Welcome to the latest PROCSSS newsletter! In this entry I will be talking about my love of Jazz and how it keeps me motivated even on the hardest days. I'll also be sharing some photographs that I took of the soon to be demolished Valley Plaza site in North Hollywood and I'll wrap things up with a new Lakers based illustration. I hope that sounds good and thank you for reading! Let's dive in...

Blue Notes

I don't keep my love of Jazz a secret. One side effect of my father being a musician was that I raised to view music as a form of expression instead of simply as a commodity. My upbringing led to me being a producer, not a consumer. For as long as I can remember I was immersed in the catalogs of Miles, Thelonious, and other giants of the time. As a child I didn't really give it much thought but I saw the lasting impact that this genre had on all others that followed it, from Hip-Hop to Afrobeat and beyond. In my adulthood, John Coltrane specifically resonated with me. Listening to "Blue Train" feels like time travel, transporting my back to mornings with my father in his Hollywood apartment. The art form is just that powerful.

The brilliance of this unprecedented era in (Black) American creativity and the Civil Rights Movement took place simultaneously. I often dwell on how incredibly difficult life was for these musical titans and how their well documented struggles reflected that reality. The burden of navigating the targeted, institutional oppression of the time while literally redefining the sonic landscape in such brilliant fashion required unimaginable resilience.

The success they found was limited by the world they existed in and they knew this.

Their example and involuntary sacrifice provides us all with a powerful framework for pushing forward under duress. I frequently look to this era for inspiration in our current timeline, as the disintegration of the creative economy and the reemergence of American Fascism align to silence a new generation of artists.

I reflect on this dynamic often. The anti equality agenda (under the guise of "anti-woke") of this administration has transformed the artistic landscape in this country, constricting the number of opportunities available for creatives in the short and long term. Having personally just survived a round of layoffs at my job as a visual designer (in higher education), the impact of these shifts are not hypothetical. As a Black artist (and for other artists of color as well), the sustained assault on our communities, from mass layoffs to ICE raids and race based intimidation, has led many to reexamine their practices and shift into survival mode. Looking back at the Jazz era provides a not only a template for perseverance but lessons to learn from and a foundation to stand on. We are not in an isolated moment, we are a part of a continuous conflict.

Last Days of Valley Plaza | Archival Recordings

I recently came across an article in detailing how the Valley Plaza complex in North Hollywood was recently declared a public nuisance and will likely be demolished in the near future. In the ten years I've been living in the San Fernando Valley, I've documented the visible decline of many shopping centers that were formerly thriving economic centers. Valley Plaza was well on its way to its current condition when I started photographing it some years back but the article prompted me to revisit the site. What I found exemplifies the true state of our economic reality.

One of the most powerful aspects of documenting the urban landscape is that it doesn't lie. There is no way that the vast swaths of vacant businesses and apartments that litter Los Angeles are not a physical reminder of how dire things are nationally. We are precipitously close to a reckoning decades in the making.

Laker Nation

I want to wrap this newsletter up by sharing some new artwork. I created this illustration of Lebron James this week as a way to test out a new creative workflow (and to get hyped for the upcoming NBA season, Go LAKERS!!). Recent changes to the Adobe Creative Cloud plans led me to try out some new options. I'm a long term ProCreate user and that is what I used to create the original drawing. The big change was using the Affinity Suite to add the collage elements and assemble the final version. I came away very impressed with the software, enough so that I purchased the suite for future use. I highly recommend looking into the software if you need an alternative to the standard Adobe offerings.

Peace! Until next time!
Kwasi, Nonstndrd Creative