4 Events with WEHO ARTS!

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This year, the LA Pride Parade will be replaced by a Resist March. The #ResistMarch will be on June 11th, 2017.
RSVP for the March here: https://www.facebook.com/events/280603222354825/

SparkleBlob is proud to work with The City of West Hollywood’s One City One Pride LGBTQ Arts Festival celebrating Pride in 2017 with the festival theme “Go West”.

In the continuing history of people using handmade posters and signs to raise awareness of contemporary issues and to inspire change, SparkleBlob’s CraftNight will be at  FOUR EVENTS leading protest poster painting party workshops between May 22 (Harvey Milk Day) through the end of June Pride month. Click here for street closures.

Monday, May 22nd at The Abbey from 5-9pm: It’s Harvey Milk Day, and The official kickoff party for One City One Pride! The Mayor and City Council are going to make comments at 7:45pm so that’s a great time to be there if you can. Our guest artist to help make signs with you and show you some tricks of the trade is Lori Meeker: Artist, Costume Designer and Fabricator Extraordinaire!

RSVP at the Facebook invite here: https://www.facebook.com/events/296723707443358/

Friday, June 2 at the Long Hall from 7PM – 9PM: Opening Reception for ‘Lesbians to Watch Out For: ‘90S L.A. ACTIVISM’ 2017 marks the 24th anniversary of the historic National Dyke March in Washington DC and the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Lesbian Avengers. These two events inspired national activist efforts and a legacy of Dyke Marches across the country – giving renewed public visibility to lesbians and queer women and calling attention to our issues and contributions in American political life and culture. CraftNight will be there with paints and poster board so that you can make your own signs and buttons!
Location: Plummer Park, Long Hall, 7377 Santa Monica Blvd. Free admission.
RSVP at the Facebook invite here: www.facebook.com/events/270091986782556

June 3rd at City Council Chambers from 11am to 5pm: It’s an ALL DAY Protest Poster Painting Party!!! Come see us before, during or after the Stuart Timmons LGBTQ History Tour and make your own protest sign! Two ONE Archives LGBTQ History Exhibits will be on view in West Hollywood Park, trans artist Yozmit will stage (TOTEM) the first part of a three part performance artwork, and there will be an opportunity to provide feedback on preliminary results from WeHo Arts: The Plan.
Location: City Council Chambers at the West Hollywood Library, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069

FRIDAY, JUNE 9, 6PM to 9pm: DYKE MARCH 
Come and make a sign and then march with it that very evening! The annual Dyke March begins with a program at 6pm, and march down Santa Monica Blvd. at 8pm.
Location: Sal Guarriello Veterans’ Memorial, 8447 Santa Monica Blvd. www.weho.org/pride

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Bookmarks with Lambda Litfest Los Angeles!

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SparkleBlob had a rousing good time helping celebrate LitFest Los Angeles’s first annual 2017 season!

Lambda LitFest Los Angeles is a celebration of contemporary voices honoring and expanding on the rich, diverse tradition of LGBTQ writers and readers in the Southland.

There was music, dancing, cocktails, and CraftNight hosting a bookmark-making soiree at Akbar in Silverlake. Attendees could choose from a myriad of paper colors and styles, then trace a template to get the perfect bookmark size. Decorating and theming their bookmarks, they’d bring them up to the Craft Table to have them laminated by yours truly, using quadruple strength packing tape! After that, crafters tied colorful tassles to their creations and voila, durable, hefty bookmarks ready to save a spot in any story!

Here is Lambda Literary’s mission statement:

Lambda Literary believes Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer literature is fundamental to the preservation of our culture, and that LGBTQ lives are affirmed when our stories are written, published and read. 

It was a real pleasure to hear authors and fans, readers and writers get together and speak about what inspires them. It was also fun to see some of them outside their comfort zone, making souvenirs with their own hands. What was especially sweet was watching people encourage each other to make bookmarks, and giving praise each other’s work. Everyone was generous to one another, some of the bookmarks were quite hilariously tawdry! It was a memorable, sparkly night, an auspicious start to LitFest LA’s emergence.

 

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Valentine Craftivism!

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A new month, a new winter craft!

We got wry and spry with our valentines this year, I decided to make “Valentines for Politicians”

Download them here from our CraftNight Website. 

Some of the valentines are mean, but… you know, making sweeping general unconstitutional bans that strand desperate people at airports for over 20 hours without food, and then maybe later down the line cause them to lose their lives… well, that’s not just mean, that’s absence of human decency. So we decided, on February 8th, to make love notes for Washington DC this year, and send them to those in power who could use a message from We the People. 

While some of these valentines coyly remind our elected officials that it’s only two years until citizens visit the voting booths, other valentines are anything but vague and take our country’s leaders to task for behaving like reprehensible bratty miscreants.

If you’re infatuated with the Trump administration, these valentines might not be for you. They tend to take politicians to task over things like civil rights, the environment, free speech, you know… silly little leftwing concerns. HA HA HA.

I also made a guide showing which politicians could use support, which ones could use encouragement, and which ones could really just use a crass souvenir of creative cheeky dissent.

Happy Valentines Day!

~JP

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