Since the Arts Council for Long Beach was founded 40 years ago – on September 22, 1976 – the non-profit organization has funded hundreds of artists, organizations, education programs and cultural and music events. It has advocated for increased arts funding, organized creative placemaking efforts throughout the city from live music to mural installations, promoted the city’s arts, culture and music, delivered arts education to thousands of schoolchildren in grades K–12, placed college students in internships, hired artists, connected artists to opportunities within and outside of Long Beach, convened discussions and celebrations about art and much more.

“Since 2000, the Arts Council has granted more than $13 million to Long Beach artists, organizations and community projects and, through arts education programs, reached more than 36,000 Long Beach Unified School District youth,” Marco Schindelmann, president of the Arts Council, said.

Over the last year, the Arts Council partnered with the Long Beach Mayor’s Office for its State of the Arts event for the first time, received a prestigious architecture award for its future Mobile ArtSpace, created a new annual Risk and Innovation Grant, awarded an unprecedented number of Arts Education Grants to public schools, created a new arts internship program for Long Beach art institutions, launched a new website to promote Long Beach arts, promoted new and established Long Beach arts groups from Musica Angelica to the Cambodian Film Festival and grew its partnerships with the City of Long Beach, California State University Long Beach (CSULB), Long Beach City College and the city’s diverse arts and cultural groups.

Serving Long Beach’s flourishing arts and cultural scene is a tall – and fun – order. There are more students studying art and design at CSULB than at any other public university in the nation. The city turns out a large number of famous musicians, has the only museum in the U.S. dedicated to modern and contemporary Latin American art, is home to the largest Cambodian population (and cultural events) outside of Cambodia, boasts a jaw-dropping portfolio of famous architecture – from Greene and Greene to Case Study Homes – and has way too many other firsts and only’s to list. …Lets face it, Long Beach rocks.

In 2016, the Arts Council is expanding its marketing of Long Beach arts and events, including an improved online Artist Registry and Calendar of Events. It is growing its community partnerships, increasing its monthly microgrant funding and launching a citywide public art database. …But only with help from the community!

The Arts Council invites Long Beach art lovers to donate $40 one-time or $40 a month to help it attain its community service goals. In addition to feeling great and receiving a tax write-off, donors receive cool perks: $40 donors receive a 40th anniversary notebook featuring part of Craig Cree Stone’s public artwork Image Emergence: Promenade of Clouds; and donors who contribute $40/month receive the notebook and attendance at two small group walking tours led by a local expert.

To participate, click here!

Information about the Anniversary Image:

The Arts Council chose part of a public artwork created by Long Beach artist Craig Cree Stone entitled Image Emergence: Promenade of Clouds for its 40th Anniversary commemorative image. Completed in November 2011 and located on the south block of The Promenade in Downtown Long Beach, the $300,000 project was funded through the City’s Percent for Public Art dollars from Lennar, Lyon Communities and The Olson Company.

Stone says the experience of the installation is for visitors to feel they’re up among the clouds. The artwork is composed of five stainless steel cloud sculptures of varying size, including a cloud of a bird flock, swan constellation, solar sail with cast shadow, solar eclipse and mosaic. Below these are cloud-shaped and other images stained into the concrete ground. During the day, shadows cast from the sculptures and interact with the ground artworks. The freestanding sculptures are illuminated at night and evoke the feeling of constellations. 

The Arts Council’s anniversary image is of the bird flock, where individual birds making up a flock in the shape of a cloud. In addition, the small individual birds form larger images of predator birds. Stone took inspiration from a video of starling flocks, which displayed emergent behavior, a new area of science that explains how complex systems can arise out of simple rules governing the actions of its components, from a school of fish to the stock market.