Image: Fragment from “Alkebulania“ by Kenneth W. Ross, the artwork that opens the “Scratching the Surface” exhibit at Skid Row Museum. Exhibit is open for one last week, til Sat Dec 6th. Open hours: Thur-Sat 2-5pm. This and many original pieces are for sale, and a print of this work is one of the gifts for donating to Arts Depot.

Kind light / Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and doodles w/o borders,
^{*morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])}

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.
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***SUPPORT US by supporting Arts Depot*** 
Help Doodles’ sister artwork storage project Community Arts Depot pay monthly rent, and get thank you a gift! There are a few gift options to choose from here.
Stay tuned on Doodles instagram page for more options soon!
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HIGHLIGHTS in and near Skid Row neighborhood, Dec 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

UPDATE: EXTENDED!!! – Scratching the Surface: 40 Years of Visual Arts in Skid Row(rooted in part in the artwork stored by our sister org Community Arts Depot)at Skid Row Museum has been extended one last time through Saturday, December 6!

1. Mon, Dec 1, 11a-2p: Meth Awareness + World AIDS Day at Care Campus – Doodles will be tabling!
2. Thur, Dec 4, 10am: Skid Row Arts Alliance meeting at Skid row Museum
3. Fri, Dec 5: 12-3pm: MARKETPLACE FOOD JUSTICE @ LACAN  (838 E 6th St) – stop by Doodles table!
4.   Sat, Dec 6,12-4pm: Holiday Called Home – Celebration by Urban Voices at Budokan (249 S Los Angeles St)
5. Sat, Dec 6: 7pm: MOVIE NIGHT “White House Effect” at Skid Row Museum
6. Wed, Dec 10, 7pm: Hotels in Crisis: then & now:films + performance @ Skid Row Museum
7. Sat, Dec 13, 10a-2pm: “What is Home?” workshop (registration necessary)  at Skid Row Museum
8. Fri, Dec 19 12:30-3:30:  Studio526 ART HOLIDAY PARTY @ 526 San Pedro
9. Fri, Dec 19, 6-8pm: Holiday party at Skid Row Museum
10. Dec 16-24, 6:30-8pm: Las Posadas at Olvera Street (across from Union Station)
11. Dec 31, 8pm- Jan 1, 1am: New Year Celebration at Grand Park

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE / ONGOING
Exhibit: Scratching the Surface: 40 years of visual art in Skid Row open at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway) and EXTENDED one last time to Dec 6th. Regular museum hours are Thur, Fri, Sat 2-5pm.

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least FOUR regularopen mics currently in Skid Row:
**Note, many of these are on break until the new year.**
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – (2) 1st and 3rd Fridays 11a-1p: BuckFest at Care Campus (442 S Crocker) by Urban Voices Project, (3) every 2nd Friday, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St) (on break Nov-Dec 2025); (4) every last Friday of the month, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUD
ATTEՆՇԱՆ` WARd wORd wՕԴ

wORd: word as privileged carelessness.
signs that wORds are in use: inattention to meaning, refusal to listen to context, all-sameism, both-sidism.
Add to the list and keep close.

wՕ՜Դ։ word as (breath of fresh) air.
signs that wՕ՜Դs are in use:
thoughtfulness, care, accountability, collectivity, support.
Add to the list, keep the closest, and use often.

Armenian-English dictionary
ՆՇԱՆ [n’shan] – sign
OԴ [od/ ot] – air

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“Disability is a portal, a way of focusing our gaze and sharpening our lens on the intricacies of our humanity.”

“Disability is not a “brave struggle” or “courage in the face of adversity.” Disability is an art. Its an ingenious way to live.”

“Disabled people know what it means to be vulnerable and interdependent. We are modern-day oracles. It’s time people listened to us.”

– Alice Wong of Disability Visibility project, an outspoken writer and disability justice activist. Alice dies last month. May she rest in peace and may her legacy be carried on by all of us.

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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.

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

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^{Image:  “FOR ALL” an unfinished Doodles banner started at 16th Annual Festival for All Skid Row Artists, Oct 2025.}

Kind light / Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and doodles w/o borders,
^{*morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])}

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.
________________________________________________________________________________
HIGHLIGHTS in and near Skid Row neighborhood, November 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

UPDATE 1: EXTENDED!!! – Scratching the Surface: 40 Years of Visual Arts in Skid Row (rooted in part in the artwork stored by our sister org Community Arts Depot) at Skid Row Museum has been extended through Saturday, November 22!
UPDATE 2: Doodles Table at General Jeff Park will be away on Tue, Nov 4, and returns on Tue, Nov 11 with a new time: 3-4:30pm.

1. Sat and Sun, Nov 1-2: 11am-8pm: Dia De Los Muertos at Olvera Street Plaza (across Alameda from Union Station)
2. Friday, Nov 7 , 7pm: Movie Night at LA Poverty Dep’t ‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
3. Fri, Nov 14,5-7pm: Arts Jam at Studio526
4. Fri, Nov 21, 12-3pm, Marketplace at LACAN (838 E 6th)
5. Fri, Nov 21, 7pm: Movie Night at Skid Row Museum
6. Tue, Nov 25, 1030-12: Creative Writing at Skid Row Museum
7. Thur, Nov 27: Day of Coming Together in Remembrance, and (Collective Celebration of) Resistance to “Thanksgiving” as Settler- Colonial Revisionism of historic and ongoing geno//dal policies against Indigenous peoples of occupied Turtle Island (aka continental u.s. empire)
8. Fri, Nov 28, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram for more info)

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE / ONGOING
Exhibit: Scratching the Surface: 40 years of visual art in Skid Row open at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway) and EXTENDED through Nov 22nd. Regular museum hours are Thur, Fri, Sat 2-5pm.

