Thumbnail image and flyer courtesy of DNACA
(Updated at 7:55 p.m. Tuesday with input from DNACA’s former executive director Stephanie LaTorre)
Managing an organization like the Del Norte Association for Cultural Awareness is akin to plate spinning, treasurer Catherine Balck says.
Pre-pandemic, the executive director had to find and hire instructors for its visual arts programs, organize public exhibits and book acts for DNACA’s annual concert series. The executive director worked with Pelican Bay State Prison and the William James Association to help coordinate Arts in Corrections — a state-funded program that stopped due to COVID. And they had to fundraise.
But the relief dollars that kept DNACA alive during the pandemic have dried up and donations have dwindled, Balck told Redwood Voice Community News on Friday. Its long-time venue, the Crescent Elk Auditorium, was largely unavailable due to major renovations during the last two seasons.
After realizing DNACA was “bleeding money” due to expensive acts and a lack of ticket sales, the organization parted ways with its former executive director Stephanie LaTorre.
But, Balck said, she and her colleagues on the DNACA Board likely didn’t realize how many moving parts the executive director had to manage until recently.
Now, with its first concert of the 2024-25 season set for Wednesday, DNACA’s Board of Directors has been running its day-to-day operations and is working to rebuild the organization, Balck said.
“Honestly, the fact that we didn’t have to pay an employee’s salary is what’s going to allow DNACA to continue,” she said, estimating that she has put in about 20 hours of volunteer work a week running DNACA since April. “When I stepped in, we had a month before our state and local partner grant was due with the California Arts Council. We hired a grant writer, and I [put in] an intensive amount of time to get the grant submitted — with the State of California, you either meet their deadline or you’re out of luck — I did get a small stipend, but it’s not anything close to what we were paying even one month of an executive director’s salary.”
Founded in 1981, DNACA is Del Norte County’s designated arts organization and receives roughly $75,000 from the California Arts Council. According to Balck, the 2024-25 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, is the first year that every California county will have an arts council. Every state-local partner grant is $75,000, she said.
For San Francisco, Alameda or Los Angeles, $75,000 is a drop in the bucket, Balck said. But in Del Norte County, that state grant makes up the lion’s share of its budget, and, until last year, DNACA had to be able to match roughly half of that grant.
“They finally realized that asking a small arts organization with one employee like DNACA to be focused on matching $35,000 of the grant was counterproductive to doing the arts work,” Balck told Redwood Voice. “It was bifurcating people’s efforts and not furthering the cause of what they really wanted, which is growing the arts and encouraging the arts throughout the whole state.”
Finding that 50 percent match was also one of those spinning plates the executive director had to manage until just last fiscal year, according to Balck.
Before COVID-19, DNACA ran several visual arts programs in addition to its concert series. Those included Arts in Corrections and Veterans in Art, which received state funding until the pandemic. DNACA also partnered with Del Norte Unified School District to bring artists into local classrooms, held public art exhibitions at courthouse and at the airport and had an annual juried art show.
DNACA also saw the retirement of its founding executive director, Holly Austin, as well as the resignation of Austin’s replacement, Stephanie Wenning.
Wenning moved out of the area about four years ago, but helped her successor, LaTorre, with the transition. That was in November 2019. By February and March, concerts were out of the question.
“Stephanie LaTorre did the best she could through the pandemic. She tried to keep things moving forward,” Balck said.
DNACA continued its Arts in Public Places exhibits at the courthouse and the airport, she said. It held in-person classes for those who were comfortable gathering and Zoom programs for those who weren’t
“We limped along,” Balck said. “But our donations started declining because we weren’t providing very much programming in the community.”
In an email to Redwood Voice Community News on Tuesday, LaTorre said she was able to secure several COVID relief grants to help organizations like DNACA. She said she also increased DNACA’s grant from the California Arts Council and obtained contribution sfrom other sources.
LaTorre said DNACA also reached out to local tribes and the Del Norte County Office of Education and strengthened its relationship with the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors and the Crescent City Council.
After the pandemic, LaTorre said DNACA maintained a balanced budget, though inflation increased operational expenses and made finding artists for “modest fees” challenging.
Though she left earlier this year, LaTorre said the expansion of the Poetry Out Loud program in 2024 is one of DNACA’s achievements that she’s most proud of. Poetry Week was “transformative” for local high school students, she said.
