Arts Group Launches Fund-Raiser in Bid to Buy Pavilion

The people at the Venice Arts Mecca know what they hope the future holds for the abandoned Venice Beach Pavilion.

If the organization can raise enough money to renovate and restore the concrete structure, the building on the boardwalk will become a community arts center.

To showcase what could be, the 3-year-old organization is holding a festival this weekend to celebrate work created by students enrolled in its eight free workshops.

“It would be great to have a center where kids could come and know that’s where things go on,” said Ira McAliley, artistic director of the organization.

The festival will feature young African American dancers, a performance by the Venice Pops Orchestra, paintings, ceramics and black-and-white photographs. Students from a children’s acting class also will perform.

Adult performers include the jazz/funk group Strange Fruit, Deja Voodoo’s Cajun blues, jazz vocalist Dante Chambers and rapper F.I.E.

By using volunteer artists as instructors, the organization provides art workshops for children, a majority of whom live in Venice’s impoverished Oakwood neighborhood. The classes, ranging from architecture to writing, are offered at two locations in Venice.

“The festival will give people a flavor of what would be happening on an ongoing basis” at the pavilion, said board President Lynn Warshafsky.

The organization has developed a $1.5-million plan to renovate and restore the pavilion, a longtime landmark on the boardwalk. The city has agreed to give the group a 20-year lease at no cost, but only if the group can raise most of the funding by February.

Plans call for transforming the mammoth structure into an arts and entertainment center. Local muralists would be commissioned to redecorate the “graffiti pit”--a concrete outdoor picnic area scrawled with graffiti.

The Venice Arts Mecca’s fourth annual Arts Festival will be held Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. at the Venice Beach Pavilion, Ocean Front Walk and Windward avenues.

Information: (310) 281-6188.