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least FOUR regularopen mics currently in Skid Row:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – (2) every 2nd Friday, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St); (3) 3rd Fridays 11a-2p: BuckFest at 5th/San Pedro by Urban Voices Project, (4) every last Friday of the month, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUD

A REWRITING OF KNOWLEDGE*
Poems and stories about the hills and valleys and rivers of occupied Tovaangar (also known as Los Angeles) exist in the thousands in local Indigenous languages: remembered, forgotten, re-membered. The knowledge of their existence is part of decentering this language I’m typing in; or bypassing it altogether. 
As an Armenian in these lands, perhaps I can scratch the surface of this feeling by pouring my love of Armenian Highlands and Armenian language into the love I’ve developed for the geography of Tovaangar over the past 26 years.

Արևելքից ու հյուսիսից`
Լեռնաշղթաները,
Արևմուտքից ու հարավից`
Օվկյանոսը,
Գրկում են մեր լայն հովիտները:
(From sunriseside and hyusis- /mountain ranges; /from sunsetside and haraf- /the ocean, /hug the wide valleys)
Արևմտյան գետը,
սողում ա ծովամերձ լեռների հյուսիսային կողմը շոյելով,
հոսում արևելք սեփական բերանը փնտրելու ճանապարհին,
Գտնում լեռնաշղթայի ծայրն ու թեքվում հարավ,
դեպի անծայրածիր օվկյանոսը:
(Paayme Paxaayt /flows by and brushes the hyusis side of the oceanside range,/ goes towards sunrise in search of its own mouth,/ finds the end of the range and turns haraf,/ to the endless ocean)

* * *

Թովաանգար: Թթո…ով..վան…գար: [Tovaangar. Tto… ov..van…gar]
Թթով ո՞վ:   [ttov ov?] (someone with mulberries?)
Ո՞վ Վան գար: [ov Van gar?] (who to return to Van?)
Ան… գա՜ր: [an… gar!] (if only) they… would return!)
Ա՛ն` քար: [an! qar] (here, take this stone!) (Վերձրու քար)
Թթով վանք առ:  [ttov vanq ar]  (take (back) the mulberry monastery)

Թովանք առ: [tovanq ar]
Take [this] charm, delight, merriment. / Become fully engulfed, ecstatic

Թ(ը)վանք առ: [tvanq ar]

Թովանք քար: [tovanq qar]
(This) charming, captivating stone.
(This) charming, captivating rocky land.

Թթ(ո)Վանք գ/ք-ար առ: [tt(o)Vanq g/q-ar ar]
Here, take (this) stone, let it engulf you, return, and take back the mulberry monastery.

*thank you Sylvia Wynter

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“…critique is not a rupture of solidarity but a condition of its possibility. …[W]ords carry the weight of an empire. But they also carry the possibility of return. That possibility depends on our willingness to trace [the words] back to the people, the places, and the politics from which they came from, and to ask what responsibilities we inherit when we speak and write.”

– Sinthujan Varatharajah in “Publishing as Solidarity: Personal Reflections on the Funambulist’s Political Project” in Funambulist N°61


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.

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

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^{Image:  Still unfinished “Skid Row neighborhood is Working Class” banner, Sept 2025}

Kind light / Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and doodles w/o borders,
^{*morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])}

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.
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HIGHLIGHTS in and near Skid Row neighborhood, October 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

UPCOMING PROGRAMMING related to Scratching the Surface: 40 Years of Visual Arts in Skid Row (rooted in part in the artwork stored by our sister org Community Arts Depot) exhibition at the Skid Row Museum and Archive is highlighted.

1. Friday, Oct 3, 3-5pm, Filmmaking workshop with Adam Johns @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
2. Friday, Oct 3 , 7pm:Movie Night at LA Poverty Dep’t ‘s Skid Row Museum 
3. Sat, Oct 4, 1-6pm: OUR STREETS ZINE FEST at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
4. Sat, Oct 4: TWO YEARS OF GENO//DE: RISE UP FOR GAZA. International Day of Action. In LA, protest at 1pm at the Z/on/st Consulate (11766 Wilshire Blvd)
5. Tuesdays, Oct 7 and 14,10:30-12:  Poetry Workshop at Skid Row Museum
6. Wed, Oct 8, 6pm: Movie night at General Jeff (Gladys) Park (movie at dusk)
7. Oct 10, Fri, 5-7pm: Skid Row Poetry: Inklings of a History at Museum
8. Fri, Oct 17, 12-3pm, Marketplace at LACAN (838 E 6th)
9. Fri, Oct 17, 7pm: Movie Night at Skid Row Museum
10. Sat-Sun, Oct 18-19, 12-4pm 16th Annual Festival for All Skid Row Artists! To perform or show art work: email info@lapovertydept.org or call 310-227-6071
11. Oct 24, Fri, 5-7pm: Discussion about Community Archives at the Museum
12. Fri, Oct 31, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE / ONGOING
Exhibit: Scratching the Surface: 40 years of visual art in Skid Row open and runs through Oct 25th.
Regular museum hours are Thur, Fri, Sat 2-5pm

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least FOUR regularopen mics currently in Skid Row:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – (2) every 2nd Friday, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St); (3) 3rd Fridays 11a-2p: BuckFest at 5th/San Pedro by Urban Voices Project, (4) every last Friday of the month, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUD

BEING “SERVICE RESISTANT” AND ”PA/ EST/N/AN REJECTIONISM”
As I read about “Pa/es/in/an Rejectionism” in Fargo Tbakhi’s “Being Listened To: On Philip Metres’ SHRAPNEL MAPS, Colonialism, and the Vio/ence of Conversation” essay, I immediately think about the label “service resistant”, used by the mainstream against unhoused people who dare to reject the inhuman “housing” alternatives in a world where lack of dignified housing for everyone is vio/ently normalized.
“Too unhoused”, “too Black”, “too immigrant”, “too queer”, “too Pa/ est/nian”, “too Artsakhci”, “too Indigenous”, “too working class”: service resistant. And for the first time I noticed the RESISTANCE in “service resistant” and now I really like the term.

