GIA Reader (2000-present)

When tasked with presenting the dynamic and multiscalar ecosystem of arts and culture in the Bay Area, the Grantmakers in the Arts team knew that we needed to call upon those engaging deeply with the forces effecting change. Given the evolving nature of space availability, access, and affordability in cities, any system of disruption will, by design, engage a diversity of stakeholders and intervene at multiple levels. From the strongly held position that the arts drive strong, vibrant, diverse communities, Community Arts Stabilization Trust (CAST) exemplifies one such model.

I had been working the late shift at the bookstore I help manage, called Wolfman Books. We have been in downtown Oakland for four years, on this kind of rambunctious, forgotten one-way street just around the corner from city hall and Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza. Beyond the storefront (or, really, inside it), we are also a small press, event space, residency program, and community arts hub.

At the Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation, we are grateful every day for teaching artists.

In February 2018, the portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Within this institution of power, a Greek Revival building lined with marble floors and white columns, images of presidents and other US leaders are captured in traditional oil paintings. In envisioning their own portraits, the Obamas made bold choices, which differed from most of their predecessors’ in the artists who were chosen to paint them and the styles in which they were portrayed.

When I was asked to contribute a book review of adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds for the GIA Reader, I immediately perked up in disbelief and excitement. How could I possibly represent this book and this artist whom I admire so much? It seemed like a tall order for someone like me since I felt like just a fangirl. This book truly enhanced my life, giving me clarity in the relationship between my work and daily lived reality. It taught me about living purposefully.

When I first got to Oakland, I didn’t know where I was. I gave the cabbie who picked me up at the Emeryville Amtrak station an address on Apgar Street. The house where he dropped me off, near 40th and Market, within walking distance of the MacArthur BART station, was where I lived for my first year in California.

How We Got Here: Building Boom and Downturn

Led by disability studies scholars and disability activists, a movement is underway to hold arts institutions accountable for the lack of accessible programming and accommodations for people with disabilities. Twenty-eight years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Bay Area, a major hub for both arts and culture as well as the disability rights movement, still has many museums that have done the bare minimum (or less) to welcome in patrons with disabilities, and funding to support access is rare.