HomeMy WebLinkAboutOCAC Minutes 04-08-2024 Orange County Arts Commission
April 8, 2024, Minutes
Attendees: John Claude Bemis, Linda Williamson, Sec, Crystal Wu, Chair, Marc Miller, Katie Murray, Gideon Young,
Wendy Smith, Josh Rosenstein, Denise Duffy, Vice chair, Heather Washburn
Absent: Lindsay Metivier, Sadie Allen, Saba Jordan
Meeting Location:The Eno Arts Mill
1. Call to Order at 6:32pm by Crystal, Chair.
2. Josh moved with to approve the March 2024 Board Minutes with corrections reviewed at the April meeting and Crystal
seconded. All approved.
3. Board updates
a. Welcome Heather Washburn! Heather was approved at the last BOCC. Heather is our new liaison with Orange
County Artist Guild. She invited us all to the Calico Market that will be going on 4/27—4/28, 10-5pm 28 artists
and 4 musical acts.
b. Board Updates:
i. Discussed Alexa Velez's application for our board. John made a motion to approve Alexa to go before
the BOCC for approval. Denise seconded. All approved.
ii. Katie reported that she has not heard back from Savada Gilmore yet. Hopefully we will, but board
agreed with Katie to move forward on looking for other candidates with arts education background. She
has a lead on an Orange County arts teacher. Denise recommended another teacher at McDougal.
c. Executive Roles
i. Crystal Wu, Chair
ii. Linda Williamson, Secretary
iii. Vice-Chair—Denise has agreed to serve as vice-chair. Gideon nominated Denise and Josh seconded.All
approved.
4. Director's Report
a. FY25 Budget Update—budget time with the County. Katie's meeting with the County Manager for her
department was on April 3rd and went very well. It will still be a couple of weeks more before Katie learns if her
requests are included in the recommended county budget.
b. Eno Mill
i. Current show in the gallery is awesome—132 pieces of art. Please check it out.
ii. Studio Updates-two studios open, but also have 2 applicants so should be good.
iii. There will be a kickoff Juneteenth event at the Eno Mill on 6/14/2024 from 4-8pm.The interim director
of the Office of Equity and Inclusion and Katie met to firm up how we can host and provide support to
that team for the event. Excited to a part of this event.
iv. Studio Be—got a grant, but slow to get work started. Katie and team have funding to pay for two
facilitators for two different marginalized youth programs.We have one person lined up, but still looking
for another person.The person's specialty would help determine the focus the work. Katie asked the
board if we have any leads on who a second facilitator could be.Two ideas were presented during the
discussion.
c. Arts Day 2024—Katie asked all board members to attend the event, if possible,on May 21 and May 22. The first
day is an informative conference on various arts topics and the second day is meeting with legislators.
d. Rebranding Idea—Katie presented an approach that had one brand for use by both the Arts Commission and the
Arts Alliance.The board like the idea of branding our work behind the existing name Arts Orange and sharing
that brand between the Commission and Alliance.
i. Wendy made a the following motion after our discussion: "Katie should focus the rebranding efforts on
a forward facing unified brand that represents both entities (Arts Commission and Arts Alliance) under
the tag of Arts Orange." Gideon seconded.
e. Summer Camps—enrollment went well. However, have a lot of requests for scholarship. Katie asked the board
if we know of any way to find funding for kid summer camp scholarships.The board offered suggestions for
ways to raise scholarship funds. If anyone has other ideas, please let Katie know.
5. Grant Updates
i. Katie reviewed the most updated timeline for 2024-2025 OCAC Grants:
1. Artist Survey: Close April 30
2. 2024 APG Guideline discussion at May 13th Board Meeting
3. Monday June 3, 2024 Application Period opens
4. Friday June 24, 2024 Applications due by 11:59PM
5. Weeks of July 15th and 22nd—Grant Panels
6. August 2024 Board Meeting Grant awards finalized and applicants notified.
7. Fall 2024: Check presentation at BOCC meeting.
8. All projects must take place between July 12024 and June 30 2025.
ii. Discussed Arts Educator Grants, which will be 4 grants for$500 each. In the past, it has been hard to
choose between the applicants. Board discussed ways to improve the questions on the applications to
make decision making clearer for the review panel.
6. Liaison Reports
a. UNC Student Liaison Update—no update
b. Chapel Hill Cultural Arts Commission—Josh reported the biggest news is a new library director has been hired,
who comes from suburban Atlanta and has lots of experience, named Atlas Logan. A new sculpture "Rubish the
Racoon" has been installed at 140 West Franklin.A lot of events are going on including pride wrap on buses and
bus stop art. Fireworks and outdoor movies are planned for the summer.
c. UNC—Crystal reported on several events currently on UNC campus including PlayMakers final show is opening,
Arts Every Where will be this Friday in front on South Building, and exciting collaboration called "The Arts belong
to Artist" between Law&Arts.
d. Hillsborough Arts Councils—John said they have a several folks rotating off the board in the Fall so if we know
any good candidates that please let him know.
e. The ArtsCenter—Gala was very successful. Performances at the ArtsCenter are ramping up programming.They
have two improv events, and two concerts are coming up. Art School classes going well. Refuge Community
Partners (RCP) and the Arts Center have a partnership to present programming.The current one is a Burmese
Sewing Circle. It has been very well received.
f. Carrboro Arts—town is looking at consolidating some committees.
g. Visitor's Bureau—Estes and MLK—Battle Park—whole community will be built around a park. Now rebranded as
Auroa
h. Orange County Artists Guild— Heather said OCAG is having a Carrboro Day show on May 7th and they are still
working on artists.Turnover is happening on board and they will need a treasurer.Their committees are getting
new participants from the new members.
7. Crystal ended the meeting at 7:57pm