Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Benicia Arts and Culture Commission held a special meeting on February 18, 2026, at 6:00 PM in the Council Chambers. The meeting focused exclusively on receiving mid-year compliance presentations from four community grantee organizations, covering the period from July 1, 2025, to December 31, 2025. Commissioners discussed the grantees' achievements, ongoing challenges, and collaborative efforts.
The Arts and Culture Commission is called to order. Six o'clock PM. Commissioner Nervis, can you please take role? Here. Here. Okay, please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. The fundamental rights of each member of the public can be found in the municipal code posted on the city's website and on a plaque that is posted at the entrance to this meeting per section four point zero four point zero three zero of the City of Venetia's open government ordinance. So adoption of the agenda. I motion to accept the agenda. Would someone like to second the motion? Five seconds. Commissioner Nervis, can you please take roll? Here. Okay, then now we'll have the opportunity for public comment. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the Arts and Culture Commission on any matter not on the agenda that is within the subject jurisdiction of the Arts and Culture Commission. And each speaker has a maximum of three minutes to make a public comment. So tonight you're receiving your mid-year compliance presentations from our community grantees. Again, this is a reminder, this is a summary of how they've used the funds for the fiscal year, which begins for our city on July first through the end through December thirty-first. And we thank you for being here. And so our first uh presentation tonight is from Arts Venesia. We have the executive director tonight here, Celeste, and she is going to represent Arts Venetia. Welcome. And I'm gonna circle my finger when you have two minutes left, just so you know. I'm gonna go like this. So when you have notify you have two minutes left. Okay. Okay. Good evening, commissioners. Thank you for being letting me be here to represent Arts Venetia. I'm Celeste Smealin, the executive director, and I will start right away. As you see, this is the commanding officers' quarters, which is home to Arts Venetia. And many of you are probably familiar with Arts Venesia's mission since we've been in around for almost 40 years. And basically is to stimulate educate and nurture the cultural life in Venetia, primarily through the visual arts. And I will go on now and tell you a little bit of the highlights of the last six months. We have the art classes and workshops. Give you a moment if you'd like to take a look at the slide. This is our collage jam workshop. We offer a wide range of classes for adults, mostly open to all levels of skill. And one of the great things about our art classes that it helps to directly support artists in our community because they're the teachers. So along with providing opportunity for learning for our community, it also provides some income to the artists of our community. Our printmaking program, the printmakers workshop, which has been uh here, it was founded in 2001 by Bill Harsh, the late Bill Harsh, and it's one of our signature programs. Recently, in the last couple years, we've added a young printmakers workshop to encourage teenagers and young people to uh introduce them to the love and beauty and opportunity to learn printmaking skills. Our exhibitions, Arts Venesia is known for high quality exhibitions, which we're all very proud of. We offer exhibitions in a variety of themes and in all medias, and we offer opportunity for collaboration with many of our exhibitions. Oh, by the way, currently on view right now is a fabulous exhibition. It's the international watercolor exhibition, the 56th annual.