April 23, 2025 — Boulder Arts Commission Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] Okay, we are recording. It is Wednesday, April 23, rd 2025, and welcome to the Boulder Arts Commission. I will call Roll Gerald Cardoso. Yes, Maria Cole. Yes, Jeffrey Cash present Jill Kazenberger. Yes, Caroline Curt, yes, and I will now turn the meeting over to the chair to pull the meeting great, and we'll call to order the meeting of April 23, rd 2025. Boulder Arts Commission. Excuse me, our 1st is our land acknowledgement. The city of Boulder acknowledges the city is on the ancestral homelands and unceded territory of indigenous peoples who have traversed, lived in and stewarded lands in the Boulder Valley since time immemorial. Those indigenous nations include the Apache, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Panee, Shoshone, Sioux, and Ute.

[1:02] the city of boulder recognizes that those now living and working on those these ancestral lands have a responsibility to acknowledge and address the past, and must work to build a more just future. So we'll start with the approval of the agenda. If anybody would like to make mention. to approve the agenda motion to approve the agenda, I'll say all in favor mass to add something. Yes, please, can we get an update on sundance from you? Lauren? Sure. Yeah, sure. Or listen to that, too. If you'd like to add anything today. Great. We'll add that in maybe matters from staff great. So with that amendments, let's do a motion again in motion to approve the agenda. I say, all in favor.

[2:00] Okay, thank you. And approval of the march 2025 meeting minutes which were in your packets need a motion for that. I'll move to approve the march 2025 meeting minutes. So great any adjustments to those all in favor unanimous other than Jeff. Okay, sorry. 2 abstentions. Great. Did you get that? Yes, okay, thank you. Is anybody signed up for public participation? Nobody online. If anyone online would like to 1st speak that public participation. You may raise your hand now. hearing none, we'll move over. Move on to commission business.

[3:02] Well, in my role as director of community vitality of women, many honors it's bestowed upon me of swearing in new members of our boards and commissions. So, Carolyn, you're up 1st to reaffirm your oath of office. Would you like to sit here and just read it? Or would you like me to read it through? It am perfectly okay with that as well. Hold up your hand. Whatever makes you feel more comfortable? Exactly. I'll twirl my hair. No, I, Caroline Kirk, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America, and the State of Colorado, and the charter and ordinances of the City of Boulder, and faithfully perform the duties of the office of a member of the Arts Commission which I'm about to mention. Congratulations. Thank you. I'm here.

[4:01] Here. It is a scrapbookable certification of your membership. Oh, yeah, right here anything. What is the 23rd on? This will move over here, there I am. You are welcome to read it on your own, or I can walk you through it as well. All right. Ivana, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America and of the State of Colorado and the charter and ordinances of the City of Boulder, and faithfully perform the duties of the office of a member of the Arts Commission, which I'm about to enter. All right. Congratulations! Welcome to the Commission!

[5:01] Interesting. Guy! Welcome while you're signing that on behalf of the entire commission. And when I saw your interview questions I was really impressed with how involved you already are, and how well spoken you are. So we're excited to the to have you as an addition to our commission. We have a little bit of time in the agenda to go around and introduce ourselves to each other. and I can invite you to start, and just tell us a little bit about yourself, and why you're interested in commission, and what you're excited about sounds great. So my name is Gaia. Thank you. To everybody who tried to pronounce my full name as Gaia. 3. I was very impressed. And how accurate the pronunciation was. I moved here in 2019 from New York City, after living there for almost 20 years. And and I'm 1st and foremost a mom to 3 amazing children and

[6:00] partner to an entrepreneur who has a business in hold tech entrepreneur, and in my, in my time I work as a travel advisor. I invest in tech startups. I am on 2 different ptos of public schools that my kids attend. I'm on the Board of the Dairy Arts Center, and I run the Women's Committee with a friend at the Dairy Art Center, which is a small group of women that fund the free rental space program at the dairy to nonprofits, and we raise money for that. I also host these monthly dinners for women at my house, for just connect and help help, especially people who are new to border find community, which was the super hard thing for me to do moving here. It was really hard for me to define community. And I said to myself, That's never going to happen to somebody who moves here. If they meet me they will have friends, even if I'm not going to be their best friend. I'll make sure I find them 2 friends.

[7:01] So I do that, and you know I'm very excited to be here. I wanted to join the Arts Committee, because one of the things that I think is great about Boulder is how for such a small place there's so many creative people who live here and thrive here and live here. And and I think just to somebody in the community, I would always get questions like, Oh, my God! I didn't even know this event was happening. I had no idea this artist was performing, and I think it's super weird that people don't know these things about Folder, and I don't know why it is. Is it because they don't have access? Is it because they're not interested? I don't know what the answer is. And and so I just started creating these groups of people who are forced to come out of me to do things and do things. And when I saw that there was this opportunity to really help out nonprofits and provide resources to them and and be thoughtful about it with this group. I'm excited to be awesome. Thank you.

[8:02] So for the commissioners, if you can. Just tell her a little bit about where you fit in in the arts community. And if you have anything, what you're excited about being on the Commission. How about? Yeah. Maybe start with architecture in boulder on the commission I'm appointed to the Board of and I'm also appointed as the outstanding nice to meet you. Hi! I'm cheryl verdoza. I like chocolate. I I wanted to join the Commission because I've been part of the Boulder Roads community a long time ago, and I left locked down for about 12 years, then came back, and I sort of my crash course, and like what I'd have to deliver creatively for those 12 years. And then I

[9:02] still learning new things. But I'm continually impressed. And I I did run programs for young people a long time ago. So now in lots of I'm also, I guess, a member of the Arts community a little bit, because I'm a storyteller and stand up in the listen to your mother. Show Joe Katzenberger, executive director at Junkyard Social Club, which I know you and your family have visited on the Commission and founding a recent arts venue, and it wouldn't. It wouldn't be here honestly, without the Commission supporting us from the beginning and giving us a chance and getting grants before we really even had any. You know, data to show what we could do. Especially. It was harder to get, you know, bigger funding and national sources and foundations to believe in us. So I I think

[10:02] this group for that. And I wanted to be able to help support others, be able to make it work because it's not easy, especially when you have 10,000 hurdles and other city bureaucracies to, you know. Overcome. Yeah. hi! I'm ya laid my pronouns, are they? He? And I'm a digital artist, and I'm also in like the queer experimental Diy punk event scene and I'm excited to be on the board to kind of foster community building and foster spaces for weird, innovative art. And Guy and I know each other from the dairy, and the very 1st time I met her. She was effusive and physically embrace me, and and I got to know her really fast, and so I was. I was. I was thrilled to be able to to advocate for her as well as Caroline with our city leaders. When it came to looking through the choices that we had

[11:07] for the new commissioners, and every one of them's actually met Gaia before, because she came here last March or April to speak on behalf of the dairy, so thank you for for your continued support, and glad to have you on the team. and Jeffrey is our co-chair or vice chair vice chair, and I'm the chair. I'm Caroline Kurtz, and I'm an arts and entertainment attorney in town and really involved in the burning man community. So that's how I got involved in volunteering for the arts. I've been on a lot of different boards and helped to crown the Phoenix Asylum and so I'm really excited to just have a behind the scenes and deeper dive into the arts community in Boulder, for a lot of the reasons that you were mentioning, like what's going on. And who can I connect people with? So yeah. and let's have the staff introduce themselves really quickly to just you know what what your role is, yeah, please, because we have. There's everybody here. Today. We'll go back that direction. Yeah, yeah.

[12:13] Hi, I run programs for artists and venues. Hi, I'm Matt Zanski. I'm a senior manager with Community Vitality department supporting the Office of Arts and Culture, the office of Special Events and our District Vitality Group. I'm Ellie. I'm operations specialist and board secretary, so I help manage and run the meetings, and I'm a point of contact for you as well as. and I'm Melissa Mazzanian Operations associate for a few minutes.

[13:04] and Chris Jones, you met me at orientation. Nice to see you again. Very glad you're here. Thank you. Remember everybody's name. I was in sales. Awesome. All right. Let's move on to matters from commissioners. Just to give you some context. We each have liaison roles in the community, and those will get reassigned in June. That's I think. So. You'll you'll have an opportunity to pick up some of these organizations that get general operating support from the Commission. and then we also have some committees that we have created to do some work outside of the meetings, and that also will do some exploration of whether there's something that you'd be interested in working on as a sort of a side project for policy stuff. So we're gonna do our liaison updates right now, anybody as an update, they'd like to relax.

