By Jeannette Richardson Parks

The Mountain Communities are rich in the creative arts. Visual, performing and literary artists provide warmth and thoughtfulness to our homes and enrich our hearts. Yet seldom are we asked to contribute our thoughts, hopes and dreams about the arts to the California Arts Council (CAC).

Now, through a strategic planning survey, we have the opportunity to speak up about how the CAC can best serve California, all of California—including our hometown—through the arts.

Please take the time this week to respond to this survey at www.cac.ca.gov. It took me about 30 minutes to complete.

Your participation can give us a voice at the table when administrators in Sacramento sit down to allocate resources for the arts. The surveys will be used to evaluate the success, or lack of success, of current grant offerings and programs. This will assist the CAC in its planning for the next 3-5 years.

We have the opportunity to identify local and statewide challenges to the arts community, to assess the value of the arts experience, to express concern about the lack of arts in our schools or the losses in the creative economy—but we must respond by August 9, 2013—the end of next week.

It would be good if we could all participate in this survey as soon as possible. The results of the survey can have a major impact on mountain arts offerings. Many of our local art groups, performers and artists have been funded indirectly by the California Arts Council by way of the Arts Council of Kern. Funds from the state flow through to our local Mountain Communities. I, for one, want more arts and more funding for mountain arts and arts education. What about you?

The survey is at www.cac.ca.gov

Jeanette Richardson Parks is the former director of the Arts Council of Kern. She lives in the Pine Mountain community and works as a consultant for arts, business and non-profit entities.

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This is part of the August 2, 2013 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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