Grantee Database
ECOARTS OF LAKE COUNTY
Grant Year
2025-26
Grant Program
Arts and Youth
Award Amount
$18,000.00
Project Description
With support from the California Arts Council, EcoArts of Lake County DBA Middletown Art Center (MAC) will deliver YÓMI–PLACE, providing Title I public school students with free field trips to an exhibit of contemporary Native American art at MAC. Field trips center inquiry-based, standards-aligned gallery tours led by a culture bearer together with a seasoned teaching-artist, paired with creative arts studio activities using traditional and contemporary materials led by cultural educator and emerging artist Way-La Brown. All activities model the power of arts integration and kinesthetic experiences to enhance core curriculum and diverse learners’ voices and understandings in an exhibition with profound and meaningful content that grounds them in place-based natural history and Native American cultural heritage. Students will demonstrate their understandings through written and spoken observational notes, dialogue, and art making.
Organization Summary
Community-focused, MAC offers a range of visual, cultural, literary, and performing arts programming to the people of rural Lake County. We prioritize cross-cultural exchange and engagement onsite and within underrepresented communities. We reach, serve, connect, and uplift people of diverse backgrounds and cultures in an economically challenged, geographically dispersed, and isolated region where arts resources are few.
Prioritizing community outreach, inclusion, and engagement, we offer free, community-engaged art at festivals and centers of activity in underrepresented communities. Events at MAC include cultural celebrations, concerts, dances, open mics, and readings. Cultural arts workshops and projects are collaboratively designed with and led by culture bearers and BIPOC artists. We offer workshops in visual arts, writing, drumming, and artists’ professional development (promotion/documentation). In partnership with Woodland Community College, MAC hosts accredited art classes.
MAC hosts field trips and initiates artist-in-schools programs. Students are exposed to contemporary art and cultural expressions through inquiry-based learning and creative arts expressions of understanding. Teachers are exposed to arts integration and students’ diverse learning modalities. Families have access to affordable summer art camps, homeschool, and after-school classes.
Artist opportunities include curated thematic exhibits, Art Talks, installations at the EcoArts Sculpture Walk at Trailside Park, promotion, documentation, and web presence. Musicians and poets can perform. Artists are invited to teach, submit public art proposals, and collaborate on project design. Youth are mentored in teaching, mural-making, event management, and promotion.
All engagement options are free, by donation, or low-cost to increase and ensure equitable access.
MAC has generated a burgeoning local art scene where artists and art appreciators coalesce. We have innovated, adapted, and responded to years of regional wildfires, seasonal power cuts, and COVID-19. We uplift Lake County’s diverse communities, celebrate our resilience, and strengthen our sense of interconnectedness through the power of the arts and shared cultural experiences.
Organization
Middletown Art Center
Address
21456 State Hwy 175
MIDDLETOWN
95461-1616
County
Lake
Region
Upstate
Phone
(707) 809-8118
Congressional District
California's 5th congressional district
State Assembly District
District 4
State Senate District
District 2
