What has been the role of the partners over the past year when many performances and practices were put on pause ? The City of Sacramento ’ s Office of Arts and Culture has been excellent . … The fact that they went to city council , that Mayor ( Darrell ) Steinberg said we have to support the creative economy , that money was earmarked for the arts — I believe we ’ re one of the few cities in the whole nation that had that kind of commitment to supporting the arts . …
Sac Ballet and Capital Stage , who are two professional performing ( arts ) tenants , and the conversations that the three of us have had around parsing the different county regulations and kind of trying to understand the guidance — because it ’ s not entirely clear — ( has been helpful ). … There ’ s no guidance for the arts . … I can look at guidance for gyms , I can look at guidance for bars , and I can kind of make a best guess between those two . … To have these other two experts who … if we are all at CLARA , I can go down the hall and wave and stand at a distance and be like , “ On page five of this county document , this is what I ’ m seeing ; how do you interpret that ?” …
Our board … said , “ We have faith and trust , we trust Megan , we trust Emili ( Danz , education outreach director ), and we will do what we need to support the two of you in keeping this organization safe .” And also that they recognized that both Emili and I are women who have young children in the home . … That support really meant a lot . … It made me feel like we were doing it right for the workplace , that we ’ re … leading an organization right . And I was really proud of that .
Is there anything else that you would like to add ? In terms of the pivots that I ’ m most excited about , CLARA Classroom is the one . CLARA Classroom is the one that , long term , I think it ’ s transformational for the organization . That ’ s the digital platform for arts education , which right now , getting the arts to kids and distance learning is essential . But when we ’ re back to in-person learning , that platform allows school districts like Galt or ( Redding School District ), where there ’ s low access because you can ’ t get artists to those remote locations , it allows arts to be in those districts . … It also means that CLARA , as a nonprofit , has a revenue stream that is sustainable long term .
Edited for length and clarity .
Shoka is associate editor for Comstock ’ s magazine . She is a journalist , copy editor and photojournalist who specializes in covering arts , culture , animal rights and sustainability .
April 2021 | comstocksmag . com 29