<div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div><a href="http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/08/07/eviction-of-rock-paper-scissors-end-of-an-era-for-oaklands-art-scene">http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/08/07/eviction-of-rock-paper-scissors-end-of-an-era-for-oaklands-art-scene</a><br></div><div><br></div><div class="inner " style="margin:0px;padding:0.625rem 0px 0px;border-top-width:3px;border-top-style:solid;border-top-color:rgb(0,0,0)"><h1 class="entry-title" style="font-size:2.5rem;margin:0px 0px 0.625rem;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:jaf-bernino-sans,'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);line-height:1.2em;width:766.65625px;float:none;letter-spacing:-0.02em">Eviction of Rock Paper Scissors: End of an Era for Oakland’s Art Scene</h1><img src="http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2015/08/RS16283_woman-walks-out-of-RPS-qut-1920x1080.jpg" width="767" height="431" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; vertical-align: middle; width: 766.65625px;"><p style="margin:0px 0px 0.5em;padding:0.5em 0px 0px;font-family:jaf-bernino-sans,'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.89375rem;line-height:1.4;color:rgb(153,153,153);border-top-width:3px;border-top-style:solid;border-top-color:rgb(0,0,0)">Rock Paper Scissors' doors will close before the end of August (Andrew Stelzer/KQED)</p><div class="entry-meta" style="margin:0px;padding:0px 168px 0px 0.625rem;min-height:56px;width:766.65625px;float:none"><span class="byline" style="display:block;font-family:jaf-bernino-sans,'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:1.125rem;letter-spacing:-0.02em;line-height:1.4;color:rgb(0,0,0)">By <span class="author" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="http://ww2.kqed.org/news/author/andrewstelzer" title="Posts by Andrew Stelzer" class="url fn" rel="author" style="background-color:transparent;color:rgb(0,0,0);text-decoration:none;line-height:inherit;font-weight:bold;background-repeat:initial initial">Andrew Stelzer</a></span></span><span class="entry-date" style="display:block;font-family:jaf-bernino-sans,'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1.5;text-transform:uppercase;color:rgb(0,0,0)">AUGUST 7, 2015</span><div class="share-wrap" style="margin:0px;padding:0px;width:71px;overflow:hidden"><a class="sharing-anchor" href="http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/08/07/eviction-of-rock-paper-scissors-end-of-an-era-for-oaklands-art-scene#" style="background-image:none;background-color:transparent;color:rgb(0,0,0);text-decoration:none;line-height:1.3;font-weight:bold;font-size:0.75rem;font-family:jaf-bernino-sans,'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;text-transform:uppercase;float:left;width:4.4375rem;height:auto;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;padding:8px 15px">SHARE</a></div></div></div><div class="entry-content" style="margin:0px;padding:0px;clear:left"><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">This ragtag Oakland storefront at 23rd Street and Telegraph Avenue was at the geographic center of the original <a href="http://oaklandartmurmur.org/" target="_blank" style="background-color:transparent;color:rgb(1,156,220);text-decoration:none;line-height:inherit;background-repeat:initial initial">Art Murmur</a> in 2006. It’s an all-in-one art gallery, classroom, clothing shop and activist meeting space. The volunteer-run collective operating <a href="http://rpscollective.org/" target="_blank" style="background-color:transparent;color:rgb(1,156,220);text-decoration:none;line-height:inherit;background-repeat:initial initial">Rock Paper Scissors</a>exemplifies the city’s social justice seeking, DIY art and activism scene.</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">But with Oakland rents soaring, they’ve been priced out of their space. August’s will be the last <a href="http://www.oaklandfirstfridays.org/" target="_blank" style="background-color:transparent;color:rgb(1,156,220);text-decoration:none;line-height:inherit;background-repeat:initial initial">First Friday</a> street fair and Art Murmur gallery stroll for the collective — the last remaining organization of those that helped start the monthly festival almost a decade ago.</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important"></p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">On a recent East Bay summer evening, volunteers gathered inside the storefront to learn how to become pen pals with queer prisoners.</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">“It can get really complicated because if someone’s legal name is John but they go by Jennifer for instance, You have to put J or John on the outside of the envelope,” said Beja Alisheva, co-facilitator of <a href="https://flyingoverwalls.wordpress.com/" target="_blank" style="background-color:transparent;color:rgb(1,156,220);text-decoration:none;line-height:inherit;background-repeat:initial initial">Flying Over Walls</a>, queer/trans prisoner solidarity organization.</p><a href="http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2015/08/RS16278_group-around-table-qut.jpg" style="background-color:transparent;color:rgb(1,156,220);text-decoration:none;line-height:inherit;background-repeat:initial initial"><img class="wp-image-10632273 size-medium" src="http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2015/08/RS16278_group-around-table-qut-e1438908707128-800x513.jpg" alt="Flying Over Walls volunteers gather at the Rock Paper Scissors Collective to write letters to LGBTQ prisoners." width="800" height="513" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: none; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle; width: 452px;"></a><br style="box-sizing: border-box;">Flying Over Walls volunteers gather at Rock Paper Scissors to write letters to LGBTQ prisoners. <cite style="box-sizing: border-box;">(Andrew Stelzer/KQED)</cite><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">There are lots of rules about how the envelopes sent into prisons can be decorated, so as to not be confiscated.</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">“No glitter?” Louis Smith asked incredulously.</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">The letter-writing get-together was just one of dozens of gatherings held at Rock Paper Scissors every month, ranging from writing workshops to a sewing lab and jewelry-making for teens.