YOGA FOR ALL AGES

Monday & Friday mornings
On-going classes begin March 1st, 2010
9:30-10:30am in Building H

Join us for this combined form of yoga movement which integrates chi-gung and other energy practices with the practice of yoga. This class is suitable for all levels.

$8-$15 donation requested.

For more information and to register for classes please contact Renee at (310) 619-4759.

MANDALAS FOR MEDITATION

4 week series: February 9th - March 2nd
Tuesdays in Classroom G from 3-5 pm

Artist-teacher Sharon Wheeler created Mandalas for Meditation using a format to suit the needs of non-artists and accomplished artists alike. Her foolproof approach enables participants to create amazing works of art that stimulate the right brain, unlock creativity and nourish spirituality The final product is a tool for deep meditation, relaxation and self-reflection.

For more information and to register for classes, please contact Sharon Wheeler: (310) 344-9375 or sg2wheeler@aol.com

ANIMATION ANGEL BY ANDRES ALVAREZ

Starting: February 21, 2010
Sundays in Classroom G from 1-2 pm

Ever wanted to draw your favorite cartoons and Mangas? This class will finally make that dream a reality, students will learn the fundamentals of drawing through your favorite cartoons styles.

Each student will use a variety of artistic supplies such as Col-erase pencils, Prisma color pencils, Tombow brush pens, and Mars lumagraph pencils. 11×17 paper will be used and students will be encouraged to purchase sketchbooks.

(all ages welcome) Four sessions: $95 and supply fee $25

Andres Alvarez has spent the past 10 years working in the animation and game industry. His work can be seen in such shows as Fairly odd Parents, Men in Black, Starship troopers, TinkerBell, and Animax Entertainment!

For more information and to register for classes, please call 310-951-7597 or visit website

NEW BEGINNER’S CLASS - Celtic Gold Academy: IRISH DANCE

Mondays in Building H from 4-5pm
Classes will teach fundamentals of traditional Irish step dancing focusing on individual achievement and team/group work and dances. Come and learn coordination, grace, rhythm and teamwork!

Class fees: $60/month
For more information, please call Meredith Lyons at (562) 650-2523 or email MLirish@yahoo.com.

For a complete list of Community Classes available at Angels Gate Cultural Center please visit: www.angelsgateart.org/classes

The Campaign to retain the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs’ TOT allocation was a success.

Over 5,000 letters were generated to City Council members from their stakeholders. Member organizations stepped up and mobilized existing networks that created a groundswell of advocacy that hasn’t been seen before. An additional 100 advocates attended yesterday’s city council meeting, in which 30 impassioned speakers voiced the value of arts and culture to the city and the communities they serve.

The motion was put into file. We have been told that means it is a polite way of saying it will quietly go away. For how long is a question we are still trying to get answered. This great news is tempered by the fact that we have a long road ahead of us and the City is faced with very difficult decisions.

The success of this campaign was powered by your membership dues and your active participation in this coordinated advocacy approach. The positive outcome affirms our belief that advocacy is is a collaboration. Although the battle is far from over, over this past week we saw firsthand just how strong, when united, our voice can be.

The online system your membership dues helped to build enabled Arts for LA to respond quickly and effectively to a crisis that virtually happened overnight. We’ve created an “anatomy of a campaign” story on our site to help inform you how we, along with our partners, responded to the crisis. Please contribute to the story and share it far and wide. Let’s inspire and build more advocates for the arts in Los Angeles. It’s time to roll up our sleeves and get ready to face the next challenges head-on!

The challenge for the City of Los Angeles is huge. Our victory is in mobilizing a groundswell of support to maintain a crucial revenue stream for the Department. We know that the Department, like every other department in the City of Los Angeles, is going to face mid-year cuts. Our goal is to ensure the cuts are proportional to other city departments and that Department leadership is empowered to make its recommendations on how to provide cost-saving solutions.

Below are a few updates on the status of the campaign. Check the Arts for LA site regularly for updates.

Onward!