Excerpt from Fargo’s essay:
“Pa/ es/inian Rejectionism” is the term used by decades of colonialist mur/derers and their passive onlookers to frame and explain the failure of “peace-talks” by placing the blame on Palestinian leadership’s refusal to accept, as part of any deal, the existence of the state of /sr/ae/. Yet my radical listening chooses to hear, in Pa/ es/inian Rejectionism, the only way forward, the only futurity we can possibly have. I beg for any poetics to have as one of its moves this refusal: the refusal to accept any world in which settler-colonialism is too moral, too human, too far-gone, too powerful or too vio/ent to be refused with every bone in our bodies, every conjunction in our sentences, every piece of spit creating and enacting our spells. I reject peace which leaves us displaced; I reject peace which leaves us dead and dying and severed from our land; I reject peace which is encompassed in and comprised of the bowing to power and the forgiveness of murder. This is our rootedness, our sumud; for any poetics/politics to abandon this position is for us to become the meals of history, to ensure that we continue disappearing. I reject conversation and its machineries. I reject the aesthetics of decolonization being mobilized to disguise the rot, the insatiable wellness of the settler-colonial heart.”

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“Having Conversations Industrial Complex: a loose assemblage of professional speakers, non-profit organizations, astroturfed activists, diversity consultants, academic advisory boards, panelists, and politicians who are paid to generate a ‘conversation’ that doesn’t need to show tangible results. Rather, the only role of the conversation is to generate more conversations.”

―– Alex V Green, “The Emptiness and Inertia of Having Conversations” as quoted in Fargo Tbakhi’s “Being Listened To: On Philip Metres’ SHRAPNEL MAPS, Colonialism, and the Violence of Conversation”


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.

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

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^{Image:  (1) Flyer for the upcoming Scratching the Surface: 40 years of Visual Arts in Skid Row exhibit, which opens this Saturday, September 6, 5pm at Skid Row museum; (2) interactive Skid Row Design Collective cardboard foldout (2016), one of the items in the exhibit. one of the items in the exhibit.}

Kind light / Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and doodles w/o borders,
^{*morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])}

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

COME VISIT the UPCOMING Scratching the Surface: 40 Years of Visual Arts in Skid Row exhibition at the Skid Row Museum and Archive (250 S. Broadway), opening this Sat, Sept. 6th, 5pm (and running until Oct 25) which it’s been my honor and pleasure to curate. The exhibition is a small glimpse into all the art making and cultural production that happens in Skid Row neighborhood. The impetus for curating this exhibit was to show and celebrate some of the work held at Community Arts Depot artwork storage project–a sister organization to Doodles!–and it grew to include multiple formal and informal archives and personal collections. 
And follow LA Poverty Department and Doodles without Borders posts on Instagram for programming related to the exhibit, like a mini-Zine Fest, a dive into History of Poetry in Skid Row, and a discussion of Community Archives!
– Hayk

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HIGHLIGHTS in and near Skid Row neighborhood, September 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Friday, Sept 5, 3-5pm, Filmmaking workshop with Adam Johns @ Skid Row Museum
2. Friday, Sept 5, 7pm: Movie Night at LA Poverty Dep’t ‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
3. Saturday, September 6, 5pm: OPENING CELEBRATION of Scratching the Surface: 40 years of Visual Arts in Skid Row exhibit at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
4. Wed, Sept 10, 6pm: Movie night at the General Jeff (Gladys) Park (movie starts at dusk)
5. Fri, Sept 12, 5-7pm ARTS JAM @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
6. Tue, Sept 16, 1030-12, 5-week Poetry Workshop starts @ Skid Row Museum
7. Fri, Sept 19, Marketplace at LACAN (838 E 6th)
8. Fri, Sept 19, 7pm: Movie Night at Skid Row Museum
9. Fri, Sept 26, 5-7:30: Open Mic @ Skid Row Museum
10. Fri, Sept 26, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram for more info)
11. Mon, Sept 29, 11am-1pm ~ SOUND BOWLS workshop with Ptah Ahochi Tehuti Eil and Linda Leigh @ Skid Row Museum

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE / ONGOING
Exhibit: Scratching the Surface: 40 years of visual art in Skid Row: OPENS Saturday, September 6
Regular museum hours are Thur, Fri, Sat 2-5pm

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least FOUR regularopen mics currently in Skid Row:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – (2) every 2nd Friday, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St); (3) 3rd Fridays 11a-2p: BuckFest at 5th/San Pedro by Urban Voices Project, (4) every last Friday of the month, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUD

#SKIDROWCONNECTED
(excerpt from the Suggested Use of Language – LA’s Skid Row Neighborhood evolving text, first drafted and presented in a meeting of then active Skid Row Design Collective in 2016)

Skid Row is not unique. Skid Row’s struggles are inseparable from the Black Liberation struggle in and beyond the American empire, the Working Class struggle, LGBTQ struggle for human rights, Tenants Power struggle and many more. It is exposed to the same anti-Black, white supremacist, imperialist, colonial, patriarchal, ableist oppressions–with the violence of class war and capitalism as the through line–which manufactures civic disenfranchisement, criminalization of poverty, and economic oppression affecting more than 150 million people (from rent-burdened tenants living in fear of displacement, to people living on the street in daily fear for their lives in every major city of the country) in so-called united states.

Skid Row neighborhood–as countless neighborhoods worldwide, undeterred by systemic oppression–is a bastion for defending humanity and of mutual aid as a method of survival (including the abolitionist mutual aid groups coming from without, but here focusing on neighbors looking out for each other in a myriad of informal ways). While Skid Row is not immune from replicating systems of oppression, it is also a place where every day residents come together, stand up for each other, show solidarity, empathy, and love.

