Parkland father Manuel Oliver is connecting with voters about the necessity of gun safety reforms through his art.

Parkland father Manuel Oliver is connecting with voters about the necessity of gun safety reforms through his art. pic.twitter.com/5Ri8SIpEhp

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 31, 2018

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Manuel Olivier Remembers His Murdered Son and Inspires Us to Fight Gun Violence

Manuel Olivier Remembers His Murdered Son and Inspires Us to Fight Gun Violence

by Gregg Chadwick
(all photos by Gregg Chadwick)

Today in Downtown Los Angeles, an empowered crowd joined Parkland, Florida father Manuel Olivier as he created a moving artistic tribute to the 17 shot and killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School - poignantly including his son Joaquin Olivier. We were comprised of Stoneman Douglas students and their families, past Stoneman Douglas graduates, and concerned community members.

Manuel Olivier began with a blank surface set in place outside the Standard Hotel on 6th Street. With a deft combination of wheat pasted paper elements, brushwork, and bold spray painted passages, Olivier created the framework for a memorial to those senselessly cut down at their High School in Florida.

Manuel Olivier creates a moving artistic tribute to the 17 shot and killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School - including his son Joaquin Olivier

Once the artwork's structure was in place, Olivier moved to a more performance based piece, paint dripped like blood, loud hammer thrusts burst the surface of the painting echoing like gunshots off the buildings surrounding the outdoor space, and the gaping wounds were filled with sunflowers.

Olivier filled the gaping wounds with sunflowers. Life, death, and renewal. 

Olivier then implored us to fight for change and said that his son Joaquin would always be marching and fighting with us. Olivier's clear backpack was a rebuke to the politicians who offer only pollyannas and ineffective symbolic gestures.

Then Marjory Stoneman students and family who had flown out to Los Angeles from Florida, picked up crayons that Olivier had placed in clear buckets attached to the artwork and wrote their tributes to the slain students on this new remembrance wall. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student David Hogg, who with Jaclyn Corin, Emma González, Cameron Kasky and Alex Wind has led a nationwide movement against gun violence since the shootings in Parkland, picked out a red crayon and wrote a quote from MLK onto the artwork - “If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl,  but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”  

David Hogg quotes MLK in honor of his slain HS friend
- Joaquin Olivier:

“If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl,  but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”   ― Martin Luther King Jr

Today in #DTLA we joined Parkland father Manuel Olivier as he created a moving artistic tribute to the 17 shot and killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School - including his son Joaquin Olivier @ChangeTheRef @davidhogg111

"We Demand A Change." @ChangeTheRef @davidhogg111 @March4RLivesLA #GunControlNow

We Demand A Change #GunReform #parklandstrong

A post shared by Gregg Chadwick (@greggchadwick) on Apr 7, 2018 at 5:02pm PDT

The Resistance Turns to the Arts

Gregg Chadwick speaks at the AACN Symposium at UCLA
on Art as a Tool for Social Justice

by Gregg Chadwick

Last Thursday, I spoke at the AACN Symposium at UCLA on Art as a Tool for Social Justice. It was an honor to speak at my alma mater. UCLA's proud history of advancing civil rights was a prime reason I attended the university as an undergraduate. I was inspired by the heroic stories of  UCLA alums: 

Jackie Robinson as he broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball.

Kenny Washington as he broke the color barrier in the National Football League in 1946

Ralph Bunche at the UN.  And as I learned later the advocacy for social justice by UCLA Nursing Grad AfAf Meleis.

As I write this, I am reminded that six years ago today, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was killed for simply being black in America. His death fueled a movement. I also remember that with millions of others, I marched on January 21, 2017 in the #WomensMarch. Our crowd in Los Angeles numbered around 750,000. This year on January 20, 2018, I marched again, and the crowd was estimated by L.A. Mayor Garcetti at 600,000. Artists often use their creations as a sort of reflecting device that mirrors and focuses the viewer’s attention on social and political change.  As Marvin Gaye sang so poignantly- “What’s going on.”

Margy Waller on her blog The Bright Ride has a powerful post up entitled Artistic Resistance In Our America .  Poignant and on point.  She points to Jeffrey Kahane's minor keyed interpretation of America the Beautiful. In our time, where does art stand in the current climate of Resistance against violence, racism, sexism, and anti-LGBT bigotry?  As I said at UCLA, art possesses an uncanny ability to communicate ideas and feelings that journalism  sometimes struggles to convey. It seems that especially in times of struggle or unrest, art helps us connect to the personhood of others. Jeffrey Kahane helps us connect to the intertwined history of the United States. Kahane seems to play a lament, not for our lost innocence - as Americans we never were innocent with our history of enslavement and brutal conquest. But instead, in Kahane's notes, I hear the slow, dogged pursuit of justice. In my mind's eye as Kahane plays, I see the heroic faces of the justice workers who have come before us and the faces of the current generation of students fighting oppression, gun violence, and tainted water supplies. As Margy Waller writes,"We will resist. We will return.Thank you, Jeffrey Kahane—for a moment of stunning artistic protest."

From Teen Vogue
Photo by Michele Sandberg/Getty Images

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

                                                     Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Young Shall Inherit the Earth

A huge crowd of teens exiting Union Station and heading to the Capitol to  call for action on gun violence pic.twitter.com/5VVWGFTGij

— Zoë Carpenter (@ZoeSCarpenter) February 21, 2018

Students at Maryland schools are walking out of classes today to take their message directly to the NRA sponsored representatives in Washington DC. As the Parkland survivors have demonstrated, now is the time for action against gun violence.

“Don’t Shoot” was created in solidarity with Saturday’s #marchforourlives and in response to the horrific, senseless gun violence in America. The youth have stood up against the NRA and I applaud them. I will be at the March on Saturday and then make it back for the Santa Monica Airport Artwalk. May we join in the spirit of nonviolence and togetherness. #art #artandsocialjustice

Jedediah Grady from Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland: “I understand marching isn’t automatically going to change legislation...but it’s not just about change. Next year I’ll be able to vote.” pic.twitter.com/duvbBJoPU1

— Kara Voght (@karavoght) February 21, 2018

This is what democracy looks like. #GunReformNow pic.twitter.com/AMLVOSpaBY

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) February 22, 2018