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Activists Gather To Stop 'Privatization' of Watts Arts Centers

LeTania Kirkland |
March 24, 2010 | 5:57 p.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

Willie Middlebrook previously served as director of the Watts Towers Art Center.
Now, the visual artist is trying to save the center from privatization. (LeTania Kirkland)
Community members, artists and activists gathered in Watts to garner support in urging the City Council that stripping public funds from the region's two most prominent arts centers would not only threaten arts education but the futures of their children. 
In light of Los Angeles' current budget crisis, the Department of Cultural Affairs is considering privatizing the Charles Mingus Youth Arts Center and the Watts Towers Art Center, which both lie adjacent to the famed Watts Towers. 
The centers in Watts are among nine other arts centers where the city plans to lay off workers and locate non-profit organizations to take control of the institutions. 
Watts community members and artists involved with the centers have formed the Watts Tower Arts Center Rescue. A meeting on Wednesday was held to inform local residents of the proposed changes and provide them with a platform to speak. The group has also created an online petition to halt the privatization of the center, which they plan to present to Mayor Villaraigosa and the City Council. 
Willie Middlebrook is a visual artist and former director of the Watts Towers Arts Center. He said the centers have long provided an environment where kids are exposed to creative ways to channel their energy. Fostering cultural institutions such as the centers, he said, is far more effective in improving the lives of children than "short term" solutions such as increased policing. 
"When you have institutions like this where young people can come and learn and take that raw energy and develop it, you won't have so many young people getting involved with gangs and doing wrong things." 
Informal art classes began near the towers in 1961. The next year, the Committee for Simon Rodia's Towers in Watts purchased a house where the arts center still stands. The city took control of the center in 1975. The Charles Mingus Youth Arts Center was opened in 2008 and is named for the famed jazz musician who was also a student at the Watts Towers Arts Center. 
The centers provide arts education for children and seniors. Programs include summer arts camps, multi-media arts, piano and theater training. The centers also offer artist-in-residence programs, which expose students to professional artists. 
Some activists are concerned that the haste of the city's decision will be detrimental to the centers. 
Edward Landler is an advocate and directed a documentary film about the towers and their creator, Simon Rodia. He said he is concerned that, given the state of the economy, the city will not be able to locate an interested non-profit in time.
"It is impossible for privatization to take place successfully under these kind of conditions." 
Both the Mingus Center and the Watts Towers Arts Center have already felt the pain of the economy. 
Rogelio Acevedo, the centers' art instructor and educational coordinator will be laid off as of April 1. He is among seven Cultural Affairs employees to be cut from the department's payroll. Because of Acevedo's removal, the center has cancelled its in-house arts programs. 
Simon Rodia, an Italian immigrant who moved to Watts in the 1920s, built the Watts Towers. Rodia built the steel and mortar towers single-handedly over the course of 33 years. 
The completion of the towers was due in part to children in the community. The spiraling structures are adorned by found objects such as old china, tile, seashells and glass bottles, many of which were collected by neighborhood children in exchange for pennies. The towers came to be called "Nuestro Pueblo," or "our town." 
The entire Watts Tower campus has become a well-respected symbol in the "town." In over 40 years of operation, not a single mural on the center's walls has been marked by graffiti. 
Roland Coleman credits the arts center for much of his success. At the age of 14, as he was becoming less interested in school and more influenced by the streets, he discovered the center. He was encouraged by then director, John Outterbridge, to begin working at the center as a gallery attendant, as long as he improved in school. Coleman is encouraging the community to get involved in opposing the privatization. He said survival of the centers is crucial to the continued development of Watts. 
"If the centers are closed, they take away the opportunity to do something positive." 

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