{"id":171054,"date":"2026-02-10T00:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T00:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/171054\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T00:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T00:09:08","slug":"somarts-to-host-emergency-meeting-for-arts-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/171054\/","title":{"rendered":"SOMArts to Host Emergency Meeting for Arts Community"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The San Francisco arts scene has experienced major blows in recent weeks. On Jan. 13, the 119-year-old California College of the Arts, Northern California\u2019s last remaining nonprofit art and design school, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kqed.org\/arts\/13985413\/california-college-of-the-arts-sfai-mills-art-school-closures\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">announced it would close<\/a> at the end of the 2026\u20132027 school year. Less than two weeks later, the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (MCCLA), founded in 1977, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kqed.org\/news\/12071507\/financial-crisis-forces-sfs-mission-cultural-center-for-latino-arts-to-close\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">shuttered indefinitely<\/a> due to financial crisis. These sudden announcements came after a spate of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kqed.org\/arts\/13984752\/jack-fischer-gallery-closing-minnesota-street-project\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">gallery<\/a> and nonprofit art space closures at the end of 2025.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe infrastructure that sustains creative life is eroding faster than policy and philanthropy can respond,\u201d the \u201cArtists Live Here\u201d event page proclaims. \u201cIf we don\u2019t have this conversation now, we may not get another chance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Taking matters into their own hands is very much in keeping with the historical role of San Francisco\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfartscommission.org\/experience-art\/cultural-centers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">seven neighborhood cultural centers<\/a>, which provide accessible arts spaces, classes, exhibitions and other programming. In addition to the MCCLA and SOMArts, the city\u2019s cultural centers include the African American Art and Culture Complex, the American Indian Cultural Center, the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center, Bayview Opera House Ruth Williams Memorial Theatre, and the Queer Cultural Center. Only four \u2014 now three \u2014 have physical spaces.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13986215\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/A7R05930-1.jpg\" alt=\"A painting of two women wearing masks, facing each other, mounted on a green background in an art gallery.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2000\"  \/>Cece Carpio, \u2018Brass and Copper,\u2019 2017, part of the artist\u2019s current exhibition \u2018Tabi Tabi Po: Come Out with the Spirits! You Are Welcome Here\u2019 at SOMArts. (Brandon Robinson)<\/p>\n<p>Friday\u2019s convening comes as SOMArts is itself facing an uncertain financial future. \u201cWe received a 10% cut for this fiscal year, which we didn\u2019t learn was going to happen until way after we normally prepare our annual budget,\u201d Jenson explains. At the most recent Arts Commission meeting, a budget presentation shared big-picture numbers, but not the detailed breakdown that will help Jenson, her staff and board make plans for SOMArts\u2019 future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Francisco arts scene has experienced major blows in recent weeks. On Jan. 13, the 119-year-old California&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-171054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-san-francisco","9":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","10":"tag-san-francisco-news","11":"tag-sf","12":"tag-sf-headlines","13":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}