[14:04] Well, and then I just came from the visit boulder meeting board meeting. But we've had it off site. It's as a celebration. So everyone there, as you can imagine, is feeling very gratified and excited. And recently got a much bigger to do. List but yeah, we just talked about exciting things that are coming. So I said, I'm joining the board like right after that, even like completely take credit. And great boulder youth orchestra had their fundraising fundraiser last night. I have not yet heard. Haven't met the next one Cheryl. Can you talk more kind of high levels? What Charlene and the visit Boulder, what they were doing as part of the sundance bid to really kind of make that happen, because I'm not sure everyone here might be aware of that, and I'm not even sure I fully understand the scope. But there are convention and business Bureau Center. I'm familiar. And so they put in the bid. They

[15:14] talk to the Sundance people. They got hotels on board. They talked to venues there, and there's some exciting things, I mean. I'll wait till things happen. But there's some exciting things that are going to happen to venues that are going to benefit all the creatives in Boulder. I want folks to understand that visit. Boulder was more the catalyst. Yeah, yeah, they made it happen. They called Charlene and gave her the news. She thought they were called at 10 in the morning they called at 7 30, so she was like, Oh, my, you're like, Are you awake? She's like, so very exciting be focused moving forward with the programming for their new building. So hopefully, programming and concept of design will be done

[16:04] by September 18.th Oh, this is already means deciding what spaces you want in the building, how big they are and their basic adjacency. Select what they need to be. Thank you. You. Museum of boulder recently had an opening of a new exhibit celebrating the history of Lgbtq. Rights and those that were at the forefront of it in Boulder and Boulder County. Specifically, the Governor was there, and a lot of other elected officials, and it was a very, very nice opening for this event. It was. It was built that was also the same night as the opening for the Boulder International Film Festival, which I saw you gave an update. Someone gave an update on the ticket sales on on last month. So thank you for doing that. Last night I got to see Yehuda at the dairy center, which is a Ukrainian

[17:02] folk traditional rock band that just build, build the hall, and we were the only stop in Colorado on their North American tour. It was mind blowingly good Local Theater Company has a short play. festival this coming weekend up at the Nomad. We're going to the Friday event I was a guest of the of the deputy executive director for the Cbca yesterday, down in Denver. Got to see a lot of regional arts and business leaders there is anyone else attending Cci on Grand Junction next weekend? I'll I'll rep. Okay, then I will represent the actual commission. At that convention. I've never been to that this year, and it's literally a trains, planes and automobile trip flying out there. I'm renting a car while I'm there because I missed the hotel block, and I've taken the train back. So

[18:06] Orlando had their spring gala recently and it sold out right away. I haven't heard of the numbers on the success of it, but I know they've got a lot of support there, and that's what I got for you. I spoke to 3rd law dance, and they just finished 3 shows at the dairy and their pre covid numbers are coming up the Pre covid. They had 4 for performances now they had 3, and the houses were still only at about 80%. So they're still working to come back up to those numbers. But they did show that they for this this show they had a ton of dancers on stage. They had 8 or 9 additional local dancers that they brought, in in addition to their 10 company members. So they were really excited about that. And then also really ambitious list of grants that they're going for, including their 1st Nea Grant, which is submitted now, but they're very grateful to get

[19:12] support from the state and local levels, so thanked us again for that. And then I spoke to the Samba school, and they have a lot of sessions scheduled for over the summer, and the main thing is that they've got a festival going on in August, and that's moving forward, really. Well, they're going to be doing it at the band shell and we talked a lot about the the difficulties that they're having getting venues. They are saying they have to book a year in advance. Coming back from the pandemic. So we talked about 2 way the questions about that, and then also. I referred them to you. I don't know if you spoke to them, but

[20:00] just voicing concerns about people who tend to come to their performances and what to do as an arts organization. If there is a nice response at one of the performances. they have a presentation environment. So they're they're concerned, you know. So I don't know we're able to connect them with resources. Or did you want to practice? Sure. Yeah. One of my board members, Marina Legrove, helped us print out in Spanish small cards that folks can carry around in their wallets that essentially they can hand over to an ice agent that recognizes their rights. and my understanding is, if they can say that an event is private. You do not have to let them in. If it's a public space you can let them in. But what we've been doing at the Junker is anytime we've been hosting immigrant events is designating a specific space as private, so that if somebody came, somebody in the front could intercept

[21:04] and clarify that that space is a private event, and that they can't be admitted. Absence. That's amazing. Do you mind if I put them in contact with you? That would be super helpful. Carla Collin, COLI. N. Would also be a good contact as well, and she's the executive director for the Latino Chamber of commerce of Boulder County. She's probably pretty much have to get you for him. Wonderful. Thank you. Anybody else. Thanks. I don't actually have any from my liaisons. And the thing that I got updates wise was from lemon sponge cake that they're excited to announce their new website. But on Thursday I'm going to a film screening for a independent film called Comparsa, that's produced by some of the folks that were involved in chasing coral and social dilemma. So that's cool and exciting. And they're still in there kind of like

[22:01] final screening before final edit space. So who knows? Probably before sundance but connected. and yeah, I'll also plug a gencare thing that I'm excited about. On May second, we're hosting our 3rd smash the patriarchy event which raises funds for reproductive health, and Mr. Also safe house. But we smash up a car in the alley. Punk bands drag show, and then it's also on bell tame. So there's going to be a fire ceremony. But God spell things fertility! It's love. It's so. Kind of a moment of healing as well. But it feels like something that many community members need right now, so interesting. For listen.

[23:05] are you pulling something up? No, yeah, no immediate ones. I'm waiting to hear back. So you all know what I know. Okay, great. All right. Let's move on to updates on our commission work items or committees. If there's anything new from your committee that you'd like to share, and I'll just preface by saying that Jeffrey and I did not meet this, so we will do that. She was a celebrity host at a fundraiser for the Santa Foothills Foundation at the Dairy Center, where we we raised $55,000 at the Gordon again theater for this great organization last Friday, who supports women and girls and civic engagement sustainability. And yeah, really, great organization and celebrity, that I didn't even know that I knew it. A Bagel was there, as the Mc. That was wonderful.

[24:07] and the kids were extremely talented. It was just really cool all around anybody else on community updates. I'm just going to acknowledge that I think I gave myself the to do to share directly the spreadsheet that I was working on on grants with everybody in the Commission to be able to plug in things that they knew about, that I didn't have in there, and I did not do that. So to myself to follow up on that. Now that I'm solo on that particular task item, and then I think I'll make a second tab that would be any potential contacts with foundations that could help support so kind of follow up. Thank you for the collaboration. How, Maria, how are you feeling in terms of Georgia not being on the Commission? Do you feel like there's a gap there now we should. I mean, it's good to have someone to bounce it off. And you're also solo, too, on your initiative. So we can team up on our 2 initiatives.

[25:10] reconsidering the way they can help me and how we can better integrate that or be. So we have a kind of side workers. Okay, I will email you both. Okay, so maybe the 3 of us went through how to collaborate. Sure, thank you. All right, we'll move on to Grants program, Sarah. Thank you. While Lauren's pulling up that Powerpoint. I'd just like to follow up on a commission item from last meeting, where y'all aid in Georgia requested that a calendar be made for events, that we run through our programs, and we are not able to do that on our website. But I reached out to Boulder County Arts Alliance, and they're going to create a special tag that says like, so it'd be easy to search.

[26:11] All right next slide, please. At 1st we have our general operating support decisions as a reminder. This is one year funding for new applicants. As we work on the folder arts blueprint. the panelists have submitted their final scores, and it is now to the Commission to give final approval. George. Sorry, Caroline, you were in the panel meeting. Is there anything you want to say about that process? No, I pretty much shared at the last meeting, but for those who missed it, it was a really impressive gathering of arts, professionals, just really extensive knowledge on how grants operate, how they read grants, how to score grants things that they would improve about our Grant system. I mean very, very thoughtful great

[27:06] a great conversation. and I know that they had one very brief meeting that I wasn't able to make where they just got to. The got things done very quickly, and made some decisions about which options they were going to suggest to us. Thank you so much. Thank you for time, and thank you for your time. All right next slide. Oh, sorry. I guess I'll read the options so the Commission can approve all grants per the panel's recommendation. Approve individual grants approve individual grants while submitting specific questions or postpone approval of individual grants pending the answers to specific questions. And this is the breakdown that panelists based their recommendation as equitable as possible in terms of percent chance of receiving a grant in each tier. Given the available funding that we have. Sarah, will you remind me of the budget number that crosses somebody from large and debt to large of 1 million.

[28:05] Okay, and that's revenue annual revenue annual revenue today. Measure this this last month, as I was thinking about it, so that includes earned revenue and contributed revenue. Yes, got it, but not in kind. and we have a question at the last meeting about whether whether we would expand that to be the budget. And it is not the budget. It's the actual revenue. Alright makes sense. So up 1st is grant decisions on general operating support grants in the extra large category. We only had one application in this tier. Again, commissioners have the option to approve the grant for the panelists, recommendation individual grants while submitting specific questions or postpone individual grants pending the answer to specific questions, and these options will come up for every tier, so I might just do shorthand for subsequent tiers.

