SACRAMENTO, CA – The California Arts Council elected members Nashormeh Lindo and Larry Baza to serve as Chair and Vice Chair of the Council, respectively, at a public meeting on Thursday, January 25, at OC Music & Dance school in Irvine. The decisions for both roles were made by unanimous vote of the Council.
An Oakland-based artist and educator, Lindo was appointed to the California Arts Council by Governor Jerry Brown in September of 2014. Prior to her election as Chair, Lindo held the position of Vice Chair for the Council since April 22, 2016. She succeeds Council member Donn Harris, who served as Council Chair for three years. At the meeting on Thursday, the Council members thanked Harris for his leadership. His current term on the Council expires January 1, 2021.
Baza, appointed to the Council by Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins in February of 2016, is an arts administrator for the San Diego region.
The positions for the new leadership take effect immediately.
About Nashormeh Lindo
Nashormeh N.R. Lindo, artist and educator, is a native of Philadelphia. She has an M.S. in Education from the Bank Street College Graduate School of Education Museum Leadership Program and a B.A. in Art from Pennsylvania State University. She is a practicing visual artist/designer and an educator/curator. An independent museum consultant, Lindo enjoys lecturing and writing about the sociopolitical and cultural history of African-Americans. She is particularly interested in the visual culture, especially photography and its relationship to music and to literature. She continues to teach art classes to children in Oakland and, most recently, was an adjunct instructor of African American Art History at City College of San Francisco. She has served in various capacities at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, where she was Manager of Educational Programs; the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New York, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Oakland Museum of California. She lives and works in the Bay Area with her husband, actor Delroy Lindo, and their son, Damiri.
About Larry Baza
Larry Baza is a professional arts administrator with more than three decades of experience in advocating for the arts at the local, state and national level. He is the immediate past Chair of the San Diego Arts Commission. Baza has served on the boards of various nonprofit arts organizations and provided his expertise as a panelist for arts commissions and foundations. In his professional career, he has directed and managed San Diego arts organizations and businesses including Centro Cultural De La Raza, Sushi Performance and Visual Arts, Fingerhut Gallery, and Community Arts of San Diego. His wealth of knowledge and experience includes affiliations, consultancies, site visits and panel participation with multiple arts organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, California Association of Local Arts Organizations, Chicano Federation of San Diego County, National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, and the San Diego Community Foundation.
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The mission of the California Arts Council, a state agency, is to advance California through the arts and creativity. The Council is committed to building public will and resources for the arts; fostering accessible arts initiatives that reflect contributions from all of California’s diverse populations; serving as a thought leader and champion for the arts; and providing effective and relevant programs and services.
Members of the California Arts Council include: Chair Nashormeh Lindo, Vice Chair Larry Baza, Phoebe Beasley, Christopher Coppola, Juan Devis, Kathleen Gallegos, Jaime Galli, Donn K. Harris, Louise McGuinness, Steven Oliver, and Rosalind Wyman. Learn more at www.arts.ca.gov.
