Armando Vazquez
An open letter to Oxnard’s Art in Public Places Committee
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By Armando Vazquez / Guest contributor
We had a lively discussion today at the AIPP meeting on the notion of sustainability by artists and art organizations in Oxnard and here are my thoughts and concerns:
Long before, The Arts in Public Places Committee cut and pasted what is today our very new and fluid RFP prototype proposal two years’ ago, all artists and art organizations of Oxnard were independently self sustaining; we had no other alternatives.
Prior to that time there wasn’t a local government arts funding mechanism making grants available to anyone in the city of Oxnard. These set of facts are indisputable.
In our original mission and vision statements we clearly stated we want to be inclusive, accessible and responsive to the needs of our artists and arts organization community. We wanted to promote and expanded the city’s arts and cultural program (And we have by receiving some 56 proposals); we did not want to shrink it or make the process of securing arts funding dependent on the ability to subjectively demonstrate newly found or celestially anointed sustainability capacities that we artists and small organizations didn’t have before, or that we have had all along.
AIPP is two years old, for Pete’s sake. Give me a break with that sustainability nonsense changing from first year to second year for grantees. The real question is: Is the City of Oxnard’s Arts in Public Places Committee itself sustainable? In other words, will it be around in fiscal year 2013-14?
That, my arts’ friends, is the only question on sustainability that is logical and rational at this historic point.
In general, the artists and the small art organizations that the Café on A works and partners with are extremely poorly financed, so we tend to form groups, collaboratives and partnerships to maximize our meager finances (we car pool a lot together; we share supplies; we give in- kind service and support; we recycle better than most, and we tend to shop locally by supporting our artists; many of us in the local art world literally give our art work away for next to nothing): that is our definition of sustainability in the arts community of Oxnard. That is why the doors at the Café on A are open (going on 15 years) to every artist and arts organization in the city of Oxnard and beyond; this a is real life and pragmatic sustainability in our local arts community.
The Black and Brown KEYS Youth Coalition met after our Monday, Oct. 15, 2013 AIPP meeting and we all agreed that the $150,000 that are currently available in the AIPP budget should be fairly, equitably and democratically share by all 56 artists and arts organizations that submitted proposals.
We believe this democratic action will truly address common sense sustainability by helping at least 56 artists and arts organizations in Oxnard continue to do some of the most creative and exciting art currently being done in the entire United States for at least one more year.
We want the AIPP committee to support the growth and sustainability of all 56 artists and arts organizations with the hope of course that the City of Oxnard will develop its own sustainability model before requiring the financially strapped arts community to do something the city has yet to do.
— Armando Vazquez and Deborah De Vries are co-executive director of The KEYS Leadership Academy@ Café on A in Oxnard.
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