PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT EVENTS
To following is information on special professional development, mentoring and technical assistance sessions for grantees. You can find recordings of more past sessions here. A reminder that regular Grantee Office Hours take place every other Tuesday at 12-noon and you can register for these here. Finally, don’t forget to book your one-to-one sessions with us here.
Upstate Artist Directory Tutorial
Tuesday, December 12
12:00pm PST
Register HERE
Join us on Tuesday, December 12 at 12-noon as we guide you through creating your profile for our Upstate Artists Directory. We’ll share with you tips for uploading photos and work samples, and writing artists bios that show you to your best advantage. You’ll have a chance to ask questions, and we’ll be available for troubleshooting. The directory is user friendly and FREE! Take this opportunity to promote you and your work, and help make UpstateArtists.org the go to place for those seeking art and artists in Northern California.
Dr. Genna Style-Lyas
As AEP6 Director, Community Engagement & Equity, Genna’s key responsibilities include liaising between community partners and national consultants; developing and implementing resources that support engagement with the research study across cultural and arts organizations, especially those serving and centering on BIPOC communities; and all other aspects of the survey including the post-study evaluation.
Genna earned her Doctorate in Education in Out of School Learning with a focus on Teaching Artists in marginalized communities from the University of Pittsburgh and completed her Master’s Degree in Early Childhood Education, with a concentration on arts education, from Northcentral University. With a BFA in Acting and a minor in Musical Theater from Point Park University Genna became a member of the Actor's Equity Association, performing regionally, nationally, and internationally. Genna is a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.
The Arts, the Economy and Social Impact
Dr. Genna Style-Lyas
Thursday, November 30
12:00pm PST
Register HERE
Join Genna Styles-Lyas, Director of Arts & Economic Prosperity, and Community Engagement & Equity at Americans for the Arts, for an insider’s glimpse at the new national findings measuring the economic and social impact of arts and culture. This year-long study reveals a sector of immeasurable value. Fresh off the press, findings can be fundamental in advocating for the arts through the lens of both its economic and social impacts, with important information on the degree to which BIPOC communities face systemic challenges.
Reporting & Data Tracking 101 Workshop *mandatory
Join the Upstate California Creative Corps team for a walk-through of your Reporting System and Toolkit. These tools will streamline your data collection and sharing processes – between you, the grantee; us, the Administering Organization; California Arts Council; and beyond! Your participation in data collection and reporting is critical to the success of this pilot program, and the funding of future grantees.
Thursday, November 16
12:00pm PST
Register HERE
Marketing and Social Media Strategy for Creative Corps Grantees
With Sheila Cameron
Sheila Cameron
Sheila Cameron is a highly creative professional consultant with years of experience in all aspects of media production, fine art, PR, strategy, business development, strategic partnerships, and marketing for large media companies, government, small businesses, and non-profits. She is a seasoned film, television, and web producer. She has experience overseeing projects from concept to completion, and as an integrated media strategist, she is able to deliver consistent messages across all media platforms and create written content to strengthen online presence. Sheila loves “projects that exist in the middle of the creative and marketing languages I speak. These tend to be where I shine; in the nexus of Digital Media, Politics, Fine Art, Pop Culture, Activism, Entertainment TV/Film, Print Magazines, and Advertising. Often these groups work together but have different cultural norms, business models, and organizations. Strategy gets lost in siloed efforts or misunderstandings.”. Sheila is also an award winning painter and fine artist.
Tuesday, November 14
12:00pm PST
Register HERE
Join media and communications consultant Sheila Cameron for a marketing and social media strategy session specific to your role as an Upstate California Creative Corps grantee. Receive critical tools to build public awareness and support for your project and project goals, while benefiting future generations of grantees and preparing yourself to become the exemplary case study.
In the session, Sheila will guide you, as a grantee, towards a social media content strategy for your project, keeping in mind that the goal of the program is to create campaigns that raise awareness around one or another critical issue that affects your community or communities. Whatever your program goal —whether it’s creating awareness for public health issues and solutions, or issues connected to the environment, civic engagement, or social justice—Sheila is here to help.
In our Grantee Reporting Toolkit, we speak to the “what” of media pieces, as “any means of communication that reaches or influences people for outreach and promotion purposes. For example: television, radio, social media posts, other internet mention or editorial, video, newspapers, magazines, and advertising, fliers, posters, postcards, or any other collateral.” In this session, we will offer grantees strategies for documentation of their work, including tracking media.
Dr. Tasha Golden
Tasha Golden is Director of Research at the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins Medicine, and a national leader and consultant in creativity and public health. As a career songwriter turned health scientist, she helps leaders, creatives, and change-makers apply the science of arts and health to grow their impact and their wellbeing.
