Venice Chamber Of Commerce Pulls The Plug On Venice Pride Sign Lighting

OK, Venice. There's a little drama going on with the upcoming Venice Pride celebration planned for this June 1st. Venice Pride received a letter from the Venice Chamber of Commerce on February 22, effectively kicking Venice Pride out of the Chamber, and going even further to say, "Be informed that the Venice Sign will be taken down for unrelated maintenance during the month of June 2019 and will be unavailable in connection with any events scheduled for that month."

Excuse me? The Venice Sign has never been taken down in its decade plus history, and they're going to choose to do maintenance on it now, when Venice Pride is always in June?! The Pride lighting is already scheduled for June 1st, so they could just take it down the next day if need be. It's already on the Sign's own list of events when you do a Google search about it.

I was told that the wind and everything has made it so they need to check that the hardware securing the sign is secure and safe, but again, just take it down the next day. WHAT is really going on?

For that, you have to dig a little deeper. When Venice Pride was going over invoices to plan this year's celebration, they found some discrepancies with last year's vendors, and wanted to make sure they had a correct and adequate budget to plan for this year. When inquiring with one of the rental companies about the overcharges (several) and the disappearance of the discount that they'd been given on the original quote, Venice Pride was told that the Venice Chamber had told the vendor to apply the discount to the following week's Flower Fest instead. A totally different event with a different budget that has nothing to do with Venice Pride - but it was a Venice Chamber event. And now Flower Fest is tentatively planned for June 1st. Hmm ...

The matter had to be handled in small claims court, and there were disgruntled parties on both sides (though Pride was just trying to get back what was rightfully theirs). The next thing you know, this letter shows up (and was attached to an open letter to the Chamber, which is how I saw it) from the attorney for the Venice Chamber of Commerce, Michael Wallerstein, a member of the Chamber. The letter demands that Venice Pride cease and desist using any images of the Venice Sign in their promotion or merchandising, that their membership had been revoked, so they can no longer be a part of the Chamber, and they can't use the sign for the celebration. Wow. That feels petty retaliatory to me ... especially when they ignored California Corporation code, providing no reason for the drastic move, and no opportunity to be heard in a response before being so unceremoniusly booted from the Chamber - AND denied use of the Sign that is the centerpiece of the Venice Pride celebration. Over what exactly?

The Venice Sign hosts several celebrations throughout the year, but none of the others are for a group of people that has been so oppressed historically. This year is the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York, which is a major event in gay history. Gay Pride has grown so much over the years, and now Venice - of all places! - is going to have their own Chamber of Commerce deny the use of the sign (that they don't own, but are merely the custodians of) for this joyful annual event that the entire community enjoys? Again, WOW. I get that there are personal beefs between some parties involved, but you don't punish a whole community. It's just not right.

The Venice Pride celebration will take place on June 1st with or without the use of the Venice Sign, but it will be an awfully glaring omission to not have the rainbow sign hanging there above it - and I'd like to hear the Venice Chamber explain to everyone in attendance just exactly WHY, and why THEN? I don't think this community will stand for it. Or shouldn't. There is a backup portable Venice Sign standing by to take the place of the real Venice Sign, at a large expense for a non-profit organization's budget (which is how we got here in the first place), but the show must go on! I'd hope that the Venice Chamber of Commerce will realize the error of their ways before June 1st, because again, just how are they going to explain away this slap in the face to Venice's LBGTQ community if people show up to dance under the original sign that isn't there?

In these times, we need to support and encourage each other as a community, not get all petty over some creative accounting that was discovered and civilly asked to remedy ... and then this. I would hope that we can all be friends and grown ups here, and I hope everyone can move forward, doing their best to do the right thing for Venice - by including and celebrating everyone! That is how ALL of Venice can be proud.

June's Venice Art Crawl - All Mapped Out

Thursday was the June edition of the Venice Art Crawl, and it was as much fun as ever. It was also - as ever - nearly impossible to see it all, though I did keep on trucking enough to get a good bit in before just giving in to the party of it all.

