Grants in the Visual Arts by the California Community Foundation



Panelists From 1999 to 2003, the following individuals have served as panelists on the Visual Arts Initiative funding advisory committee: Laura L. Aguilar Elia Arce Frances Balcomb Tomas Benitez Nancy Buchanan Meiling Cheng Arleen M. Chickami Robbie Conal The Dark Bob Jacqueline L. Dreager Felicia Filer Todd Gray Gronk Jamesina Henderson Samuel Hoi Robert Hori June Li Leo Limon Catherine Lord Gilbert "Magu" Lujan Karen Mack Sue Mayberry Rebecca McGrew Cheryl Mendoza Willie Middlebrook Alejandra Montezuma Chris Munger John Outterbridge Aaron Paley Janice Pober Peter Reiss Frank Romero Lezley Saar Roderick Sykes Lydia Takeshita Tran, T. Kim-Trang Patssi Valdez Erwin Washington Tim Wride	Acknowledgements Contemporaries is a publication of the California Community Foundation and the result of a collaborative effort on the part of Foundation staff and a number of writers, artists, photographers and colleagues from nonprofit arts organizations around Los Angeles. The three essays opening this catalog are as diverse as their authors, and the editor is grateful to each for bringing a unique and valuable perspective to the artists and their work, the arts organizations and theater companies that call Los Angeles home, and the and the fuller landscape of our city's contemporary arts scene. Judy Baca's personal history provides the working artist's point of view; from her vantage point we see Los Angeles as "a place to work, a way to tell one's story." Curator Claudine Isé's insightful essay on the group of artists who have received foundation grants over the last half-decade complements her equally thoughtful biographical summaries of the individual artists. A special thanks belongs to California Community Foundation President, Jack Shakely, whose passion for the arts drove the creation of a fund that today is one of very few sources of fellowship grants to artists in our community — a story he tells with characteristic warmth and enthusiasm in his foreword to this collection.	This online catalog and its hardcopy counterpart contain the work of many photographers, but the stunning portraits of the individual grantees by Robert Pacheco truly capture the diverse spirits of the artists and set the bar for all of us as we seek to do justice to the creativity and beauty of their work. Gary Hespenheide and the team at Hespenheide Design produced an inspired layout. This publication was edited by Catherine Stringer at the California Community Foundation, with editorial assistance by communications staff Misty de Lamare, who also wrote the profiles of the organizations included here, and Carolyn Kellogg, who translated the design of Contemporaries for the Web. Members of the program staff, Judy Spiegel, Cheryl Mendoza and Edgar Aguirre were instrumental in the production of the catalog; their feedback and support were essential to our success. Finally, I extend a heartfelt thanks to the artist fellows and organization grantees whose full and willing cooperation made this publication and online gallery possible. Catherine Stringer Director of Communications California Community Foundation October, 2003	Credits Production Supervision, Editing Catherine Stringer Editorial Assistance Carolyn Kellogg, Misty de Lamare Principal Photography Robert Pacheco Web Design Carolyn Kellogg Print Design Hespenheide Design