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Arts commission gives a boost to Saratoga talent
By Oakley Brooks
Surrounded by venues at Montalvo and the Mountain Winery that bring world-renowned talent to Saratoga, a newly formed city arts commission will turn the focus on local artists by promoting them and seeking out more space and events for them to showcase their work.
"We pride ourselves with having world-class arts centers," said City Councilwoman Ann Waltonsmith, who has championed the idea for a new commission. "There are local performers and artists who I think need to be encouraged and need to have space to show their work."
On Dec. 19, the city appointed five inaugural members to its new arts commission. Eventually, the commission will carry seven total members, like the city's other six advisory commissions.
The new commissioners include local artists, teachers and patrons, and one member of the Montalvo board of trustees.
"It's really an experiment and I think we can go so many different ways," said Mary Lou Taylor, an appointee who's also a poet and has one month left on her term on the Montalvo board.
Show space tops both city officials and many local artists' priority lists for the commission.
Kay Duffy, one of Saratoga's many talented watercolorists, said that there is a shortage of gallery space in Saratoga and that in the current economy many of Big Basin Way's commercial galleries are "hanging on by the skin of their teeth."
"It's hard to support galleries through sales," Duffy said. "If you want to support local artists, it's almost necessary to have some sort of subsidy."
Waltonsmith said the city doesn't have much money to spend on arts, but she and Taylor emphasized that the city's new commission would be a resource for opening up public spaces to artists.
Taylor noted that the expanded library--expected to be completed in early 2003--will be a quality show space. Waltonsmith would also like to see art rotating through local schools.
Montalvo is renovating its gallery now and Taylor said she would like to put local art in that space when possible. She pointed to the success of a local art show at Montalvo last year as a glimpse of the future.
Waltonsmith and Taylor said they would also like the new commission to focus on boosting arts within Saratoga schools.
"This is an arts town, and we need to get these kids interested in the arts," Taylor said.
The commission will also be charged with evaluating and placing art that is occasionally given to the city. In June of 2000, the local Jim Givens family commissioned a painting of the old Oak Street Library to be gifted to the city in memory of their late daughter, Mary Ellen Givens Slane. The city also came into a fountain that has been placed at city hall.
Waltonsmith said that in each case the city council had to make decisions surrounding the artistic gifts. In the future, she envisions a qualified group of artists and patrons on the new arts commission making such decisions.
To find out more about the arts commission and its remaining two openings, contact the city clerk at 408.868.1269.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
