Deep Valley Arts Collective awarded an Upstate California Creative Corps Grant

UKIAH, CA, June 30th, 2023 – Today, Upstate California Creative Corps announced a grant award of $33,198 to the Deep Valley Arts Collective as part of a new pilot program serving California’s most vulnerable communities and environments, its least represented peoples, and some of society’s most critical issues.

The Deep Valley Arts Collective is one of 81 grantees chosen from among close to 300 applicants to this highly competitive grant program. Upstate California Creative Corps received a total ask of $16 million, with only $3.38 million in grants awarded.

Grantees are collectively part of a media, outreach, and engagement campaign designed to increase awareness for issues such as public health, water and energy conservation, climate mitigation, and emergency preparedness, relief, and recovery. California Arts Council views the California Creative Corps program as a job creation and human infrastructure development opportunity. Region by region, the program is increasing the ways in which artists are engaged in public work so that they can continue to build upon intersectional public interest goals beyond its pilot funding timeline.

Funded projects serve Upstate’s most vulnerable communities, those identified via the California Healthy Places Index and other valuable local data sources. From place-based urban initiatives to multi-county regional projects that follow watersheds, tribal lands, forests, and some of California’s most remote mountain wilderness areas, projects engage diverse communities around solutions for some of society’s most fundamental challenges – through social practice and an array of artforms.

With support from Upstate California Creative Corps, the Deep Valley Arts Collective will create a project called "Pieced Together: Recovery Through Art" that will provide people recovering from substance abuse with a series of guided art therapy workshops. Working directly with established substance abuse programs and organizations, they will connect people in the community with an extended opportunity to create art, form community bonds, and build resilience. The series of collage workshops will culminate in an art exhibition in a gallery setting, documentation in the form of a book, and a multimedia art presentation. Collage artists cut and tear elements from disparate pieces to create a new form, tell a new story or communicate a new message. This project will provide healing, discussion, skill-building, support, and connection through creative expression.

Lillian Rubie, president of the Deep Valley Arts Collective, says, “We are honored to be chosen among our peers in the art community to provide this project to the residents of Mendocino County. Our project will focus on how art can help all people in recovery and those affected by substance abuse by using artistic tools to envision a different future as well as directly explore the ramification of substance abuse in a group art project.”

“We will bring awareness to these complex issues by engaging with established service organizations and art therapists to create a series of workshops culminating in an art exhibition and community art piece. The goals are to shed light on individual stories, give people artistic tools to communicate, and demonstrate how art can be an essential path to the deep work necessary to move forward to a healthier life. Gratitude to Upstate California Creative Corps for making this possible.”

A complete list of grantees can be found at https://www.upstatecreativecorps.org/grantees.