And so it begins...

I stand with red raffle tickets and pastel green flyers. I shout,
"come on Wednesday night! You can learn to read to your child and you have the chance to win a DVD. Just come, you'll like it." They say they will come, but the turning in my stomach starts. I trust the parents, but I need to be sure. So, I bend down to one of the kids, "do you like Woody? Tell your mom to come to the meeting and she could win Woody for you." The little girl smiles with perfect bangs and deep dimples.
"Mom, I want Woody, go to the meeting! Please." Her mom pulls her along more quickly, but it's too late. The girl whines and cries. I smile and her mom looks at me sternly.
"I'll see you Wednesday!!"
This Wednesday, August 15th at 5:30PM my workshop series, "Family Art & Learning will begin!!! This workshop will be the first of six to teach parents to interact with their chldren in a manner in which supports learning. And the most important part is USING ART AS A TOOL!!!!
Booyah!! I was recently told that booyah is being used, but I'm bringing it back, BOOYAH!

The agenda is as follows:
-Introductions
-Goals of Workshops
-Reading with your children
-Journaling
-Homework

Volunteers needed:
>Come to help me pass out papers and organize
>Come to be behind the camera and get great action shots of parents rolling their eyes at me and laughing at my Spanish
>Come to share testimony about your success with teaching your children
>Come to help teachers watch, teach and entertain children

Call me if you want to volunteer this Wednesday or in the furture 805 908 5193

2010 ArtsLIVE VC Grantee Joseph Castañeda

This is your brain; this is your brain on art!!!

This is the video that they made about my grant project. Enjoy.

ArtsLIVE Reception

Two long tables are placed next to each other, lengthwise, and clean white linen runs over their edges and to the floor. Black tablecloths are through in chunky rectangles here and there to accent and provide some shape to the arrangement. Nice fellow that are dress up nicely, but who you are not comfortable having their shirts buttoned to their chin, bring out bowls and platters and wicker baskets full of Mediterranean food. Creamy hummus, salty and just perfect to make my mouth water. Olive leaves stuffed with rice, sour and tart. Peta bread and feta cheese and this and that of opaque colors. Perfect and then, the speaker arrives at the podium to announce that the reception will begin. The mic cracks and crinkles and artist from throughout the county receive awards to create social equality.

The Ventura County Arts Council and the Ventura County Community Foundation held to award the grants to artists. They put a tremendous amount of work into the reception and even made a video about each grant award. I will post my video so that you may see the wonderful things that are happening in the project. I was really nervous, but the wonderful staff made us all feel welcome. I left with a feeling of hope to start my program and I kn

ow that by writing short stories and helping parents make children's books our community will be infused with art and learning.

This is a picture another picture that I pulled from the ArtsLive website. The other grant recipients were fantastic as well. The projects vary from doing improvisational jazz with the homeless to creating scrap metal animal statues for a local animal organization. Many of the projects allow the artists to create art that will improve the community by the presence of art and some actually involve participants in a project. For me, it was important to involve families in the art creation itself.

I got my check and then I was off to start recruiting for my project.

How Exactly Would That Work?

"So how much did I tell you I would give?" He asks smiling with his teeth; a smile that I sense over the phone, through the solitary pinhole on my mobile phone in which I assume rests the microscopic speaker. He leans far back in his patio chair, thick white plastic bands supporting his tired body, and he breathes out from his belly. The stress of the day passes into a visible cloud of exhaled mist and as the particles infuse into the night's air, his day passes and the sun sets.

"I don't know, I don't really remember, but I'll double check the email and get back to you. Okay?" I pull at the small hairs that re-grow just inside my nose. With my thumb and index finger, I get a hold of a couple and pull. Two are short and shallow, but one is long and deeply rooted. The hair passes just within the nostril beyond the soft tissue within the nose, most probably, through the sinus cavity, turning and grinding until it takes root in the base of my brain. The pain is endless and deep like the caverns created when the sea pushes onto the shore, cutting ragged cross-sections. My eyes tear, and my voice quakes. I scream and cover with another question. "Ahhh. So what else have you been up to?"

