Get your teeth into 1st Thursday!
It is the 1st Thursday of the month and that means it's time to wander around in Downtown San Pedro. I've got two activities for you on this 1st Thursday.
1) Take a walk down 7th street and write down all of the "For Lease" or "For Rent" signs. Rising rents (not that anything that should cause a rise in rents has actually occured yet) by a single opportunistic landlord have nearly emptied the street of artists and arts businesses. Don't forget to notice that the old Sacred Grounds site still lies empty after many months.
2) At 6PM there's a presentation/meeting about the chair restoration at the Warner Grand Theatre. It's about to close doors while the chairs, and more importantly, the sound get major restorations.
3) Despite various forces making it difficult for artists to remain in many of the retail storefronts, there is some really solid art on the table tonight.
Walled City (309 West 7th)- We've just finished hanging the final exhibition at Walled City (don't worry, we're not moving out, just changing). Doing the Backstroke in the Lake of Fire, a collaborative installation by Edith Abeyta (those are her bloodstained hands), Rheim Alkadhi and Porous Walker, is one of the best, if not the best shows that we've ever had in the space. Get a sneak preview of it tonight.
The Loft (4th & Mesa)- There are two great things to see at the Loft tonight. First is a solo sho by Ric Roland (who, coincidentally, just moved out of 7th Street). Ric is an amazing assemblage and abstract artist, both art forms that I generally am not interested in. Ric's work, however, is amazing stuff that sails right past the limitations of those genres. Also at the loft is a solo show by Meeson Pae Yang, who just did a powerful solo show for us at Angels Gate's Downstairs Gallery. Ric is on the third floor, Meeson is on the 2nd.
Both the Carofano and the Warschaw galleries have new shows opening, but I don't have the details on those in front of me. They never dissappoint, so don't miss them on your walkaround, either.
Enjoy yourself!
13 Comments:
Name the motherfucker! We're all friends here.
Same thing is happening with residential rents too, BTW, and I'm afraid that one can't all be blamed on one guy.
I'll try to get down to First Thurs if I finish building my bike in time, which I probably won't.
I honestly don't know the name of the landlord. It's not mine. I have an awesome landlord.
I can only say this about my experience with landlords in San Pedro. There are a lot of great landlords in this town, some with high rents, some with low rents, some that are right at market. The bad landlords are easy to spot, their buildings sit empty, and their tenants don't stay long.
I don't see the retail spaces on my side of 7th street as ideal artists' studios in the long term, as they should have higher rents - when, and only when the area is a viable commercial district. Rents have been steadily increasing downtown for the past 5-6 years, but the rents that are being asked for on some of the spaces are now much too high to attract businesses to the district.
A lot of speculation has gone on regarding the increase in rents. It's counterintuitive for a landlord to empty thier building of tenants in a business district already filled with For Rent signs. Most of the tenants I have spoken to seem to think that the purpose of the rental increases is to justify a greater value on the building(s) when they are sold, as well as limiting the amount of compensation or relocation money that would have to be paid to tenants (especially people who are live-working) if the buildings were to be re-developed.
What kind of bike are you building, IMBG?
I'll bet somebody out there knows this fool's name.
I really think that the commercial landlords are expecting some big breakthrough, having to do with the planned development downtown and on the waterfront, to cause downtown to suddenly become attractive to big-buck corporate chains and frou-frou boutiques. And they're willing to put up with empty storefonts for now (and take the tax write-off) until that happens, meanwhile achieving a de facto eviction of their shallower-pocketed tenants.
Oldest gentrification trick in the book--it was used ruthlessly in San Francisco during the dotcom boom--although traditionally landlords wait until there actually is a boom before pulling this shit.
They may also be trying to play a little perceived-value game, with said chains and boutiques as the audience--kind of like how in some neighborhoods if you price a shirt at $15 nobody will buy it, but put a $150 tag on it and it will sell.
Those are strictly guesses; I have no inside wire on what's actually happening with these jackasses.
Oh. The bici is an eight year old Italian track frame with Dura Ace cranks, Formula hubs, 3TTT bars and stem...a regular United Nations of components. It turned out the crankset and headset were already on the frame, so "built" turns out to be an exaggeration. All I had to do was put on the stem and bars, seatpost and saddle, pedals, clips, and straps, change the cog to a friendlier gear, put the wheels and chain on and set the chain tension. Adjust seat and stem position and she's ready to ride.
Light and fast, she is. Light. And. Fast.
Stop the presses! A landlord with the audacity to raise the rent. What is the world coming to? Oh, I don't know, how about a free market economy. Either pay the rent or move, you aren't entitled to anything.