Locally and globally, working-class oppressed people led, collective liberation struggles already align with Skid Row. Our common struggle must be to find ways to cultivate, grow and defend spaces where the necessity for universal protections of all basic human needs is the baseline. Our common struggle must be for each person’s individual responsibility to align with the collective responsibility to build power that will extend this baseline to the entire world.

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“The coalition emerges out of your recognition that it’s fucked up for you, in the same way that we’ve already recognized that it’s fucked up for us. I don’t need your help. I just need you to recognize that this shit is killing you, too, however much more softly…”

― Fred Moten, cultural theorist, poet, and scholar whose work explores critical theory, Black studies, and performance studies.


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.

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

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^{Image: Skid Row artists working on an “Independence… from what?” banner, in preparation for the upcoming 10th Anniversary of the Jamaican Independence Day celebration in Skid Row neighborhood, which will happen on Saturday, Aug 9, 2-6pm at Skid Row museum. Come join on Aug 9th and add to the banner or make a protest sign!  For more, look under the Black August rubric below}

Kind light / Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and doodles w/o borders,
^{*morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])}

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

Black August
During Black August, it is especially important to remember that Skid Row neighborhood is part of Black LA, part of the history, present, and future of resistance work of freeing all political prisoners and abolishing prisons and jails. For more Black August resources, here is one starting point: bit.ly/BARHandbook

In Skid Row neighborhood,
1) LACAN will be hosting a Black August centering community event on Friday, August 22, 3-6pm in their space (838 E 6th St),
2) Jamaican Independence Day’s Skid Row celebration 10 year anniversary on Saturday, August 9, 2-6pm, will include Black August topics and awareness. Doodles table will encourage attendees to add to the Independence… from what? banner, as an invitation to think deeper about independence. Can we imagine independence from capitalism? From white supremacy and patriarchy? Independence from settler-colonialism? From individualism? Independence from carcerality and prisons? Come and imagine with us!

Look out for more Black August themed events in Skid Row, in the region, learn about prison abolitionist organizations and how you can participate.

INVITATION
u.s. empire centers destroying life everywhere on the planet, while maintaining a bread, circuses and prisons discipline here in imperial core. The empire was built on and continues to function by geno//ding Indigenous peoples and Black / New Afrikan peoples. From an endless list of horrors: locally the empire now mu/ders 7 unhoused people in LA county every day, unleashes its colonial police force called ICE to kidnap and torture people, and globally is central in the u.s. imperial outpost state of /s/ae/ facilitated mass starvation and geno//de of Pa/est/nians.
Doodles without Borders invites you to make it a practice to vomit a little in your mouth every time the irreformable settler-colonial regimes of 249 y.o. u.s. empire or its outpost 77 y.o. state of /s/ae/ are mentioned. And find groups to join that contribute to life affirming, caring, collective liberation work with this understanding.
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HIGHLIGHTS in and near Skid Row neighborhood, August 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Friday, Ausust 1, 7pm: Movie Night at LA Poverty Dep’t ‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
2. Fri, Aug 8, 11am: Sound Bowls and Self Healing with Ptah and Linda at Skid Row Museum
3. Fri, Aug 8, 5-7pm ARTS JAM @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
4. Fri, Aug 8, 7pm: Church Without Walls is 19 years old! (5th/ Maple)
5. Sat, Aug 9, 2-5pm: 10 year anniversary: Jamaican Independence Day in Skid Row neighborhood, hosted by Sir Oliver, at Skid Row Museum.
6. Tue, Aug 12, 4-6:30pm: Doodles Arts Table will host a screening of u.s. dept of arts and culture’s “Artists and Cultural Workers Against Authoritarianism” training at General Jeff Park (formerly Gladys Park,  808 E 6th). You can also register and attend where ever you are at bit.ly/WTF-Training
7. Wed, Aug 13, 6pm: Movie night at the General Jeff (Gladys) Park
8. Fri, Aug 15, 3-5pm: FROM FILM LOVER TO FILMMAKER workshop at Skid Row Museum
9. Fri, Aug 15, 7pm: Movie Night at Skid Row Museum
10. Sat, Aug 16, 1-4pm: COFFEE HOUSE by Urban Voices at Inner City Arts (720 Kohler)
11. Sun, Aug 17, 1-4pm: Back to School Bash by Skid Row Streetball League and Brigade, at General Jeff (formerly Gladys) park
12. Tue, Aug 19, 1030-12, Creative Writing @ Skid Row Museum
13. Fri, Aug 22, 3-6pm BLACK AUGUST – Marketplace at LACAN (838 E 6th)
14. Fri, Aug 22, 7-9pm: J-Town Bronzeville Suite @ Grand Performances , Downtown LA
15. Fri, Aug 29, 5-7:30: Open Mic @ LA Poverty Dep’t Skid Row Museum
16. Fri, Aug 29, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram for more info)
    
    To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar
    

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE / ONGOING
Exhibit: Walk the Talk Portraits 2014-2024 at the Skid Row Museum through Aug 23
Exhibit: Scratching the Surface: 40 years of visual art in Skid Row: OPENS Saturday, September 6
Regular museum hours are Thur, Fri, Sat 2-5pm

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least FOUR regularopen mics currently in Skid Row:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – (2) every 2nd Friday, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St); (3) 3rd Fridays 11a-2p: BuckFest at 5th/San Pedro by Urban Voices Project, (4) every last Friday of the month, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUD

SCRATCHING THE SURFACE: an upcoming exhibit
(a version of this text appears in the latest Skid Row Arts Alliance ARTS ZINE)

Drawings, paintings, sculptures, murals, an improvised phone booth, banners, photographs, 3D art, 2D art, masks, DIY clothing… The list goes on, with subcategories in each category. 

As I sat down to plan the upcoming exhibit showcasing the recent history of visual art in Skid Row neighborhood, just one conversation yielded material to fill five Skid Row museums, even only focusing on the last 40 years. Somewhere in the conversation it came up that “we will be just scratching the surface,” and the title for the exhibit was born.

