I Am an Explorer - Pushing Out Our Parameters

When you retire and move yourself out of the work environment it is not uncommon for your life to become smaller.  At first it is like a never-ending vacation...where to travel, where to go today, what would I like to see or do?  Then as routine settles in, it is not unusual to find your life's parameters getting smaller. We love our home, our garden, our kitchen, our living-room, our office.  Hours can pass quickly consumed by some housebound activity and night can arrive and I find myself asking, "Who did I speak to today in addition to Jay and the mail person?"  To keep our boundaries wide and to ensure exposure to new people and new ideas we try to walk through any new door that may present itself to us.

So, when we saw an all-day symposium (From LA to the Bay) being offered at our local Otis College of Art and Design (right in our neighborhood), free and open to the public (price is right!), sponsored by the Los Angeles Urban Affairs and addressing Community Collaborations and Creative Solutions to Urban Violence in LA (a serious topic!), including speakers from Homeboy Industries (an organization we believe in and support) and other organizations working with urban gang intervention....we sent in our RSVP...count us in!

What an interesting and informative day. Despite the seriousness of the subject matter, we actually left uplifted.  We discovered that Otis has an institutional value to have a positive impact of art on society and has developed a program called Integrated Learning where the objective is bring art and design into a public context and use their skills to bring change to society and humanity.  One class in this program is Homeboy Histories taught by Dr. Flores-Pena.  This class creates a dialogue between art students and Homeboy mentors and implements class projects to use art that supports some of the initiatives of Homeboy Industries.  They have participated in the design of poster for various Homeboy programs, designed apparel for sale by Homeboy Industries and this year are creating art sculptures and designs to memorialize Homeboys who have died.  The classroom is a laboratory where students with different perspective meet and share on a personal level and join in a common objective.  We have had a personal interest in Homeboys Industries for many years and applaud the efforts of Fr. Greg Boyle to provide an alternative way of life to those who wish to leave the gang life.  Two homeboys told their story: Fabian Debora, a former gang member,and an artist who discovered that art was his gift to a new life;

and Hector Verdugo, who left the gangs after growing up in the gang culture and spending time in prison, decided he wanted to do life differently.

Their stories were touching and real...no BS. Fabian is currently working to apply to Otis to obtain a BFA degree.  Here is some of his art:

Theresa Garland, a graduate of local Loyola Marymount University, is a staff of one for the non-profit Urban Compass that provides mentoring of students in grades K - 5 in Nickerson Gardens Projects in Watts, pairing them with mentors at Verbum Dei High School.

The Otis Graduate students have a Public Practice Project where they take their art into the community.  We saw the Mobile Mural Lab, the brain child of graduate student David Russell, where a large truck is set up in a community with paints and brushes and the community is invited to create art/graffiti around issues related to their lives.  It creates a mural public space.

After visiting the Mural Lab we walked across the street where there were three food trucks with unique offerings for lunch.  Another Public Practice Project has been to work with various food trucks regarding design and process to make their presence more meaningful in the community.  We opted to eat off the Hawaiian food truck and had a great lunch.

After lunch we heard speakers from the San Francisco Bay area: Luis Aroche, from the Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center,  and Diana Oliva-Aroche, a Manager for the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families in San Francisco, talk about their work to provide conflict resolution and prevent violence in the streets of San Francisco and San Mateo Counties.

We left the campus at the end of the day invigorated, optimistic and more knowledgeable about the issues on the streets of Los Angeles and the efforts made through collaboration of Otis and the community to bring art into the public space to influence lives.   There is so much going on in the world.  It is important to look for those doors and to walk through them...to stretch ourselves and open ourselves to others.  If we stay in our cocoon we are not exposed to it and cannot be part of the solution.

So Jay and I pushed out our parameters, spent a day at Otis, and all we brought home was this sweatshirt AND many ideas to contemplate over the next days.