Meet the artists behind CAL

Dear ICA LA Community,

As you know, ICA LA's spring exhibitions featuring the work of Milford Graves and Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork closed last weekend. To all who visited the exhibitions or attended a program—thank you! We hope that these shows provided new opportunities for you to see, hear, and feel sound at ICA LA. For those who couldn’t join us, we encourage you to spend time in the “Learning” section of our website where you can explore a 3D tour of the exhibitions, experience a curator-led walkthrough, or watch a previous public program, all of which are available to enjoy now or in the future.  

While ICA LA remains closed for the installation of our summer exhibitions, we want to take this opportunity to highlight our ongoing collaboration with Contemporary Arts League (CAL). This forward-thinking and collaboratively conceived nonprofit organization was co-founded by artists Corrina Peipon and Debra Scacco and they hold monthly meetings at ICA LA to create a space for artists and art workers of all kinds to share needs, exchange resources, and foster community. ICA LA's Communications Manager Adam Lee recently spoke with Peipon and Scacco to discuss how the organization got its start, what they have learned, and ways for everyone to get involved. Be sure to check out their conversation below, and join us at ICA LA on Saturday, May 27 from 11am-1pm for their next monthly convening.

Don’t forget to mark your calendars for Saturday, June 10 for our Open House celebrating our summer exhibitions with Carmen Argote, Alberta Whittle, and Tr??ng Công Tùng.

More on what’s ahead next week,
Team ICA LA

Can you introduce yourselves and the CAL team, and share a bit about how/when this project started?
CAL was co-founded by Corrina Peipon and Debra Scacco in June of 2020 in direct response to the coronavirus pandemic and a shared vision for systemic evolution in the art world. We are both artists with plural practices that encompass curatorial work, teaching, and organizing. Together with a team of devoted volunteers, we are a small and growing group of self-identified art workers who have diverse backgrounds, career pathways, and goals for the future of art and work.

Can you describe the type of artists and art workers you are hoping will come to the monthly gatherings at ICA LA?
We hope that anyone who works in the art world will join us—artists, preparators, educators, independent curators, gallerists and gallery staff, conservators, museum leaders and staff, art nonprofit leaders and staff, art services business owners and staff, the list could go on! We are in the early days of forming our cooperative trade organization, so we hope to gather with art workers from all reaches of Los Angeles County to determine who wants to participate in building frameworks for support, camaraderie, and agency that we envision CAL offering over time. Attendance at these gatherings is helping us to define membership going forward.

ICA LA was excited to be able to offer our learning space in the lobby for your monthly meetings. How has a physical space been helpful to your work, and do you have plans for a physical space of your own in the future?
Yes, and yes! We were so excited that ICA LA offered to serve as a temporary home for CAL. We see these gatherings as a crucial step in our growth, to get the word out past our immediate circles, and to meet more people who share our dreams and visions for shoring up alternative pathways and forging new pathways to living and thriving in a creative life. CAL will eventually be housed in a community center that is cooperatively owned by its members and that also houses other cooperative businesses like a café, bookstore, child care center, and co-working space; as well as short term rentals of studio spaces, spaces for finishing work, conference rooms, and offices.

So, you've had two monthly sessions so far, and you've surveyed art workers about their most pressing needs—what have you found?
We started having wide-ranging, in-depth conversations with all kinds of art workers in 2020, and these continue with our informal gatherings. What we initially found was that there were four areas of concern that we heard over and over: health insurance and healthcare, child care, access to capital, and systemic inequity in the field. What we’ve been hearing in our first two gatherings at ICA LA is a need for affordable—and also short-term—studio space, and a desire for shared resources. We intend to respond to both of these; the long term vision of CAL includes a community center that offers affordable short-term space rentals, and we are discussing ways to use our website for knowledge sharing so folks in the community can share resources.

I noticed on your website you have something called "The Art Worker"—is this a sort of resource guide for your community? I looked through and noticed all sorts of materials like grant application advice, volunteer opportunities, and shout-outs about activities within the CAL community. 
The Art Worker is our occasional newsletter. We use The Art Worker as a way to let folks know about CAL gatherings, volunteer opportunities, and services, and we also use it to amplify values-aligned resources and projects. We encourage anyone who is interested in following along to sign up to receive The Art Worker at the bottom of any page on our website. We also keep in touch via Instagram, if folks want to follow along there.   

Click here for More Information