Scheduled 17th OLA Arts Assembly [02/18/2012]
Nobody went.
call for contributions - Occupy Trading Cards
Dear Occupy LA,
Teams of artists are working to create Occupy Trading Cards that document what’s working about our occupy sites. I am writing to invite you to participate and share about what is working at Occupy LA.
The cards capture tools, successful actions, best practices, lessons learned, principles… basically any element of our occupy sites that we find most worthwhile to share with other sites. When there are enough cards made, they will be printed in sets for distribution.
Would anyone from Occupy LA like to participate, as an artist or through contributing a submission of a compelling action, tactic, story?
I have attached a call for contributions – please distribute it wide and far to those you think would be interested.
In solidarity,
Olivia
_______
A CALL FOR WRITTEN CONTENT AND ARTISTS
OCCUPY TRADING CARDS: DOCUMENTING THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT
OTC invites submissions (from individuals or groups) of compelling actions, tactics, and more from the Occupy Movement to be illustrated in the Occupy Trading Card project! What are some of the strongest aspects of your local Occupy work? Identify, document and share aspects of your Occupy Movement work and we will pair you with an artist to create your own Occupy Trading Card! These cards can fall under one of ten categories:
Actions, Tactics & Strategies, Encampments, Community & Allies,
Building Alternatives, Organizational Structures, Media & Communication,
Sustainability, Art & Culture, Skill Building
How to Join: Email us at info@occupytradingcards.org to let us volunteer as an artist or with your written content. Once we have received the written content from you, artists will work to illustrate it to create a trading card (an image on one side and text on the back). The trading cards will be made available online and as sets for exchange!
Written content must be under 150 words and it should describe something you or your working group sees as a strong example of any of the above aspects to the Movement. Also include a title and Occupy site – see examples on http://occupytradingcards.org/gallery.html
Why Trading Cards? The nature of trading cards is that they are valued objects to be to be shared or exchanged. By creating our own grassroots trading card set, we are encouraging people to celebrate and learn about some of the best elements of what we are doing with the Occupy movement. Trading cards are driven by person-to-person interactions when they are admired, compared, traded. We support this model of exchange that is most vibrantly activated by human relationships.
Who we are: Artists from Occupy Baltimore, Occupy Ames Iowa, and Occupy K Street in DC have been working together to create the Occupy Trading Card project.
MORE INFO: http://www.occupytradingcards.org
Occupy L.A. Open Letter to the DCA [02/01/2012]
Press Release
For Release: February 3rd, 2012
Contact: Occupy Los Angeles General Assembly, which assembles on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays at 7:30pm at the West Steps of Solidarity Park.
Occupy Los Angeles Requests City Return Their Murals, Criticizes Privatization of the Artwork
On February 1st, the General Assembly of Occupy Los Angeles responded to a “Request for Proposals” from L.A.’s Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) with a letter requesting to have the Occupy LA (OLA) murals returned to them. In a letter to the DCA, OLA stated, “the Murals are not instilled with any inherent worth when separated from the movement and placed into private possession.”
The two murals, each comprising four painted plywood panels, 24’ x 16’ and 8’ x 16’, were painted on plywood that the City used to cover two public monuments in the midst of OLA’s encampment. The better-known mural depicts the Federal Reserve Bank as an voracious octopus squeezing life and aspiration from human beings and polluting the planet; hundreds of OLA participants signed their names in endorsement of the murals’ message along the lower edges and the side panels. Following the November 30th raid and destruction of Occupy L.A., the murals were taken by the City and entrusted with to the Department of Cultural Affairs. On January 4, the DCA put out a call for organizations to submit “Letters of Interest for the Exhibition, Maintenance, and Storage¨of the Occupy LA Artifacts,” with a deadline of Monday February 6, 2012.
Decrying the description of the work as “artifacts” to be made available to art institutions for possession, OLA stated, “Occupy Los Angeles is an ever-growing movement. We reject the notion that a part of our movement–the People’s Art–has effectively been privatized for the 1% within our corrupt economic system.”
The next OLA General Assembly will be Friday, February 3, 2012, at 7:30 pm on the West Steps of Los Angeles City Hall.
Read More Below: February 1st letter to Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles
Scheduled 17th OLA Arts Assembly [02/11/2012]
Nobody went.
The art world and art market forces artists to commodify their work and be reliant on the 1% the more relevant they become. Let’s make the system of the art world and art market irrelevant by creating our own system that doesn’t rely on making artists sell. Who has ideas?
Notes from 16th OLA Arts Assembly [02/04/2012]
- need to compile email list of L.A. art communities: little tokyo, boyle heights, chinatown, etc
- newsletter/mailing list of individuals interested
OLA Arts network online publication tentatively named: hOLA Arts
- Cover the art at Occupy actions, OLA and worldwide.
- Accept submissions of imagery and photos of art at Occupations from individuals
- List of small L.A. art communities: blurb of what they’re about, their location and contact info. Update monthly
- List of small L.A. art community events; accept submissions of such. Update bi-weekly.
Street outreach:
- decorating skateboards, etc
- optical illusions
- forced perspective drawings and cut-outs
- tiny tents OLA
Notes from 15th OLA Arts Assembly [01/28/2012]
OLA Arts online publication will be started consisting of a database of local L.A. art communities, and weekly or monthly events of said local art communities. Will reach out to local art communities to see if they would like to be in this online publication to get more word out about their community, what work they do, what events they’re holding.