[29:10] So this is the application up for approval. And next slide, please. I'll move the Roots. Music Project Foundation. We awarded a general operating support. Grant one second. Any discussion about this have they ever applied for gios support in the past. Okay, if if for some reason rather than extra large. if they'd just come in as a large, if their if their revenue hadn't been more than a million dollars, they wouldn't have received a grant based on the scoring. If they'd have come in as a medium size they would not have received a grant based on their scoring. Has anyone had a chance to look at the overall scores from from everyone?

[30:04] I did but I didn't notice that, nuanced they would have made it had they been a medium size. Sorry, a small one, but their score was lower than the lowest score that had received a grant in both the medium and the large. I can offer that in the meeting it was a very specific topic of conversation as to what scheme would be recommended to us. Do you want to go over very briefly, like the different options that were looked at, because that that was one way that they were looking at it in terms of what are, where are we? Gonna which lines are we going to recommend? It's gonna be top down score only is gonna be equitable. Is it gonna be? Yeah, exactly. I think there was discussion of whether there would be a minimum score threshold for award, or whether it would be based on percentage chance. Ultimately, this is what they have recommended that the Commission vote on tonight.

[31:09] certainly, I think they did take into account that they were not trying to compare apples to oranges, so I think perhaps they might have scored an organization like stricter in a larger category, perhaps. But that's a question that definitely can be posed to the panel or to the applicant. Yeah, because I just look at the number of 55,000. That's exactly the number of 2 large grantee awards, and one medium award you. all 3 put together. and certainly it's the Commission's prerogative to pose questions to the panel about their recommendation and postpone. Yeah, I'm I'm not. I'm not saying that I just thought it would be. The numbers were interesting. I just didn't know if anyone else had seen that.

[32:01] And it's just because there was. There was no other competition at that particular category. I noticed that as well, and one of the things that stuck out to me was that their contributed income was much higher than their earned revenue. I love roots, but bringing in 700,000 in contributed income last year. And so it's part of me that was like 55 k. Going to them over these organizations that are not bringing in that amount, perhaps through private donors and things like that, that just a Stephanie S. Something worth noting. And I think that if that's something that we're recommending, the become part of, they use the same criteria that we do. And and it's not part of the criteria right now that we look at. So if that is something that's like helping out as people that might be part of the conversation for how to work on the rubric.

[33:01] Do we know why we have more applicants in that category? Is that something you care about? I mean, certainly a lot of them were funded in the recertification process. But I would imagine to have a operating budget that large. It's like this is a newer organization that was expanded to that which yeah, close to the same age as mine. But we don't bring in nearly that number of contributed. Our earned revenue is about the same. But we're in a completely different here. Anything you want to say about that the very legible on the screen, this is highlighting the awards, and what they've recommended.

[34:04] This was a new packet, or in the commission packet. What is encouragement? What is that? So that's a part of the rubric where you'll get an additional point if you are a 1st time applicant or you have not been awarded. Yeah, yeah, those are 2 of the criteria. There's a couple. Yeah. okay, so any other discussion, we have a motion on the table, all in beta yeah and improving follow host the numbers motion first, st what am, I gonna say.

[35:05] well, the next action item is large organization. And the same options applied. Slide, please. These are the large organizations that apply again, based on wanting to have an equitable chance of award. These are the ones that have been recommended by the Commission based on scoring from the boulderized commission. I should know those. But what's the overall average possible of 36 next? What was her story at 27 point? Where's him? No. I'll also note that as staff. We are working on requesting more funding. Oh, I'm also also say that as staff we are working on requesting more funding for this.

[36:08] How do you request more to answer the question. There's a process with the city twice a year that city departments. Sorry I matches city departments, go through a process called adjustment to base, where requests are made to fulfill obligations and change budgets. And so this will just be a part of the normal standard adjustment to base cycle. Thank you. Anybody like to make motion. I move the Ace. Arts, Culture and Education of the Boulder. Jcc. Ministers Foundation. DBA. Kutennara. Excuse me, and the new look will be awarded general operating support on a second.

[37:00] Any discussion? What does Dva mean by doing business? Thank you. I should make an acronym book for working in all right, hearing no discussion, all in favor. Generous, thank you. Thank you. Next slide, please. Next up is mid side organizations. Again, same options and next slide, please. These are the total number of midsize applications that applied and the panel is recommending. But to be funded today, based on the bill of funding that we have at this moment. Next slide, please motion.

[38:00] Nobody wants to take the Spanish off virtual. I took French, but I moved that dva be Shotley and the cultural caravan be awarded. General operating support grants one second any discussion on this one good question. Going backwards. There is some processing and slow motion, but the the panel could have certainly have requested a different mix of awards. Right? They didn't have to award in every category. I feel like we asked, that in the previous meeting. so they did not have to get an awarded. No. and so these are their regulatory tools. Thank you for clarifying that any more discussion, all in favor.

[39:05] Great, unanimous. Thank you. Thank you. And finally, small organizations next slide, please. We had 10 total applications from small organizations. The panel is at this time recommending for award. That's guess I'll just say that, I observed there were a lot of applications focused on concert, symphony orchestra. Related programming is that a little bit competitive in that category was talking with Sarah about this earlier, and it was just more of a question is that some of them seem very small and very reliant on this funding. Maybe I don't have.

[40:00] What does it mean just year after year. What is that plan? Because they don't get the funding next year doesn't mean that they go away because 1 3rd of the funding comes from yep from their solution. And some of them don't even have full time staff. So it's just more just more questions, because how? How is the sustainability of that organization. If there's nobody there running them to ship, because everybody has, you know, the economy's in amount, and everybody has things to do. And one of the things that we do look at is on an annual basis. They have to file reports, and that includes updates on their financial situation and staffing changes and things like that. So it is something that we look at every year and reapprove them for the next year. And we have had organizations that we've had questions about. And I think that we even sort of withheld

[41:05] the funding until we got answers about their sustainability. So so definitely, yeah, there's not been a lot of consolidation in that space in quite some time. Also, this is kind of a 1 year only filling in for folks that weren't part of this particular Gos support like 3 or 4 years ago. So so they hadn't received this. They haven't received this before. Actually, none of these have. So this is this is now bringing in 1, 2, 3, 10 new organizations into this program that weren't part of it before. which is actually really exciting. We can hopefully help them play around with all right, any more discussion on this motion. I moved to community resorts Festival Society for Creative Aging, doing business as viva theater over showing up for racial justice and flatirons. Community orchestra be awarded general operating support grants second group.

[42:06] and I'll do this great and I will. I'll just throw out a thank you to the committee, I mean there, there were a lot of good good applications, as always, and I mean, when you guys have your chance to sit in, you're gonna see the level of thoughtfulness that's going into these discussions. There. It was really impressive. And I feel like they're in good hands, and the decision couldn't have asked for a stronger group of people to be making that perfect. Alright. Grant reports. We have one grant report arts, education

[43:03] of Luna Kultura, and thank you, Lauren, for translating the narrative for me, and next slide, please. Oh, and to clarify. This is a report for a 2024 application. Is there a timeframe within which from them, receiving the plan to submitting? Yes, there's a like start date, which is effectively when they're awarded and then end date. That's listed in the application that a budget can't extend beyond that unless they request an extension. and then their reports do a month after the project is completed, so they set it in their application. I move that the report by Luna Contura be approved. Second, that in discussion, and for your benefit also, that

[44:01] a portion of their grant amount is withheld until the report is finalized, and then 20% is pending this decision. And that's with all all plans. Somewhere, like general operating support is awarded completely out of funds. So it does depend. But oh, I like to report, I thought, oh. well, for $3,000, or 3,100, whatever it works. I thought they had a tremendous amount of outreach. I like diversity of the group they were outreaching to. I love seeing, of course, little kids doing textile. But also there was young teens. And so I thought it was a really nice outreach. And I thought it was a nice project. Yeah, good numbers, lots of welcome partners I love. When the application came across, and so it was even even better to see the report afterwards. Yeah. I I was surprised. They said that nobody filled out their survey. But then they had 65 responses. And I was like, Yeah, that's pretty good. And and so I would be just as a follow up curious to to see if they have a similarization on that, because they

[45:14] I missed it. But I didn't see each. and I think it was, wasn't it? In the Spanish version. Oh, I didn't look at the Spanish. Yeah. The English translation didn't have all that. Okay, I'll go back and look. We don't have to ask them, though humble, through that any other discussion, all in favor. unanimous. Thank you. All right. And this is exciting. The spark performing arts. Community approached us, and they would like to be part of our fee waiver program. So they're proposing 12 fee waivers a year. Applicants can apply to up to 2 fee waivers per year, and they will prioritize events around Arts week or things that we want to promote.

[46:05] How many videos does it make total that we have doing so. E-town now offers a free discount, and then Bruce Music project and the Matthew. Oh, sorry. Yeah, we can. And moving that we approve the adoption of the spark fee waivers into the Boulder Arts Commission grants program. Second, that and I'm assuming that this is just going to be the same format. But it's staff approval, right? All in favor. Thank you, Sarah, thank you. Thank you. And we'll move to Rachel and Vernon.