Skid Row neighborhood is never in isolation. Skid Row is part of downtown LA, part of the LA region, part of Black LA, part of Indigenous Tovaangar and occupied Turtle Island. Skid Row is diasporan, is Mexican, Caribbean, Abya Yalan (so called South American), Afrikan / New Afrikan, East Asian, etc. Skid Row is queer and trans, is Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, spiritual, humanist, atheist. Skid Row is the largest recovery community. And Skid Row is part of the working class and working class people’s struggle for a dignified life for everyone. Part of the global, internationalist anti-colonial struggle, from Skid Row to occupied Palestine.
By showcasing a snippet of the history of creativity and cultural production in Skid Row, the exhibit will contribute to revealing and fortifying a connection-centering neighborhood identity that already is and continues to be.

The exhibit is slated to open at the Skid Row Museum on Saturday, September 6th, 2025 and run until October 25th.

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“We must now collectively undertake a rewriting of knowledge as we know it. This is a rewriting in which… I want the West to recognize the dimensions of what it has brought into the world… . Because the West did change the world, totally. And I want to suggest that it is that change that has now made our own proposed far-reaching changes now as imperative as they are inevitable.” 

– Sylvia Wynter
From “On Being Human as Praxis” by Sylvia Winter and Katherine McKittrick


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.

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

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^{Image: The first banner naming and describing the workImage: Fragment from mind map summary of Mar 2025 “Artists Against Artwashing: aiding and abetting unhoused communities” gathering and discussion at Skid Row Museum, published in u.s. Dept of Arts and Culture. Groups and organizations from this effort are now unsurprisingly in the front lines of pushback against ICE raids.}

Kind light / Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and doodles w/o borders,
^{*morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])}

SICK OF ICE – Tuesday, July 1, call in sick and join the community strike and a local action/ gathering near you!

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near Skid Row neighborhood, July 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Tuesday, July 1, SICK OF ICE Day of Actions across Los Angeles and across the country
2. Fri, July 4: A day that reminds us that all empires have a time when they start and a time when they end. 
3. Wed, July 9, 6pm: Movie night at the Park (General Jeff Memorial (Gladys) Park)
4. Fri, July 11, 5-7pm ARTS JAM @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
5. Sat, July 12, 5-7pm: Opening of Walk the Talk 2014-2024 exhibit at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
6. Tue, July 15, 1030-12, Creative Writing @ Skid Row Museum
7. Fri, July 18, 12-3pm Marketplace at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
8. Friday 7/18, 3-5pmFILM LOVER TO FILMMAKER CLASS with Adam F. Johns
9. Fri, July 18, 7pm: Movie night at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
10. Fri, July 25, 5-7:30: Open Mic @ LA Poverty Dep’t Skid Row Museum
11. Fri, July 25, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram for more info)
    
    To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar
    

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE / ONGOING
Walk with Me exhibit by Studio526 @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
Regular museum hours are Thur, Fri, Sat 2-5pm

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE 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 last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUD

L.A. RESISTANCE AND COMMUNITY SELF-DEFENSE

In early June, waves of massively vio/ent, unidentified, masked, anti-human racists with guns, calling themselves “federal agents,” started descending on LA, kidnapping our neighbors (before you say the word “illegal”, here’s a primer on legality), be it at work, near our homes, out of cars, out of hospitals. (To be clear, mu/derous anti-human vio/ence has been here for a long time, more hidden from mainstream in some cases, and largely “normalized” against unhoused and particularly vulnerable categories of working class, Black and Brown, queer and trans, and all manner of oppressed people.) Meanwhile the 77 year geno//dal vio/ence in occupied Pa/es/ine has intensified even more this month, facilitated and funded by u.s. along with the apartheid state of is/ae/, with the addition of attacks on Iran (tacitly supported by tu/key and aze/baijan). The deep, bloodthirsty vio/ence of using–for mass mu/der across the world–the very funds that are kept from going to housing, healthcare, and food access in Skid Row, across all of occupied Tovaangar (LA region), and around the country.
Horrifying, but not new: a microcosm of u.s. empire’s entire history. 

And LA pushed back. From organizing Community Self-Defense to vendor buyouts to thinking creatively, and inviting artists into the work, from Day 1 there is resistance and push back against this imperial vio/lence on exploited workers in its interior. Resistance and protest looks differently for different people, and regardless of where you’re comfortable plugging in (and there is place for everyone!), we must remember that the last thing we want to do is deputize ourselves to police our friends and neighbors in “right or wrong” type of resistance against the machine of state vio/ence that is and has been vicious for years, decades, centuries. 

From LGBTQ+ Pride Month to Juneteenth events, and all types of gatherings and celebrations used their organizing power to include push back against ICE raids. The goals of resistance are to protect our people, to diminish the harm to targeted people as much as possible, whether it be by delaying agents of state vio/ence, preemptively notifying communities of their presence, and making it clear that ICE agents are pariahs in our neighborhoods.
From community patrols to community defense centers (like this one in Glendale, there are centers like these everywhere) and to No Sleep for Ice campaigns, from Union del Barrio to LA Tenants Union (and their call for community strike on July 1 and associated DEMANDS!) and beyond, organizations and resident groups come together, show that leftist anti-capitalist organizing is where we find community and love (let’s make leftist organizing irresistible!), and invite you to join us! 

These strategies and practices did not just spring up, but are the result of decades of organizing rooted in learning from history, from Watts Rebellion and Chicano Moratorium in the 60s and 70s, Union del Barrio’s 40 years of work, to Cop Watch (LACAN Skid Row roots!), Tenant Unions, and Power Ups.
Organizing with “we are the only ones who will save us” and “each one, teach one” frameworks in mind.

