Arts Commission

Commissioner Steiner? Aren't we all supposed to go, ooh?

Commissioner Steiner.

Ooh!

Absent.

She doesn't know what she's missing. All right, we have a quorum but let's do a pledge.

Yeah I mean you can go ahead and do public comment, yeah.

I mean is there any public comments?

No.

No okay well that's easy. Yeah they're all

out there.

But these aren't public comments. These are

public

comments. These are artists!

Well they are artists but we're taking their comments during

public comment. We're doing it this way oh okay yes and then we'll have the consent.

We are allowing five minutes

All right. Welcome, everybody. What we're going to do tonight—we welcome you so much. I think we're giving everyone five minutes? Yes. Is that what we're doing? So you have a five-minute timer, all right? And three people came and said they had something to do tonight, and I'm going to put them atop if anyone else Like, you just request and we'll put you early. But it's a lot of fun to hear everybody else so if you can stick around you'll enjoy this is like the best meeting we have all year or so. We're just so proud of our artist community and thank you for being here. Just applying for a grant is an important Kind of a Civic service that you do. I know it's a pain and it's not a lot of money, but it shows That government and the arts are working together and we're in the folks up here are really trying to make that happen now Okay, so thank you for thank you for being here and thank you fo r your application All right.

So we're going to go down the order and You guys haven't even seen this schedule so if The order that you applied, you will go. I

put them down as-

And if that's not good enough just say something and DevDance and Robin and Dance Ojai said they wanted to go first because they're all going to go dance I think tonight is what they're gonna do. Okay so let's start with Chaney and Audrey from DevDance

All right. Hello, thank you so much for having us. We are representing Dev Dance Theatre right now and we are seeking funds from the City of Ojai Arts grant program to help sustainably fund our artistic personnel for Dev Dance Theatre in symbiosis with CY Studios The crux of our goal in 2027 stems from our desire to increase professional quality artistic opportunities in the Ojai Valley.

The past year of our company's work has made it clear that not only is there a hunger in our community for transformative and immersive theatrical experiences, but folks from the greater Southern California area are traveling to Ojai to take part in what we do. So our first priority in our 2027 program is to bring our original production of Moth back to Ojai.

It premiered last year to overwhelming critical and public reception, and it is our intention to produce this story in the heart of downtown Ojai sometime next year. This will give everyone who was unable to get a ticket to last May's production due to sold out shows an opportunity to experience our story, as well as bring our crowds to an area where the surrounding restaurants and businesses can benefit from the foot traffic we draw with this show.

Most importantly to our mission with this, Moth is an ancestral tale portraying the legacy of one house in a world that is changing. Created by artists who have grown up here we feel that this story reflects Ojai and deserves to be shared with a wider audience. The second pillar of our 2027 programming is expanding the capacity of our brand new brick-and-mortar business CY Studios.

Since opening in July of 2026, we are quickly establishing ourselves as a safe and encouraging space for adults with all levels of dance experience to connect with the art form that they love. In 2027, we intend to increase our class offerings, host at least three community events such as poetry nights, film screenings or open rehearsals for the company as well as develop scholarship and residency programs for those in the community seeking opportunities to learn our artistic practice who otherwise might not have so.

And the third pillar of our programming is to maintain our company value, of producing a new and original work in 2027 While building a new show is a minimum year-long process for us, it is a constant practice for our company and we believe that it is vital to keeping the creative spirit of our organization alive and well. With the help of the City of Ojai Arts grant we received last year, we were able to make incredible strides in increasing the capacity of our company and our technical crew As well as expanding our prominence in this valley, and we are deeply grateful for your contribution. And hope to maintain this ongoing relationship as we build our presence in the valley that we all love.

Thank you.

I didn't know if you were both going to speak.

We wanted to dance this year, but we can't play music. We were told we

couldn't. Moth was great and it's so cool. Can't get enough of a good thing. You got anything else for us, too?

I can say one thing. We are officially our own 501C3 this year just like a month ago. So you do your own, yeah. Yeah and so CY Studios the new dance studio that's been becoming more popular it's really lovely is also under that umbrella with us. Thank you guys.

