Staff
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Danielle Brazell
Brazell transitioned Arts for LA from an ad-hoc steering committee comprised of local executive arts leadership to a highly visible arts advocacy organization. Under her stewardship, Arts for LA has surveyed candidates running for election in each Arts for All district, built an online communications infrastructure that allows for a greater exchange of information and resources among the arts and arts education community and, with strong input from the field, launched a policy platform to guide the field’s collective advocacy. Brazell brings over fifteen years’ experience to the field. She is the former Director of Special Projects for the Screen Actors Guild Foundation and Artistic Director of Highways Performance Space. Ms. Brazell is the recipient of numerous grant awards, including the 2000 Getty Fellowship, a 2009 CLEAR Communications Fellowship sponsored by the James Irvine Foundation, a 2010 SHero Award from CA State Senator Curren D. Price, a 2009 Leadership LA Fellow and is currently participating in California Leadership with a generous scholarship from The Boeing Corporation. Brazell represents Arts for LA on the Policy Committee of the California Alliance for Arts Education and sits on the Board of Directors for California Arts Advocates.
DEVELOPMENT & COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER: Charlie Jensen
Charlie Jensen holds BAs in film studies and cultural studies & comparative literature from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in creative writing from Arizona State University, where he also did graduate work in nonprofit management. He is a founding member of the consulting think tank and enclave Radar Collective and has worked in the corporate, nonprofit, and higher education sectors over the last fifteen years. He is the author of a poetry collection, The First Risk, and three shorter chapbooks of poems, most recently The Nanopedia Quick-Reference Pocket Lexicon of Contemporary American Culture. In 2007, he received a state arts grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts in support of his work. He started writing poetry at age 13 when a poet did a weeklong residency in his 8th grade classroom on Washington Island, Wisconsin, and he hasn't stopped since.
ADVOCACY MANAGER: Abe Flores
Abe Flores, Advocacy Field Manager for Arts for LA, organizes and liaisons with arts advocacy teams throughout LA County. He leads advocacy workshops to create networks of arts advocates and increase local capacity to effectively advocate for the retention of arts programs and infrastructure. Abe graduated from California State University, Los Angeles in 2011 with a M.S in Public Administration and in 2006 he received his B.A in Political Science from Cal State Long Beach. He served as the Executive Assistant at the Learning Rights Law Center, a non-profit law firm dedicated to education equity, where he assisted in day-to-day management and worked with parent groups. He then worked as the Deputy Campaign Manager in a candidate’s run for Montebello USD Board of Education. Abe interned with the Los Angeles County Arts Commission’s Arts for All initiative, where he facilitated a data-collection project that mapped arts provision equity in the County. He is the first in his family to graduate from college, a proud parent of a three-year old boy, a music lover, and lives with his family in Boyle Heights.
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSOCIATE: GRETCHEN REYES
Having graduated from the University of California, Irvine in 2010 with a B.A. in Art History and English, Gretchen keeps herself professionally immersed in the happenings with several Los Angeles arts organizations. She has been a Getty Curatorial intern with the Torrance Art Museum, an Administrative intern for the Watts House Project, and a Spring intern with Arts for LA. She has also received Getty scholarships with the California Association of Museums and the American Association of Museums. While holding her Curatorial internship at the Museum of Latin American Art, teaching dance classes to youth members throughout LA County, as well as her current position with Arts for LA, Gretchen seeks to pursue her M.A. in Art History to further her academic studies in Modern and Contemporary Art.
COMMUNICATIONS INTERN: ALE MCGREW
As an active visual artist, Alē McGrew is interested in community building through the arts and advocating for access to the arts. In 2004, she received a Bachelor of Science degree in Design from UC Davis. This experience strengthened her involvement with local communities, as an artist and arts organizer. During 2010 and 2011, Alē served as the 2nd Vice President of the Central California Art Association in Modesto, California. She enjoyed managing the C.C.A.A.’s Mistlin Gallery and facilitating visual arts events for central valley residents. Currently, Alē is pursuing a Masters in Arts Management at Claremont Graduate University.