It was not even dark out yet when I hit the information booth to pick up my map and they were already all gone. This is either bad planning or so wildly popular they ran out even before nightfall. Probably both, but VAC, you need more maps. The various map locations should have stacks of them too - none did. This makes it hard to know where to go ... luckily, I cajoled one from a couple that could share. The very last one. The volunteers were a little snippy about it too, saying to me, "Take a picture (of the map), it will last longer", and to another person, "It's not my job to give out information." Um, yes. It is. Anyway, it was good that I made new friends sharing my map and pointing people where to go, but a map would have been way better for them. Next time ...

I hit the Art Walls first, as there was a group called the "Setting The Pace Foundation" painting on the walls for the Art Crawl. It was cool, and the sunset is always a wonderful backdrop.

I always have to swing by the skatepark to see what's going down, so I did.

Small World Books is right there, so I went in to check out the new works by Deb Loucks, get a new book ...

... and say hi to the artist, enjoying friends and family at The Sidewalk Cafe.

 The sunset was now threatening to outshine all the art, so it's good that it all carried on after dark.

I headed over to "Emerged at Alpha," a space on Market Street that had girls selling flower crowns, live music and a whole bunch of art. It was cool, but I didn't recognize anybody.

It was fun to see a great mix of people, once again coming together all because of art.

I knew there was a Venice Symphony Orchestra fundraiser going on over at Horizon, with a group show curated by Jules Muck behind the house with her mural on it.

What I did not know was that the Orchestra wasn't really playing (only a 3 piece could make it this night), but there were naked ladies getting body painted in there, so that seemed to satisfy all who strolled through looking for some classical music.

It looked kind of fun. I may volunteer next time (for being painted on, not handing out maps).

I always enjoy chatting with the artists that set up in the parking lot next to Hama Sushi, but I always feel bad for them because it is almost pitch dark in there, nearly impossible to see the work. We need to get some lighting in there for them next time. Arist Niciforos had little tiny painting that had 3D waves coming off the beach scenes ... I got one for $5, and was happy to see that it can be a magnet on the fridge art piece.

Set up next to him was a very smart guy whose name I lost, but whose art reminded me of Gaudi. In fact, he told me all about the church in Spain designed by Gaudi that has taken 100 years to build and it still isn't. The conversation was enlightening, even though I could barely see them.

Set up outside the parking lot, getting some street light on the subject, was a guy who said his name was Ant, who had some "controversial" pieces. I just found them to be true. Another good conversation was had, and then I was late to meet friends at The Townhouse.

After some catching up and refreshments, we had more ground to cover. I wanted to see the "Skate The Sky" pieces at Venice Originals, but the place was all locked up tight, so I stopped by the packed Lightning Bolt shop, where people were crammed in listening to Kathleen Myers, but too full to really see the art. Next it was Gotta Have It, who featured work by Theresa Flowers and music by the ever-ready Paul Chesne.

We watched Chesne's set from up in the new little nook gallery overlooking the shop, which was great.

It became kind of our own headquarters that we could shout out the window from to people on the sidewalk to come up and join us.

As always happens, we'd again forgotten to eat, and that had to happen before anymore art (or drinks) could be had). As happens while you look at the art, kitchens tend to close, so we looked at more art anyway. The guys that set up out in front of The Bank Of Venice were doing cool stuff with spray paint...

But this guy (whose card I also lost) was on a new level, with a laser pen thing that colored in the images as a black light showed it appear. It was trippy, and I'm always a sucker for live painting.

There was SO much to see and do, that it was funny when I met a reader of mine (Hi!), who asked if I would see more this time than I did last, since I'd mentioned in that article the difficulty of getting around to it all when you keep bumping into friends to catch up with and stuff. The answer was that I believe I saw even less this time, but had even more fun! After a quick bite at Hal's (where they launched their new gallery), we went all the way over to West Adams, but still kind of Venice, as we visited the Mid City Yacht Club, owned and operated by Commodore Noah Farrell (of Abbot's Habit). Venice is a feeling ... of people being free and expressing themselves through their art, whichever medium it takes shape with. And you can take it with you.

Another whole night of art and expression, wound up with all Venice people all the way across the city, but that feeling carried with us the whole way. And next time ... I promise to see way more. With the help of the ample maps that I'm sure will be available to all.  Thanks again, VAC!