Oasis

All day, I've been working on my application to Working Artists Ventura (WAV).

WAV is

a $57 million, state-of-the art community designed for artists and creative businesses. Located in the cultural district of downtown Ventura, California, the WAV will offer affordable living and working space for over a hundred artists of every kind; painters, sculptors, dancers, poets, musicians, filmmakers and more.

Truly, everything about WAV sounds like Heaven:

WAV represents the vanguard of innovative sustainable cultural facilities. The entire community will be designed and built to the highest standards of green building technology (LEED® certified), including recycled building materials, car sharing, water and energy conservation, and renewable power from the sun.

In spite of the real deadline having passed in June, long before I heard of this Heaven on Earth, yesterday I was encouraged to apply. Not because I am the golden princess upon whom Fortune always smiles, but because most of the applicants have been individuals, which means there remains a need for artists with families to live in the units that have 3 and 4 bedrooms. (If any other breeder artists still raising young'uns wish to apply--not that I mean to lure artists away from the Bay Area, which is indeed my spiritual home--now would be the time.)

The application process is not overly complicated nor burdensome. You must complete a 3-page application that requests mostly financial information; include an artist's resumé; write a statement about why you want to live at WAV; and attach 3 reference letters from people who know about you and your background and your work as an artist. Then if you are lucky, you participate in two interviews, one concerning housekeeping matters of finances and credit and rental history, and one "to discuss the artist's interest in living in a mixed-income, mixed-use community."

Writing the statement about why I want to live at WAV has of course made me think about art and artists and our place in the world, and the importance of setting, and how perfectly perfectly right it is to that a community steps forward and reaches out its hands to welcome and nurture artists, saying, Here is a lovely place for you and your family to live more cheaply, because we value you and your contributions, we know that what you create both inspires and defines us, so come, live in these lovely surroundings, where you can work and create and rest and be at home.

P.S. It also seems fitting that I take a moment to thank NamastéNancy for writing one of the three required reference letters with inimitable grace and speed.

Street Art

I went to heaven Ventura for the holiday weekend.
If you are familiar with Ventura, you know of what I speak. If you are not--well, heaven awaits, in the form of the ocean, all those charming California bungalows, a mural of gigantic poppies and another of Monarch butterflies at an arts center, a lively farmers market in Ojai, with cheeses and chocolates that make you glad to be alive, the best thrift stores EVER on Main St., a wonderful coffee house called Palermo Cafe, where you can sit and write and write and write for hours on two cups of coffee (and everyone is very nice, and there is a WiFi password, besides), and and and. Not to mention the company. I am in love with Ventura.

Imagine my surprise and delight when I was walking downtown and came across a painted utility box. It was this one:

The city of Santa Cruz also has a similar wonderful program whereby artists are invited to use the ugly, putty-colored utility boxes as their canvases, and the utility boxes became these colorful, beautiful and/or funny and/or interesting landmarks throughout the city. The painted boxes changed my experience of waiting at traffic signals.

We are changing the world, all of us, every artist, every arts champion, we are changing the world, we are making it a better and more beautiful place, one step at a time, one utility box at a time.



P.S. I was also told San Diego has painted utility boxes.