[47:06] Hmm. Hi! Everyone nice to see you again. I've been working on the experiments in public art program. Last time I talked to you I was working on a public art audit. So same person, different project and I'm gonna tell you about the Boulder Valley community or comprehensive plan update because we had a call for entry open. I'll tell you about the call for entry. I'll tell you about the finalists. and then I'll bring you recommendation.

[48:03] Coming into my audio visual supporter and then I'll bring you a motion to approve the project. So the overview the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan is creating a community assembly. So they're gathering 48 people that they've chosen by Random to come to come together and talk about issues that are important for the comprehensive plan. So they're specifically focusing on 15 min neighborhoods, which is a planning concept. Where. from where you live, you can either walk or ride a bike and get everything you need within 15 min. So we're trying to infuse a planning process which is pretty jargon, heavy and pretty traditionally reaches a specific group of people, and we're trying to add art to it, to help it reach new people and to help people understand the planning process in a way that's more creative and less planner. Speak is the way I describe it.

[49:11] So here's the goal of the call to interpret and translate the outcomes of the process, to foster a deeper understanding of the Assembly, and what was recommended by the members. Here's a little bit about the the metrics. It's a $20,000 budget. We expect this. We expect this person to start working on their project in May, which is around the corner. and the city staff went through all of the 2018 applications, and then the standing public art selection panel helped us identify the finalists. So here's the review criteria. We thought it was really important that this person have. If they don't necessarily live or work in boulder, but they have a connection to boulder that they understand sort of the context of boulder, because this is a comprehensive planning process. It's not just a

[50:11] temporary public art sculpture that's gonna live somewhere for 6 months. It's really gonna help to affect the future of boulder and a bigger sort of plenary way. And we were really interested in them having a community engagement component to their practice as well. So the the planning department, the community engagement, the community engagement department have really done a lot of work on the outreach for the comprehensive plan. And so we wanted the artists to sort of be able to dovetail with that nicely, and be able to talk to the community, to bring the community in, and then do their project and also communicate that back out to community and we also wanted them to really be aware of and be able to articulate what the impact of their projects would be. And so we had 3 finalists, and those were Drum roll.

[51:06] Jenna Clemen offered a project that she called mended ground, and essentially it was a. It was a concept related to created community created mosaic. So she offered an idea where community members could bring in pieces of pottery or porcelain from their their own personal collection, or something from their family, and then she would create a mosaic. She talked about a walkway between neighborhoods that would be a mosaic that would sort of memorialize the community assembling project through a mosaic on the ground. She was from Denver. and then we looked at a project from Machiko 3, rd and she proposed tin can telephones. And so the idea here was that there would be a physical installation, albeit temporary. And then audio files or audio recordings of people talking about their neighborhoods and talking about what a 15 min Neighborhood would look like.

[52:06] And so you could listen to this on your, on your digital phone, as well as walking through and sort of get a sense of what a 15 min Neighborhood would sound like, or would feel like if you could walk through and find 15 min neighborhoods. And then this is an audio clip. I'm not sure if you're gonna be able to hear it, but we'll see it's super light, anyway, but essentially these are, we'll pass it. Let me see if I can password it so essentially in this space when she go, else sure. so you'll commute it, and then you unshare, and you reshare. You just check the box that says share by audio, and then it'll come through the owl speaker. Like the other video. I think it's okay. I mean, it's super. It's super light audio. Anyway. Essentially, these these people are interacting with sound devices that are within the bowls on this table, and they're offering sounds to each other. So it's an it's an offering table. But it's sound recordings.

[53:21] So this isn't exactly what she was proposing. This is an example of the password, and so tin can telephones would be a way for people to record their ideas. About a 15 min Neighborhood offer to community members, and there can be an exchange back and forth in a way. Well. okay? And then last, we had Becky wearing Steele and Shannon. Geis. They propose a project that they describe as personal geographies. And so this project is a combination of sculpture and audio recordings, and those recordings would be stories about place.

[54:02] So the visual here is an example of personal geographies where they created a bust within the bust on the center photo. There, there, within the bus, there's like a miniature. It's like a diorama. And so you can look through the eyes of these sculptures and see the space. And then within the headphones, there's the audio recording of the person talking about this space. and so you get a chance to not only see it, but also hear the storytelling around what that space is that they've done before. So those were the 3 finalists. Oh, wait. Here's a video from Becky and Shannon. So this audio isn't coming through at all. Not really sure why. But there's

[55:02] there's a voiceover happening to describe this this person telling a story about how, when they were kids, they would take an Rv. From one place in Alaska to another place in Alaska, and the visual you're seeing is the actual miniature rendition of that Rv. As somebody is telling the story of what it was like to be on the floor, and how warm it was, and the rumbling of the Rv. And what it meant to be watching her parents drive. Really fun. Huh? So here's an overview of the panelists feedback. Each column is an artist, and then pros and cons are listed top to bottom. Here. Jenna Clemen had really rose robust engagement. She really knew how to speak to community, bring people together, offer them an opportunity to have a piece of their own life, or an object that they inherited, or that has been in their family line of presence in community in a more temporarily or permanent way.

[56:09] But the panel also believe the connections to the goals of the call were a little bit weak. There wasn't really a lot of input or concept related to the 15 min neighborhoods. And so that was felt a little lacking for them. and there were also legitimate concerns around the feasibility of a semi or permanent mosaic in terms of timeline in terms of permitting in terms of it. Snows a lot here, and concrete breaks really easily. And then you have a trip hazard that kind of stuff. Machiko. 3rd got a lot of really good points for compelling concept. People really liked the tin can telephones. It felt whimsical. It felt fun. It felt possible for people to engage, and the group also thought that audio was an appropriate medium for accomplishing the goals of the call to help people memorialize the process, and also what the Community Assembly members are recommending

[57:06] again, concerns around the feasibility of a temporarily sighted physical components. The audio, the audio component, seemed really fragile, and so to put them outside in a tin can telephone didn't really. Soon as possible. We got nervous about that. And then Becky and Shannon had really good points for strong alignment with the goals of the call feasibility and compelling concept that includes audio. So there were no cons. So one guess that's the finalist. So the selection panel recommended Becky and Shannon questions. Lauren Maria was on the selection panel. Do you want to say anything? Yeah. I think this community assembly process is very progressive, having gone to a lot of community meetings in a lot of cities, and I think that adding an artist to it, I think, is this is a really big moment, I think, for Boulder. It's a great process, and I think this artist will really engage with the community members, and if I recall this is a tangent. But aren't the

[58:15] folks that are selected to be in the community? Are they given a stipend as well. Did I understand that? Right? Yeah, probably. Yeah. So I think just everything about this community process. I think that helps have broader outreach. And I think, including the artist. enhances that. And I think this service is gonna do a great job. How many applications were there? I'm older than 21. The call is only open for 4 weeks, so I feel like that was a really good number given how short the timeline was, and how specific it is, you know, like community engagement related to a planning project, for Boulder is like a Really. that's a really good. I messaged you about it because I sent it to a couple of people that seem to have a hard time wrapping their head around. It's pretty abstract. Yeah. Yeah. And the second one that's coming up, too, is also abstract. But what I love about this is that it's experiments in public art like we're really pushing the boundaries of what public art is known to do. And so

[59:11] that's what's exciting to me about it, and all the community engagement parts of it, too. So I have a question. What is the proposed like? Where is it going to be presented? It's really in libraries, these sculptures? Or, Tbd, okay, yeah, that's part of what we have to figure out the 1st step, for the artist is going to be to submit a project plan. So there's going to be one exhibition of the piece. It's going to be indoor. But we're still working out what the venue is. And when that's going to be. Yeah, you should add another layer of sensitivity. I asked something about folks that don't want their opinion, or you know, voice and I, as I understand it, in the meetings of different color tags so like whatever yellow tag or blue tags, if you don't want to be photographed, you have a certain tag. And so I just feel like there's a really heightened sensitivity and progressiveness to this whole process.

[60:05] it's it's a really fun piece of art. What happens if somebody sticks a gum piece of gum on it, or like break. So you know, do we fix it like, who's responsible for fixing it? I think the answer there is that they'll probably be supervised. They're probably not going to be in a place where you can get to them and do whatever you want like. If we had them in the library or the tape building. Is that right? Then there's people there all the time. And so it will be. And because they're like personally interactive right? Like you have to sit down, look into the eyes. If they make the bus like basically use as an example, we're not sure exactly what the final form will be. But it's probably not something that's going to be in a rambunctious place. It's probably going to be in a quiet place with supervision for that reason. Are they permanent exhibits? No, it's all temporary.

