Josephine Ramirez
Throughout my entire career in the nonprofit sector both as a grantmaker and as a practitioner and researcher at organizations, I’ve focused on how arts and culture practices are crucial for individual and community well-being, and showed the impact that work has on building healthy, stronger communities and cities. The focus of my work as at The Music Center in Los Angeles is about transforming this 6-venue performing arts facility (4 theatre venues including Walt Disney Concert Hall plus a large outdoor plaza and a 12-acre urban park) into a more relevant and accessible cultural asset for the people of LA County. Prior to starting this role at The Music Center I was an independent consultant specializing in arts leadership, arts philanthropy, and organizational capacity-building towards greater engagement and cultural equity.
Previous to my consulting work I was at the James Irvine Foundation as the Arts Program Director then Portfolio Director for 7 and a half years. As Arts Program Director I developed and implemented a multi-million dollar investment in California arts organizations serving diverse and low-income communities. I also led Irvine’s participation as one of the original funders of ArtPlace America. My work as Portfolio Director involved supervision of grantmaking involving creative economy-based career readiness projects, and community organizing work that utilizes arts and cultural practices.
Before joining Irvine, I worked at the Music Center where I was Vice President of Programming and Planning. I founded the programming department there and created a year-round series of events aimed at awakening and exercising the creativity of nonprofessional and “every day” artists. I also developed and produced arts experiences reflecting the immigrant communities of Los Angeles. Before working at the Music Center, I was a Program Officer at the Getty Foundation, managing funding in the areas of arts leadership development, Los Angeles cultural organizations, arts education research, and arts policy. Also at the Getty, I was a Research Associate at the Research Institute, creating and implementing a multiyear investigation of the connections between art making and civic participation in East Los Angeles.
I have extensive experience as both staff and appointed official in local and regional government, including serving as the Community Arts Coordinator for the King County Arts Commission in Seattle, as vice president of the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Commission and chair of the city’s Cultural Master Plan Advisory Committee.
As a Loeb Alumni, I was a member of our Alumni Council and served on the Fellowship’s selection review committee in 2017 and 2018. My 2003 Fellowship award supported an investigation of informal, nonprofessional art making and its relationship to individual and community vitality.