Well thank you guys so much. All right Robin

So I've been taking photos of

The flowers in Ojai, and they've really drawn me. And I feel like there's a magic to what has just come out in the camera. As an artist or a photographer, I look towards limitations so nothing is enhanced. Everything is cropped, I crop it in the lens and I use an extraordinarily simple camera which you would laugh at if you knew what it was. Maybe I'll tell you if you ask but... The purpose of this exhibit, I have over 35 pictures some of them can be enlarged With the simple camera, it will have a effect of pixelation and it's actually quite stunning.

So the thing I didn't actually describe as much in my proposal which I want to add is that I plan to have...I did mention this but I planned to have a well-publicized opening reception with local music and dance possibly some people here And I plan to do this at the Ojai Arts Center. I've done a lot with the arts center over the last four years, and any gallery exhibit actually helps support the center as well.

I also neglected to detail that I would have a comprehensive outreach plan with social media, print publications and flyers to groups that would be interested in this type of event. Photography, art, gardening nature and will announce and send articles and press releases to local publications in Ventura, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties And the outreach could go further than that. It would be wonderful, this would give me a jump start as a photographer to have a bigger platform that I can take other places to show the beauty of Ojai, the diversity of Ojai and lure people to want to see more.

You know, I gave you each a thing. The lighting that comes out from for example the middle of this Morning Glory is exactly what it looked like. The way I took the pictures was not looking for pictures. I actually just am around Ojai a lot and then the grounds of Crotona Institute I went to what I was drawn to, and it was usually a lighting thing. This photographic exhibit has a lot to do with lighting and patterns, and there's a very interesting pattern in this fuchsia flower.

I also have photographs that are many flowers and so forth, but these I thought were striking examples of the color and the variation in the shadows and light. So it's really about a look at patterns and light more than it is about the flowers, but Eckhart Tolle asked us to look at flowers in nature and not necessarily name it. This isn't about if these were native or indigenous, it could spur discussions but it is about the visual art of each picture.

And the beauty that can be found in the Ojai Valley. So I think that's it, the reception again, I'll circle back in my last minute or so. I really look forward to putting together a beautiful reception opening and drawing people to Ojai to come to that and look very much forward to using local musicians and dance and any other Fun thing we can do, maybe Michelle Chakra.

So whoever wants to come and help with the theme of Flowers of Ojai for that reception and then hopefully this will go beyond the Arts Center and share our beauty with a greater audience. Thank you.

Thank You Robin. Do you have a question? Yeah I do. Go ahead.

Robin, I have a question. Yeah? You said this exhibition is going to be at the Ojai Art Center?

Yeah.

OK, is it confirmed and scheduled?

They said there were slots. There is room. It's in a month that you rent the gallery. And when is the consensus of who gets the awards because then I would know.

Hopefully by January.

Okay, so I may go ahead and book that. And we'll see what happens. Thank you.

Okay, some of you came in. If you need to change your order let me know why don't I give it like three at a time so you can prepare yourself coming up too and just reduce any kind of stress at all. You may have seen and i'll just reiterate that this is not actually part of the application process here so if you're fantastic or you're terrible it doesn't affect the way that your applications are going to be read. And I'll talk a little later about how that will act probably too, if you care about that. So we're gonna do Dance Ojai next and then we'll be Suzy Thatcher and then we'll be Ojai Studio Artists so welcome to the podium Isha. Thank

you so much Thank you for this opportunity again to share our work. My name is Isha, I'm the founder and president of Dance Ojai. Since 2013 we've been contributing to Ojai's artistic landscape through accessible dance classes, workshops, performances and cultural events. We also collaborate with local organizations to bring arts programming to community celebrations such as Ojai Day and Art in the Park.

Our largest undertaking is the Ojai World Dance Festival, an annual celebration of multicultural performing arts that has quickly grown into a significant cultural gathering in our valley. This festival features a free seven-hour daytime program at Libbey Park followed by a professional evening showcase at Libby Bowl. Audiences experience an extraordinary range of traditions, from Tahitian dance to flamenco to Indian classical dance to the Chinese classical arts and many more.

