Hi Artists and Supporters,

As many of you know, there has been a flurry of activity around SF arts funding in the last year and many people want to know how to learn more. Navigating the nexus of politics, local funding and art-making can be a daunting task, so this is our effort to help fill you in on some of the details.

Basically, last year, some local artists and arts organizations decided to come together, ask for increased arts funding, leverage some political clout and ABBA was created. What's ABBA you ask? ABBA is Arts for a Better Bay Area and we are a coalition to help educate about arts-related matters and increase arts funding in the Bay Area.

Within ABBA are a few different components and some of us are involved with the Cultural Space Committee, a sub group that feels passionately about improving access to and retention of local art spaces and we want you to help.

We are really excited about hosting a special cultural spaces public meeting at SOMArts on October 17 and would love to hear from you about what our community needs. What do you think local art spaces should be doing? What do you need to know in order to feel more engaged, more informed and to help you articulate what you think needs to happen?  We’ll also breakdown the two local ballot measures that help support art and artists in San Francisco, and make sure you’re informed come election day on November 8.

So reach out to us and let us know what you think. ABBA has a great website and we will be populating it with lots of helpful documents, resources, FAQs and info to keep you updated on important meetings that relate to cultural spaces. We will also be working on organizing the public meeting this summer and we can use lots of help to make that happen.

Joen & Joe

ABBA Cultural Space Committee Co-chairs

 Cultural Space Committee aims to develop and implement preservation strategies for cultural spaces and artist housing.