I think the socialists on this website won't be happy until they find a way to have their artist's lifestyles subsidized by people with jobs.
Oh IMBG, now that I know what your bike looks like I'll look for the guy wearing a Che t-shirt and be sure to say hi.
DT
That will be fun. Oh, sure, it will be a little awkward at first. But then we can start talking about stuff that happened here on the blog, like, "Hey IMBG, remember the time you and that other dude went on and on for days about the Stanford Prison Experiment? That was awesome!" and "Oh, how about the time that one chick was complaining about the blue lights on the palm trees and nobody could figure out what she was talking about? Good times, good times." And we can go on like that for a while.
Then you explain to me what makes you think we live in a "free market economy," and we'll laugh and laugh. Well, I'll laugh and laugh.
Your new friend,
IMBG
DT - I don't have an issue with rising rents in Downtown Pedro. I do take issue with landlords who's rents are out of touch with the market rates, and who's buildings sit empty for months or years at a time. Those of us who are trying to operate businesses (and pleased to be paying market rate rents) in the district suffer when the businesses are dead and empty. No one is entitled to anything, no, but I do feel that both renters and landlords in a business district should have some responsibility to operate their businesses in a way that does not cause economic harm to the district as a whole.
I've said this before, and I'll repeat it now. I don't see Downtown Pedro as an "arts district" when the area recovers economically. There will still be a significant arts presence in the district, and San Pedro will still be a haven for artists and arts businesses, but 1st floor retail spaces in a downtown commercial district would probably be out of the price range of individual artists, even if they live/work it.
FYI, being an artist is a job, usually one done in addition to a 40 hour a week job. Professional artists are some of the hardest working individuals I know, putting tremendous time and resources into their artistic work. Successful professional artists are indpendent businesspeople who work as hard, or harder than most people do. Artists are involved in every field of business, and in every industry. Like engineers, doctors and lawyers, they play a critical role in the both the local and the global economies.
Any artist who thinks that their rent should be subsidised by either private or public entities is a fool, and likely won't make it far in their profession. Anyone who thinks that being an artist is a state of being rather than a profession is a fool. I've spent 11 years working as an arts professional, and the ongoing perception (which is maintained by both artists and the public) that the my profession is populated by wishy washy losers and "starving artists" is both innaccurate and insulting.
Calamari, you are right being an artist is a job. I apologize for the insult. That wasn't fair to you or other artists.
I was just tired of IMBG's posts.
DT
Some people make a living with their art, some people wish they could make a living with it, and some people never make a penny from it and couldn't care less. Trying to paint artists in general as happy, well-scrubbed businessmen is silly, just like stereotyping artists as struggling bohemians or no-account flakes is silly.
If you're making art, you're an artist, whether anybody pays you for it or not. If you're not making art, you're not an artist, no matter what you're telling your friends.
Really, anybody who thinks it's a "state of being" or a "profession" is at least a little bit of a fool.
We can all agree that it's work...right?
I disagree.
I don't think that making art makes one an artist, any more than me making a set of bookshelves makes me a carpenter. When I use the word artist, I'm specifically speaking about a person who works professionally as an artist, either full or part time, or who aspires to do so. Not to knock the artistic efforts of lay people or hobbyists, but I don't consider them to be artists, I see them as simply people who make art.
Your quarrel, then, is with the definition of the word itself. And, to some degree, with logic and common sense.
Does an outsider artist in East Mudpatch, Louisiana only become an artist when somebody from a gallery in Chicago shows up and convinces him that he should be making a living with his stuff? What was he before the gallery guy rang the doorbell? What does he become after he tires of the art world (or they of him) and he goes back home to put in ten hour days making his art?
"Professional artists" is a subset of the set "artists," like it or not. Maybe you should come up with another word. Prartists!
"I don't think that making art makes one an artist"
That may not be the most absurd thing I've read in my life, but it's definitely the most absurd thing I've read all day...
An interesting observation--well, I think it's interesting--is that this sort of unseemly exaltation of the economic angle is not nearly so pervasive in the music-making world. If you can play your instrument with skill and feeling, musicians will give you your props as a musician whether or not you show any desire to play paying gigs or get a record deal.
On the other hand, that kind of thinking does still prevail to some degree in the world of letters. There's a noticeable reluctance to call anybody a writer who isn't at least trying to get "published," whatever that means these days, and there is some elitism regarding education and training (and it's bullshit there, too: when I was vetting scripts for a major screenwriting fellowship a few years back, some of the worst dreck came from people with MFAs from Columbia, NYU/Tisch, USC and other prestigious film schools).
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