Rosamaria and Rock Rose Gallery

December 17, 2019.

4108 N Figueroa, Highland Park, 90065.

Bruce scheduled a meeting with Rosamaria so we could see the space at Rock Rose to confirm that it can work for workshop activities during the Dutch residency. Bruce & MJG met with her a few months ago – Dolores Chavez connected us to her. She’d already agreed to host our January activities when Bruce inquired over the phone. I hadn’t been before. Bruce’s meeting downtown went longer than expected which gave me and Rosamaria a chance to get to know each other and for me to tell her more about the Highland Park Project.

Here’s the mission of Rock Rose- 

Rock Rose Gallery and Production Studio was established in August of 2000 in the Northeast Los Angeles community of Highland Park known as the first arts community in the greater Los Angeles area. As an arts incubator for artists of all disciplines, artists are encouraged to flourish at Rock Rose, a safe and nurturing environment which also allows the community to be inspired and to get in touch with their own creative spirit.

Rosamaria is and does so much I can’t really begin to get into it all. She recently left a p/t gig with Grand Park Foundation where she’d pick people up and take them to Grand Park for a few hours then give them a ride back. I think introducing the park to people who don’t know it’s there. But that’s over so now she can do Rock Rose full time.

Rock Rose is a storefront on Figueroa in the area of HP referred to as Below 50, as in Avenues 39 – 49.  It’s an art gallery—lots of art on display, all or most of it for sale. She recently bought or inherited the inventory from that folk art store that was on Fair Oaks until recently. She is initiating a monthly show titled Letting Go—displaying and selling artwork for folks have to sell it because they are moving or because the owner passed away. She has an elderly neighbor who collected art his whole life and now he is moving to a one-room situation. Like that. She has a lot of Latinx folk art. She’s got books for sale and a few art supplies. Small tables out front. Her original dream was to have a café in there but it’s too much. She still is thinking about how to work it in.

Rock Rose also a meeting/learning/performance space. She hosts meetings for the Lumis Day Board – a group that plans Lumis Days activitiesand events. She is on that board. She has 2 or 5 high school student interns on weekdays. The space is meant to serve as an artistic incubator for the neighborhood. She and others teach classes in all kinds of things. There’s a guy who teaches Gregorian Chant on Wednesday nights. She offers art classes for schoolchildren, too.

So, yes, she has described how the meeting room is usually/will be more cleared out and spacious for a group to gather and discuss and maybe make something. Not really room to make something on its feet with more than 8 or 10 people. We’ll find out.

We told Rosamaria that we are cash poor but maybe there is something she needs that we can help with. She is interested in some help with organizational design. And in help re-organizing the stuff and the space. Between a roof leak and the repair process a lot of stuff is piled bunched and piled up.

I tentatively made a date with her to help get the space organized or tidied on January 3. I’m not sure who would be best to give her some advice about how to best organize, but speak up if it’s you or you know who it is.

We can use Rock Rose for our working space evenings Tuesday, Thursday, & Friday (jan 7, 9, 10) and morning/afternoon on Saturday Jan 11.

We will also plan a story circle there. Rosamaria knows MANY people. So I’ll draft a flyer, we’ll choose a date and she’s get her neighbors and other folks there.

I won’t write about all the things we discussed but I will tell you that she had an LP she rescued from donated collection. It’s the cast recording of the Los Angeles production of FLY BLACKBIRD. 

C. Bernard Jackson is a co-author of this musical—and was a significant mentor to Rosamaria.  

But one of the most brilliant things about the LP was seeing LEE KORF in the cast list. 

Tiny DeCory is everything

A short bio lifted from this Native Hope webpage--

Yvonne “Tiny” DeCory, Oglala Lakota from Pine Ridge, is among those working to stop suicides on Pine Ridge. If the reservation's suicide epidemic were a hurricane, she's standing in the eye. DeCory is founder of the BEAR program, which stands for “Be Excited About Reading.” DeCory and her student volunteers—many of them suicide survivors—put on musical and dance skits to help kids struggling with reading as well as the serious issues of life on the reservation, including suicide. Her work has been highlighted by PBS, the BBC, the Huffington Post, and more. Tiny’s Native Hope Fellowship will afford the BEAR program and its mission to expand to other reservations in South Dakota where the suicide levels are equally devastating.

But visit the page anyway to see some videos of her talking about her work and community.

She wants everyone to see/hear this--

And you can follow her on facebook which is so far my only means of communicating with her.  FB is one of the more effective communication mediums in Pine Ridge.

There Goes the Neighborhood

KCRW has an 8-part radio series about the identity of the city in the face of development and other changes across the city.  It's from 2017 and each segment is less than 30 minutes long.

There Goes The Neighborhood

Maka speaks about his community and the work of Red Cloud Indian School

Engaging in Audacious Hope from ACEatND on Vimeo.

Billie Ilish is from Highland Park

I dig this video from new york times- it's a conversation with Billie and her brother/collaborator, plus moments with their mom, that i think is filmed in their house.