Gay Man Works to Bolster SF Arts Scene

With artists and cultural institutions struggling to afford to live and do business in San Francisco, Cultural Affairs Director Tom DeCaigny is helming City Hall's efforts to bolster the local arts community.

Since January 2012 DeCaigny, 39, who is gay and a former executive director of a nonprofit arts group, has overseen the city's arts commission, which currently has a two-year budget of $7.5 million. The agency is responsible for conserving San Francisco's vast public-owned art collection, approving new public art projects, overseeing seven city-funded cultural centers, and awarding funds to numerous artists and cultural groups.

An increasing part of DeCaigny's portfolio is also figuring out how to ensure individual artists and local artistic and cultural nonprofits can afford to remain in San Francisco amid skyrocketing costs for housing, office space, and performance venues. A 2015 survey based on the responses of 579 local artists found just 28 percent were not facing displacement from either their studio space or homes in the city.

"We see a trend across the country of artists being driven out in other cities. It is not just San Francisco that is grappling with affordability challenges," DeCaigny told the Bay Area Reporter during a recent interview in his new office inside the remodeled War Memorial Building on Van Ness Avenue across the street from City Hall. "Cities are changing so much and the role of the arts is evolving."

Because of the city's long-standing public funding of the arts, San Francisco should and can take a leadership role in addressing how urban centers can maintain a thriving arts community and cultural economy, argued DeCaigny.

"While there are some challenges, a lot of people are looking to San Francisco because historically we have supported art and culture in ways other cities dream of doing," he said. "I think we are trying to look at the cultural health of the city."

In close collaboration with the office of Mayor Ed Lee, who appointed him to the job, DeCaigny is working on a survey of potential city-owned parcels where affordable housing for artists could be built. One possible site is the parking lot of the African American Art and Culture Complex in the Fillmore.

Board of Supervisors President London Breed, who once ran the center, touted the site as ripe for redevelopment earlier this year at a forum with women leaders hosted by the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club.

"I would like the African American culture center to build artist housing," she said.

DeCaigny expects to have the report on potential development sites completed by June.

"The mayor has given us the direction to work on a clear plan for affordable artist housing," he said. "We are looking at what neighborhoods have a density of artists living there based on our artists grants data and other survey data we have to try to understand where artists are living and where artists are facing affordability challenges."

Sustainability Initiative

Also now under DeCaigny's purview is the San Francisco Nonprofit Sustainability Initiative, which was adopted by city leaders in 2014. Overseen by the arts commission and the mayor's offices of Housing and Community Development and Economic and Workforce Development, the program has awarded $4.5 million to 74 community benefit organizations, from nonprofit service providers to arts groups.

"It helps arts organizations maintain their homes and leases," explained DeCaigny.

The arts commission has faced questions on how it distributes funds to local artists and groups, with some minority arts leaders calling into question how equitable the awards have been in recent years. The agency's cultural equity endowment, meant to fund individual artists work, was recently increased by 50 percent to $2.95 million annually.

DeCaigny acknowledged, "As a city we can always do better," but defended his and his staff's efforts to ensure the commission funds a diverse array of artists and groups. After artists or groups are awarded grants, the commission asks them to answer a survey that includes questions about their ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

"We do it after we make a selection," explained DeCaigny, "because we don't want it to be a barrier in the decision-making process."

According to a 2015 report from the arts commission, the two minority groups whose organizations received the most grants funding, not counting the money given to cultural centers, between 2004 and 2014 were the city's Asian American and LGBTQ communities. (The largest group overall, at more than $3 million, had no specific community focus.)

During the decade studied, Asian American organizations received more than $2 million, while LGBTQ groups received nearly $608,900. Women's groups came in fourth at more than $585,000, while groups with a multiple community focus received more than $570,000.

African-American groups were given close to $558,400; Latino organizations received $544,500; Native American groups saw more than $347,000; immigrant groups received $156,350; and Pacific Islander groups ($55,250) and disabled organizations ($25,000) received the least.

Individual LGBT artists also fared well, landing in the third spot at $517,460 in terms of funding received over the decade covered. Asian Americans took the top spot with $745,950 and women were in second with $603,110.

