North County Arts Network Visual Art Programming Meeting

By Patricia Frischer
North County Arts Network Visual Art Programming Meeting
Tue. Dec 1, 10 to noon  
SDVAN ( 2487 Montgomery Avenue, Cardiff by the Sea, 92007) 
More info: Patricia Frischer760.943.0148

This was the first time that the large North County Arts Network organization, which has in the past year held 4 huge gatherings of 80 to 120 art professionals, convened individual committee meeting in six different subjects. I was happy to host the Visual Arts Programming Meeting. Other meetings held were Arts Education , Civic Arts/Public Art , Arts Funding/Economic Development, Performing Arts Programming  and Arts Marketing/Audience Development

Daniel Foster gave a brief overview of NCAN including how we had met for a year which was a vital community building aspect of the project. We are now in the stage of moving forward with committees in six areas and working toward establishing a more formal steering committee/advisory which will work toward non-profit status with a board. Funding needs to be solidified for a full time admin role. 

We choose to hold a guided fantasy focusing on prioritized projects (collaboration, pr/website, registry, audience building, artist clusters.) The projects need to include limitation on volunteer hours, advocacy message, leveraged possibilities, education outreach, mentoring, funding, audience development and participation, pr attractiveness. These ideas will be presented to the other NCAN committees and hopefully several projects will be chosen as cross committee endeavors. There might also well be individual committee projects that will call on a whole range of collaborations.  

A guided fantasy uses a right brain stream of thought technique to relax the participants and allow a vision to surface without editing or critical thinking. It is especially effective with the willing brains of visual artists and we got great results when we shared our experiences.   

Guided Fantasy results:

I have divided the conversations after the guided fantasy into two categories: aspects of the projects and project ideas.

Aspects of project

One night event creating a sense of urgency to attend

Spectacular – not average

Food related

Mentoring aspect

Communal spaces that are multi-purpose and fluid

Balance of entertainment and popular versus solitariness of art

Seminar/conference

Project Ideas

Billboard preferably electronic and able to change images often
Open studios

Art Exhibition that rotate in business spaces
Artist of the Month program

Art along the freeway and/or sprinter line

Uber for art – instant on demand

Arts Summit to business community demonstrating the value of the arts

Eat Your Art Out – Matching one organization to one restaurant county wide on one day, this could include open studios, galleries, museums, theater, any cultural gathering

Defining the new Art Patron Seminar/Conference

There was great support and enthusiasm  for the vision and mission of this new organization which hopes to unite the arts of north county thus invigorating the quality of life in our region. We hope the arts are recognized as vital and know this will take an innovative approach and vast collaboration by not just the arts community but with interactions from the business community and government. 

We are all excited to experience the next steps in bringing our passions to life with this new venture. 

For more info and to join in:
Daniel Foster or  Patricia Frischer 760.943.0148