In 2023, the Yuba Sutter Rotary Night Club was awarded a grant from the Upstate California Creative Corps to hold a Mural Marathon, Art & Health Festival. These five murals are the legacy of that grant program. Created in just 48 hours, these artists addressed the themes mandated by the grant each in their own unique way. The Mural Marathon was part of a larger statewide grant program to illuminate key subjects including public health awareness, environmental issues, civic engagement, social justice, and community engagement. The murals and concurrent festival addressed all these objectives.
The grant was part of the State of California’s one-time General Fund allocation to the California Arts Council, to implement a California Creative Corps pilot program. It was designed to include and compensate artists and arts organizations to fund projects to increase awareness related to those key issues. Yuba Sutter Arts & Culture collaborated with the Nevada County Arts Council and three other county arts agencies to lead the regranting program for the nineteen counties in the Upstate region. Funds were to be used for workforce development for artists, as well as for arts organizations and social service organizations who employed artists between early 2023 and late 2024.
The Yuba Sutter Rotary Night Club collaborated with the Partnership for Health Equity and Inclusion, applied for and received the grant to conduct a Mural Marathon, Art & Health Festival April 19, 20 and 21, 2024. Yuba Sutter Arts & Culture agreed to allow the painting of the murals on the side of its Sutter Theater Center for the Arts. The project was designed to make the creation of public art a spectator sport. These five astounding artists were chosen by a committee to bring their mural concepts to life. The festival also included displays by local health care providers and health information vendors, artists exhibiting their work and live music and dance. A sidewalk chalk festival was also part of the fun along with a “paint a picket” community mural project to create a series of portraits to be installed on a nearby chain link fence.
The California Creative Corps program has been likened to what the U.S. Government did during the Depression with the Work Project Administration employing millions of Americans.
In one of its most famous projects, the WPA employed musicians, artists, writers, actors and directors in arts, drama, media, and literacy projects. The California Creative Corps’ intent was to help the creative sector in California continue its recovery following the pandemic. The Yuba-Sutter Rotary Night Club is proud to have been chosen as a grant recipient under this program and to be able to give this gift of public art to the community conveying important themes in this meaningful and lasting artistic manner.
