Tuesday's rain didn't leave any new damage to the Fresno Art Museum's patched and leaky roof but budget cuts this week left it with just 2 full-time employees and 6 part timers along with a reduction from six to four annual exhibits. The museum will also utilized it own collections of fine art and never before seen pre-Colombian art collection.
With cash flow continuing to drop, half its galleries closed by roof issues and fewer visitors the organization is struggling. Interim curator, Eva Torres, told us the museum needs new members, donations and volunteers, "Those are just ways we can insure that the Art Museum remains a strong art center in this community."
Meantime in downtown Fresno right across the street from the shuttered Met Museum, FCASH, the Fresno Coalition of Arts, Science and History was meeting at Arte Americas. No one here expects the Art Museum to suffer the same fate as the Met. Cynthia Cooper, FCASH executive director says its situation is very different, "They have hard fiscal challenges but there's nothing that compares to that major debt the Fresno met had to deal with."
This coalition plans to bolster its member's prospects by joining the city of Fresno's current focus on downtown. They learned more about that at this meeting from John Dugan, Fresno's new Planning and Development director. He welcomes the input. The group may not have money he says, but their artistic input has value as the city develops a greener, friendlier and welcoming downtown to draw people and investors, "If people outside the area can see that Fresno has its act together ... then we will have that economic prosperity that we really need to change the socio-economic character of the city."
The city is poised he adds to build that foundation. The FCASH coalition supports this long term goal and one a bit more urgent in the short term says Cynthia Cooper, "Our job is to join the Art Museum, to let other people know that their donation really does make a difference right now."
Check out the web links for more on these folks and the city of Fresno has in mind.
MORE RELATED LINKS:
Fresno Coalition for Arts, Science & History
http://www.fcash.org
John Dugan, Director Planning and Development - City of Fresno
http://www.fresno.gov/Government/DepartmentDirectory/PlanningandDevelopment/Administration/default.htm