[61:02] Okay. Anybody like to make a motion? I move that the process was properly conducted and the selected artist team for the experiments in public art. The Dvcp update Becky wearing Steel and Shannon Geis be recommended to the city manager for approval. I said, oh, any more discussion on it all in favor. Thank you, Maria, for being on that. I have to run to my next event. Yeah. So the the previous project for experiments in public art related to the Boulder Valley. Comprehensive plan was an illustrator named Cal Bracken, who we identified to do illustrations of a lot of really complicated planner. Speak and he made illustrations that the city has created a children's book out of. And that's what Caroline's holding from Wilson around, and I haven't seen it in person. So it's very exciting.

[62:24] very cool. There's a Spanish version. I want to actually read it, but I need to send it back. So I'm going to give a quick update on our experiments in Public Art Lecture Series which kicks off next month. And, Maria, if you have any comments at them, would like to add, Please do so. So the process overview last fall. The idea from experiments in public Art lecture series was approved by the standing selection panel, which includes Maria. The State selection panel created an invitational process and invited 21 local and national artists to apply to be part of the lecture series to take place in summer 2025.

[63:01] The lecture will cover their art practice and includes a slideshow. 5 artists responded to the invitational, all with a socially engaged art practice. All 5 were accepted and invited to create a proposal by the selection panel, and all lectures will take place at the Boulder Main Library branch in the Canadian Auditorium, and include a temporary installation or community workshop. So our 1st artist is Anna Maria Hernando, from Denver, Colorado. She will hold 2 lectures, one on Saturday, May 10, th from 6 to 8 Pm. And one on Wednesday, May 21st from 5 to 7 Pm. Her lecture is about her public art practice and the intersection of femininity and the built environment. She will also include an art installation a temporary art installation called Fervor, which will be installed in the conoid atrium of the library for the month of May. Molly Gambarella is from New Haven, Connecticut, and she will also have 2 lectures, one on Saturday, June 28, th from 2 to 3 Pm. And one on Sunday, June 29, th from 3 to 4 pm. Her lectures about climate change and the use of recycled materials and art making. She will also include a temporary art installation of her large scale. These flowers are 7 to 8 feet tall, so she will also include an installation of her large scale, recycled flowers around the library for that weekend.

[64:25] Francesca Rodriguez, Sawaya, and Renata, Gao. From New York City, will also have 2 lectures, one on Thursday, July 31st from 6 30 to 8 30 Pm. And one on Saturday, August second, from 1130 Am. To 1 30 Pm. And then, following the second lecture, there'll be a panel discussion with local fiber artists. And they're like their lectures about the intersection of weaving and computer coding. They will also include an interactive AR and VR activity for the attendees to the lectures, and we're finalizing the details for the fiber panel discussion.

[65:05] We also have Sarah and Joseph Belmap from Chicago, Illinois. They will have a lecture on Sunday, August 10, th from 1 30 to 4 Pm. And then a full Moon art making workshop at the sunrise, amphitheater and open space that evening from 8 to 10 Pm. Their lecture is about is about their art practice with found objects and community building. And like, I said, they'll also have a community art making workshop under the full moon at the Sunrise Amphitheater. and then finally to round it out. We have beamer Torres from Aurora, Colorado. His lecture is on Sunday, September 28, th from 12 to 2 Pm. There will also be a community mural making workshop. We're finalizing those details, but his lecture is about his mural practice. He kind of came from street art and graffiti, and is now doing large scale municipal mural projects. He will also hold a workshop with community members to design a mural. And then a community

[66:03] painting like the community will actually help him paint the mural. So there's kind of 3 components to this project and we're also going to collaborate with streetwise artists for this one. So any questions is this something that could be added to the Pca calendar. Sure. yeah, we want to. I mean, we're we're we have ads out boulder weekly. Agnu is gonna do some spots. We have a videographer who's been hired to kind of get B-roll everything to create a quick 5 min video at the end, to kind of capture everything at the end. Yeah, we want to post this everywhere. So with our new tag. yeah, these are all fantastic artists. They have, you know, local notoriety as well as national notoriety, and I think these are. This is a big deal that they're all coming here, so it'd be great to make sure that all the venues are packed.

[67:00] Spread the word really nice group. And luckily each of our study selection panel members is has volunteered to be sort of like a community liaison. So Maria is grouped with Henry Fernando, I think I forgot. Yeah, the 1st one. But yeah, each of our selection panels is kind of offered to like. Meet them for dinner, or take them for a beer. Show them around kind of, you know. Just be there to answer any questions about. So that's nice, too. But yeah, please tell your friends and family, and please come to these lectures. I'm cool. Any other questions or comments I think just about done. Sure. Just about the last. The mural project. Yeah. You know I have a I have a child in Southern mills, and I know that you has a couple of kids who are really interested in murals and things. Is that is that something to get some of the high schools and middle school kids involved, and we're still working on the details for the workshop, which will likely happen at the library as well. And then the wall. We've kind of narrowed it down to a couple of different walls.

[68:05] It'll likely be like an Rsvp. Kind of first.st Come first.st Serve like sign up to to be. The lectures are kind of open to the public. I don't think you need to. Rsvp. But for the workshops there'll be an Rsvp. So yeah, it's it's always just friendly. So we will when we have those. That's the that's the last one in September. But we'll send out in our Newsletter invite, you know, announcing everything. So just be sure to watch that and or visit our website. How many people can these events accommodate the canyon auditorium, I think, can hold 100 up to 150 people. The Sunrise amphitheater can hold up to 100. So those I mean. So again. I think those will just be kind of open to the public and just show up, whereas the workshop, I think it's maybe limited to like 20.

[69:03] So there's no motion. We have a motion. Okay, approved. Thank you all. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you, Brendan. Thank you. All right. Matters from Zazz. I'm telling us. Because I'm is this okay? Worse off than others? Starting with the artist census, update and pull this all up. And then I close my computer to walk over to alright. Hi. we conducted an artist census, and so I'm going to tell you about what we found. First.st You might oh, ask. Sorry I'm clicking through thinking that I'm

[70:08] is. What is the artist? Census? Well, it's a study that we conduct through the office of Arts and culture the original. There was an originally an artist census conducted in 2,017 and the kind of research and stuff around that lasted a couple of years. And we revisited it again in 2024, and have plans to revisit it every 5 or so years to compare data across the different different times that we conducted. the the census combines data collected from the questionnaire that we made available to the public. We also held focus groups and then did some research it into comparative data from different communities.

[71:01] from different studies that have been done through all kinds of stuff, lots of research. And why do we call it a census? Well, it started out as a There was an effort to follow the us census questions, for a portion of it. So we're asking the same kinds of questions specifically of creatives in our community that they asked in the census, and then we add some that are additional questions that we have a desire to know more about. So next who participated these people? Like I mentioned, we have 326 creatives who either live and work and or work in the boulder area completed the questionnaire that we made public from the spring through the end of 2024, and we had about 38 artists participate in our 4 focus groups. We had specific focus groups that we wanted to reach specific audiences. So we had like a focus group for people who are newer to boulder. And then, after we had 3 focus groups, we realized that there were a lot of visual artists. So then we

[72:13] held held a special focus group for performing artists, so we could make sure that we gather their feedback. So this is some of the The questionnaire respondents. females are more likely to complete a questionnaire. So so I just wanna like, when we look at this data, it's the people who completed the questionnaire which gives us a glimpse of what the artist community may be, but also it is like, keep in mind. It is the people who completed the questionnaire. It's not the artists. all of the artists in boulder but comparing this to the info the people who participated in 2020 17 all of the age, segments increased except for 55 to 64, which decreased from 32% of respondents in 2017 to only 17% in 2024. So we got a lot more younger people. And we also got a bunch more, 65, and over

[73:23] so that could mean that we reach more people in different. You know, age groups. It could also mean that those people that were 50, 5 to 64 aged up and or the I mean, the statistics show that the population of older is aging in general. So there's also that we also had more diversity in gender. Surprisingly we had 69% female the last time this was conducted in 2017 and a lot more. People, self identified as transgender and nonconforming or non-binary this time around which could mean

[74:03] that there are more people identifying as as in those categories, or that we just happen to reach people in those categories. This shows a high education level. There's a lot of people in town, 70, some odd percent who have bachelor bachelor's degree and above who who responded, and interestingly. higher education did not have any correlation to higher income. In fact. those with master's degrees in this group reported less earned income from their art on average than those with just a high school diploma. Interesting? Huh? Plus loans plus loans. Yeah. Then there's that so some more who participated on the next slide shows what was their discipline.

[75:03] big big chunk of it was visual arts. And a lot of that we had. We had categories, specific categories. And then there was also an option for people to fill out other one of those categories, I believe was functional art, that a lot of people self describe themselves as. And I had somebody say, Well, what is that? And it's like people who make art that we use like pottery or woodworking. Some of those people would self identify themselves as a functional artist. Some of them would say, I'm a woodworker, or some of them would say, I'm a ceramic slash sculptor. So what I did for the sake of kind of looking them in tranches of like areas of artists based on what they need. combines them. For the final report into like visual artists, would include functional art, photography, jewelry, design, ceramics and sculpture.

