(from LOUISIANA CITIZENS FOR THE ARTS )

SENATE  FINANCE  COMMITTEE  ARTS BUDGET TESTIMONY

SCHEDULED  FOR  TODAY  & TOMORROW

We need EVERYONE’S Voice!

Dear Friends and Arts Supporters,

Louisiana Citizens for the Arts (LCA) Urges You to Ask Members of the Senate Finance Committee to Vote FOR an Increase in Arts Funding.  This is our LAST chance to have funding restored.

The timing could not be better for us after Wednesday’s highly successful Advocacy Day in the Capitol!  To those of you who were able to participate THANK YOU!  For those of you who were unable to make the trip to Baton Rouge, here’s your chance to SHOUT OUT FOR THE ARTS!  We need you to contact Senate Finance TWICE . . . once today (Friday) and again on Saturday morning.

The Lieutenant Governor will be testifying to the Senate Finance Committee Friday and representatives of LCA will offer Public Testimony Saturday.    We need you to affirm their message by sending your email to Legislators on the Committee ASAP!

Please take 3 minutes to contact Committee Members NOW.  It’s as easy as 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . just go to http://louisianacitizensforthearts.org

Under the Take Action box, “Click Here to Write Your Legislators” and you will be taken to the ALERT page.  UnderLouisiana, click Take Action.  Read the action alert at the top of the page and scroll down to the MESSAGE to the members of the Senate Finance Committee.  Feel free to add a personal message. Then, scroll down to the Sender Information and complete the information requested.  Once this is done, just hit “send message” and you’re done!  THEN forward this message on to all your friends and other arts advocates.  Remember, with your help we were able to have the arts funding reinstated last year.  We NEED everyone’s help again this year to do it again!  Below is a detailed explanation of the current situation.

A Recap of What’s Happening~~

Both the Decentralized Arts Funding (DAF) and the Statewide Arts Grants (SAG) programs have been targeted with crippling cuts.  In the current bill all that’s remaining for DAF is $1 million and only $959,000 remains for SAG (that is a 60% reduction in funding levels from Fiscal Year 2009!).

Louisiana Citizens for the Arts is requesting the Legislature to move nearer to the 2009 levels by:

·          Restoring $1 Million of funding to the DAF program to which would result in a Fiscal Year 2013 funding of $2,000,000 . The DAF program supports organizations in EVERY parish on a per capita basis.

·        Adding $1 Million offunding to the SAG program to provide $1,959.000,  which enables stabilization, capacity building and arts-in-education grants to our major arts organizations and regional and local arts agencies.

How are you affected?

If the Legislature does not provide thismodest increase, our Louisiana arts organizations will become further crippled. The severe ripple effect? Artists, teachers, festivals, libraries, museums and theaters alike will be negatively impacted. No community will remain untouched and the economic loss will rank second only to the loss in social profit, community and quality of life. Culture is Louisiana’s finest natural resource. We must nurture and protect it for it to flourish.

How can you help?

Respond to this action alert NOW.  If you have ever applied for arts grants, work for a cultural non-profit, are one of the thousands of artists and cultural workers in Louisiana, or an audience member who loves arts events in Louisiana, help us to help you.

Now is the time for YOU TO RAISEYOUR VOICE!

Send a message NOW asking the Senate Finance Committee members to support our request for the increase in funding.  Go to www. http://louisianacitizensforthearts.org and TAKE ACTION NOW!

For ARTS sake!

Christie Weeks, Chair

Gerd Wuestemann, Vice-chair for Advocacy

Tommy Usrey, Past Chair

LOUISIANA CITIZENS FOR THE ARTS

To become a contributing member of LCA, go to

http://louisianacitizensforthearts.org

LCA is supported solely by donations from citizens, businesses, and organizations who believe the arts are essential to our Louisiana economy, identity and way of life..  You can help at www.LouisianaCitizensfortheArts.org

Saturday December 17^th from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.

at the Bayou Terrebonne Waterlife Museum

7910 Park Ave.  Houma, LA

 The presentation is free and open to all ages, beginning at 1:00 with an artist lecture, discussion of  experimental documentary filmmaking, screening of works-in-progress and Q&A.