But I feel that what we're creating is much more than a day of dance performances. We're creating a space for cultural exchange, artistic opportunity, and meaningful connection. We're giving artists a professional platform to share traditions that have been passed down through generations. We're introducing children and families to art forms that they might otherwise never encounter, and we're bringing visitors from across Southern California into Ojai supporting local businesses and contributing to our creative economy.

In just three years, the festival has grown tremendously. Our 2026 festival this year featured approximately 350 performing artists and for the first time we received more applications than we could accommodate. To us this response speaks to something important there is a genuine need and desire for this kind of cultural programming that we're creating And yet, producing a festival of this scale is an enormous undertaking. Our six core organizers including myself have continued to work on a volunteer basis, yay!

Dedicating approximately seven months each year to putting on this festival. So we've reached an important turning point for ourselves because we have proved that this event has value and that people are participating, and they're wanting more. They're wanting to attend. And so we've demonstrated that through the response of our artists, audiences, and community. Our challenge now is building a sustainable infrastructure so that this can continue on for many years to come.

We are requesting support from the city to cover essential production expenses, including staging sound and artist fees that make our free daytime program possible. We also envision elevating the artistic experience by inviting select professional dance companies for the evening showcase, the professional showcase to present longer pieces so that people get a little bit more of a deeper dive into their tradition and their art form.

Our vision is for this festival to become a lasting cultural tradition in Ojai, one that strengthens our community today and continues to inspire future generations of artists and dancers. So with your support we can take this important step and make this more sustainable. Thank you for your ongoing support and for this opportunity. We're very grateful for it so thank you all.

I'm so sorry, you have to leave. But it's so sad because Thursday nights usually we have dance classes and rehearsals and everything. So I never get to hear everyone else's... It's like, I'm just gonna have to cancel class and just say, everyone come to City Hall! And just listen to everyone's presentation. You can watch it on YouTube tomorrow. Oh, I can watch it on YouTube! It's not as fun though. It's fun to see everyone here. Anyway, thank you so much. Thank you, Aisha.

Yeah, like I say it's not part of your application but this is you're reaching the community. A lot of people go watch on YouTube afterwards too so thank you for being here. So order next will be Susie Thatcher and then Studio Artists and then Ojai Arts Center. Hi,

I'm Suzy Thatcher and I want to thank you for this opportunity to be here. I brought two of my collaborators with me, Gay Jones and Bob Telford. Bob Telford is a film and theater person and I don't know that I need to introduce Gay Jones in her background in theater. The name of our, or the idea behind our grant is Preserving Local History Through Film and Theater.

I'm bigger than I appear. I just want you to know that. Okay. And the idea is that we're going to preserve local history through storytelling and that is essential to the survival of communities. We as artists have a responsibility to do that and to our children, to honor history through the arts Storytelling in film and theater performance create a bridge linking our past, our present and our future.

So the idea behind that is what we want to do is link the histories of local residents and the community as a whole utilizing film to record residents at assisted living or other venues and create storylines around these We want to utilize the Ojai Museum, perhaps The Gables or other assisted living facilities here in Ojai. We want to inspire local writers to create scripts to produce stories of Ojai and its past on stage.

It's important to connect the stories of our senior community with those of our young people. So, our connections would be obviously the music program and a theater program at Nordoff High School, certainly the museum, theater, film people, local writers, directors, and what we want to do is perform one maybe two shows. It might be a multimedia thing where we might use film and theater, Interview, one thing we've talked about is interviewing seniors that might not be able to get out or have the mobility to get out and perform on stage but interview them and then create a story around that. And then perhaps have as we're telling it the story consecutively have young people then perform that part in their youth and then move ahead from that.

Ojai has been created and sustained by diverse communities, so everyone benefits from being part of retelling and sharing their stories. In Ojai as a writer, as a performer, as a director or creator senior citizens benefit by having their stories heard and honored and performed on stage I have been teaching youth theater for a few years, and so I currently teach at Santa Paula Theater.