Danielle Brazell

Executive Director

UPDATES:

The Los Angeles City Council chose not to vote on the motion to eliminate the Department of Cultural Affairs’ 1% TOT allocation.

The Department’s only source of dedicated funding is secure, for the moment. The 2009 grants made by the Department are still in question.

The CAO’s report and recommendations were put back into the Budget & Finance Committee. The Dept. of Cultural Affairs was instructed to identify an additional $500,000 in budget savings from the 2009 grants pool.

A motion was filed by Councilman Garcetti late yesterday regarding the 2010/11 grants. The motion rescinds the CAO’s recommendation to eliminate the 2010/11 grant program. These decisions are not final and are subject to change. Arts for LA will monitor the council file system. The mid-year cuts to the Department are still on the table and the City’s financial forcast is dire.

Dear Arts Supporters,

Congratulations to all who wrote or attended Wednesday’s hearing. YOU MADE THE DIFFERENCE.

LOS ANGELES SPARES CITY ARTS FUNDING
Los Angeles Times, February 4, 2010
By Mike Boehm

City Council also rejects elimination of the arts grants program, after an impassioned public hearing. But ‘It doesn’t mean Cultural Affairs won’t face some cuts,’ President Eric Garcetti says.

The Los Angeles City Council unanimously shot down a proposal Wednesday that would have eliminated guaranteed city funding for the arts, after listening to often-impassioned pleas during a public hearing on cutting government services and jobs in the face of a municipal budget crisis.

The council also showed no appetite for a recommendation by City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana that would have erased the $4 million arts grants program.

Olga Garay, executive director of the Department of Cultural Affairs, said she would try to find at least $500,000 in savings in her current budget, as Santana has proposed. The council also decided to continue pursuing Santana’s plan to shift operations at nine or 10 community arts centers from the city to private, nonprofit groups.

“I think it was really a heartening sign that our elected officials heard the message that the arts are important in this community,” Garay said in an interview. She said the idea of more privately run arts centers — the city would still own the buildings and pay utilities and upkeep — doesn’t trouble her.

The plan to do away with the arts agency’s reliable funding was a major concern for Garay and arts advocates. Since 1989, the city has earmarked $1 in taxes per $100 of hotel room charges for the Department of Cultural Affairs — money that provides virtually its entire $9.6-million budget.

Six council members, including President Eric Garcetti, made a written motion last week to repeal guaranteed arts funding. But it never came to a vote because the council unanimously decided it should be “received and filed.”

That, City Clerk June Lagmay translated, is “a polite way of saying, ‘Trash it.’ ”

Garay said the proposal hadn’t been “thought through as carefully as it should have been, but I’m not pointing fingers. [Council members] are desperate to come up with solutions. They have a Herculean task.”

The council heard from more than 30 speakers who decried the proposed arts cuts. Scores of others looked on in the council chamber, many sporting red stick-on badges provided by the Arts for L.A. advocacy group, which during the days before the meeting had led an e-mail campaign opposing gutting arts programs to help bridge a projected two-year budget gap of nearly $700 million.

Speakers warned that a city that claims to be a world capital of entertainment and culture would court widespread ridicule by eliminating arts grants and risk losing part of its civic soul. Others talked about the arts’ economic benefits and their role in keeping youngsters out of trouble.

“People have stood up to say what L.A. values are,” Garcetti said after the nearly two-hour public comment period. “It doesn’t mean Cultural Affairs won’t face some cuts.”

Among those who stood up was artist Lilia Ramirez, clad in a white gown and huge white angel wings as “a homage to the city of Los Angeles.”

“Art saved me,” she told council members. “I was in the streets, I wasn’t doing so good. Here I am today, giving love and light to everyone.”

Motion 10A will force the city to examine the DCA’s economic impact, including the impact on grantees. This will show the city just how important the arts are to LA! Good news.

Full text below:

Arts and cultural endeavors in the City of Los Angeles create and stimulate tourism and other revenues for the city, as well as jobs and associated earnings for the creative industries which are the lifeblood of our city. They also provide artistic exposure and opportunities which are a critical component of youth development. Cuts to arts programming disproportionately effect lower-income, under-served neighborhoods and can create a long-term detrimental ripple effect on livability for our citizens.