Following the presentation will be an opportunity for the public to share and document stories about South Louisiana and contribute to the project through audio-recorded interviews.

contact andrea@bluebird-art.com for more information

enjoying time with/teaching/guiding West

studying and practicing the Reggio Emila approach

dreaming up and/or realizing ideas for “The Last Atlantis” project

production assistant for Dreamsite Productions’ Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government educational video project

creating and re-working video art for projections during Isle Dernière’s show Sunday

experimenting with new video art equipment and styles for my upcoming (Nov. 19..stay tuned) video installation/live projections performance with the Artist Inc. Collective

YMCA-ing it…hello body combat, Pilates, zumba!

Swamp Thing Alley Cat Bike Race afterparty

‘ol bluebrains here, reporting:

I’ll be screening videos (made special for the Isle Dernière sounds and concept) and trying not to start any arguments about oil or otherwise. May construct a costume, may take your picture, may poke you in the eye with my palmetto hat. We’ll see.  Will probably just be excited about the bike race.

The Geaux Geaux Sheaux will be there..friiiinge.

Occurring Sunday, September 18 · 8:00pm – 11:00pm at the Boxer & Barrel of Houma, Louisiana.

ALL PROCEEDS will be donated to Houma-Sunrise Rotary Club in support of Bikes for Kids.

A great cause and bikes are fun (remember?) and should be used more often around this flat town. How about some bike lanes, Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government! Mama don’t like ridin’ along no highway, now. Its a matter of investing in jobs, paint and pavement, no? Ok, maybe some sort of tractor equipment. Maybe some of the lawn-mower enthusiasts out there could pitch in, in the spirit of community. Remind me to remind us to contact the candidates about that. That could be a good thing to rally for during election season, all you Terrebonne bike-riding (or like me: mrs. would-be bike-riding more if I wasn’t so worried ab me and my sweet baby getting smooshed by angry/careless/texting SUV/8-cylinder engine motorists) Terrebonne parish voters…

A dear and devoted mentor of mine, Walter Williams, recently (re)introduced me to the work of Diane Arbus. Walter’s friend and long-time collaborator Jim Wilson gave him a print of Arbus’ Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967 as a house-warming gift when Walter moved back home to New Orleans. When I first saw the image I immediately thought of Kubrick’s The Shining… and was a) happy to see a reference from one of my favorite movies/stories b) fascinated by the gaze of the girls c) impressed ab Walter’s shamless displaying of such a ‘strange’ work (according to some…). The very same print now sits above my ice box….

..and I’m feeling very drawn to and curious about Arbus…excitedly researching… driven by this inspiring start to another ‘school year’.

juried art show entry fees = gambling or investing?

Isle Dernière LIVE! avec/with Zydecosis

at The Boxer and the Barrel

Today I remembered that it has been ten years since I began creating video art for musicians. Here are three very early videos for the band Chairman Mao (of Thibodaux/Houma). I started work on these in early 2001 and completed  an epic 1 hour VHS tape (packaged in boxes covered in shiny silver tape) in 2002 called “A New Horizon” that included these three videos ….probably about 25 tapes exist, total. I created these using my family’s PC and a very simple consumer-based digital editing software called “Pinnacle Home Movie Maker”. I shot all the footage using my Sony Hi8 digital video camera (and re-shot a lot of footage off of my 1970′s era tv set that was fed by a 1990′s VCR). Lot’s of taping and re-taping and wearing out the tapes to get that “look”. The “Surf Thugs Theme” video features re-worked footage from a 1986 dance recital tape of mine. I can’t count the number of times that the heavy editing crashed the computer (which was running on barely 1GB of RAM). Very thankful for my patient mother (who received her M.A. in Computer Science in 1972) and all of her help in explaing the program and inner workings of the computer to me.

Here’s to another ten…

“Low High” by Chairman Mao 2001

The song is “Death of Chairman Mao” by Stephen Berger (www.mylifethroughnoise.com)

performed by Chairman Mao circa 2001-02

You believe your motivation is for a home or a coat of armor?
Money and success are a state of mind
God confusion comes -
they mix you up with water and wine
Now I know why
They mix you up -(and you’re) wondering,
“What do they know???”
and confusion comes
They mix you up just right

Dearest viewers, please note: Andrea Dupree does NOT “worship” the man, agree with philosophies or seek to validate or glorify his actions through this work.

“Surf Thugs Theme” by the Surf Thugs