Are your show tickets swirling in your gas tank? Afrologica editor Anna B Scott, the Doctoradancer, has spent the last week in think tanks considering the impact of the arts on the environment. It ain't always pretty.
Appearances
With gasoline now "cheap" at $3.99 in LA, and actually averaging $4.17 for gas that does not make my car go "are you crazy!" I find myself self-sidelining. I was not really aware why I kept missing shows, or just ignoring certain invites where normally I would make a way to show up for at least a bit of it. You know how your subconscious always shows your behind? Well, as a mother of two, mine went into survival mode, which for me translates as, almost all art consumption has to either serve the three of us, or save their little lives once a week. We are down to community arts experiences and two weekly master dance classes that I take, and one dance class that I give.
Weird.
I am astonished at the number of magnificent things I just decided I would not see. But yesterday, when I went to put that gas in my tank and realized that since I was waiting for some payments to come through on Monday, I would need to only pt in a 1/4 of a tank, everything slid into place. Awareness found me: I am not going because going costs me before I even buy the ticket. Obviously this has always been the case, but now, it is exceptionally clear. After sitting with this realization, other connections made themselves known.
<insert personal art infographic here>
I am reading The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, The Environment and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability. This was an assignment given to participants of "Arts and Environmental Dialogue" sponsored by the California Lawyers for the Arts. The event was on April 17. I was added to the guest list on the 16th, so I only deeply read chapter 1 and skimmed the rest. I am now going back over it. I want to invite those of you so moved, to read this with me. Here's why: according to Debra Deets, landscape architect with LA City Dept. of Public Works, there are 400 SQUARE MILES of city here and 8,000 SQUARE MILES of street. If you go and check out the Dance Ninja's interactive map of just dance studios and then the recently released SpaceFinderLa interactive map of performance-centered space, you'll notice that "space" is flung across various locales in LA, with normally significant distance between your audience and your stage or you and your rehearsal space or you and the cool community art event or...We are very quickly about to experience an oil-fueled crisis in the arts.
Each time we crank up our gas-fueled car or truck we had some carbon to the air. once we get on the freeway, driving at a clip, we add particulate in the air. When you get close to all the amazing art places downtown and begin to idle your car while you impatiently wait to make the transition from the 10 to the 110, you really dump a lot of carbon on the heads of folks who live in Adams. Are we asking certain neighborhoods to bear the health cost of our art making/consumption?
Last night I announced to the kids that they were going to give up chips, beef and juice. These foods are too expensive in more ways than one. I was listening to a radio interview on Pacifica where the speaker talked about water getting exported int he form of grain. Something like every ton of grain has at least 100,000 gallons of water in it?!? What this comes down to is that my kids' diet contributes to water crises in other parts of the state and the nation, but also to the oil crisis, which means it creates an art crisis.
Our food consumption creates an art crisis?
Our desire to drive to go and see more than one event in a day creates a health crisis?
Kicking the Habit or the Can Down the Road?
I am very excited about the new train lines. I do not think they are coming fast enough, but I want them to be safe and well built, so I work on my patience. But when you check out a Metro map of Los Angeles, you'll see that the trains are not really going to do all that much for most of us living here. Trains at grade should go in on Venice, Pico, and Santa Monica Blvds. for their entire lengths. Perhaps we'll see that in the next en years. But right now, we are going to need to make a way to get the art adventurer mobile without feeling like an ecoterrorist (and yeah, that term has been used against people who are working to save the planet, but I think it should be applied to people who keep doing the same ol' thing with their oil, water and food consumption).
- SuperShuttle for the Arts?
- Dance Van?
- ARtBUS?
- Can we buy carbon offsets along with season tickets?
At that meeting sponsored by CA Lawyers, I asked Council member Jan Perry if there had been any consideration of applying a car surcharge to all ticket sales for art events downtown with the money pooled as a way to sustain improvements that are being made with redevelopment money which is now 'disappeared' by Gov. Jerry Brown. She gave me one of those looks, did some talking, and we had a bit of a back and forth about license plate lotteries, economic development, the shows starting on a bus, etc. She gave me her card afterward. In the Bridge at the Edge of the World, James Speth outlines the ways that change towards saving the planet and human society (no planet, no humans) is regarded within government and capitalism, one of which was Policy World. Jan Perry firmly lives there. Are we willing to hand her ideas for policy that make art practice, consumption, and advocacy sustainable?
This past Thursday, I got invited to the Imaginative Commons and joined the housing think group. Thankfully, our team was lead by Beth Steckler, member of MOVE LA, an advocacy group for thinking about housing as the new Metro stations develop, and Jan Williamson, executive director of 18th Street arts center. This issue of travel for artists is also tied to the issue of space for artists to LIVE and make work. What a conversation. The entire event was put together by LA County Arts Commission and the California Community Foundation. Claire Peeps of the Durfee Foundation lead us in a "speed summit" with several think groups created around the core missions of the Mayor's Office. Sobering, tough work, but enlightening work.
So now, I am thinking about that gas in my tank and the missing programs and tickets. I am concerned about popping into community arts activities without setting forth a travel plan and looking for folks to carpool with me. I am mad that there is no longer a student cash fare on the bus and that children 5 and up must pay. I am wondering about how far will this all have to go before we decide to remember that thriving as a species never occurs when we work as individuals, but as groups that problem solve, negotiate and collaborate on meeting our basic needs.
It would be ridiculous to have everyone thrown into survival mode because of the cost of gasoline. It sucks that there are people who are expected to live there, and those who believe that that is the only setting on the TV called their life. And now I go to get in my car to drive to an art district because art making has been zoned a nuisance.
I just thought this was apropos.
Big shout out to Giavanni Washington for coming up with the title I am using above. This new title is for things that have me going...where, I do not know.
