July 9, 2016
Multi-tasking is not my long suit. Yesterday I found many locations for photos for the upcoming Open Call at the LAMunicipal Art Gallery project that will be delivered on July 23rd.
Meanwhile, today the Adams Hill Neighborhood Association is sponsoring a gathering at the old Service Station at the Adams Hill Mini-Park. This afternoon I'll head down there taking a sign with me to place next to the bench where I'll sit. "PEACE" The goal is to simply sit quietly. I may meditate or possibly engage anyone who might want to join me. The event is supposed to be cheerful with vintage display in the Service Station itself with old time gas pumps and other relics of the times gone by when the Service Station was fully functioning. I've been attempting to get the locals to refer to this building as the "Service Station" because that is what it was. When I moved to Adams Hill, Mr. Stone ran the Service Station, no longer selling gas, but doing mechanical work using the hydrolic lift in the Service Bay. My neighbors don't seem interested calling it a service station. I wonder why?
I worked hard to achieve the honor of having the first artwork installed in the building in 2008. The City takes its time to decide about installations there. For the 'gasstationinstallation' (yes.. I called it a gas station then) I filled the space with balloons. Thanks to lots of help from Robert Roll, Jeannie Pool and Tim Spain with an air compressor from Hap Lawrence, we put over a thousand balloons into the building. Spectacular at night with internal lighting, the installation was up for only nine days.
Four years later, after convincing the City that artists should not have to pay for insurance as well as to spend their own money to install in the Service Station, we gathered together sixty artists: each one creating an artwork on cardboard 18" x 24" http://july4thgasstationproject.blogspot.com/
The City still has no budget for actually funding artists for creating installations in the space, but at least the responsibility of being insured is now taken on by the City. (For the balloon project, my budget tripled when I was told that I could not do the project unless I provided insurance! That's a whole 'nother story!)
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The shock of gun violence rocks not only the United States, but, of course the ever shrinking world. My time in the park today will be just about Peace. Hopefully, the event will be a fun gathering for neighbors and that my personal take away will be having the experience of just sitting.
I'm considering including a peace statement in the Open Call sculpture. And, I am still soliciting participation by artists and friends. The eclectic nature of this piece will be even better with other folks' input.
Meanwhile, each one of us must find our own response to the gun violence in the world and do what we can personally to end it. If we allow the escalation of domestic violence to erode our society from within, combined with the mystery of why the United States is engaged in foreign wars, we may create a situation where our society might just implode from anger and hatred.
Yikes.. that is NOT a prediction.. but it's a scary thought. Be Peace. That's a start.
July 9, 2016
michaelsheehan
teach peace to learn peace in order to be it.
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