1) Alternative efficiencies throughout the City budget necessary to prevent the cancellation of grants which have been approved for 2009-10;
2) Alternative efficiencies throughout the City budget necessary to prevent the suspension of the Cultural Affairs Grant Program for 2010-11.
3) List, description and location of projects awarded DCA grants during the past three years.
4) Number of jobs, associated earnings and other revenues generated by projects awarded by DCA grants during the past three years in Los Angeles.
5) Projected impact on jobs, associated earnings and other revenues that the suspension of the grant program for 2010-11 would have in Los Angeles.

PRESENTED BY: Jose Huizar, Councilmember, 14th District.

Dear Friends and Supporters of Angels Gate Cultural Center:

As you all know by now, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) is being threatened with catastrophic budget and staff cuts. Staff reductions of 24-48% have been proposed as well as the total elimination of the $2.2 million in grants that the Department awards annually to arts organizations and individual artists. In addition, the City of Los Angeles Budget and Finance Committee has put forward a motion that could eliminate any obligation to fund the Department of Cultural Affairs at all.

We need your help and we need it now!

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

* Call your Councilmember between 2-4pm TODAY:

TWO MAIN TALKING POINTS:
1) stand firm on-do not take the current contracts away
2) do not sign the motion to take away the Transient Occupancy Tax ( TOT)

If you’re not located in the City of LA, but want to support the DCA and its mission, call Council President Eric Garcetti and Budget & Finance Committe President Bernard Parks and let their staff know about your support. See below for a complete list of phone numbers for all 15 councilmembers.

Arts for LA has an excellent talking points sheet that you can reference if you’re calling and here’s a short script that you can use that covers the most urgent issues:

“I’m calling to express my support for the Department of Cultural Affairs and to ask councilmember [insert their name here] to vote against the motion to remove the Transient Occupancy Tax funding from the Department of Cultural Affairs. The proposed elimination of all DCA grant programs is also completely unacceptable. Hundreds of organizations depend on those funds to serve their communities and the elimination of DCA grants will have far reaching effects on the whole region.

Thank You”

* Attend the City Council Meeting TOMORROW:

When: Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 10AM

Where: John Ferraro Council Chamber, Room 340, City Hall
200 N. Spring St. Los Angeles, CA 90012

* Click Below to send a Letter Online:


Write a letter online via the Arts for LA website. If you don’t live in the City, but enjoy the services provided by the DCA, you should direct your Emails to either council president Eric Garcetti or councilmember Janice Hahn, who represents Council District 15, where the Angels Gate Cultural Center is located. (3601 S Gaffey St. San Pedro, CA 90731)

You can also contact your councilmember’s office directly, via the City of Los Angeles website.

* We don’t have to tell you about the valuable programs and organizations that will be adversely affected by this action. The arts in Los Angeles are a 14.8 billion dollar industry. For every dollar spent by the Department of Cultural Affairs, eight dollars are generated directly in jobs for artists and businesses. This doesn’t even take into account the value of the arts to society overall…

Thank you again for your efforts and continued support,

The Angels Gate Cultural Center Staff:

Deborah Lewis, Executive Director
Marshall Astor, Visual Arts Director
Jessica Yang, Education Director
Oscar Garcia, Development Director

Here is a list of phone numbers for all 15 councilmembers and their offices:

District 1 - Ed Reyes
District Office: 213-485-0763
City Hall Office: 213-473-7001

District 2 - Paul Krekorian
North Hollywood Office: 818-755-7676
Sunland-Tujunga Office: 818-352-3287
City Hall Office: 213-473-7002

District 3 - Dennis P. Zine
District Office: 818-756-8848
City Hall Office: 213-473-7003

District 4 - Tom LaBonge
Hollywood Office: 323-957-6415
Valley Field Office: 818-755-7630
City Hall Office: 213-473-7004

District 5 - Paul Koretz
City Hall Office: 213-473-7005

District 6 - Tony Cardenas
Van Nuys Office: 818-778-4999
Sun Valley Office: 818-771-0236
City Hall Office: 213-473-7006