Six to 12 year olds perform on theater. Gaye did you want to share anything about your ideas?

Well, I was here before with the youth program. Now I'm here with the underserved population of senior citizens connecting with the youth. So, what we came up with was these youth interviewing the adult seniors and then let the young kids act it out or film or write or whatever we want. So I think the idea is kind of novel in the sense that we're trying to connect the two. I think that's it. Besides, we're going to go over to rehearsal because she's starring in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever which opens the first week of December so we will be slipping out in bed

We will. But I would like to introduce Bob Telford.

I think you, both Gay and Susie have hit on pretty much everything that we want to accomplish. The important thing is that what we wanna try and do is get the different demographics to interact with one another because they'll benefit from the history and also the youth will find that there be some benefits from working with the older... I shouldn't say older. with the mature individuals and then that way they can tell stories. I mean, so many times I've found through my career that younger people don't really understand The mature people and what they're going through, and vice versa. We get to the point where we've forgotten what it was like to be in high school and do the things that we had to do to survive. So bringing them together and being able to tell stories and using Ojai as a backdrop is the goal that we want to incorporate that into the program.

And we have diverse backgrounds. I mean, mine is in the film industry primarily. Susie and Gay have been doing, you know, primarily theater and whatnot. In fact, Gay and I were serving on a radio play committee for the Screen Actors Guild down in L.A., so... Susie who's your fiscal sponsor? Say again. Who's your fiscal sponsor?

Myself.

Oh, are you a 501 c3? You have

no no I so I do not have a fiscal

sponsor

Does that make a difference

but you got a good team there and

I got a great team here yes, yes

It's funny how youth gets old pretty quick. Huh? I know I'm not sure which one I am Time is increasing

Thank You

Susie Oh, OK. Yeah. Oh, good point from my commissioner right here that we have not as a...OK. We're your arts commission, OK? The money comes from the city and our liaison rules here tonight representing City Council, OK, but we have also assembled because your commissions aren't always experts at grants, we've assembled an ad hoc committee. I'm not taking your time, sorry. An ad hoc committee of people from the community who have granting and artistic experience too. So we kind of have three layers for integrity and approval, but ultimately it's city council that has committed $100,000 this year to our grants. And so we thank them and thank you guys because it's our money.

So, very good. So this is Christopher with Studio Artists and then we'll do the Arts Center and then the Music Festival just to let you know so.

All right excellent. I'm Christopher Noxon. Oops sorry. Your time's up. Okay oh my gosh! I'm Christopher Noxon. I am a co-president of the Ojai Studio Artists. I m here with Julie Empson my co-president and we're going Rip through a very fast overview of what we do and why we're seeking a grant this year. We're in our 43rd year, there are 70 plus artists, many of you know us already but it's helpful to get some kind of broad 30,000 foot view of what we do. We do five major things. We do one thing that just ended over the weekend, a huge studio tour with 70 studios open across the valley. We bring in people from all over Southern California This year we were on NPR, we're a major part of the Southern California Arts Calendar. We sold 600 plus tickets.

As I understand it there wasn't a hotel room to be had this weekend. We had an amazing weekend. We sold a lot of art. We met a lot of incredible people. There were kids in studios who are learning art in real time. That's our major event but then Over the course of the year, we do something called Second Saturday where we have these smaller neighborhood-specific tours that are open and they're free. That happens from March through June. We do exhibitions at the museum and at the Beatrice Wood Center, and sometimes we do pop up exhibitions. And then we do events and education. We do a monthly thing called Ojai Posers at the museum, where people get together and draw each other fully clothed. Super fun! We do art talks at the museum. We do workshops for artists about how to sell and market their work.

And we do a booth at the music festival where we show art and we get people who haven't known what we do and about the arts community to come here. But one of the most important things we do is student awards and mentorships. We work at Nordoff High School, I myself have two mentees but there's I think 12 this year kids who are learning all year round about how to make art and how to make it a daily practice in their life And we give them $250 stipends to buy art supplies at Ojai Creates. So, what does all this add up to? It adds up to the creative economy in real tangible force where we've got students, we've got artists, we've got teachers, we have all kinds of people cross-pollinating and in this very intense dynamic learning ecosystem And so if you want to know about the creative economy, Ojai Studio Artists is where it's at.

