I have dedicated more than a decade to amplifying the intersections of arts, environment, and music. I contributed a series of impactful write-ups for Track 16, a prominent Los Angeles art gallery, where I’m especially proud to have highlighted the work of fabulous artists and share personal thoughts on the city of Los Angeles and its concrete river. Throughout two nonprofit communications directorships roles, I’ve orchestrated cohesive narratives across blogs, emails, promotional materials, and scripts as the architect of expressive content. If you’re seeking a wordsmith to breathe life into your narratives with depth and resonance, consider this an invitation to explore the possibilities together. 

Confluence

If water is life, how long can we survive a drought? When the Colorado River runs dry, how does the American West mitigate an inglorious demise? How do we balance our present built environment against the dynamics of nature? California, and the greater Southwestern United States, is grappling with a water crisis so severe it’s spawning new terminologies to articulate its severity. Despite entering the 22nd year of a megadrought caused by our concrete commitment to impermeable landscape redesign, by and large, business continues as usual. We need not look farther than downtown Los Angeles to observe a river in its afterlife, a foundation for a crisis poured long ago.

“Kathleen Henderson: Bluebeard and Other Poolings”

Artist Kathleen Henderson’s new exhibition Bluebeard and Other Poolings peers through the looking glass to explore the inner lives of humanity calculating an impending apocalypse. For twenty years Henderson has fashioned blob-like ghosts and beings to expose narcissism, vanity, and feelings of powerlessness in the face of mounting challenges that threaten society and existence itself. Animated in oil stick on paper, her figures assemble in an array of poses that reveal our inability as a collective to gather behind solutions, instead choosing to cheer on chaos or focus on how photogenic we’ll appear in insurrection selfies.

“Sandow Birk: Los Angeles and Her Surroundings”

Birk’s meticulous eye captures the immutable dignity among Angelenos toiling through daily life across its concrete basin, depicting our vernacular totems and spirit guides. The tamale lady. Early morning tagging. A shoe tree grows in a nondescript skate park. Gaudy signs and rampant facsimiles of commercial products adorn our mini-markets. Los Angeles is a laid back land of extreme polarity, and extreme proximity; where else do dilapidated million dollar bungalows squat proudly beneath palms while Skid Row gapes like an open wound under the eaves?

New Jersey Future

Examining the Influence of 50 years of Hip Hop on Planning and Redevelopment

As the keynote speaker at the conference’s third and final day, Mike Ford captivated the audience by sharing his perspective and life experience as a hip hop architect. Ford began by reaching back a century ago to tell the story of Black influence on architecture, pointing to an infamous, albeit problematic, rendezvous between jazz great Josephine Baker and her unrequited and unscrupulous admirer, Le Courbusier. “Jazz is more advanced than architecture…if architecture were at the point reached by jazz, it would be an incredible spectacle,” Le Corbusier observed in the height of his obsession with Baker, whom he met on a cruise while the singer was a major performer in 1920s Paris. To mark this chance encounter that altered the trajectories of both music and architecture, Ford led the attendees through a sing-a-long rendition of Biz Markie’s “Just a Friend”. 

With Recession in the Forecast, How Prepared is NJ’s Economy for Upcoming Rain?

As the world slowly but surely emerges from the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, all of us are evaluating the new parameters of our state and national economies that have experienced stimulus spending, historic inflation, supply chain disruptions, and high interest rates all in quick succession. Despite this emergence, the complete upheaval of labor, housing, and consumer markets has not meant all the pieces have returned to where they once were pre-2020.

Amidst rising pedestrian and traffic fatalities, New Jersey seeks to advance safe street design

Pedestrian fatalities directly relate to street design that prioritizes automobile speeds and places pedestrians and cyclists in conflict with larger, faster, deadly vehicles. Conditions that pose the greatest risks to pedestrian safety include places without sidewalks, crosswalks, street lighting (as is common in areas of South Jersey), or urban areas where pedestrians and cyclists must compete with an array of motorized vehicles along busy city arterials (common in North Jersey). As the report states, “Lower-income neighborhoods are much more likely to contain major arterial roads built for high speeds and higher traffic volumes at intersections, exacerbating dangerous conditions for people walking.” In New Jersey, as throughout the United States, these lower-income neighborhoods are predominantly communities of color facing economic hardship and historic disinvestment.

Friends of the LA River

Voting Rights Crucial to addressing Climate Emergency

While this issue may seem thousands of miles away from the LA River – and it is – this is a great opportunity to raise the importance of Black and Latinx enfranchisement and voting rights in relation to climate change. Climate change – due to systemic racism – disproportionately impacts Black and Latinx communities who are already facing socioeconomic disadvantages. While California has sought to lead the way as “climate leaders”, there is no way we can rise to the challenge of climate change and environmental justice without meaningful and coordinated federal policies and investments. This means ensuring the right to vote in “purple” states like Georgia (and Arizona) with significant Black or Latinx voting populations.