District 7 - Richard Alarcon
Pacoima Field Office: 818-756-9115
Sylmar District Office: 818-756-8409
City Hall Office: 213-473-7007

District 8 - Bernard Parks
Crenshaw District Office: 323-293-9467
City Hall Office: 213-473-7008

District 9 - Jan Perry
9th District Neighborhood City Hall: 323-846-2651
City Hall Office: 213-473-7009

District 10 - Herb J. Wesson, Jr.
Western District Office: 323-733-8233
City Hall Office: 213-473-7010

District 11 - Bill Rosendahl
Westchester District Office: 310-568-8772
West LA District Office: 310-575-8461
City Hall Office: 213-473-7011

District 12 - Greig Smith
Chatsworth District Office: 818-701-5253
Northridge District Office: 818-756-8501
City Hall Office: 213-473-7012

District 13 - Eric Garcetti
Hollywood District Office: 323-957-4500
Glassell Park Satellite Office: 323-478-9002
City Hall Office: 213-473-7013

District 14 - Jose Huizar
Boyle Heights Field Office: 323-526-3059
Northeast/Eagle Rock Field Office: 323-254-5295
El Sereno Field Office: 323-226-1646
City Hall Office:213-473-7014

District 15 - Janice Hahn
San Pedro Field Office: 310-732-4515
Watts Field Office: 213-473-5128
Wilmington Field Office: 310-233-7201
City Hall Office: 213-473-7015

Dear Friends and Supporters of Angels Gate Cultural Center:

As you may already know, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs is being threatened with catastrophic budget and staff cuts. Staff reductions of 24-48% have been proposed as well as the total elimination of the $2.2 million in grants that the Department awards annually. This includes grants that have been awarded for the rest of this year that have not been invoiced and funding for the Angels Gate Cultural Center galleries. In addition, the City of Los Angeles Budget and Finance Committee has put forward a motion that could eliminate any obligation to fund the Department of Cultural Affairs at all.

We don’t have to tell you about the valuable programs and organizations that will be adversely affected by this action. The arts in Los Angeles are a 14.8 billion dollar industry. For every dollar spent by the Department of Cultural Affairs, eight dollars are generated directly in jobs for artists and businesses. This doesn’t even take into account the value of the arts to society overall…

We need your help and we need it now!

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Attend a Letter-Writing Party TONIGHT:

What: Angels Gate Cultural Center, in partnership with the Grand Vision Foundation, will be hosting a letter-writing party - paper, pre-written letters, pens, envelopes and any writing assistance will be provided!
Where: the Grand Annex on 6th Street in Downtown San Pedro
When: Monday, February 1st from 5:30-8:00 pm
Why: We will write letters to the city council, Council District 15 councilmember Janice Hahn and the Mayor’s office, letting them know how important the Department of Cultural Affairs and its services are to you and your families. Your words can change things.

Click Below to send a Letter Online:

If you can’t make it to our letter-writing party, you can write a letter online via the Arts for LA website. If you don’t live in the City, but enjoy the services provided by the DCA, you should direct your Emails to either council president Eric Garcetti or councilmember Janice Hahn, who represents Council District 15, where the Angels Gate Cultural Center is located.

You can also contact your councilmember’s office directly, via the City of Los Angeles website.

Thank you for your efforts and continued support,

The Angels Gate Cultural Center Staff:

Deborah Lewis, Executive Director
Marshall Astor, Visual Arts Director
Jessica Yang, Education Director
Oscar Garcia, Development Director
Dana Joy Helwick, Program Administrator

TRUCE: New works by Angels Gate Cultural Center Studio Artist, Amy Thornberry, will be shown in conjunction with downtown San Pedro’s First Thursday monthly art walk this Thursday, February 4th from 6-9pm at the Loft Gallery.

The Loft Gallery will also be open by appointment through February 26.
Call 310 514 1206 to make sure gallery is open.