</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">“When we first came to Rock Paper Scissors looking for a space, they said of course,” Alisheva said. “Obviously, we don’t have a lot of money. It’s not something that brings in a lot of revenue, but that didn’t matter to them.”</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">She added: “It was such a relief when we finally landed here, so now we’re not sure where we’re going to end up.”</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">That’s a sentiment shared with the quirky creative space’s regulars.</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">“Gentrification is real,” said Alexandra Rigaud, an assistant with the collective’s youth program. “We are getting pushed out, and we did start First Friday … Now we are paying for it.”</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">It’s becoming a common story all over the Bay Area. The artists who in a recent era made a neighborhood “hip” are being driven out, in part due to their own success.</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">“The neighborhood has changed a lot,” said Kristy Holohan, the collective’s youth, community and interim gallery director. “We are basically like sandwiched in between two bars, there are some really high end galleries.”</p><a href="http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2015/08/RS16281_RPS-storefront-qut.jpg" style="background-color:transparent;color:rgb(1,156,220);text-decoration:none;line-height:inherit;background-repeat:initial initial"><img class="wp-image-10632275 size-medium" src="http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2015/08/RS16281_RPS-storefront-qut-800x450.jpg" alt="The Rock Paper Scissors storefront on 23rd Street and Telegraph Avenue." width="800" height="450" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: none; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle; width: 452px;"></a><br style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Rock Paper Scissors Collective storefront on 23rd Street and Telegraph Avenue. <cite style="box-sizing: border-box;">(Andrew Stelzer/KQED)</cite><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said the plight of Rock Paper Scissors raises a much bigger question as the city continues to boom.</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">“It’s not just the housing affordability that is a potential crisis for us,” she said. “The threat of displacement of our small businesses, of our cultural institutions, of our non-profits — those are also community stabilization issues that absolutely need to be solved.”</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">Schaaf said the city’s “solutions are more limited” because <a href="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=civ&group=01001-02000&file=1954.25-1954.31" target="_blank" style="background-color:transparent;color:rgb(1,156,220);text-decoration:none;line-height:inherit;background-repeat:initial initial">state law prevents</a> rent stabilization for commercial space. The mayor said she’s creating a new Artist Affordable Housing and Workspace Task Force, but that’s yet to be staffed.</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">Anyka Barber, who founded <a href="http://www.bettiono.com/" target="_blank" style="background-color:transparent;color:rgb(1,156,220);text-decoration:none;line-height:inherit;background-repeat:initial initial">Betti Ono</a> gallery in downtown Oakland, said the city needs to do more.</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">“In order for it to continue to be a world-class city and build on the strengths that it has, especially around culture and arts, we really have to have the investment match the brand recognition,” she said.</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">Barber is a lead organizer of the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/KeepOAKCreative" target="_blank" style="background-color:transparent;color:rgb(1,156,220);text-decoration:none;line-height:inherit;background-repeat:initial initial">Oakland Creative Neighborhoods Coalition</a> — a newly formed group that’s calling for the re-establishment of Oakland’s Arts Commission, which had its funding and staff eliminated more than five years ago.</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">“There’s a lot of talk about the economic development side of arts experiences or cultural experiences, based on people visiting, what kinds of funds or revenues that brings back to the city,” Barber said. “Currently, it looks like maybe 1.3 percent of the total city budget is funding or investing in community development or cultural programs. That does not reflect equity.”</p><a href="http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2015/08/RS16279_RPS-mission-statement-qut.jpg" style="background-color:transparent;color:rgb(1,156,220);text-decoration:none;line-height:inherit;background-repeat:initial initial"><img class="wp-image-10632276 size-medium" src="http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2015/08/RS16279_RPS-mission-statement-qut-800x450.jpg" alt="The Rock Paper Scissors Collective's mission statement." width="800" height="450" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: none; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle; width: 452px;"></a><br style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Rock Paper Scissors Collective’s mission statement. <cite style="box-sizing: border-box;">(Andrew Stelzer/KQED)</cite><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">The coalition’s demands were left out of the recently adopted 2016-17 city budget.</p><p style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding:0px 0.625rem;font-family:freight-text-pro,Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.5;letter-spacing:0.01rem;width:688.328125px;margin-left:8.3333333333%!important">Rock Paper Scissors, meanwhile, has until the end of the month to find a new space or close up shop and try to raise more money. The collective is seeking volunteers to <a href="http://rpscollective.org/help-rock-paper-scissors-pack-and-move/" target="_blank" style="background-color:transparent;color:rgb(1,156,220);text-decoration:none;line-height:inherit;background-repeat:initial initial">help pack up and move</a> to a yet-to-be-determined location.</p><div><br></div></div><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><br><div><br></div><div>=============================</div><div><br></div><div>Romy Ilano</div><div><a href="mailto:romy@snowyla.com" target="_blank">romy@snowyla.com</a></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div>
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