"I am really proud of the work we are doing to support the many artists from vulnerable communities, providing them commissions of cutting-edge work and opportunities for them to contribute to the city," said gay Arts Commissioner Roberto Orde�ana, who was recently appointed to a second four-year term. "In terms of cultural equity, the increasing of the amount of grants and the increase in the size of grants the art commission has been able to do under (DeCaigny's) leadership has been historic."

In terms of cultural center funding during the 10-year timeframe, the most money went to African-Americans at nearly $11.6 million. In second was the multiple community focus category at more than $8.5 million, while Latino centers were third at nearly $7.7 million.

LGBTQ funding in this category was in fifth place at more than $1.4 million. When all three grant categories are combined, the LGBTQ community was in sixth place at nearly $2.56 million in funding.

"Many artists who live in the Castro or who perform in the Castro get grants from us," noted DeCaigny, who lives in the city's Excelsior district. "We are a leader nationally as a local city funding LGBTQQ arts and culture. It is a point of pride for the arts commission; we go out of our way to foster and encourage emerging artists who transcend all the identities in our community."

Pamela S. Peniston, the Queer Cultural Center's artistic director, told the B.A.R. "that it's been great having a director who is not only gay and has nonprofit administration experience but who is also committed to serving artists and audiences from the city's underrepresented and under-served communities."

Nightlife Intertwined With the Arts

Another initiative DeCaigny supports as a way to bolster the city's cultural offerings is seeing "good transportation across the bay," such as BART, operating past 2 a.m. It would benefit not only artists and patrons of the arts, he said, but also workers at other nightlife offerings such as bars and nightclubs.

"For a healthy arts ecology you need a healthy entertainment and nightlife ecology," said DeCaigny. "They are closely intertwined."

He also believes the city should do more to protect existing venues, from dance halls to concert spaces, from being targeted for closure by nearby residents of newly constructed apartment buildings or condos. Doing so "is super important for the Castro," added DeCaigny, as a way to protect the gayborhood's bars and clubs.

"We have to make sure people know that a historic entertainment venue or gay bar is a part of the cultural heritage of the neighborhood you are moving into. We could do a better job to keep that in mind of new residents," he said. "You have to know that is what you are moving next too and be excited about it and know what that means. We could do a better job of setting those parameters but also enforcing them and making sure we keep those expectations."

Prior to working for the city, DeCaigny had served for nine years as executive director of the Performing Arts Workshop. Between 2004 and 2006 he served as board co-chair of the Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center in the Castro, and in the late 1990s worked as the education manager for the nonprofit overseeing the AIDS quilt.

As the B.A.R. noted at the time of his hiring, DeCaigny is the second out gay man to lead the San Francisco Arts Commission. The first was Richard Newirth, who held the position for 12 years until resigning in 2007.

His successor, Luis Cancel, was forced out in the summer of 2011 after news reports detailed his telecommuting from Brazil. It was the start of a series of negative headlines involving the city agency, which was also slammed for doling out contracts to an artist who had killed a dog as part of an artwork in 1977.

An audit released a month prior to DeCaigny's hiring found not only low morale and poor management at the agency but also that $477,000 had been incorrectly given to a non-local arts group. Since taking on the job, DeCaigny has won praise for his steady leadership of the agency.

"I think Tom is really inspirational. He is an incredible problem solver and he is a true champion of the arts," said Orde�ana, who works at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center as its director of development. "I think it is a testament to his ability to build strong partnerships and relationships across the arts ecosystem, within city government and with a variety of different types and size of arts organizations across the city."

DeCaigny has also become a vocal supporter of the arts in the media and at conferences around the globe. He recently was in London representing San Francisco at a gathering of global cities where investing in the arts was part of the agenda.

"We have an incredible team," DeCaigny said of his agency's staff.

Despite having moved into his new office in late October, DeCaigny has yet to decorate the walls with any city-owned artworks. He told the B.A.R. this week that he is still finalizing the art to hang but will be displaying a poster from the arts commission's Outdoor Art Show from May 1948.

"It's a great piece of SFAC history!" he noted in an email.

The barren look of his office could give a visitor the impression of someone not intending to stay long. Yet DeCaigny, who now earns $163,760 a year, told the B.A.R. he has no plans to leave anytime soon.

"San Francisco is my home, so I am definitely staying," said DeCaigny, whose longtime partner, Seth Goldstein, is a graphic designer and artist. "This role has been exciting and continues to be exciting and challenging."