Save the arts? At the expense of what, exactly?

So, tonight the City Council hopes to finally pass their second budget for the year and close the $42 million deficit hanging over our heads. The biggest point of contention tonight is likely to be suspension of the Cultural Arts funding program.

What program, you ask? Here’s the deal. Every year, we award grants to roughly 70 non-profits and individual artists to, well, make art. Read more

Enjoy Oakland! Visit the Art & Soul Festival

So, it’s really tempting sometimes to just dismiss the City of Oakland’s ability to do, well, pretty much anything at all right as non-existent. But it’s important to remember that there are actually some bright spots in City Hall, and one of the brightest is the Art & Soul Festival. The Cultural Arts & Marketing Division does just a bang-up job putting this festival together, and it’s actually one of my favorite things about this town.

If you haven’t been, they basically fence off a ginormous section of downtown, from Broadway to Jefferson, and from 15th to 11th, and fill the streets with vendors and stages and other random activities. They have all sorts of neat little art things, like a paint by numbers mural and I guess the 10,000 Steps people are going to be there. They’ve got seven stages, so you can find some performance to watch anytime all day. And while the Indigo Girls might be somewhat of a lame headliner, it’s certainly not reason to skip the festival. The stuff on the Bay Area Blues Society stage is pretty much just always worth listening to. I also usually enjoy the Latin stage.

What else? If you have kids, they’re got bouncy castles and slides and rides and face painting. They’ve got midway games. They have all sorts of overpriced festival food, including those disgusting nachos with the gross fake cheese, which I love. The Oaklandish people are usually there showing Oakland movies in a tent. I usually don’t buy any of the crafts on sale, but it’s always fun to walk through the booths and check them out. Although, if you’re looking to stock up on Oakland t-shirts, this is the place to do it. And if you happen to be interested in zoning, it provides an excellent opportunity to observe how people really feel about the “shadows” cast by tall buildings.

But most of all, I just love seeing so many people wandering around and having a complete blast in downtown. The place is always packed, and there’s families and there’s teenagers and there’s old people and just everyone is there and having a great time and it’s all just so completely heartwarming and really makes you feel good about Oakland. So if you happen to be in town over this long, hot weekend, I urge you to check it out.

As much as I love Art & Soul, I’m unable to attend this year on account of being out of town, instead enjoying the Jazz Aspen festival, which, ironically, is neither jazz nor in Aspen. The music’s better here, but Art & Soul is a more exciting overall experience, hands down. But here are some photos of last year’s festival if you want a sense of what it’s like: Read more

Re-enchanting the World through Art

So I posted about the world’s largest chalk drawing yesterday, and went down to the site myself last night and again this morning. OMG, it’s the greatest thing. I easily spent an hour just walking around the drawing and looking at all the different things the kids have done. I got an opportunity to talk to Mark Wagner, who conceived of the project in 2003 and has spent the last 2 years working to make it happen. And he’s done an amazing job! They’ve brought in literally thousands of children. Every elementary school in Alameda has been out to the site (and they all got there on the AC Transit bus #63) to draw. He’s a wonderfully nice guy (he even went out of his way to come compliment my childish looking drawing), has worked incredibly hard to coordinate the project, and I think he’s really brought something valuable to the community. Read more

The world’s largest chalk drawing

Continuing the theme of sweet stories that cheer me up, check this out.

(Photo from the Kids’ Chalk Art Project Website)

This isn’t in Oakland, but it is nearby, and I really thought it was sweet. An artist in Alameda has spent like 2 years putting together this project where he brings in kids from local elementary schools to color a 90,000 square foot chalk drawing out at the Naval Base on Alameda Point, which, when completed, will be the largest chalk drawing ever in the world. ABC7 had a really cute story about it on Monday. If you want to help out, you can show up on Saturday morning to help fill in all the space that’s left before they take the big satellite photo at 11:20. You can visit the Kids’ Chalk Art Project website here, and watch a really sweet YouTube video about it here or follow their progress on their blog here.

And if you do decide to go, remember that you can get there on the AC Transit bus #63, just like all the kids have been doing for the last month.