^{Image: “Արմատ / Armat” (meaning “Root” in Armenian) banner, decorated by dozens of children, at Glendale Library’s annual Armat Armenian Cultural Celebration, April 2024}

Kind morning /Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and of doodles without borders,
*the morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind morning” (բարի լույս [baree looys])
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TONIGHT
Tue, April 30, 4:30pm – LA Tenants Union Rally, Pershing Square, announcing newest Downtown/Skid Row Local of LA Tenants Union!

ART ACTION ITEM
CALL FOR ARTISTS, register by May 3rd! – Artist connected to Skid Row or Little Tokyo? Windows of Little Bronze Tokyo community orientation (orientation is on May 11th)! FREE and Open to any and all creative practices. Register at bit.ly/sltwindows by May 3rd, required in order to attend the orientation. 

ART EVENT OF THE MONTH
Saturday, May 25, 12-4pm: WALK THE TALK Parade, celebrating Skid Row visionaries, organized by Los Angeles Poverty Department. Starting point is Skid Row museum (250 S Broadway). Portraits of this year’s honorees by yours truly (it was an absolute honor to be asked to make them!) 


HIGHLIGHTS in and near SKID ROW, May 2024
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join
1) Wed, May 1, 4:30pm: May Day Worker’s Rally at MacArthur Park
2) Friday, May 3, 7pm, Movie Night “Propriedad: Privados” and “Falling Up” at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
3) Fri, May 10, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
4) Sat, May 11th – 2-6pm: Annual People’s Kite Festival by Clockshop at LA State Historic Park. Doodles will be there with a table!
5) Thursday, May 16th, 11:45a-1:30p: Largest Drum Circle in LA, in downtown’s Grand Park
6) Thurs, May 16, 2pm – Ase Ase Drummers from the Heart @ General Jeff Park
7) Friday, May 17, 12-3pm – Marketplace at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
8) Friday, May 17, 7pm: Movie Night at LA poverty department‘s Skid Row Museum
9) Sat, May 18, 10a-4pm – ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY Party at Peace/Healing (116 E 5th St)
10) Sat, May 18, 2-4:30pm – COME TOGETHER – Honoring 8 more Skid Row visionaries @ Skid Row Museum
11) Tues, May 21, 10:30-12 –  Creative Writing @ Skid Row Museum
12) Sat, May 25, 12-4pm: WALK THE TALK Parade is back!
13) Friday, May 31, 5-7:30pm, Open Mic with Lorinda@ Skid Row Museum
14) Fri, May 31, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters

To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar

SAVE THE DATE
Juneteenth: Keep an eye out for Skid Row Juneteenth Celebration on or around June 19th.

ONGOING
1) “Welcome to Covid Hotel” at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway) until December 2024
2) “Visions of Transcendence: Creating Space in East and West” at Wende Museum in Culver City, including a number of Skid Row neighborhood artists is up until September 2024. Entrance is Free. Fri-Sun 10a-5p (10808 Culver Boulevard, Culver City, CA 90230)

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least FOUR open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every third Friday, 12-3pm as part of LACAN‘s Marketplace (838 E 6th St)
4) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUND
ROOTS, MOUNTAINS, and WALKING THE TALK. Earlier this month, Doodles without Borders participated in a Glendale Library event called “Armat” (meaning “Root” in Armenian), celebrating Armenian cultural history. April 24th is also the Armenian genocide commemoration day, with the wounds still fresh from geno//dal final stage of ethnic banishment of Artsakh Armenians in Sept 2023, and the connections to the geno//de of Palestinians as well as economic and racial banishment of Black and Brown and Indigenous, poor and unhoused, working class people right here in Skid Row and across Turtle Island all the more visible. Whether cultural roots or roots of the devastating inequalities we experience and see all around us, understanding our roots, the roots is a prerequisite to firm and principled solidarities and alignments. A prerequisite to understanding that We are Our Mountains: a metaphor of rootedness and resistance instantly understood by Armenians, that also has echos across liberation movements in many parts of the world. I remember hearing it from Ruthie Gilmore in the same context (in the “Abolition on Stolen Lands” talk), in reference to Cuba, Vietnam, and beyond, whether the place is with actual mountainous terrain or not. The moment she said “the people have to be the mountains,” I had tears in my eyes.

From Skid Row neighborhood to all of Turtle Island, Palestine, Kurdistan, today’s Armenia, Artsakh, Armenian highlands, and beyond–despite capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal, imperialist violence –people upon people are and choose to be the mountains.

Finally, on May 25th LA Poverty Department will be rolling out Skid Row neighborhood’s 7th biennial Walk the Talk Parade, celebrating some of the people who are the mountains in Skid Row!
 

dwb ONLINE:
1) Doodles without Borders (dwb) is now on Instagram / Facebook. 
2) There is a monthly dwb Skid Row Community & Arts Calendar. If you do community strengthening work in Skid Row and know of an event/meeting that should be on there, please share. 
3) dwb wishlist!  You can find it here: bit.ly/dwbwishlist 

Able and interested to SUPPORT Doodles?
Support Artwork Storage as a Human Right (and Collective Responsibility)
Community Arts Depot is a sister project addressing the vital need for artwork storage and access focused on Skid Row neighborhood members and residents. Artwork Storage as a Human Right – a glimpse from the Community Arts Depot story. This project’s sustainability is deeply dependent on grassroots support.  To donate to the campaign click HERE!
Email us for donating directly via Venmo, Paypal, or other ways.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH
Continuing with Charisse this month, from the same talk (link to video right after the quote), because it’s THAT good, and it is so much about thinking creatively, and beyond borders we are typically boxed in.

“…we are inside united states, but that does not make us americans, Malcolm X says this.   …Racism will never be resolved in the context of u.s. nation state.
When you ascribe to americanism, you ascribe to imperialism, to the oppression of the overwhelming majority of the people in the world, who are colonized people, racialized people, and people who are the sufferers under imperialism. So there is no way to believe in the *american project* and to be a revolutionary, or to even be a progressive. They are just fundamentally incompatible. And it does not mean [physically leaving] …Some people say, “well, go back to Africa,” or “go back to where ever you came from.”  But it’s just like [how] we all participate in capitalism, even as we are working to overthrow it. Well, some of us are.
…There are just so many life affirming, human, flourishing identifications that we can have. And it does not have to be with ‘america.’ “

― Charisse Burden-Stelly, speaking on her book “Black Scare, Red Scare” (link to youtube video interview: bit.ly/blackscare-redscare)

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For previous newsletter(s), go to www.doodleswithoutborders.com homepage

For this Newsletter in full: https://mailchi.mp/cfbfee263946/walk-the-talk-roots-may2024

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