Censored: April 27 Artwalk Stakeholder Meeting

Censored

Art still evokes controversy, unintended or otherwise. I saw this recently in a strange clash in taste and property values on top of an appropriation of the Me Too movement in Long Beach. Citing the aforementioned reasons, a member of the historic Bluff Heights neighborhood association in a letter to the city objected to two recently proposed murals to be exhibited on a Long Beach marajuana dispensary, saying they were too sexually explicit. The images included a purple flower on a backdrop of the same color [it wasn’t stated but it could be because the stamen was in view] and on another side, a well-endowed young woman in a garden with a butterfly, her fingers gently touching her chest. They called the art “objectionable” but it is also an easy target.

In San Pedro, censorship has recently taken on a different form concerning the local press. As an arts and culture columnist who covers the San Pedro, the Harbor Area and greater Los Angeles, part of my job is to cover the First Thursday ArtWalk and artists who make it happen for the community at large. At the latest art walk stakeholder meeting on April 27, my efforts were at the least abridged and ultimately censored.

Random Lengths News covered the first stakeholder meeting, which took place in January, to look at what was potentially being planned as artists and the arts district work to relaunch the art walk as Los Angeles opens up from more than a year of being closed. For our second story we consulted three local artists to gather their input on the history of San Pedro’s art walk and their ideas for it going forward. As a follow up to that story, I attended the April 27 Zoom meeting to hear about the art walk stakeholder survey results and the plans gleaned from that document going forward. Prior to the event, after I reserved my place, I agreed to speak to the meeting facilitators about any questions I may have before writing about the meeting, per their request.

During the meeting, members of the press were asked to “announce” themselves and their publication in the chat, which I did. We were told this was because some people wanted to know [about the press] before they were quoted in an article that they didn’t know about. We were then assigned to break out rooms, but I was excluded. However another publication’s editor was assigned to a break out room as well as another Random Lengths News reporter who was there in the capacity of an artist — a photographer; he was asked to promise not to reveal the contents of his break out session since he was not there as a reporter. In the break out rooms the survey results were considered and built upon. After attendees returned to the main meeting, I heard the “best of” those ideas which are listed below.

The intention of the report was for artists

Censored

and interested stakeholders to have an open or “democratic” discussion on the survey results and the future direction of the arts district.

To my best recollection, the second meeting had fewer artists in attendance than the first meeting. Without adequate reporting on these meetings, it’s not possible for the artists and the larger community to participate in the discussion. This is problematic and can appear to lead to manufactured consent.

Facilitator and Angels Gate Cultural Center executive director Amy Erickson said the purpose of this conversation was to determine the structure that would enhance the organic quality of the art walk. In her view, the Chamber of Commerce and the Property Ownwers Business Improvement District have central positions in this structure.

Then Erickson turned to the survey. She said people love the event the way it is.

The “First Thursday Art

Walk” is by most accounts referred to as First Thursday. It’s easy, people know what and when you are talking about and it’s become the de facto term used by many locals. Further, many people attending First Thursday go for the street fair environment. I would venture to say, some may not even be aware that the event was intended and initiated as an art walk. They may see crafts for sale and the occasional live music happening and presume, that’s the “art,” or that it serves as art, even though they may be aware that galleries are open too. This begs the question, how are people drawn to the galleries?

I mention this because in this scenario, art becomes a casualty, an afterthought with the general community who haven’t been exposed to what’s happening in their downtown arts district. I make an effort to call it “art walk,” verbally and in writing about the event. It may seem miniscule, but words and names are important. They are identifiers providing information that people respond to.

In these recent go-rounds with the planning and relaunching of the art walk, it’s important to consider this and the message the arts district puts out.

The Meeting

If the apparent shaping of manufactured consent wasn’t problematic, the revisioning of the arts district’s history was.

Just before the meeting started, executive director of the Grand Vision Foundation and board member of the Chamber of Commerce, Liz Schindler Johnson, offered a synopsis of the art walk’s history.

In Schindler-Johnson’s recollection, the artwalk started in 1998 as a collaboration between local artists, restaurateurs and a very, very small business improvement district, different from the PBID of today.

She speculated that the artwalk drew in foot-traffic of about 50,000 people a year — “a very small operation that had big dreams.”

Schindler-Johnson identified Robin Hinchcliff, who also was one of the former executive directors of Angels Gate Cultural Center, as the driving force in bringing artists together and getting them to commit to opening up their studios once a month and to the public.

Schindler-Johnson posited that the art walk helped to start changing the narrative about San Pedro and what there was to do in downtown San Pedro.

“Many people thought, ‘there’s such an aversion to downtown San Pedro’ but it was people who thought there wasn’t much to do,” Schindler-Johnson said. “The artwalk started changing people’s perceptions and it also made it attractive for other artists to come be part of downtown San Pedro. It changed who was here on a very regular basis.”

She said there have been many different aspects of First Thursdays over the years from exclusively people who were there to see the galleries, “but really very small numbers of people, maybe 100 to 200 at the most.”

The art walk sometimes featured classic cars, then food trucks came, about 2008 or 2009. It was always controversial but “brought profoundly more people to the event, whether art lovers or art buyers, or not is always up for discussion.”

She called the San Pedro arts district a naturally occurring one and credited spontaneous generation for its success despite not having any specific management or supervision. The PBID over the years has generously supported some of the marketing for the event.

“From the Lofts to the [National]

Watercolor Society we have created, all of us together, have created more of an impression of a walkable artist-driven environment and ... it’s been one of the top greatest improvements to our immediate community that I can possibly think of,” she said.

She followed this by asking her husband, CEO of Jerico Development and PBID board member Alan Johnson if he wanted to add anything. Alan agreed to his wife’s assertions by describing the genesis of the artwalk as a kind of creative push and pull between local artists and small downtown businesses, crediting the resulting changing nature of the artwalk as the key to its survival.

Getting to the survey, most respondents said the art walk borders are between 5th Street and Pacific Avenue to 8th Street and Pacific and over to Harbor Boulevard. San Pedro is home to Cornelius Projects a few blocks south on Pacific Avenue at 14th Street. It makes sense to include this asset in the art walk and in potential trolley routes, if that is revived.

Most people in the survey consider the art walk a regional event — opposed to a community event, which was the second most voted option. It’s curious why that is and what constitutes a regional event. Art certainly does. As artist Ron Linden noted in our last story, the cachet provided by the arts district is something the downtown area benefits from.

Considering this is also how artists make their livelihoods, the art they create deserves the highest focus in relaunching this art walk. The issue is besides marketing the galleries, this survey doesn’t appear to support the framework necessary to showcase art on a regional level. It does, however, support a community street fair. San Pedro is also home to professional artists who are fluent in this level of promotion. Heed their knowledge, utilize their insights and talent to create a regional affair befitting this historical port town that artists have flocked to and created in for more than a century.

Wrap up

Erickson said the arts district has never had funds to pay for this event. It wants suggestions and it will take all the data and bring it to the PBID, Chamber of Commerce and other partners. At this point, I requested in the Zoom chat box that they also ask the artists for their input.