I was recently invited to attend the final part of the President's Community Forum: "Nourishing Our Spirit: Central Valley Arts & Culture". It was hosted by UOP and  was held at Haggin Musium in Stockton. The forum consisted of a panel of educators and community leaders such as Robert Rojas CEO of the Cultural Heritage Coucil,Paula Sheil current chair of the Stockton Arts Commission, as well as Peter Jaffe who has been the director of the Stockton Symphony for the past15 seasons. The general mood of the forum was rather grim in my opinion. There were allot of good points and some good news as Stockton has received a 1.5 million dollar endowment for the arts. Although Stockton has received this endowment it is only a drop in the bucket. The arts as a whole are dieing and the only way to fix it in my opinion is to get involved. While listening to the panel of distinguished guest I realized that out of all the attendees I and perhaps four others were the only guests who were under the age of 50. The majority were in their golden years and mainly complained about how uncomfortable they were or how the meeting wasn't started on time. This is not an isolated situation either, I have gone to other art forums and meetings and realized that I always end up being the youngster even at the ripe age of 42. This concerns me greatly as the future of the arts in our individual communities will soon be gone if we don't get involved some how. I have talked with some of my fellow artists and together we are trying to create change.If your interested in helping or want to do something in your area, give me a call, or e-mail me and lets see if we can get the arts rediscovered.