[76:07] simply because those people need specific things that are different than other categories, like music dance theater, which I clumped together in performing arts. And then some other just kind of like chunks that have very small representation in this group, but have different needs. Oh, did I have education on there twice I did look at that and there's a lot of people in this in these that completed this, that have been making art professionally for over 10 years and over half So a lot of experience kind of evenly dispersed when they describe their career phase interestingly. Alright. Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm just wondering if people who've been practicing for 10 years are more are more willing to self identify as professional artists.

[77:11] Yes. Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, I make jewelry, but I'm not. Yes, and that's a whole other thing like trying to get people to complete like I was out spreading the word about filling out the questionnaire. And I'm like, Are you an artist? and fill this out, and somebody's like, well, if you, if you change your definition of an artist. I'm like, you don't know my definition. I'm like, maybe you need to change it. But and and I also had some people say, I'm not an artist. I'm a dancer. I'm like. fill this out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, every time we do this, like I said, I looked at the questions we did in 2,017, and I added some few and tweaked a couple, and then, after this, I'm like, Oh, that one! I should have tweaked in a different way, and maybe we should add, you know, other categories. So I have some plans for for discipline identification. Next time that will be more like the big tranches.

[78:13] And then out of those a new menu pops up, and you get to choose all the other little things within that that kind of fit. So yeah, fabrication feels like another way to classify the sculptural. Yeah, functional and differentiate from the visual which I think tattoo could fit into a role like illustration. Yeah, painting. Yeah, there is. Yeah. And there's like a lot of people who would say, I'm not a visual artist. I'm more of a studio artist, and I'm like, well, you make visual art in a studio, and so it's just. It's potato. I have my beliefs some, but don't matter. Change them. Yeah. Could change my definition. So 3 key key themes kind of arose out of the census. We're calling it the 2025 census, because I'm reporting it in 25. We gathered a lot of information in 2024 compiled it in 2025,

[79:11] so maybe 2024, 2025 census. I don't know. We keep going back and forth because the one before was like 2017 to 2019 But whatever that doesn't really matter. The key themes were very similar to themes from the 2,01720 19 census, including financial strain of being a professional professional artist, the high cost of living and space in boulder and the view of Boulder as an art city. So I'm gonna go into depth on each one of these. Can you say more about the view of Boulder as an art city? I'm gonna dive deeper into each one. But yeah, like. well, yeah, boulder being seen as the art city, that it is kind of so financial realities. This is an interesting chart that compares the 2 sensei, if you will. Sorry. It was interesting looking at just like, because we have the different categories like, what is your

[80:13] what is your household income, and it was like, you know, 25 k. And below 25 to 50. And all this stuff, and then comparing that to 2017, and I'm like, Oh, this looks pretty good. And then I started adjusting for inflation. so more people reported a household income. That qualifies as under the minimum living wage in 2024 than in 2017. About the same amount, said they need other art other income source. Besides art, which could mean they had to have a second job, which meant actually meant that for most of them, but a lot of them also had a partner who also works, not necessarily making big bucks, but multiple incomes.

[81:03] Yeah, the Median household income of respondents. Those are actual. Those are not not factored for inflation. Those were the numbers. And so down underneath I put a spotlight on our bright spot. So even though we had more people making under minimum living wage. We also had more people making more money as a household. So that may also reflect the just ongoing thing that's happening in this country of wider gaps. The yeah. Standard deviation of 63 over 63 k. So there's just a really large gap between the highest and lowest incomes in this group.

[82:00] with incomes like really dispersed around the middle Median household income. Oh, yeah. Sorry. The Median household income Median household income was the one that had the $10,000 difference adjusted for inflation over 2017. Does that make sense? I'm sorry. I feel like I messed that up. Okay, homeownership went down and this doesn't show it. But it went down especially for younger respondents compared to 2017 financial, more financial realities. These were some new questions that we added that we didn't have on the 2017 version, have financial challenges caused you to go without following basic needs over the last year. And so that shows 26% of the respondents said, yes, and those were the different categories that they cited medical care being the biggest portion of that

[83:04] and debt related financial circumstances. I seriously, I was very surprised at the purple section. I have no debt. It's people answering this themselves. So some people don't consider like a mortgage yet. I don't know so. But yeah, I included that just in case there was some weird outliers, and there were 29% of those people who said I had no debt, but also a whole lot of people in the top 3 categories that are that are having trouble paying debt, or it's it's difficult for them to to pay back. So there's that. And if you have questions along the way, please feel free. These are just some, some feedback from the focus groups that we held. most of them, you know, for most of them the idea of achieving a sustainable living as an artist seems almost unattainable and just watching something. Recently, I think it was like 10% of people who graduate with an arts degree

[84:09] will make will be able to make a living, making art. And those are people with specific arts degrees. So it's not just a boulder. I don't know if that's scientific. I just heard it somewhere. yeah. And for most being a thriving artist would mean that they wouldn't have to juggle multiple jobs. There were a lot of people who are like, Yeah, if I could just make art. I would be so amazing. Or, you know, like, I could be so like productive and and all that stuff. So yeah, having to have a part time job limits what you can accomplish. And I just really like the idea of funding that supports their ongoing work. Live workspaces, professional growth. Not just one off projects next up the struggle for space.

[85:01] yeah. Powerpoint wants me to make Workspace. One word. Yeah. A lot of people don't pay studio rent. A lot of people that we that filled out the questionnaire don't pay studio rent because they either have a studio or workspace that they use in their home, or they don't have a regular space to practice, and a small portion of them live in their studio slash workspace. next up, this is feedback from the focus group. It's like the ongoing, overwhelming challenge for artists. It's kind of like a ongoing thing for all, everybody in Boulder. The cost of space here is not inexpensive. And it was especially discouraging many of them in the focus groups mentioned. You know all of all of this vacant space. And why can't it be used for something? Instead of just sitting vacant affordable space is nonexistent. These are quotes, and we need, we need designated live workspaces for artists is one thing, somebody said

[86:12] And there was a common theme that people are moving out of the city to find affordable housing. We'd still there was slightly more people in this group than the 2017 group who don't live in the city of Boulder. But there. a lot of them in the focus groups mentioned that they they no longer see Boulder as their place. They're more like Denver Metro, or Front Range, because they can't live and or make a full living doing their art in this city. The final point that was brought up is public perception and community support. So this is the search for a connected art space. they would artists. This is brought up several times in the focus groups. And then we didn't really have a question that

[87:06] led to this in the questionnaire But we did see in the in the blueprint study that we're we're conducting that that like a a set, the idea of an arts hub or a centralized resource, whether it's a website or space, or whatever for events, opportunities, peer networking and support. That was something that came up. a lot in here. Awareness of office opportunities where number one is the number one top barrier to participate in the arts and cultural opportunities. And this was completed by just people. Anybody who consumes and or makes art as opposed to these are people who make art. So they agree on that, that they would like to see more of that and they have this idea of an arts, ambassadors, and more cross pollination network of people who can connect neighborhoods and cross disciplinary collaboration.

[88:10] cross disciplinaries disciplines. Sorry. Alright, I think I'm sorry I'm looking at my notes to make sure I hit everything. yeah, many of the artists, and especially those newer to the community are. Don't said that they didn't feel well informed, so they didn't know where to go for information about the arts. And so. But another bright spot, existing spaces like noble Arts district. The new local Spark and Roots music project were specifically mentioned as was the dairy they were highlighted as promising examples of current hubs of art. And they were like, Yeah, we should do more like it would be great if that could. Those places could be more become like fully sustainable, or become known beyond the local arts community. And then that was echoed in these quotes.

[89:07] just that, you know, there are really interesting pockets that only artists know about. And how cool would it be if we could celebrate town spaces that we can activate? And then for for this concept, the public perception and community support. I did a lot of research into what other places are doing. Interestingly, when you Google, like communities that do a good job supporting the arts with grants and stuff like one of the top hits is boulder like, maybe that's because I'm here and I don't know. Does Google know me? They look. They see me. I don't know. But yeah, there's that but some of these were brought up by people in focus groups. And a lot of times there were somebody, you know, there were some people who were like, you know, they're doing this thing in San Francisco, and it's so great, and every artist gets to live off of the the government supports all of their artists, and they're like, well, let me look into that. And it's like 150 out of, you know, 3,500 applicants got a living wage from the city. So there's a lot of things that people say are really great that other places are doing, and they might not have all of the information. And so I wanted to gather more information. Around those things.

