A new day for the near-dead? A Latino art center regroups

There will be two Day of the Dead celebrations tonight at Self Help Graphics & Art, the venerated East Los Angeles arts center that abruptly closed last summer amid mounting financial and organizational problems.

Inside the fence surrounding the mosaic-covered building, Self Help will hold its traditional Day of the Dead event, with altars, food, a procession and a print made for the occasion by the artist known as Germ.

Outside the fence, artists long associated with the nonprofit are planning their own Day of the Dead art “happening.” They’re calling it “The Death of Self Help Graphics,” and the goal, they say, is to demonstrate that Self Help, as they have known it, is no more.

The dual Day of the Dead celebrations highlight the dilemmas facing Self Help. Since its controversial June closing, the organization’s future has been passionately debated by artists and activists as several members of its board of directors have resigned, others have signed on and a new board president has been elected. Funding has been obtained from several sources, and a consultant has been hired to help the group reorganize. Armando Duron, the new board president, says Self Help is getting back on track.

But as the new leadership works to restructure and reopen, even stalwarts concede that the organization expected to emerge will be changed in ways yet to be determined. And they acknowledge that to be successful, Self Help’s new leadership must find a way to reengage the artist community it was founded to serve and reignite the spirit that made it an internationally recognized presenter and promoter of Latino culture.

Like many community arts organizations, Self Help has struggled for years to cope with dwindling public and private funding. Tax records filed with the state show that for fiscal years 2002-03 and 2003-04, the group’s total contributions and grants fell from $708,000 to $347,000. In addition, last winter’s storms caused heavy water damage to its landmark building on Cesar E. Chavez Avenue and brought to light the fact that the facility was not properly insured.

The debate over finances, as well as Self Help’s need to redefine its vision in a changing artistic and demographic landscape, strained relationships between the board and Executive Director Tomas Benitez, who took over in 1997 after the death of Self Help’s founder, Sister Karen Boccalero.

Benitez’s management was also under fire. In an interview this week, he acknowledged that his handling of Self Help money -- such as shifting funds for building insurance to cover staff salaries -- had contributed to the difficulties.

In an emergency meeting June 7, the board accepted Benitez’s resignation and decided to close Self Help for the first time in its history.

Outraged by the way the closure was carried out, with staff quickly laid off and the gates to the center chained shut, Self Help constituents, in particular the artists, organized public meetings and railed at board members, complaining of years of disconnect and under-appreciation. The board apologized, but many saw it as too little, too late, and artists and community members formed a coalition to “save” Self Help, with some openly calling for the entire board to resign.

Amid the furor, advisors, including Chon Noriega, a UCLA professor who directs the university’s Chicano Studies Research Center, initiated a campaign to regroup, restructure and seek emergency funding.

Since then, about $125,000 -- from the Annenberg Foundation, the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department and the California Community Foundation -- has been awarded to Self Help to pay overdue salaries, insure its building and hire a consultant to help it regroup.

Max Benavidez, an art writer and visiting scholar at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, has taken on that role, overseeing the restructuring with Duron, an attorney and former president of the board at the Venice-based Social and Public Art Resource Center.

Six board members who were serving when Self Help closed have resigned, according to Duron, and three new board members have been elected, bringing the current total to seven -- two fewer than bylaws require.

Those who have left are Olivia Montes, Ginger Varnay, Michael Amescua, Dennis Martinez, Oralia Michel and Sister Mary Elena, a representative of the Sisters of St. Francis, who own the Self Help building. New board members include Duron, artist and teacher Omar Ramirez and public relations executive Valarie de la Garza, who join remaining board members Marisol Torres, Charles Miller, Gilbert Cardenas and Julio Martinez.

Although a reopening date has not been set, Duron said he hoped it would be in early 2006. In the meantime, a new business plan is being prepared, with the search for a new executive director to come later. Duron added that artistic director Gustavo Leclerc, hired in 2004 and hailed as an innovator, would not be asked to return after the restructuring.

Benavidez said that Self Help’s financial disarray was so deep when it closed that the organization probably cannot reemerge unchanged. “It has to face financial realities, and the financial realities are that you can only do so much,” he said. “A lot of this is making sure there can be restored credibility.”

For more than 30 years, Self Help has maintained a reputation as a grass-roots, community-based arts organization that has nurtured some of the most recognizable names in Chicano art, including Frank Romero, Barbara Carrasco, Gronk and many others. Adapting that heritage to today’s realities -- less funding for the arts chief among them -- is the new challenge, Benavidez said.

“All these things mean that it’s going to be different,” he said. “It still at its heart will have this printmaking facility, but it’s not going to be the same -- it just can’t be. It’s different people, times are different.”

Besides tonight’s Day of the Dead celebration, the center is planning a fundraising event later this month and a print sale in December.

And it’s reaching out to the artist community. A meeting is scheduled for later this week between the artists coalition and Duron. Coalition leader Linda Gamboa, sister to artist Diane Gamboa, the organizer of the alternative Day of the Dead event, said the new leadership has been far more encouraging and open than previous leaders.

In interviews, many Self Help artists and associates struck a conciliatory tone and expressed hope for getting the organization back on its feet for its normal activities of gallery shows, youth art programs, music and the print-making operation for which it is known.

“I feel confident about the new leadership, but they have not yet obviously mended the bridge” with artists, said Karen Mary Davalos, an associate professor of Chicana and Chicano studies at Loyola Marymount University who has researched art produced at Self Help. “And that is absolutely the most critical thing on their chart of to-do lists. Getting grants, getting all the insurance papers together, that is important, but if you open the thing again and no artists come, it didn’t work.”

For her part, Diane Gamboa said the alternative Day of the Dead happening tonight is not meant to antagonize or undermine the new leadership, but rather to mark the end of an era, and in the bittersweet spirit of a holiday that essentially celebrates death.

The idea, she said, is to revive the freewheeling and daring energy that characterized Self Help in the 1970s and ‘80s. “I’m trying to drag out the real punk rockers that used to go play there, just those that have had affiliation with Self Help, one way or the other, love or hate.”

And from the response she’s been getting, she said, “It’s going to be a blast.”

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Day of the Dead Celebration

Where: Self Help Graphics & Art, 3802 Cesar E. Chavez Ave., Los Angeles

When: 3 to 10 p.m. today,with a procession beginning at 5 p.m. at the corner of Cesar Chavez and Lorena Street

Price: Free

Contact: www.selfhelpgraphics.com