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“How do we want to remember the people who lost their lives in freedom struggles? … This would be my wish: …I would be happy, if we were more critical about the reality that we have inherited, and less celebratory about a reality we dont even grasp. Because we [are not even willing to] look at the terror baked into the architecture of the state.“

– Joy James in New Bones Abolition and the Function of the Captive Maternal with Joy James (part 1) and “I Do Not Have to Apologize for Reality” – Joy James on Contextualizing Angela Davis: The Agency and Identity of an Icon (part 2) of Millenials are Killing Capitalism podcast


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.

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

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^{Image: The first banner naming and describing the work of “Doodles without Borders.” 2021-2022.} 

Kind light / Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and doodles w/o borders,
^{*morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])}

As we enter Pride Month, remember that class consciousness without identity politics is ahistorical, and identity politics without class consciousness is ripe to get hijacked and weaponized and sabotaged. As you go to Pride related events, think about how can we always center that identity politics and class consciousness are inseparable in our struggles. And mark your calendar to come out for Chella‘s YGSLRHSTFUT (You Guys Suck Like Real Hard Shut the Fuck Up Thanks) band performing at Skid Row Museum on Sat, Jun 14th, and also at LACAN’s Juneteenth celebration on Fri, June 20th!

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near Skid Row neighborhood, June 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Sunday, June 1, 3-7pm: Dena Rise Up March (3pm: starts at 2560 N Fair Oaks, Altadena) and Rally (5:30pm at 403 N Figueroa, Altadena)
2. Sunday, June 1, 6pm: Art of Defiance at Stories Books and Cafe (1716 Sunset Blvd)
   
3. Wed, Jun 4, 8:30am: Adam Smith Court Support and Concert! @ 210 W Temple
4. Fri, June 6, 7pm: MOVIE NIGHT at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
5. Wed, June 11, 6pm: Movie night at the Park (San Julian Park)
6. Fri, June 13, 5-7pm ARTS JAM @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
7. Sat, June 14, 7pm Chella‘s YGSLRHSTFUT (You Guys Suck Like Real Hard Shut the Fuck Up Thanks) band at Skid Row Museum
8. Thur, June 19, 2-6p: JUNETEENTH w/ Sir Oliver at Skid Row Museum
9. Fri, June 20, JUNETEENTH at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
10. Fri, Jun 20, 7pm: MOVIE NIGHT at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
11. Fri, June 27, 5-7:30: Open Mic @ LA Poverty Dep’t Skid Row Museum
12. Fri, June 27, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram for more info)
    
    To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar
    

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE / ONGOING
Walk with Me exhibit by Studio526 @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
Regular museum hours are Thur, Fri, Sat 2-5pm

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE 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 last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUD

Sign Offs

For a few years now, I sometimes use email signs offs as place to reflect.
Here are some examples:

With a morning coffee sprinkle of collective liberation future in the present, 

Sitting with a morning coffee, thinking that there is nothing like the importance of friendly and kind people around to be able to continue collective work,

With a raised cup of coffee to abolitionist, loving, kind, and collectivist relationships,

With morning coffee accompanied by chirping birds, helicopter and the freeway,

With wishes of continuously learning to practice our only inherent right: the right to struggle, 
the right to accountable, caring, imaginative, mutually supportive, collective permanent struggle,

With a raised cup of morning magic (delivered by caffeine with cardamom),

With loving commitment to internationalist liberation from imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy and patriarchy, as we collectivize the struggles,

With excited commitment to denormalizing service-minded thinking, and towards solidarity-minded community work,

With hope that the work of our day galvanizes us for tomorrow (lightly paraphrasing Ismatu),
Hayk

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“I don’t feel that the idea of family… is necessarily only a conservative and reactive site. I believe it is our inability to expand the concept of family. The family remains a location of self-determination. For instance, part of why Harriet Tubman starts a school in her house, in her living room, part of why so much civil right activism starts in the living room or the kitchen, is because those are the spaces, finally, that people have some control over.

In grappling with domestic space and family, my question is why such a conservative vision of the family has prevailed.“

– bell hooks in “Uncut Funk: a contemplative dialogue between bell hooks and Stuart Hall” 


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.

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

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^{Image: Fragment from a “Working Class United…” t-shirt from Doodles without Borders, March 2025}

Kind light / Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and doodles w/o borders,
^{*morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])}

Happy International Workers’ Day! Apologies for a belated email, and hope that you found your way to participate in May Day activities wherever you are. 
ALSO: Doodles weekly Arts Table will restart next week, and will be on Tuesdays, 4:30-6pm, at General Jeff Park.

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near Skid Row neighborhood, May 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. TONIGHT: Sat, May 3, 5-9pm: Songs of Liberation with Another Adam Smith at the Other LAPD’s 🙂 Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway), music starts at 7pm.
2. Tue, May 6, 4:30-6p: Doodles w/o Borders weekly Arts Table IS BACK! @ General Jeff  Prk
3. Fri, May 9, 5-7pm ARTS JAM @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
4. Fri, May 16, 12-3pm: MARKETPLACE at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
5. Fri, May 16, 7pm: MOVIE NIGHT at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
6. Sat, May 17, 2p-6p – People’s Kite Fest @ LA Historic State Park
7. Fri, May 30, 5-7:30: Open Mic @ LA Poverty Dep’t Skid Row Museum
8. Fri, May 30, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram for more info)
   
   To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar
   

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE / ONGOING
Walk with Me exhibit by Studio526 @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
Regular museum hours are Thur, Fri, Sat 2-5pm

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE 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 last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUD

Starting Points

Edited and translated fragment from the introduction section of a recent Doodles Without Borders related presentation and zine workshop at the FemLibrary in Yerevan, Armenia.

I only have one person’s experience, with its inherent limitations. 
So as a starting point to the Starting Points, (1) who am I, why am I talking (WAIT) and (2) who are my people?