I'm going to talk very briefly about the priorities that we've set for next year. Christopher mentioned that we give student awards and in the past year and previous years we've given them exclusively to Nordhoff students Next year we want to broaden the geographic area and we'd like more money to give them because we're hoping that more students will apply. We're looking for a greater diversity in the types of art and more students who are applying.

With the objective, not necessarily that they will specialize in art in their continuing education but that art will be in their lives. That the practice of art will be something that they continue doing. Our second priority for the year is to take the baby step to establish an endowment for the Ojai Studio artists, which has been in existence for 43 years as Christopher said. But never with a structure that allows for sustainability, and we're hoping that we can begin that. We're not asking your money for that. We're asking your help with our main activities so that we can put a little bit aside that we would normally have for our major activities into this endowment.

We're an entirely volunteer organization. We have no staff, we have a very, very small budget and your contribution matters greatly. It has an enormous impact and for that we thank you and hope you'll continue. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for this opportunity.

Where are you expanding the high school scholarships to?

As many schools as we can create relationships with. It will be, we've done it in the past and it's a matter of getting in touch with art instructors and finding out making those relationships first. High school? High school and middle school. Okay.

Yeah. But in the valley not in all of Ventura County. Not all of Ventura County. That's too much for us to deal with.

So the implication is you're not getting enough applications coming out of Nordoff?

We don't have that many coming out of Nordoff. And for that reason, we've lowered the age group to the juniors as well as the seniors. So we want more and...

This year we did 10 and we feel like we could do a lot more.

Chris, you said your sale. Do you track the sales? The actual hard sales at the tour? Yes. You're able to track that? That's just

my life for the past three days.

To track that. Tracking the sales. Is it increasing?

Yes, what we found and I know this because we walk people through this tour book that many of our visitors are new and they're from out of Ojai. It's wonderful to get Ojai people back but our hope is to broaden the area so that new people will also come. So we had 588 who had pre-registered. We had about 200 who bought tickets over the past three days.

I'm sorry, I meant the sales of the art.

Oh, we don't track individual art sales that's kept by the artists themselves.

Anecdotally,

it's been great.

I didn't mean to interrupt but I was just curious because everyone says we volunteer and everything and anytime we see money go straight in the artist pocket it's good to see. I want to just mention, I use Ojai Studio Artists as an argument. I've used here within government to try to get all the government here too at least in the art world and the art economy and the creative economy to see more than our city limits as important to the drivers of the economy that's good for the city Two-thirds, I think of the actual artist studios on your tour are outside the city limits.

And what we've been able to achieve here in government is that your commissioners themselves do not all have to live within the city and we got a little exemption for this commission to do that too. And grants also can go to non, you could be outside the city limit type thing too. So I like that the message is getting that our community is more than just the city and Ojai benefits when our valley benefits too. So, just mentioning that for the benefit of the people here too. Thank you so much. Thank you. I have a question.

Yes please. Are these services like inclusion? Microphone please.

Sorry.

Are the services you perform, and I went to it last year. I wanted to go this year but I couldn't. Is there any charge to the artists for anything? To become a member? And if so what is it and how much does it cost?

There's a membership fee and one of our conflicting constructs is that we don't want to raise the membership fee. We do want to include more members for obvious reasons, but we don't want so many that the tour becomes hard to manage. So yes, there is a fee. It's $150 and there is a little fund if they can't, if the artists need help with that.

So the cost very modest?

Yes, it is modest.

Thank you.

Thank

you.

So we're going to go Art Center. Is Kathleen, is that who's here? Is someone here for the Ojai Arts Center? And so we'll go Music Festival and then Topa Institute and then Lucy Berylwood. It's not Laura... Oh it is Laura! I saw your compadre come in. Yes, I'm

Laura Walter with the Ojai Music Festival good evening Thanks for letting me speak to you today the Ojai Music Festival Bravo program works in educational and community outreach I won't detail Describe all of the programs that we have through Bravo because it's in the grant But I'll just list them the imagine concert the score program music fan the internship program The Bridge Program, where we do take children to retirement homes and not only sing for the seniors but we get them to sing with us. And the children kind of buddy up with them.

