NEVADA CITY, Calif. January 29, 2024 – What do local authors, jewelry artists, actors, musicians, directors, dancers, photographers, filmmakers, sculptors, painters, designers and all artists have in common? The Nevada County Arts Council is supporting them. But, what does an arts council do? How can young people explore their creativity and become artists?
We checked in with Heather Heckler, the Program Manager for the GV-NC Cultural District and Michaelyn Logue, the Arts Council’s Social Media & Community Engagement Coordinator.
The official bio of the Arts Council could read like this: In 2017, the California Arts Council selected 14 districts to serve as California’s inaugural state-designated Cultural Districts. Nevada County became home to two of the fourteen districts, Grass Valley-Nevada City and Truckee. The Arts Council has helped artists weather a pandemic, produced the “Arts and Economic Prosperity in Nevada County” report, organized conferences, workshops, co-created the “Arts in Public Spaces” and administers the Upstate California Creative Corps for the Upstate Region, responsible for distributing $3.38 million in grant funding across nineteen counties.
Call to young creatives
Heather Heckler just started her job as Program Manager for the Grass Valley-Nevada City Cultural District and wants to build tools for all artists, including young people. “This is our work, help us do our job. Tell us what’s missing. What can we do to support you in becoming the creative person you want to be? Talk to us on Instagram, we’re there all day. We’re looking for anything we can do to support our young creative folks in the community.”
She got an answer immediately from our intern, whose first assignment was to come up with a list questions young people might have of the organization.
Bird’s I View
Our newly-minted intern Bird, a Bitney Prep student, was part of the crew shooting the video as a first assignment. When editor Pascale asked Bird for a summary of the day Bird’s response was, “Just one paragraph, or can it be longer?” Here’s Bird’s hot take (lightly edited) on internship, the arts council and the need for creative spaces for young artists.
Today was my first full day of my fresh new internship for YubaNet. Going into it I wasn’t really sure what my daily tasks would be, but I was put at ease after meeting with the members of the Nevada County Arts Council in their office in downtown Nevada City.
I started my day by ignoring my typical 7:15 AM alarm to allow myself to sleep till at most 8:30, but when I fully awoke, the clock read 9:25 AM. I had realized this error had made me all the more underprepared for the work ahead of us. Nevertheless, I was able to successfully compile a list of interview questions for Heather Heckler, the new Program Manager for the Cultural District.
The office is a quaint studio space; a room full of unfamiliar but friendly faces. Although I expected my role as an intern to be mostly mundane, I quickly realized that wasn’t the case. I was greeted as if I were an old friend by Eliza Tudor, who I later found out is the Executive Director. Although her attitude is humble and disarming, I could still tell she was the woman in charge. The sense I got was that the team she leads runs copacetic. That was only further illustrated by the fact that she greeted me with equal kindness to my seasoned adult colleagues upon our first introduction, when others in positions like hers might naturally turn a blind eye to the quiet young intern.
I felt very comfortable speaking with her about my experience as a 16-year-old artist living in Nevada City, because my input was actually valuable in tangible ways. It was a pleasant reassurance to have my thoughts and ideas appreciated rather than overlooked, because being overlooked is nothing new to teenagers or artists. I also enjoyed getting to know Heather, it didn’t take much communicating between us to find that we have a lot in common pertaining to our love of art and feeling stifled growing up here, but at this point it was time to get to work and talk later.
We wrapped up shooting Heather’s interview and moved on to the Madelyn Helling Library to get b-roll of the poetry-based art installation created by The Poetry Crashers with support from the Arts Council. I was able to really get talking with Heather as well as Michaelyn Logue, the Arts Council’s Social Media & Community Engagement Coordinator, about ideas I had for the local adolescent community interested in art, as well as how it’s hard to love art when you’re a teenager living in Nevada County. Unfortunately, the rich art culture here does not necessarily embrace younger generations in the way it should for a myriad of reasons. It’s no secret that with a thriving arts culture can come with a sense of elitism, and adolescent artists are underutilized and underappreciated in many creative spaces here.
This issue is only amplified by the shared experience among adolescents to fit in and be ‘cool’. So, while there are creative spaces, the demographic for these spaces is either older people, or younger people. Right now, most of my peers don’t have creative outlets, because we’re too young and inexperienced for the ‘real’ art spaces, or because we don’t want to color with crayons in a space that is for kids and teens. This leaves many teenage artists in a purgatory where we don’t harness our creativity as much as we could, due to inaccessibility and the lack of places to meet other creative peers.
It was a breath of fresh air to hear that the members of the Art Council understood my perspective and weren’t just listening but really hearing what I had to say, and were on board with putting some of my ideas into motion. I wasn’t just a teenage intern complaining to them and they’ll be onto the real business; they actually wanted to see me as a valuable asset for current and future projects. I believe that the Nevada City and Grass Valley Cultural District is incredible in many ways, the historical preservation, beautiful scenery, and rich artistic culture that comes in countless forms. But, I also think it would benefit the community as a whole to create more spaces that can really encourage the youths moving into adulthood to create more, and my first introduction to the members of our Art Council just showed that this can actually be possible.
Bird Cameron, YubaNet intern
Where to get in touch with the Arts Council
Website: Nevada County Arts Council
Instagram: Nevada County Arts
Truckee Arts Alliance on Instagram
Grass Valley-Nevada City Cultural District on Instagram