The Community Arts Convening and Research Project (CACRP) gathering at Cal State U. Monterey Bay was both mellow and stimulating. CSUMB's Amalia Mesa-Bains and her crew did a fabulous job of making everybody at home and guiding us gently to workgroups on important topics. We also got presentations by young (teen) artists who have been working together with CSUMB and The East Bay Center for Performing Arts in Richmond (with CACRP mini-grants). Of course, we all shared sad news from around the country about cutbacks in everybody's budget and the demise of several community partner organizations, thanks to the current economic crisis.

The CSUMB campus is on an old Army base a little north of Monterey: the most unusual campus I have ever been on. Check it out. There was a rare heat wave while we were there. Of course the central coast is just stunning any time of the year,

What I enjoy most about these CACRP gatherings is the mix of people, especially all the young folks. CACRP goes out of its way to attract students and community partners as well as academics and we heard about some truly inspiring projects among the students.

There was a lot of talk about the future of CACRP. It's still a kind of ad hoc coalition, not a formal organization, funded by yearly grants, so there's no guarantee of support. So far it's been running on $100,000 a year (for two years) from the generous Cummings Foundation. It's amazing what they get done for that small amount of money: publishing AND convening AND six community dialogues across the country. But the part-time staff at MICA are faculty who get no release time for CACRP activities and they are knackered! Will be interesting to see where it goes from here. The group has at least four tracks of intense activity going at once and I think they could stop and take a breath and make a case to funders for a much larger budget for a long-range plan. It's really our only national coalition focused specifically on community arts and it would be tough to lose it. In any case, you will be reading the next volume of their writings in Community Arts Perspectives on CAN.

Community Arts Convening and Research Project

   

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