Upbeat, Bravo For Grown Ups workshops. The summer music and arts camp, our free family concert at the festival in June. And our year long weekly music classes at elementary schools. For many children school is not always an easy place. They may be dealing with stress, anxiety, loneliness, family challenges or bullying. Not every child knows how to put those feelings into words. Music gives them another language and another outlet.

When we give children access to music, we are giving them a place to belong. A way to express themselves and another tool for building emotional health and safety. Of these, safety always comes first. When a child is acting musically they are learning how to listen, to cooperate, to persist when something is difficult, and how to express emotions in a healthy way. And perhaps most importantly they are learning that their voice matters.

We provide a neutral and safe gathering place. This week I asked a class of four-year-olds what we could do to make a certain problem solving challenge in class more successful, and one little boy said, we can all take a big breath. Last year in a kindergarten class, a child threatened to kill me. We'd had a wonderful class. She was not participating as much as she normally did. We had no conflict, so I don't know what caused that behavior. But I do know how to make a positive difference in her life by embracing her, by including her in the play, making eye contact, moving together and singing together. She ended up signing up for summer camp and she said to me at the end of the year, Miss Laura, I love you! And I love music! And it was all because we had played and sung together.

It was a bonding activity. A music experience can become a community where every child has a role. The child who is shy can contribute, the child who struggles academically can discover a strength. The child who feels different can find peers who embrace them. Every student matters and access matters. If music education is only available to students whose families can afford private lessons, then we are leaving many children behind. A child's opportunity to discover music should not depend on their family's income background or circumstances. Often the child who needs a safe space the most is from the family least likely to enroll in music lessons. In Bravo we can help change that because we create community. We are a program where children in classrooms are welcomed, encouraged and given the opportunity to discover what they are capable of.

This is funding for connection, for confidence, for healthy self-expression and for safe spaces where children can be themselves. Funding for a future in which every child has the opportunity to find their voice and know that their voice is worth hearing. Through music I've seen a group of third grade boys help their younger peers, they make eye contact They shake hands, and they often choose the unpopular students to partner with because their hearts are guiding them. And we talk about that. We practice regard for others singing in tune and we provide an experience that includes beauty and joy. Parents say that due to the Bravo program their children come home singing new songs and have taught the family new games They're spending more free time off of screens and being more adventurous.

Children, more often who are 5 to 10, are talking about killing and violence. We can make a difference in that when we make eye contact and play and move and sing together. Music can bring us together. This stabilization of human development is all presented on a pillow of play. Their voice matters. Thank you.

Anybody? Thank you so much, Laura. And thank you for what you guys do for our community for almost 100 years, huh? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm in charge. So we're going to go Topa Mercedes here, yeah? No? No. So we're going to go Lucy Berylwood, then the film festival, Ojai Film Festival and then Session Arts. Which one was? The second one. Ojai Film Festival? Is that the- Third number three at Ojai Arts Center. Okay but Lucy's here.

Yeah I'm speaking on behalf of Lucy tonight. Okay.

Ojia Arts

Center

number three has gone.

I know are they here? They weren't here They weren't here, I called them. The Arts Center? There's no one here from the Arts Center.

Good evening members of the Arts Commission, thank you for having us. My name is Emma Leary I'm the events manager at Bart's Books and one of the collaborators on a grant proposal put together by Lucy Bellwood called the Ojai Comics Cabal While she couldn't attend tonight's meeting in person I'm happy to share an overview of the grant with you in her stead In my role at Bart's Books, I have collaborated with Lucy on several free events at the bookstore including hosting Pulitzer award-winning and Caldecott award winning authors as part of my programming Bringing Authors to the Valley. Lucy has been a wonderful collaborator to have as a cohost for these events in the graphic novel medium.

