Screenshot of the updated Artists Registry of the Arts Council of Long Beach.
The Arts Council for Long Beach (ACLB) announced before the new year the launch of an entirely new and redesigned online database for Long Beach area artists and arts organizations.
The Artist Registry was originally developed in 2009 as part of a Leadership Long Beach project and was nested inside the Arts Council’s website. It attempted to connect users with free information about local artists, their projects, how to contact them, as well as information regarding possible grants and exhibition space from arts organizations.
However, the original registry was cumbersome and proved not as effective in organizing artist information as they had hoped. With the financial support of former Arts Council Board President Justin Hectus last year, plans moved forward to create a more robust registry.
“The Registry was updated as a result of many conversations over the past several months with local artists about how we could serve them more effectively,” said John Glaza, executive director of the Arts Council. “Once we knew what needed to be improved and we had the financial support we contacted our good friend an colleague Ryan Smolar from Smolar Corp to do the upgrade.”
Smolar had built and designed the original registry, so the upgrade was done easily.
“The updated registry is easier to use and more graphically appealing,” Glaza said. “The next step is to encourage artists of all kinds to create their own profile. The accuracy of the data contained in the Registry is only as good as what artists enter into it.”