“During this week, we were honored to host the Sacramento poet laureate and two other esteemed poets who traveled to Del Norte County to engage in a series of poetry-related activities,” LaTorre said. “These poets worked closely with students, offering both group coaching and individual guidance. They also hosted a community poetry open mic and performed at the county Poetry Out Loud competition, bringing a new level of excitement and expertise to the program.”
DNACA also participated in the California Creative Corps initiative and helped create the Funds For Artists’ Resilience grant.
“Both initiatives were focused on empowering local artists to create meaningful work while ensuring they are fairly compensated,” LaTorre said. “These efforts were a testament to our commitment to nurturing the creative economy and supporting artists in their professional growth and contributions to our community.”
DNACA resumed its annual concert series in November 2021, but with its traditional venue, Crescent Elk Auditorium, undergoing major renovations, the organization partnered with the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation and Lucky 7 Casino. Last year, DNACA held two performances at Crescent Elk and the rest at Elk Valley Rancheria’s Betty Green Event Center.
According to Balck, long-time concertgoers weren’t willing to drive out to Smith River. They also didn’t warm to Elk Valley Casino as a venue, she said.
At this point, Balck said, the Board of Directors, which had dwindled to about four members out of a total of 12 around the time DNACA hired Wenning, and has since grown to about eight members, realized the organization was struggling financially.
Eventually they decided to part ways with LaTorre. Balck, who has a full-time job as an ultrasound technician at Sutter Coast Hospital, stepped in to help manage things at the office. Another Board member began recruiting artists for the current season.
The first of those artists, the Canadian trio Cécilia, will take the Crescent Elk Auditorium stage at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
One thing that will be different this season is the size of the groups DNACA will bring to Del Norte County. Concertgoers shouldn’t expect 10-piece orchestras, for example, or large dance troupes. But they can expect a lot of energy, Balck said.
Another new component of its performance series is the requirement of every artist to provide outreach to local students. On Wednesday, the members of Cécilia will hold two outreaches at Crescent Elk, Balck said. DNACA is paying for the performance, but Del Norte Unified School District and the County Office of Education is reimbursing the organization for those outreach activities, she said.
“We’re working closely to make sure we get students from every school represented in these outreach activities,” Balck said. “Sometimes it might mean bussing kids to the outreach and sometimes it might mean the artists go to different schools. We’re trying to hit all different age groups because, especially the elementary kids, don’t have an opportunity to attend a fine arts performance.”
Another trio, this one hailing from the Canadian Rockies, will take the Crescent Elk stage in February. Balck described the Wardens as a mix of folk music and country. Each song has a story, she said, and she felt that their connection with the outdoors would speak to Del Norters.
In March, Waipuna will bring a ray of Hawaii sunshine to Crescent City. The Barbra Lica jazz quartet will take the stage in April and the season will end with Italian guitarist Luca Stricagnoli in May. Balck said she’s hoping that the last two artists will be able to do outreach, not only to students, but to local seniors, though the details aren’t worked out yet.
Stricagnoli is the only solo artist, Balck said. He’ll be in Del Norte County for a few days.
“We’re looking into possibly having a master class for people who are guitarists in the community,” she said. “He will take over that auditorium and make it sing with his guitars.”
DNACA is partnering with VFW Post 1831 to provide free concert tickets to low-income veterans, Balck said. The organization also provides free tickets to clients at the Harrington House — according to her, in addition to providing a proclamation stating that DNACA is Del Norte County’s art council, the county contributes about $20,000.
As the organization heads into its winter season, DNACA’s current Board hopes to recruit more members, Balck said. DNACA always needs volunteers and is also recruiting for members on an advisory committee.
The organization is also looking at hiring another executive director, though, according to a letter from Board President Jennifer Schmidt to DNACA’s donors, this isn’t something it’s rushing into. In her letter, Schmidt said the California Arts Council’s budget was cut 20 percent and, as a result, the DNACA Board anticipates a reduction in its grant.
Schmidt also pointed to an increase in the state’s minimum wage, which means that DNACA would have to increase its labor budget to attract qualified executive director candidates. She noted that DNACA had already hired a part-time administrative assistant
Balck said she and her colleagues on the Board are currently finalizing the competencies they’re looking for in a new executive director and will likely start receiving applications in December.
“Since we’ve been doing this job for six months, as a Board we got much more realistic about what we expect the executive director to do,” she said, adding that the new Board will be more hands-on when it comes to identifying class instructors or coordinating local programs. “I see this executive director position as being a little bit more coordination, communication and relationship building. We will end up with better results — asking one person to keep all those plates spinning is an awful lot.”