Lucy has been a professional adventure cartoonist and educator for 16 years. She grew up in Ojai, left at 17 to become a tall ship sailor and then spent 12 years working as an artist in Portland, Oregon before returning to town in 2021. For the last five years she's been illustrating a graphic novel for kids aged 8-12 called Sea Critters forthcoming in March of 2027 working out of her studio on East Ojai Avenue in the former site of The Basic Premise Gallery She welcomes people of all ages to come inside and see how these books get made.

This grant arose in response to countless requests for Lucy to teach comics to kids in town. As any of you who know children, you know that graphic novels now make up a huge percentage of reading for young people. Readers in the Ventura County Library System checked out 68,480 graphic novels across the Young Adult and Kid sections in the course of 2025. And at BARTS, I can say we sold 1,500 new kids' graphic novels over the last year.

The Ojai Comics Cabal would fund two free all-ages comics workshops at the Twice Old Tales meeting room while the Ojai Library is closed for renovation as well as two free kid-friendly graphic novel author visits at BARTS. And a Banned Books Week event with visiting author in partnership with the library in October. With a strong network of fellow cartoonists, Lucy plans to bring authors to Ojai who can reflect the experiences of our students. In addition to Bart's books this grant features partnerships with the Ojai Library and Library Friends Foundation, Queers in the Valley and local teachers in public and private schools. We're so excited to meet the demonstrated demand and enthusiasm for this educational work in the valley. Thank you very much!

Thank you very much.

I might not be able to answer all questions on behalf of Lucy, but I could answer some if anyone has any.

Graphic novel, that's a comic now? Yeah. Okay cool, that's great. Very unique and I'm glad we got some literary applications again this year too. It's

an important pathway to literacy.

Thank

you Emma!

All right, so we're going to do Film Festival. Is Tisha? Yes, Tisha's here and then we'll do Session Arts and then we'll do Ryan Bigler.

Good evening commissioners. I'm Tisha Morris. I'm vice president of the Ojai Film Festival and this is Sven Sjögren, the president of the Ojai Film Festival and we are honored to be here before you. Like so many of the festivals represented here tonight, the Ojai Film Festival is one of the most beloved events of the year. We're actually getting ready for our 27th festival in a few weeks.

74 films from 12 different countries, seven paneled conversations. We have the Gold Coast slate on Monday which features local filmmakers in addition to some great star-studded panels and speaking opportunities. What we are looking to you to help us out with is expanding not just our film festival that's over six days, but incorporating some events throughout the year to really get the community involved even more so. And so Xuan is going to tell you more about those plans.

Thanks for giving us the opportunity. We have a new energy with the film festival, 27 years with a board that had no term limits and we've actually been able to freshen ourselves and have some new energy, new level of interaction with the industry and many of these are local folks that we just haven't been able to tap before With that we've gathered energy in the community to bring filmmakers together, to bring the local filmmakers out of their hibernation and their independence to collaborate together.

And we'd like to continue developing mini festivals throughout the year perhaps every quarter there'll be a gathering not just the end of the year in November. We intend to have a quarterly Some sort of film festival, whether it's documentary here and screenwriting there. We're still developing all that we have sponsors and we have interest in from investors that will allow us to double or triple any money that we get from you We appreciate having the community involvement with us financially because it makes us accountable to the community and we would love to check those boxes that you all feel are appropriate for the interaction.

We are reaching out to schools much more than we've been able to successfully in the past. I've got Nordoff, I've got Thatcher. Ventura has a couple of buses coming up to the festival this year. Besson Hill has sent people. And we basically are trying to increase internships as well as just interaction with our professional filmmaker community that were gathering for the festival. So I think the purpose of the grant would be to allow us to develop these student programs through the year and to help Even elementary school as well as middle school, college, high school students to benefit from the kind of professionalism that we can bring together here this year. And I encourage you all to attend there's events around town. We're at Chapparal.

We're two screening rooms at the Arts Center. We are in Libby Bowl three nights. And we are really trying to embrace the community here with a new kind of energy. So any questions, we'd be happy

to... What are the dates of the festival this year?