[90:26] Austin Asheville and Santa Fe kind of popped out as really ex exciting places that have ex exciting arts kind of perception, I guess. And so, like Austin has they. They really support their they have several cultural districts. They support those through not necessarily funding, although they do give them some funding, but they also they do like they support them through community engagement, organizational development, strategic planning connecting to additional city resources. And they also have grants for individual artists which was brought up a couple of times

[91:07] in the focus groups Asheville River Arts district. That's what this photo is, and it's really awesome. It, I mean sounds really awesome. I want to go visit. I haven't been there. They offer affordable studio space and resources for artists. The city helped in redeveloping this area, which was a blight and nobody wanted to be there, and it was abandoned which we don't really have a whole lot of those spaces in boulder but you know city did like infrastructure, zoning adjustments. transportation improvements. And they also have a really cool craft futures cohort, which is a a thing that's a it's a cohort. That's a 6 month experience to support building their somebody's artistic practice. They participate in a group exhibition. They have like education around being an artist, and they all get a $10,000 grant each to continue their work, which I thought was really cool. Final. Take notes

[92:06] are that we're awesome, but it's hard and there is affordability, which is like the common common thing that comes up every time you talk to anybody in boulder about anything and especially artists, just because it's difficult to make a living. As an artist. Artists are interested in connection, streamlined support and civic recognition. They did express feeling, isolated and siloed by discipline. They really like the idea of shared spaces, peer to peer support, and some kind of central hub for networking and visibility. and a quote, the city needs to incentivize businesses to collaborate people.

[93:00] And so the well, I'll get to it in the next slide. So so the cities, like Austin, Asheville, and Santa Fe, they built these thriving ecosystems by actively involving not only the government, but also like private businesses, tourism and economic development agencies and local philanthropy. So that's kind of what I wanted to say about the the city thing like the city should. And I'm like, Yeah. city should do what the city can do. And there's a lot of other or institutions that can also help. So next steps. R, okay, what does this all mean? Basically, the reason that we did this study is recognition or confirmation of the struggles that artists experienced compared to the data that we collected before to see how we're doing. And there were some positives, and then some places where we could do better.

[94:06] hoping that there will, you know this will provide insights to inform the development. Well, yes, this does provide insights to inform the development of the boulder. Arts blueprint. But and we're hoping that it helps to spark engagement across. Like I said, government us different departments in the government business organizations, philanthropists, etc. Just letting people know like how our creative industry is living in our community. and I also listed a couple of things that we're working on that we're ramping up that are constantly like we're looking at to reevaluate and make sure that we're meeting the needs of the public which we're also talking about in the blueprint we have our grants program. Program. It's amazing. It's Google top search response. we started holding artist meetups again. We used to do those and then Covid. And then we didn't for a while. So now we have these regular opportunities for artists to gather and create community which I brought up in all of our focus groups, and a lot of them are like, oh, yes, that's what I would love to do that. Let's like, tell me when

[95:20] we have our cultural organization summits where it's like an opportunity for the organizations that do art and culture in our community to gather and talk to each other. Boulder arts week is something that I think could be expanded to meet some of these needs, for, like ramping us up as an arts town. And then I just threw in there right at the end. I'm like Community Assembly. We're doing that like some of the one of the suggestions was like, we need to include art in city government. And I'm like funny. You should say that I have this guy. You should talk to Brendan. He's doing the same with public art, anyway. So yeah, some things that we're starting to do some things that we're continuing to do, and and ramping up, and some things that may come out of this that you know end up on the blueprint that are even better to meet the community's needs

[96:08] any questions. I talked a lot. Yes, yes, where and to whom is this going to be published like this portion that I I understand it's going to feed into the boulder the arts blueprint, but is so I don't know what we're gonna do with this slideshow. We can certainly put this up there, but I have a whole. Well, it includes a lot of appendices, but a 53 page report. That goes way more into detail that I think we shared with them in the packet, did we? No, okay, but that will go up on our website. like you saw at the beginning of the meeting there was a dance that we commissioned for this, so we commissioned a couple of different artists to create art that spoke to their experience as a creative in our community. So we have a couple of pieces of art that will

[97:04] go into this, and they're not all totally done yet. So the the final report has all of the content. And then we're just gonna make it really pretty and put it on our website. Share it with the rest of the city departments. I, personally will be doing some more engagement work. For office of arts and culture. And this will be something that I have with me in my back pocket to share with people and tell them to go look at it. I would love to share it with like we're going to share with all of our partners like downtown boulder partnership and share with your people, and I would love for city council to see like even just the Powerpoint. Yeah, takeaways, you know. Yeah, I'll send it to them. Say the same thing to them every year, you know. Why not say it again after it's published? Yeah. Yeah. But in summary, so that they can. Totally.

[98:01] I have a few questions. Yeah, so does the term census turn some people off from actually even filling it out? Possibly especially in especially with folks that don't want to whatever it admits that they're maybe an immigrant or a migrant or yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. So you're already maybe narrowing your pool. perhaps. Yeah. And then, I guess. I I hear what you said at the beginning, too, and I just wonder about I think I ran this by Matt once about using creative instead of artists. But yes, okay, yeah. So just broaden that. I started doing that after I got some feedback. I'm an artist. I'm a dancer? Or, yeah, yeah. So I started, and some of our flyers said creatives instead of artists. And one of the 1st questions was, you was it? Do you consider yourself an artist, might have been artists, and I think even more broad would be individual, creative or running a creative business, because you may be missing all the creative businesses, you know, someone might be like, oh, well, I have a

[99:16] whatever. What's that graphic design? Yeah, it might be a graphic designer. But I'm not an artist, but they are. You know, they are artistic, and they're running a creative business. So I don't know. Yeah, just kind of reframing it next time. Totally. Yeah. because I think that it just what you showed in the age and the demographics looks like, maybe you're hitting a certain target, but not everybody. This the outcome, doesn't surprise me about. You know how spaces are expensive and hard to make a living. And yeah, yeah, I had some comments and some questions. Yeah, one is. it's been my personal experience that people ask for meetups and meetups and networking, and then don't show up. So you know, there has to be. I think people are like, I want to meet people.

[100:08] and then they don't show up. There are some organizations in Boulder that do a really good job of doing these meetups. Is that coffee in the morning, or something like that? And it seems like the theme to make the sort of the necessary step to make something like this work, apart from a venue, is to have a speaker or somebody who is going to be that pro and sort of 10 people standing in the room trying to make small right. And with our artist meetups we always have a topic that is of interest to artists. We have told people like, what do you want to learn about? What do you want to hear about? And and I've described it to those speakers like this is the excuse to get people to come and chat and

[101:00] and we definitely like what you're saying is is very important, but it also is very important for for the people that show up to just kind of like mingle and chat with each other and stuff. So this could be like the the reason to start a conversation. But yeah, we we look for topics and locations. We were having them at a regular location, which was an awesome location. And Then we started thinking, well, let's go to where the artists are. So we're kind of bouncing around now like doing some in North Boulder. We did one at the new local that was really positive. We got a lot of response and attendance at that one. But yes, it just having like a hey? Let's gather and be artists. Yeah. just tagging onto that. I don't know if it's on your radar at all. But the big dream just had a networking for the yes. And it was amazing. I emailed that woman. And I'm like, let's talk. So, yeah, she's on my radar. We're yeah. I that sounded amazing. And I was bummed that I missed it. My daughter was performing something, whatever kids she was amazing.

[102:12] And the other thing is. you know, one of my favorite things that they've started at dairy is a movie club which has been a really fun way to get people to show up, and they do pizza, which is included in your ticket, and I know that the dairy has, like super discounted nonprofit rates. So if there's an organization that wants to host a movie night for artists where they watch a punk movie about punk art, or like, I don't know like something else. I'm sure that the dairy will be willing to find a suitable rate that works for everybody and have pizza, and like no weekend. this is a good way to engage. You know, philanthrops and donors within the community to be like, who do you want to sponsor this thing? So there's a purpose for them to show up. And right, and there's food. And it becomes an evening as opposed to like, oh.

[103:05] an hour without anything to do. Yeah, we always see them. Yeah. it's just no yeah. That sounds like fun. I want to go hang out the dairy center. And I'm all about like finding really good ideas and repurposing them for our purposes. Yes, just a comment. And I don't know the answer to this. But is there any space to include the administrators in here, because administrators aren't having an easy time making a living, either, and they have thoughts on venues. I just think there might. There's there's a good perspective with people. There obviously are lovers. Yeah. no, no gives darts. Administration for the cash. No, exactly. We do on the specific topic of venues and spaces for artists and organizations we have. We're doing some. I'm doing a research project into that as well. And I have a questionnaire that's currently open that I think 8 people have completed. That's like venue utilizers. And I haven't done the best job of pushing it.

