strategies to increase access to RACC for marginalized communities. Humberto says that his commitment to social justice is rooted in his personal experiences and strengthened in his professional work with various non-profits, most notably Causa, the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO), Basic Rights Oregon, Impact NW and Latino Network.

 
  Sean Kirkpatrick, donor data clerk

As RACC’s donor data clerk, Sean processes donor and donation information for Work for Art, and develops scripts/programs to improve operational efficiency. The team quickly elevated Sean to hero status for transforming time-consuming data processes into one click solutions. He has big dreams for helping other areas of RACC do the same. Born and raised in Ohio, Sean moved to Oregon in 2008 to pursue a career in software engineering. Nowadays he is finding ways to apply his engineering skills in other areas while pursuing his love of both origami tessellations and surrealist art under the umbrella of Studio Antipode, selling his work locally at the Portland Saturday Market since 2015.

 
Alisa McDonald, education specialist

This school year marked Alisa’s transition from the school environment to RACC. She brings expertise as an art and history teacher and instructional coach to her role supporting principals and classroom teachers on school-wide arts integration for The Right Brain Initiative. She also coordinates services for a network of AEAF arts specialists across multiple school districts. Alisa loves working with learners of all ages (K-12) as well as adults in public school and community arts settings. She draws inspiration from the environment and personal stories to create meaningful and collaborative arts experiences for all. In her spare time you’ll find her bicycling, sipping warm beverages, and venturing on road trips.

 

 

Art Spark is on February 26

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The first Art Spark of 2018 is here!!! Join us for another evening of education and celebration as we share space with Orí Gallery, UNA Gallery, and Portland Open Studios (celebrating their 20 year anniversary!!). This February, Art Spark is trying something NEW and will raise funds for these amazing organizations and the important work they are doing for artists in the community.

The evening will include a 30 minute community discussion and panel. Our Community Partners (and guests) will investigate the barriers and best practices for artists responding to open calls. They will share the work they are doing to address equity, inclusion, and diversity in the Portland art scene. Artist Performances (TBA), music by VNPRT, raffle prizes, food, drinks & more.

This event is open to the entire community. While there is no formal cost to attend (Art Spark is always free!) donations are welcome, with all proceeds distributed among the three Community Partners: UNA Gallery, Orí Gallery, and Portland Open Studios. Alcohol sales will contribute to fundraising efforts!

More information on upcoming and past events on https://portlandartspark.com.

Location:  Lagunitas Community Room, 237 NE Broadway St,

Date:  February 26th 6-8 PM

Photographer:  Renee Lopez

DJ:   VNPRT


COMMUNITY PARTNERS

UNA Gallery is a contemporary art space dedicated to highlighting the work of POC, Queer, Femme and Gender Non-Conforming artists. We aim to offer a consistent and constructive platform for the collaborative and solo efforts of non-established and experimental artists.

Ori Gallery is the brain child of the creative duo Maya Vivas & Leila Haile. Together they seek to reclaim and redefine “the white cube” through amplifying the voices of Trans and Queer Artists of color, community organizing and mobilization through the arts.

Portland Open Studios creates a unique educational opportunity for the public to witness art in the making, and learn about media, materials and the business of creative endeavor. Through this interaction, Portland Open Studios creates a platform for local artists to thrive, engage and fosters a community that values the arts.

FEATURED ORGANIZATIONS

Artists and Craftsman North Portland– Art supply store located in North Portland, OR. Employee owned and operated, we pride ourselves in our ability to bring the highest quality products to artists in our community at a price that is affordable to all

Search update for January 26

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The search committee will conduct first-round interviews on February 2 and 3.  Last week Koya Leadership Partners presented 13 candidates to the search committee for a blind review (no identifiers), after which the committee selected seven candidates to interview (some local, some out of state).

Applications received by January 31st will still be considered for the initial interview phase.

 

 

Regional Arts & Culture Council elects new board members

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PORTLAND, ORE – The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) has elected three new board members:

 

Bob Geddes is a native Oregonian, retired from US Bancorp where he worked in legal and corporate services. His volunteer projects have included Oregon Council for the Humanities, 1000 Friends of Oregon, Literary Arts, The Wessinger Foundation, SMART, Portland Public Schools and Oregon Community Foundation.

 

Octaviano Merecias-Cuevas is a trainer for the Center for Diversity and Inclusion at OHSU. He has more than 15 years of experience in intercultural communication, community engagement and facilitation. Previously he served as the manager for policy and civic engagement at Latino Network.

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Alejandro Queral leads the Community Investments team at United Way of the Columbia-Willamette, evaluating and researching the impact of United Way’s investments and initiatives. Prior to United Way, Alejandro was a program officer at Northwest Health Foundation.

Other continuing RACC Board members include Mike Golub (board chair), Linda McGeady (vice chair), Eileen L. Day (treasurer), Steve Rosenbaum (secretary), Raymond C. Cheung, CPA, Eve Connell, Katherine Durham, Senator Lew Frederick, Debbie Glaze, Osvaldo ‘Ozzie’ Gonzalez, Leslie Heilbrunn, Angela Hult, Parker Lee, Anita Menon, Frances Portillo, Joanna Priestley, Eduardo Puelma, James Smith, Shyla Spicer, and Anita Yap.

Board and staff profiles are available online at racc.org/about/staff-and-board.

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The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) provides grants for artists, nonprofit organizations and schools in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington Counties; manages an internationally acclaimed public art program; raises money and awareness for the arts through Work for Art; convenes forums, networking events and other community gatherings; provides workshops and other forms of technical assistance for artists; and oversees a program to integrate arts and culture into the standard curriculum in public schools through The Right Brain Initiative. RACC values a diversity of artistic and cultural experiences and is working to build a community in which everyone can participate in culture, creativity and the arts. For more information visit racc.org.