Castle defense game of OLA during the raid hopefully will get worked on.
A website wanted.
Scheduled 15th OLA Arts Assembly [01/21/2012]
Nobody went, so no meeting occurred. See you guys this Saturday for the 15th OLA Arts Assembly. We’ll generate ideas for creative actions that OLA could do. Make some tiny tents. Talk about the fountain box murals. Talk about newsletters and outreach. OLA Arts can be a reference point of information for Arts communities and activities in L.A. Let’s have some fun.
Light up the night, tiny tents.
OLAers arrested during Art Walk
Sergio Ballesteros, Adam Alder, and Will Palomares are dedicated occupiers of Occupy Los Angeles. They were arrested during L.A.’s Art Walk on Thursday.
http://laist.com/2012/01/15/occupy_la_protester_arrested_at_art.php
To contribute OLA’s bail fund, please go here:
https://www.wepay.com/donations/192938
Notes from 14th OLA Arts Assembly [01/14/2012]
1. Tiny Tents OLA
- Made tiny tents during our meeting
- https://www.facebook.com/TinyTentsOLA
2. Do Outreach
- Send email newsletters of OLA and OLA A&C network updates
- Make weekly announcements at GA
3. Fountain box murals: Take Our Murals Back affinity group has worked on a proposal to be proposed at GA on Monday.
4. Art Community News: endorsed by OLA Arts & Culture network
- The Latino Museum is being shut down! Please show up to the Public Hearing in support of the Latino Museum, which has been exhibiting works by artists at OLA.
Dear Artists & Fellow Supporters,
The Public Hearing in which you may participate to help the museum will take place:
Tuesday January 17th, 2012 at 10:00 am.
Los Angeles City Council Chambers
200 N. Spring Street, LA 90012I hope that most of you can make it and help support our cultural organization.
Thank you,
The Latino Museum
514 South Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
213.626.7600
www.thelatinomuseum.org
- Occupy the Heart: The 0101 Little Casa in Boyle Heights is holding a production called Occupy the Heart.
A new Short Play Festival that sheds light on the stories behind the 99%.
February 10 - February 26, 2012
Fri & Sat @ 8pm
Sun @ 5pm
Notes from 13th OLA Arts Assembly [01/07/2012]
The main topic on the agenda was concerning OLA’s fountain box murals, which is currently being maintained by the Department of Cultural Affairs. OLA Arts and Culture Network would like to support the effort in getting back these murals that were created by various artists of OLA during the time of OLA’s encampment.
As OLA is an unincorporated association, OLA would be able to submit a Letter of Interest to the DCA for the murals. A proposal must first be approved by the GA to allow this letter to be submitted under the name of Occupy Los Angeles and to be able to reach out to art organizations that will help us maintain and display the murals (a plan to maintain and exhibit the murals is a requirement of the Letter of Interest).
Full pdf of the call for Letters of Interest
Email from DCA:
The City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) seeks to identify an organization or organizations to take conditional possession of one or both wooden structures used during the Occupy LA protests. The wooden enclosures were erected by the City of Los Angeles during the recent Occupy LA protests and occupation of the City Hall South Lawn.
During the Occupy LA encampment period on the South Lawn, two wooden structures were built and erected by the City to surround and protect monuments located within the area. These plywood enclosures immediately became a canvas for paint, aerosol, and collage images
that convey the ideas and experience of the Occupy LA participants. These wooden enclosures, therefore, became artifacts of the Occupy LA
movement.The City of Los Angeles wishes to see that the Occupy LA Artifacts are publicly displayed in the near future and protected for future audiences.
For details and the Call for Letters of Interest, see the attached PDF or go to the Cultural Affairs Website at:
www.culturela.org <http://www.culturela.org/>
The deadline is Monday, February 6th, 2012.
Please feel free to contact us with any questions.
City of Los Angeles
Department of Cultural Affairs
Public Art Division
201 North Figueroa Street, Suite 1400
Los Angeles, CA 90012
culturela.org <http://culturela.org/>
The Art Rally unfortunately will not be occurring. Though, a congregation of artists at the West Steps is more than welcome regardless of a presence of an Art Rally.
Art is my Occupation
A great new support group for Occupy artists!:
ArtIsMyOccupation (AMO) is a project founded by artists and for artists who are involved in Occupy and other movements for Economic Justice. Our sole mission is getting artists who are working on the front lines of social change the resources they need.
Check out the Tiny TENTS!
http://www.facebook.com/TinyTentsOLA
Submit your photos of your tents to both sites!!
-submitted by Dave of Tiny Tents OLA-
Notes from 11th/12th OLA Arts Assembly [12/28/2011, 12/31/2011]
Meetings were a monologue again. (For those needing clarification, this is a nice way of saying that nobody showed up.)
A thought that came up was that the events of Art Rally should be independent and successful regardless of the number of people who show up. The Art Rally may just turn into an Art workshop.
Usable Graphics now available!
Usable Graphics are now available under our Usable Graphics page:
http://olaarts.tumblr.com/graphics
These Graphics are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. They are free for non-commercial use.