[104:16] Because they're all saying all the things that we already know. But yeah. So that's a place definitely where where we want the feedback. And whenever I talk to somebody, especially if they're talking to me about space and like, fill this out so that I can show it to the people and say, See. But yeah. And then my own. One other thought is that it just might be interesting to drill down like which of those problems are problems of artists, and which of those problems are problems of building artists. Yeah, because, like, it's hard to make a living in a lot of places. It's especially hard to make a living here because they're so expensive. Right? And in the report in the 53 page report, I do talk about there's been similar

[105:00] vaguely similar studies in other places like Los Angeles didn't artist census. It was all visual artists. and you know it was a lot of the same stuff like it's hard to be to make a living as an artist. And yeah, all the same thing. Yeah. yeah. Yeah. And that's mentioned in the study like, this is, this is, yes, a part of being an artist. But we're also very special, because we live in Boulder. Yeah, just like, I'm sorry. Just the part about people like no longer identifying as boulder artists like. It's not super cheap to live in Denver. No, like, you know. it's not like you get 5 min outside of the city of Boulder. And suddenly it's like $200 a month rent exactly. There's a new venue that opened up on Eastborough journey, which is a fun place should be me

[106:01] countries where it is together. And yes, so things, I'm sure. The founder of that nonprofit is very eager to get involved with the community. Yeah, yeah. it popped in there. The other that's an example. just something to keep in mind. And I know I don't have. Yeah, they have some fun little space. They have little nooks in the listening room. Maybe I saw some fun stuff in there. Yeah. Oh, we'll have to do it. Yeah. Jill, did you have something? I was just curious what Austin Budget was for grants and interesting that they have a hotel occupancy tax which I would not be surprised is related to a festival that happens there. That brings in a whole bunch of people right? 7 million a year from this hotel occupancy tax. Yeah, I. And so a Austin is a much larger city than us.

[107:12] BI did see that and but we have our own special tax, too. That. Yeah, yeah, it goes to the conventional visitors bureau. And they use that. They they make grants for cultural events. Yeah. So they do. That does go back to the community. Not all of it. I mean, it goes back to the community in that they are there to promote all that stuff in Boulder in general. But yeah, they do make. Well, that's a whole other thing. Yeah. Yeah. So they're like, you know, as far as, like Austin, is so great they have all this. They have really cool things happening there. I'm like, guess what

[108:05] us, too. I mean, we've always had really cool things. Now, it's like, yeah, yes. Good point. Any other questions, comments. I think that was one of the things in the blueprint, too. That showed how bored for being so small. It's actually we hit way above our yeah, yeah, actually doing really? Well, yeah. you know what I'm hoping are this under the bronze, and and I will. I mean I like to joke about it that we think we're very special in Boulder. And then I talked to some people who are in other communities. And they're like, Wow, you guys. that is special. We're special in a lot of different special ways. Thank you, Cindy. I'm noticing we have about 12 min left in our meeting. So and I did you incorporate in the boulder? Oh, yeah, it's on there.

[109:02] I just have a quick update on Boulder Arts week. That ended on April 12.th We this week I got some participant feedback, so I sent a survey out or questionnaire out to organizations and artists who held events during the week and on our calendar there were over 200 occurrences of events. So that means that, like some events, were like a thing that happened every day. So those were the individual occurrences. And we had all kinds of stuff, visual and studio arts, music, dance, film, theater, poetry, inclusive arts, workshops the culinary arts. We added that this year as an option so that will be exciting to grow. And I would love to see some collaboration among different artists. And food people, too. Most people who responded said they had between 10 and 150 attendees. So all over the place we had some like really intimate gatherings and other big

[110:03] stuff that was crazy 1st Friday was crazy, even though it was like that crazy snowstorm that I was like. Oh, weather but it was wild. On 1st Friday I was out. Lauren was out, and it was like there was a lot of cars parked in places, but I didn't see people, and then you open the door, and you're like there's all the people. most respondents agreed, or strongly agreed, that their events brought in new participants because of Boulder Arts week. So that was really exciting. I don't know what that little thing is doing. At the end of the sentence. It was a copy and paste mistake And most of them also agreed that Boulder Arts Week boosted visibility for both their individual events and boulder arts. Scene overall. There were some artists, mostly those who were newer, who were like you should have a like slots, because there was too much stuff going on on 1st Friday, which 1st Friday had a ton of stuff, and it you couldn't go to all of it.

[111:08] but that's just what makes it so exciting. So And also they they wanted more individual event promotion. And there are some ways that we can definitely do that. Here's just some fun photos of things that happened during Boulder Arts Week. one of the exciting things we did this year is we created Lauren's Brainchild, the Boulder Arts Week awards. So the press release is going out on Friday, so you'll know then. No, I'm kidding, Lauren said. I could tell you. Don't tell anybody. She promised me that nobody was going to watch this before Friday. We had. So we have 5 awards that are that we awarded. One of them was a people's choice award, and so voting was open during Boulder Arts week, for you know it was like, Tell us your favorite event of the week. And so the winner of that was Blue John Cabaret.

[112:06] which is so much fun. We had a business champion award that 2 businesses were co-nominated, that we're holding a contest a sandwich contest, and they're funds raised through sales of the sandwiches. Went to 5th and museum of Boulder, and in addition, they're just supporters of Boulder Arts week like since the beginning, Lindsay's Deli and Organic Sandwich Company. So they get to Co. Win that award. Oh, I gotta get another thing made because we're having a local. We had a local artist glass artist make really cool glass vessels for their prize, their trophy. What are the other words, innovation on a but I don't know how to pronounce her last name. She does this. She she's working on this thing at groundworks.

[113:02] Arts lab. Where? She? Oh, thank you. She is making art visual art accessible to the visually, and art, but art making so doing, some really cool stuff with feeling things and others using your other senses. Yeah, so we have. Each one will be original. But same kind of idea, same color scheme. Made by local artist, Aaron Diekman, Dyckman, and artivist award. It's going to Modis Theater, and then a student award an award to get people engaged from the local colleges. And there's this filmmaker who's getting his Phd. It's new who really impressed everybody, and I can't remember his name. That was it? So we're gonna I'm gonna tell them that tomorrow. And then the press release goes out on Friday, so don't tell anybody

[114:05] you need it and thank you to. Oh, yes, you late. And Caroline awesome. Thank you for serving on there panel to help choose those awardees. Thank you. thank you so much. And we in the 6 min that we have left. Did you want to talk about sundance? Yeah, thank you. Well, I mean, I do very fast, because we're still kind of holding. To be totally frank. So Asher, I'll mention it was a massive collaboration. I mean, there are like tens and tens of people involved in getting it to come over the bid. I mean, like Statewide Countywide. It was incredible, really, I think a remarkable action by a big group of people.

[115:00] We are waiting for the contract to be totally honest to see how things are gonna play out in the city. I will say that there I was looking at my notes, and from our like just some other information about it. Last year they had over 72,000 attendees, and it created 1,700 jobs, 13.8 million in revenue. And looking at our recent research with the arts and economic prosperity study it like our arts community, the ones that we studied with the non, the nonprofit research that we did. It was about 2,100 jobs. So we're looking at a an organization that is like 80%, 90% the size of our arts community for some scale like that really impacts how I'm considering it right, it's going to have a big impact on like how our organizations and our venues are functioning here. I think. would you like to add anything exciting. Yeah.

[116:07] I I think some interesting things about the discussions that are happening now that are sort of preliminary. But as things gel is like over the next 18 months before the 1st festival in Boulder they're looking at venues and trying to sort out exactly how it's going to be structured. They are talking about as alluded to that they'd like to install Dolby systems in every single venue. So there! There's like investment that they want. They also are looking for office space. The city is trying to actively search for ways that we can provide them with office space, not sure how it's gonna play out. You think so. But yeah, and and the, you know, the the workforce impacts the economic impacts all great. But they also are talking very seriously about deep collaboration.

[117:00] They're working with State and city and the city of Denver on what this means for 5th and for the Denver Film Festival. Wanting to partner with small nonprofits and artists and integrate themselves into this community authentically. Yeah, exactly so. I think there's still a lot to decide. They're gonna have a big impact on venues. It's going to be 7,000 people. That's a transportation issue. That's a hotel issue. It's going to be hotels. Build up from here to Denver. So that's something that we're trying to help sort out. So there's going to be a lot of work to do. But Lauren will figure it out. Yeah, I think, Charlene, let the whole staff go. Did you have anything to add, actually, from your well, 1st of all, I said that Shirley invisible, did I didn't. I didn't mean to make it sound like they did it all by themselves. That just means they were spearheading the process. And they did. So. You didn't make it sound like that. Yeah. And Jeffrey was like, no, but they did a lot. Yes, and she

[118:10] I guess there's after they spoke to her. They said, Well, we need to go now, because we have to go to. Governor. Yeah, just like, I guess the city is thinking about other alternative options for accommodation. That would be just very short term. yeah, I mean, I there's just a lot of oh, and they also are already like starting. Some of their staff are asking about like schools and neighborhoods. And so. You know, I said, I'm happy to be a resource for anyone who thinks of elementary school, you know. So it's just even like connecting people just on those very basic things, because if their staff is happy.

[119:03] then you know, they want people to want to come awesome. Thank you. Thank you. All right any questions about the manager. All right, we're a jerk. Thanks for letting me. Yeah.