An Introduction to Mental Health and Trauma-Informed Practice
With Dr. Tasha Golden, PhD
This virtual session supports creatives of all kinds in becoming trauma-responsive, providing an introduction to caring for their own health, and supporting the mental health of their clients, participants, students, and communities. Dr. Tasha Golden offers a unique approach that reframes trauma-informed practice as a doorway to creativity, compassion, and greater impact, beginning with discovering who benefits from trauma-informed practice, why it has to begin with you.
Monday, October 16
12:00 to 1:00 pm PST
Sam Buffington
Sam Buffington was the community organizer for Frogtown Neighborhood Association for almost 10 years, and helped the organization become one of the most representative, innovative and influential district councils in St. Paul. Sam has worked for the League of Pissed off Voters, using Hip-Hop and the arts to encourage young people to become active participants in the electoral process. Through this experience, as well as his family's deep connections to the arts, Sam has recognized the power of arts and artists to create positive change in the world.
Springboard for the Arts:
Organizations and Artists Working in Community
With co-facilitators Sam Buffington and Ricardo Beaird
Ricardo Beaird
Ricardo Beaird is a theater maker, teaching artist, and cheese curd enthusiast originally from Nashville, Tennessee. Their recent work is informed by the unfinished business of ghosts, dis/connection through the internet, and sometimes Beyoncé. In addition to performing with Pangea World Theater, Park Square Theatre, Red Eye Theater and Ten Thousand Things Theater, Beaird is a Core Artist with Full Circle Theatre, advisory council member with the queer-led theater collective Lightning Rod, and an Artist Council member for the 2021 Northern Spark Arts Festival. Ricardo brings deep experience in collective visioning, workshop facilitation, and community organizing.
Join fellow grantees for a virtual session led by Springboard for the Arts through its celebrated Art-Train program. This 2-hour practical workshop will further ground your projects as artists and organizations working in tandem. It is for staff at government agencies, tribal councils, community non-profits and arts organizations - and the artists who are working with you - supporting the development of strategies to reach and engage more people, increase community relevance and connection, and find innovative ways to be more effective - and create authentic, equitable and lasting change. We will tackle critical issues such as social cohesion, civic engagement, public planning, equity, workforce development, public health, housing, and economic growth by supporting and working with local artists.
Thursday, September 14
12:00 to 2:00 pm PST
Ricardo Beaird
Ricardo Beaird is a theater maker, teaching artist, and cheese curd enthusiast originally from Nashville, Tennessee. Their recent work is informed by the unfinished business of ghosts, dis/connection through the internet, and sometimes Beyoncé. In addition to performing with Pangea World Theater, Park Square Theatre, Red Eye Theater and Ten Thousand Things Theater, Beaird is a Core Artist with Full Circle Theatre, advisory council member with the queer-led theater collective Lightning Rod, and an Artist Council member for the 2021 Northern Spark Arts Festival. Ricardo brings deep experience in collective visioning, workshop facilitation, and community organizing.
Springboard for the Arts:
Artists Working in Community
With co-facilitators Ricardo Beaird and Sam Buffington
Sam Buffington
Sam Buffington was the community organizer for Frogtown Neighborhood Association for almost 10 years, and helped the organization become one of the most representative, innovative and influential district councils in St. Paul. Sam has worked for the League of Pissed off Voters, using Hip-Hop and the arts to encourage young people to become active participants in the electoral process. Through this experience, as well as his family's deep connections to the arts, Sam has recognized the power of arts and artists to create positive change in the world.
This session builds your capacity to be intentional and inclusive as you plan and implement your Upstate California Creative Corps projects. This professional development workshop for artists working in community follows Springboard’s Handbook for Artists Working in Community and includes the topics: Artist Groundwork; Community Groundwork; Project Design; and Project Implementation. Please download the handbook in advance if you’d like to take a peek first.
Thursday, September 7
12:00 to 2:00 pm PST
Decolonizing Community Organizations and Art Workspaces
Mo Harper-Desir
*for artists and organizations
An interactive, hands-on, virtual workshop where participants will take part in ice breakers, warm ups, activities, games and learning opportunities to help conceptualize the impacts of colonization within community and art spaces, learn how colonization shows up even within equity efforts and how we can truly decolonize the spaces we create to support all wakes of people. Participants will leave with intro to social justice information, techniques to enhance their own equity work and tactics to employ while working with diverse communities.
Tuesday, September 5
12:00 to 1:30pm PST
Mo Harper-Desir
Mo Harper-Desir, she/her/they, is a Queer first generation Arts Educator & Activist living in Humboldt County. Originally from The East Coast, Mo is the mother of two free brown boys and considers herself a caretaker to her local Humboldt community. Mo is the co-founder of Black Humboldt, a nonprofit creating safe spaces for the Black & Brown community of Humboldt and the visionary of Mo HD Creates, a consultant firm offering arts based creation, education and services for community growth. Mo prides herself on being able to turn words into action and create spaces for learning, shifting and change you can see.