This is Ernesto Cuevas. He works for the Office of Cultural Affairs. Many Atlanta artists have demonized the Office (formerly "Bureau") as ineffectual, obstructionist, and downright evil. Maybe it is, but check out Ernesto. He's a good guy. He even smiles. Like a normal human being. He's the human face of the OCA.

I had lunch with him today near City Hall East and sprung this semi-surprise interview on him. I wanted to ask him about the series of meetings he's been holding with artists in various locations around town, like last night's meeting on the MARTA train. What's going on in them? What are they supposed to accomplish?

We went to a little pita joint where I had a falafel sandwich that was good, but full of a lot of weird vegetables I'm not used to seeing in a falafel sandwich. Like beets. WTF?? Ernesto had the seafood pita, a good portion of which ended up on his pants.

When I first heard about the meetings, which have been going on since December, my first reaction was, good God, not another set of grievance meetings where artists get together to present a wish list to a government agency to promptly go fuck up. But that's not Ernesto's game plan at all.

The purpose of the meetings, according to Ernesto, is merely to "provide a forum for artists to develop their own agendas and identify their own needs." This isn't about the city coming in and forming a group. It's about a group forming itself, with support from the city office that's supposed to provide that kind of support. In Ernesto's words, the group should end up being "bigger than the OCA."

Over the last couple of meetings, for example, the artists decided that the group should begin to formalize its own identity, partly in order to be identifiable by other entities as some real thing. There are about 13 artists at this point who make up the core of that effort. What that thing is has yet to be determined, but it's likely to have elements of advocacy, resource pooling, and may draw some particulars from the union idea that Jason Johnson has been floating around lately.

It makes a difference, I think, that Ernesto himself is an artist. He's most interested in murals and silkscreen printing. "I'm hustling in the street just like everyone else," he says. He's particularly interested in involving youth in that particular form of art making and dovetailing it with other kinds of organizing among Latino constituencies. If it were up to him, Atlanta would be as full of public murals as, say, San Antonio or Philadelphia.

It's sort of a shame that a city department founded to support arts and culture has to then go and hire someone to patch up its relationship with that very community, but Ernesto has in fact come to fill that role. And some artists apparently are even letting their guard down enough to look at it as a ray of hope.

There's another meeting next week. Maybe someone will be kind enough to post the time and place here.

City of Atlanta
Office of Cultural Affairs
Tel: 404.817.6815

Public Dialogue for the Arts: The Tea House Talk - A Follow-up to MARTA

Public Dialogue for the Arts will serve as a forum for exchange of issues and ideas that affect the landscape of visual art in Atlanta.

The Teahouse Talk will be a follow-up meeting to our MARTA Think Tank. Our goal on Wednesday 26th is to start “working” on any action items that are created during our MARTA conversation. This follow-up gathering will also allow for expounding on previously discussed topics.

Penney Sue Balmes has graciously offered to host our artist talk at Teahouse on Edgewood Ave.

Please come and participate!

Discussion #6 – The Tea House Talk

Wednesday April 26, 2006, 7pm

teahouse

753 Edgewood Avenue

Atlanta, GA 30307

Please call 404-817-6815 or email publicart@atlantaga.gov to RSVP.



For more information on the Public Art Program, please visit: http://www.bcaatlanta.com/index.php?pid=219

For teahouse info please go to: http://bellsouthpwp.net/s/u/sustaininc/index.html

Directions to teahouse

From 75/85 (north or south):

Exit Freedom Parkway
Turn Right at the first light which is Boulavard
Turn Left onto Edgewood Ave (the third light)
Go Thru Two lights
After the second light I am one block on the Right (one block east of krog st)
From L5P:

Take Euclid West away from the main shopping area
Euclid Merges into Edgewood Ave
It is two blocks after the merge on the Left (one block west of spruce st)
From Decatur:

Drive down Dekalb Ave toward Downtown
Continue past L5P over Moreland
Turn Left onto Waddell (one block before the Krog St Tunnel)
The first stop sign is Edgewood Ave
It is on the corner to your Right (Waddell & Edgewood)