(1) who am I, why am I talking
A working-class person, a tenant with no generational wealth or homeowner family to drop back on, a descendant of survivors of genoc/des, growing up in a post-Soviet country at war, emigrant from Armenia (i.e. South West Asia, SWANA region, so-called Middle East) to the occupied Tovaangar, Turtle Island (aka Los Angeles, u.s. empire); as well as a non-Black, non-woman, non-trans person living in a capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacist, settler-colonial, imperialist country with a singularly devastating global influence. 

I move through the world as a cis-hetero man. In other words, I benefit from many privileges under the mu/derous patriarchal system. 
I want to point out two privileges, which inevitably remain (even among the most progressive or revolutionary beneficiaries) until patriarchy or any other oppressive system is disassembled and replaced:

First is not knowing (or cluelessness, ignorance). That is, as long as an oppressive system still exists, being a representative of the dominant group means that it INDISPENSABLY limits your ability to understand the human experience of the oppressed group. The oppressive system literally requires your de-humanization from universal human experience in order to function. Cultivated not-knowing is a tool for invisibilizing the vio/ence against oppressed people and groups (poor people, women, queer and trans people, inferiorized immigrants, disabled people, etc.). 
Actively contributing to the work of dismantling the oppressive systems whose “protected identities” we carry is the only means to fight against the cluelessness they require of us.

Second is unearned authority. That is, patriarchy (or any oppressive system) bestows its beneficiaries with an authority–direct or indirect– that has nothing to do with any actual merit.
As long as any oppressive system exists, a beneficiary of that system should always be treated with at least some level of suspicion (perhaps to be understood as a practice of collective care). And any feeling of “unfairness” that the beneficiary may feel, they should take out on working to dismantle those systems of oppression.

One of the ways I try to account for both my privileges and oppressions is by working to align with abolitionist over reformist practices and end goals, and contributing to collective liberation struggles led from the peripheries.

(2) Who are my people? (a nod to Ella Baker for first introducing me to the importance of this practice)
Just a few categories from what could be a very long list, and could also start with listing of ancestors:

• The working class, 
• Tenants,
• Those who question the violence of heteronormativity, and point it out as violence,
• Locally: people of Yerevan, of Yerrord Mas and Zeytun neighborhoods; also people of Glendale, Skid Row, Los Angeles region,
• Regionally and globally: people of Armenia, of Artsakh, people of South West Asia, of Global South and of borderlands,
• Immigrants for social and economic reasons; 
• the Armenian diaspora and all diasporas and diasporans
• People who experienced/ are experiencing or are directly affected by genocide
• Etc.

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“I am not one of those who romanticize struggle for its own sake.
I want to win. I actually want to win.”

– Vijay Prashad of Tricontinental, speaking at the Washington Bullets episode of Upstream podcast, where he’s quoted from his interview on Guerrila History podcast


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.

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

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^{IImage: “We… Rebel now” banner from Skid Row neighborhood’s 10th Annual Bob Marley Day celebration (Feb 6, 2025) by Sir Oliver and Sir Oliver Productions}

Kind light / Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and doodles w/o borders,
^{*morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])}

NOTE: Doodles Table at General Jeff Park is on break and will return on Tuesday, May 6, 4:30-6pm!

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near Skid Row neighborhood, April 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Thur, April 3: 7pm: Mutual Aid Across LA @ All Power Books (4749 W Adams –  CONNECT ACROSS TOWN!)
2. Fri, April 4, 7pm: Everything Everywhere all at Once + Q&A w/ directors! @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
3. Fri, April 11, 5pm: OPENING OF Studio 526 “Walk with Me” exhibit at Skid Row Museum
4. Mon, Apr 14, 7p: What Was Liberalism – public talk @ Skid Row Museum
5. Fri, April 18, 12-3pm: MARKETPLACE at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
6. Fri, April 25, 5-7:30: Open Mic @ LA Poverty Dep’t Skid Row Museum
7. Fri, April 25, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram for more info)
   
   To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar
   

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE / ONGOING
Walk with Me exhibit by Studio526 @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway), OPENS on Fri, April 11, 5pm
(Regular museum hours are Thur, Fri, Sat 2-5pm)

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE 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 last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUD

Let’s make it socially unacceptable…

These days all I can think about are the work of local groups and larger networks of mutual support that explicitly tie their work to larger working class centering power building goals.
To this end, a section from an unfinished poem and a paragraph from an old but periodically updated text on Use of Language in Skid Row:

Let’s make it socially
Unacceptable to see a liberated future 
unless it includes
Disassembling 
and recreating 
this country 
in the image 
of its liberation struggles.
I want to see a liberated Turtle Island,

Rooted in Indigenous liberation movements, Black radical tradition, abolitionist feminism,
And the struggles of all working class, liberation-minded people.

People who know that identity politics without class consciousness is the violence of neoliberalism,
Class consciousness without identity politics is a willful contradiction at best,
But class consciousness and identity politics together 
give us a glimpse of Free Pa/ est /ine, of a liberated Artsakh,
give us a glimpse of collective liberation.
_____

Locally and globally, working-class oppressed people led, collective liberation struggles already align with Skid Row. Our common struggle must be to find ways to cultivate, grow and defend spaces where the need for universal protections for all basic human needs is the baseline. For each person’s individual responsibility to align with the collective responsibility to build power that will extend this baseline to the entire world.

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH / PAIRINGS

“It’s important, therefore, to know who the real enemy is, and to know the function, the very serious function of racism, which is distraction. It keeps [us] from doing [our collective] work. It keeps you explaining over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and so you spend 20 years proving that you do. …Somebody says that you have no art so you dredge that up. … None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.” 
– Toni Morrison
Data Fix-ation zine by StopLAPDSpying starts with this quote, and inspired using it as one of the quotes
Audio and transcription of full speech from which the quote comes.

“Pay it no mind.”
– Marsha P. Johnson
Bio statement about Marsha


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.

