36 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY april 6-12, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com culture Bradley Photography in Pacific Grove was full on the night of Tuesday, March 23. Local artists and residents came out in force to respond to the call of the Arts District of Pacific Grove committee, whose name speaks of its mission: creating an arts district. In addition to P.G. residents, the event attracted people and initiatives from other parts of the Monterey Peninsula. All attendees were treated to art (dance by Sage Miller) and all were asked about arts in Pacific Grove. In essence, an arts district would allow artists and art organizations in Pacific Grove to band together to market and promote their work, and in doing so, ideally, create even more opportunities for artistic pursuit. “The entire area would be an arts destination,” says Adrianne Jonson, one of the key people involved in the project, and the chair of the board of directors of the Pacific Grove Art Center. The committee was established as an offshoot of the Pacific Grove Downtown Business Improvement District. The idea itself came from Liz Jacobs. Jacobs, the owner of Wild Fish restaurant, chairs the business improvement district in addition to serving on the city’s Economic Development Commission. “With not much cost, it can’t hurt us,” she says about the P.G. arts district. “It’s a matter of shifting people’s perception, making sure that tourists who visit won’t miss anything.” The idea came to Jacobs when she was vacationing in San José del Cabo, Mexico and found the old town revived by a thriving arts district. She drafted a proposal for P.G. on the same holiday while sitting by the pool. “Each organization or business does its own advertising and each visitor either ‘hits’ or ‘misses’ them,” Jacobs says. What if, instead, a central entity created a map of attractions with sidebar descriptions, available as a downloadable, printable PDF on a dedicated website? “The undesirable number of empty shop fronts, lack of footfall, relatively low revenues, difficulty in drawing visitors from neighboring hot spots and the necessity for residents to go outside of Pacific Grove for entertainment have been commonplace,” she wrote in the proposal. “There have been calls for regeneration and revitalization for a fairly long time.” Then, she provided examples and data from places such as Singapore, where revenue increased by 30 percent within two years of the creation of a cultural district. Jacobs took her draft to P.G. City Manager Ben Harvey, and soon they got more people on board, such as Jonson (who also runs Artisana Gallery in P.G. and founded P.G. First Fridays in 2010), artist Karen Owen, photographer Jason Bradley, illustrator Michaela Kuenster and Pacific Grove Chamber of Commerce President Jenny MacMurdo. An “arts district” or “cultural district” is a marked urban area where places of cultural consumption are gathered, a geographic area designated to promote culture and the arts. Some arts districts are neighborhood-based and artist-driven, like the St. George neighborhood on Staten Island, while others are commercial with a bohemian feel and have restaurants and movie houses, such as The District in Nashville. Pacific Grove would likely find itself somewhere in between. Many factors can decide their success and failure, Jacobs says, giving examples of the award-winning East London Fashion District and the problems the Poblenou Urban District in Barcelona experienced despite millions of euros in funding. The Arts District of Pacific Grove committee, which hopes to become a nonprofit in the future, has received $5,000 from the city to start a website. So far the project is still in an early phase, still gathering ideas. Bradley has proposed curating a film series and a “TED Pacific Grove” series, and Owen has proposed digital arts, including an augmented reality program. County Poet Laureate Daniel Summerhill and local poet Brian Sheffield have discussed possible collaboration with P.G. High School to train young people to write and perform slam poetry and create poem murals. Several local jazz musicians have proposed including some talented local teenagers in programs. Musician Paul Contos has expressed interest in curating a series of Duke Ellington concerts and Lillian Barbeito of Ballare Carmel stated she would like to explore a dance program. There’s more. “We didn’t know what to expect,” Jacobs says of the March 23 meeting. “But it was great.” The audience provided them with tons of feedback, both oral and written. The next meeting is scheduled for June 22 when the committee will come up with concrete “action items,” Bradley says. “The idea is our district will be in the shape of a butterfly,” Jonson says, promising that in addition to downtown (the thorax), it will also include distant P.G. parts, such as the Monarch Sanctuary. “We want to support artists in any kind of medium and genre.” To learn more, visit artsdistrictpg.org. daniel dreifuss District of Art Pacific Grove wants to form a downtown arts district. What does that mean? By Agata Pop˛eda Wild Fish restaurant owner and P.G. art and business activist Liz Jacobs is the driving force behind the Arts District of Pacific Grove project. The idea is to have artists and art oganizations in P.G., such as Artisana Gallery (below), band together to promote their work and collaborate. “We want to support artists in any medium or genre.” daniel dreifuss
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