$14.3 million in fire relief grants roll out to artists thanks to Getty-led museum fund
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Seven weeks after fires laid waste to neighborhoods in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena, the L.A. Arts Community Fire Relief Fund has given $14.3 million to more than 1,700 artists and arts workers affected by the disasters.
Applicants approved for a grant from the Getty-lef relief fund were to be notified Tuesday afternoon. All applicants who lost a home (with or without insurance) as well as all those who lost an uninsured studio or work space were given the full amount they requested, up to $10,000 each.
Eighty-five percent of applicants registered as artists, and 15% identified themselves as arts workers. The program defines arts workers broadly and includes those working for commercial or nonprofit arts organizations in a wide range of jobs, including administration, education, security, food service and groundskeeping, Seventy-eight percent of recipients experienced loss from the Eaton fire centered in Altadena, 22% from the Palisades fire.
John Joyce University wasn’t a university but rather a tight-knit counterculture collective that drew painters, composers, poets and more. Their houses and converted garages burned, but residents are already talking about how to bounce back.
The fund is managed and administered by the Center for Cultural Innovation, a nonprofit that since 2001 has helped artists secure financial stability. One of the organization’s primary goals is to provide relief quickly.
“Understanding how severely our cultural community has been impacted by the fires, we designed a program that would quickly get funds to those who needed it most,” Angie Kim, president and chief executive of the center, said in the announcement Tuesday. “We involved everyone possible to conduct outreach, connecting with arts employers, hiring community artists, coordinating with other relief funders, and attending neighborhood gatherings.”
The Center for Cultural Innovation worked closely with Side Street Projects in Altadena and Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena to help guide applicants through the process.
Laura Begley and Evan Dresman had just moved into their dream Gregory Ain home and were preparing to sell their fixer-upper in Altadena’s Janes Village. Fire destroyed both.
Museums, galleries, corporations, philanthropists and individual donors from 28 countries contributed to the fund, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art; the Mellon and Helen Frankenthaler foundations; the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Qatar Museums; the Ford Foundation; the family foundation of Mellody Hobson and George Lucas; Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg and their Hearthland Foundation; the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation; the Broad Art Foundation; the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts; Gagosian and Hauser & Wirth galleries; and Frieze.
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