Let our voices be heard!
On February 7 in Olympia, Arts and Heritage Day will bring together artists, arts, humanities and heritage leaders, cultural professionals from around Washington state. This event is sponsored by the Washington State Arts Alliance in cooperation with ArtsWA, the Washington Museum Association, Artist Trust, and Arts Ed Washington.
This is a great opportunity for arts advocates from our community to talk with legislators about statewide arts issues in addition to specific local challenges that could be addressed by legislation. Our presence, along with many other arts and heritage advocates from across the state, will help legislators know who we are when we talk about the importance of the arts in Clark County and southwest Washington.
Last year Clark County was represented at the event by a committed handful of arts supporters including Arts of Clark County and Clark County Arts Commission board members. We met with our local legislators to talk about the arts and the need for infrastructure to grow a creative and economically vibrant community. We received positive encouragement and gained fresh insight into how our goals might be achieved.
Arts of Clark County is once again organizing a group of arts supporters who would like to meet with our legislators to inform them of arts programming underway here in Clark County and to show our support for state-funded arts programming budgets.
Please let us know if you would like to join the group. We will be scheduling meetings with legislators and will coordinate RSVPs and plans with the Washington State Arts Alliance so that we can effectively represent our community while respecting legislators’ time and calendars. We can organize carpooling to Olympia. For those organizations not able to attend but who would like to include information about your nonprofit in our packets, please email Karen below.
The Arts and Culture Summit in September began envisioning the kinds of arts spaces needed in our community for both artists and audiences. Visiting our legislators is a good way to start developing the support we will need to make our vision a reality.
If you are interested and/or would like more information, please contact Karen Madsen, Chair, Arts of Clark County.