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

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^{Image: Fragment from a drawing for the “Artists against Art-Washing: aiding and abetting unhoused communities”  flyer, even happening this Sat, March 1, 4-7:30pm at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)}

Kind light / Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and doodles w/o borders,
^{*morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])}

UPDATE: Doodles Table at General Jeff Park will go on break after Thursday, March 13th, and will return in May, on Tuesdays 4:30-6pm, restarting Tuesday, May 6th, 4:30-6pm!

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near Skid Row neighborhood, March 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Sat, Mar 1: 4-7:30pm: ARTISTS AGAINST ART-WASHING: aiding and abetting unhoused communities @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
2. Sat and Sun, Mar 1-2, 11am-5pm: LA Zine Fest at Broad Museum (get FREE tix)
3. Thur, March 6, 6pm: Women Leading Change by Skid Row Coalition @ STAR Apartments 
4. Fri, March 7, 7pm: “Marcel the Shell with Shoes on” MOVIE NIGHT at Skid Row Museum
5. Fri, Mar 14, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
6. Fri, Mar 21, 12-3pm: MARKETPLACE at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
7. Fri, Mar 21 @ 7pm – The Liberatory Living Room as part of Tents and Tenants exhibit at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
8. Fri, Mar 28, 5-7:30: Open Mic @ LA Poverty Dep’t Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
9. Fri, Mar 28, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram for more info)
   
   To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar
   

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE / ONGOING
Tents and Tenants: After Echo Park Lake @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway), February 1 to March 31, 2025 (Regular museum hours are Thur, Fri, Sat 2-5pm)

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE 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 last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUD

It’s Not a Holy War

About a year ago I read a poem at a local open mic by Pa/estinian poet Rafeef Ziadah called “We Teach Life, Sir” written back in 2011 or earlier, about Pa/estinian resistance to /srae/i geno//dal violence. It was well received, but the person who went after me commented–I know in good faith, but as if to say that this is nothing we can influence or change (and repeating the erroneous view that it’s “a religious feud”, and that its supposedly been going on for hundreds or thousands of years)–“it’s a holy war.” 
So I wrote this poem as a response. 

There is no holy war, 
What happens there is deeply connected to 
what happens here.
What happens there IS what happens here.

There is no holy war,
There is only unholy discrimination, oppression, dispossession, and lots of death,
In the name of… no, not God. But starts with a G and ends with D nonetheless.
In the name of Greed,
Entitlement to land, to so called “private property”,
at the expense of fellow human beings
and
at the expense of respectful, loving, joyful relationship with nature and in nature.

May all who have perished be remembered, honored, and defended.

There is no holy war,
there are no conspiracy theories that outweigh
The things right in front of us.
Everything,
that is standing in the way
of our liberation
is right in front of us.

Capitalism,
White Supremacy,
Imperialism,
Patriarchy.
Thank you bell hooks.

Capitalism
gives birth to ableism,
Gives birth to toxic individualism,
Gives birth to property rights
Above
responsibility to people and nature.
Gives birth to glorified greed and backstabbing,

Exploiting our need to survive
To convince
some of us that capitalism is right…
In the name of Father, and Son, and the holy spirit – capitalism!

Capitalism Gives birth to thinking that there is nothing beyond capitalism.
But there is.

***
White supremacy
gives birth to dehumanization,
Gives birth to anti-Blackness,
Gives birth to colorism,
Gives birth to whiteness as property.

White supremacy hijacks the souls and
Steals the humanity of all those who benefit from whiteness,
Weaponizes it in order to try to destroy Black, Indigenous, Brown, immigrant,
ALL humanity.
Fails, fails, FAILS, at this task miserably, but brings enormous suffering and violence in the process.

White Supremacy gives birth to thinking that there is nothing beyond white supremacy.
But there is.

***
Patriarchy gives birth to misogyny,
Gives birth to queerantagonism and transphobia,
Gives birth to compulsory hetero-normativity.

Much like white supremacy,
Steals the humanity of all those who benefit from patriarchy.
Patriarchy hijacks masculinity and uses it as a tool of oppression. 

Gives birth to thinking that there is nothing beyond patriarchy.
But there is.

***
Imperialism gives birth to a God-given, I mean Greed-given
“right” to try to destroy peoples and cultures, 

Imperialism
Gives birth to modern militarism,
Gives birth to military industrial complex,
Gives birth to the modern geno//dal structures rooted in the nation state formation,
Gives birth to European settler colonies of so-called united states, so-called canada, so-called australia, so-called new zealand, so-called argentina, numerous others, and the more recent addition – so-called state of /srae/. All of them in deep collaboration with European nation states and  in service of global capitalism, with u.s. empire calling the shots.

No religious, cultural, or human value is more important to imperialism,
then capitalism,
and its own hegemony.

Imperialism Gives birth to thinking that there is nothing beyond imperialism.
But there is.

***
It is important to name these systems of oppression, so they cannot hide. 
Thank you Paulo Freire.

To start being abolitionist 
means to imagine all the abundance, and love, and joy that the world can hold, so that prisons will not be necessary. 

To keep being abolitionist 
is to never forget what we are abolishing, lest the powers that be 
trick us into thinking that a little better conditions in the prisons is abolitionist,
That a little higher pay for life-sucking exploitation is abolitionist,
That free pizza from the blood drenched mayor’s office or [even or especially when our rep is now nice] council district 14 is abolitionist.

Our struggle is joyful, and Loving, and communal,
ONLY joyfully, lovingly, and communally can we keep and grow our collective work.

Because joy is liberating and anti-capitalist
Love is liberating and anti-american
And community is liberating and anti-colonial.

The struggle for collective liberation has a place for everyone,
Because from Black LA’s Skid Row neighborhood to Haiti, to Armenian Artsakh and to Palestine,
None of us are free until all of us are free.

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“what the birds know is the way home
it begins with a door that cannot find its
own name
the bird who stitches the last sky
must sing the name into existence
and the door opens into the burning of the world…”

– beginning of “Last Sky World Burn”
by Fargo Nissim Tbakhi


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.

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

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