"I just got my taxes back. That's why I want to know how much I said that I would give you..." He hesitates and then stops with his thoughts mingling with mine in the fiber optic cords between our far cities. "Really? How much did you get?" I wipe my tears with the shoulder of my shirt, and sniffle the pain back in; I suddenly feel much better.
Okay, I have emailed and bothered the great staff at the Ventura County Arts Council. They confirmed the different ways to accept donations, and to collect the previously pledged contributions.

Again, thank you for the support. Please make you pledged contributions by Saturday, May 8, 2010. I need for this money to be submitted before VCAC awards my grant. The 2 payment options for donating to Project: Speaking Fragility to Create Confidence are:

Option 1) Check

-Make the check out to Ventura County Arts Council-In the Memo section of the check, please write "SFCC Project Donor"

-Mail the check to:

Ventura County Arts Council

646 County Square Drive, Suite 154

Ventura, CA 93003-0436

-After you mail the check, please email me to let me know.

-I will get the credit based on the Memo section.

Option 2) Credit Card

- Pay Online-Go to http://www.venturacountyartscouncil.org

-On the VCAC main page, there is a box on the left side of the screen that says, "VCAC NEWS QUICK LINKS"

-Look in the box for a yellow button that says, "DONATE."

-Click the button.-The donation page will pop-up.

-Enter the amount you wish to donate to my project. Or enter the amount previously pledged. If you would like to donate more than you had originally pledged, please feel free. (All donations will go straight to resources and supplies for the participants.)

-Enter the other information as appropriate, name, address and such.

-REMEMBER in the Billing Address Line 2, WRITE "SFCC Project Donor"

-I will get the credit based on the Billing Address Line 2.

If there are any problems, please do not hesitate to email or call. I will be sending out responses to the original pledge email to remind everyone.

Post Office Boxes and other Small Delights...

Hundreds of small windows line two walls of the local post office. Some post boxes are big and some are small, but the view from within each stinks. The little panes of glass are painted black and framed by small dingy brass doors. I turned the key and saw small envelopes, two or three, a grey bank statement and a tiny pink envelope from the New Yorker, warning that my payment is overdue, but meaning a subscription renewal would be nice. I laughed and thought, "Tricky New Yorkers." And as I flipped through the pile, the last was a letter from the Ventura County Arts Council, VCAC typed on their letterhead in primary colors, the basics, white, yellow, blue, red.

On February 19 , 2010, I submitted a grant proposal to the Ventura County Arts Council. Their concept was to award grants to artists that are working to meet community needs. I am and I hope to be.

My grant synopsis is:

Project: Speaking Fragility to Create Confidence addresses Santa Paula families' low literacy levels through storytelling and parenting workshops. The project gives parents literacy tools and creates a body of short fiction cameos, recognizing families' power to support literacy and to raise community awareness of the need for parent education.

Yesterday, on April 21, 2010, I received the Grant Award Letter from VCAC. I am excited to execute the project, which will work with parents to create children's books for their preschoolers and I will create a body of work that reflects the strength, resilience and beauty in the Santa Paula Community. Woot woot. This whole art creation will be framed by parenting workshops in which the adults will learn how to support their children's literacy. Fantastic, no?

Bloggity, blog. I have decided to create a blog to document the grant process, from receiving the grant to the final production of a showcase at the Santa Paula Theater Center. All this, but more.

I have also decided to start theorizing and taking adventures and messing around with how Art, capital A, Art, can create social change, can form just communities, and can prove to meet our everyday needs, injustices. Just Art. Just Joseph. Booyah.

I started off this year, saying "this year we'll all do something great, we'll decide to help people, but not out there somewhere, but RIGHT HERE where we live." I think, I was right. Stay tuned and let me know how you'd like to help.

Oh, by the way, those of you that have pledged to contribute, it's time. I will be ironing out kinks with the online PayPal and posting a PO BOX to which you folks can mail checks. Thanks again. All Y'all are my heart.