MATTHEW THOMAS
“Darshan/looking beyond the obvious”
February 16 - March 12, 2010
Reception: Tuesday, February 23, 7-9 p.m.
Gallery walk through with the artist: Tuesday, March 2, 1pm

Matthew Thomas, “Harmonize”, 2009, encaustic and cloth on wood, 12 x 8″.

EL CAMINO COLLEGE ART GALLERY:
16007 Crenshaw Boulevard, Torrance, CA 90506
Contact/Curator: Susanna Meiers, (310) 660-3593, x3543; (310) 660-3010
E-mail: smeiers@elcamino.edu

Gallery hours: Mon & Tues: 10am-3pm, Wed & Thur: 10am-8pm, Fri: 10am-2pm

A master of geometric abstraction, Matthew Thomas has explored religious and cultural traditions for over 35 years. Through the study and practice of multiple traditions including Mahayana Buddhism, Sufism, Vedanta Yoga and Christianity, Thomas has developed a dynamic visual language that synthesizes this spiritual study into geometric structures, color patterns and mathematical systems. Within the rigorous restraint of this language the artist produces works that are simultaneously highly charged, meditative and expressive. Through occasional use of African textiles adhered to panels, coated with wax and metal leaf, Thomas alludes to his African-American heritage.

Darshan displays groupings of Thomas’s paintings, arranged as giant mandalas that vibrate with energy and feeling. These works are primarily encaustic on wood panel with gold leaf, intense pigments and inscribed geometric lines that bear reference to both physical and metaphysical universes.

One huge conglomerate work, The Gesture of Touching the Earth is comprised of 16 panels, heavily encrusted with clay and pigment. While many of the other works in the gallery serve as cosmic diagrams, this work is abundantly physical and related to the earth.

In a separate chamber before a brilliant pink wall Matthews has performed a meticulous drawing in colored sand, leaving in residue, an exquisite diagram of the artist’s meditation.

Matthew Thomas’s work is deceptively simple. In fact, his deft paintings of point, line and circle explore the intersection of the scientific and spiritual. Through the encaustic veil one senses Thomas’s persistent drive to delve deeply into the eternal mysteries and to map the parameters of a subtle universe.

Jet Set Saturday’s: In Bed Together at Royal T Café

Kendell Carter, “Effigy for a Persisten Wrestling Match with Form and Content”, 2009. 14 carat gold-plated boxing shoes & electrical wire. Dimensions variable. Courtesy private collection, Beverly Hills.

“Further investigation reveals that show highlights can be found near the back of the building, one of which is the work of ghetto-fabulous wünderkind Kendell Carter. Carter’s installation is a dangling pair of gold boxing shoes, cleverly hung from a line installed high in the gallery space. The hanging shoes remind one of the ubiquitous hallmarks of every major US city and apparently, in Carter’s heart, every gallery as well.”

Click here for a complete review of the show.

Last Friday, former Studio Artist Jocelyn Foye, her assistant Michelle and dancer Kelly Valignota came up to the Center to do a test for her piece Ballet Abstracted, which will be a part of Actions, Conversations and Intersections a mega-exhibition featuring 60 artists and co-curated by former Studio Artist Edith Abeyta and exhibiting artist/personal mentor, Michael Lewis Miller. Ballet Abstracted will consist of a ballet dancer dancing on a grid of black and white checkers made from sand.  Dana already posted about the event last week, so check out her post for details.

Here’s the story on the “test performance”, with photos.  More photos are available in a Flickr Set.

Jocelyn is “crazy pregnant” at the moment! Here she is making a stencil for the sand squares

Jocelyn’s assistant, Michelle, putting the finishing touches on the test squares.

Dancer Kelly Valignota steps onto the sand.

The initial marks are dramatic, made more so by the fluid line disrupting the neat grid of the squares.

Fancy footwork going on here. I can’t even imagine how much dedication, pain and training went into learning to dance en pointe like that.

Kelly surveys the marks mid-test.

Aftermath.

Check out the Flickr set for more photos. Ballet Abstracted will be performed at the Municipal Gallery of the City of Los Angeles on Saturday, February 13 at 6 pm.