ARTISTS CARRY CAUSE TO THE CAPITOL

SACRAMENTO —  Angus Whyte, tired after spending an afternoon traipsing about the sprawling state Capitol, didn’t find Arts Day to be exactly as he had imagined.

“I went to eight legislative offices, but I didn’t speak with a single assemblyman or senator,” he said.

Whyte, an administrator at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design, was one of about 350 members of the California Confederation of the Arts (the state’s advocacy organization for artists and arts groups) who converged on the capitol Tuesday for the group’s annual Arts Day gathering and lobbying effort.

A daylong meeting kept the entire Assembly secluded from Arts Day participants seeking an increase in the state arts budget. Busy senators were often just as inaccessible.

Still, most confederation members agreed that the day was well spent. Like others, Lindsay Shields, chairman of the Santa Monica Arts Commission, met mostly with legislative aides, leaving them with business cards and fact sheets.

“This is a terrific day no matter what,” Shields said, “even if you only see a legislative aide. Last year, Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles) gave me a 10-minute lecture on why it’s important to come around personally.”

By 6 p.m., several Arts Day participants had managed to speak with as many as four legislators, many catching the officials during an outdoor luncheon that included a performance by Scottish Highland dancers, a poetry reading and a heartfelt speech by actor Danny Glover--a veteran of nonprofit theater and co-star of the movie “Lethal Weapon.”

Financial realities, however, cast a shadow on the day’s festivities and accomplishments.

Gov. George Deukmejian has proposed that the current $13.5-million state arts budget (which includes about $1 million from the National Endowment for the Arts) be increased by $60,000 for fiscal 1987-88, which begins July 1. That proposed boost, to be used to evaluate the California Arts Council’s year-old multicultural (ethnic minority) program, means no additional money for state grants this year. The proposed amount is only a fraction of the $3.9-million increase recommended by the confederation to bring the arts budget up to about $17.4 million.

Last year the confederation requested a $900,000 increase and won about two-thirds of it.

The confederation is gunning for a $1-per-capita state arts budget by 1990, and the fact sheets that members passed out Tuesday report that California currently spends about 47 cents per person on the arts.

This year, confederation director Susan Hoffman said the $3.9-million increase would assist the state’s “prominent,” or largest, arts organizations, which have “virtually doubled in the last several years.” It would also beef up all other Arts Council programs, she said, including those for multicultural groups and independent artists, for which the confederation is seeking an additional $120,500.

Confederation members are confident that they will win support for their entire increase from the Democratic Legislature, which has followed the confederation’s recommendations for the last several years. On Tuesday, Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys), chairman of the budget conference subcommittee, said the confederation’s $3.9-million request will “absolutely be in the Senate version of the budget.” Robbins’ committee meets today. The arts budget then moves on to a joint Senate and Assembly Conference Committee in mid-May and finally goes to the governor, usually in June.

Arts Council Director Robert Reid, who was appointed by Deukmejian, said he will “advocate with the governor for whatever you people get” from the Legislature.

However, confederation director Hoffman expressed little optimism that the full increase will survive a blue-penciling by the governor, who, much to her dismay, did not attend Arts Day for the second year in a row. A spokeswoman for the governor said Deukmejian was too busy to meet with arts representatives. He was “in his office attending to state business.”

“It’s a year where the political terrain is a lot different,” Hoffman said in an interview. “The Assembly Democrats’ new strategy of returning the budget back to the governor without adding anything to it means that the budget will be decided in conference committee; that puts a strain on those committee members who will have to make some hard choices.

“Also, there is a whole caldron of tough issues facing the governor and the Legislature. . . . I expect we’ll get something from the governor.”