2022 Year in Review: Letter From Our Founder
Dear International Eye Family,
On behalf of International Eye LA, I’d like to wish you and your family a joyful, productive and healing 2023!
We are filled with gratitude as we begin a new phase in our community because we know that many of our families, colleagues and community members have suffered tremendous loss and are still calibrating their lives.
We do not take it for granted that we are here with you in 2023.
Over the last two years you contributed ideas and played a pivotal role as we restructured and rebranded International Eye LA. With your input, support from the LA Department of Arts and Culture and California Arts Council we trained a new intern, graduated four Fellows from our LA Creative Indusries Aademy, created a new logo, established new brand colors, streamlined much of our internal infrastructure and expanded our mission to include new constituents. We have a new website, which we are continuing to develop in 2023 to document our work and provide a more robust experience for our viewers.
We reached out to you to help fund our work in support of revitalizing Jamaica's Jonkonnu tradition. You exceeded our expectations and put us over our GoFundMe goal, which allowed us to travel to Jamaica and conduct important research and field work on the status of the tradition. Our findings were shared with our major grant funder, Alliance for California Traditonal Arts (ACTA) and with the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC), who assisted us in completing the work.
As a result of information gained from our research, we created new costumes for some of the traditional characters and commissioned new music. We presented successful Jamaica Jonkonnu installations and performances in Leimert Park, Santa Monica, West Hollywood and the City of Santa Clarita, among other venues. In addition to sharing the tradition internationally, one of our main goals in doing this work is to make the tradition more relevant to contemporary Jamaican youth who we hope will take ownership of sustaining the tradition.
As Pandemic fears began to subside, we ventured out with small in-person events. We sponsored one of our LACIA Fellows, John Broadway, to produce his first event by his new organization, Artivists United. We were able to garner support for him from CD 9 and c-sponsorship with Levitt PavilionLA.
In one of our main service hubs, Leimert Park, we experienced the passage of several colleagues who were long standing contributing artists in the community. We were particularly impacted by the loss of two master drummers, Jamaiel Shabaka and Derf Reklaw who had worked with us on many occasions. The city was saddened by the loss of a world class performer and beacon of Leimert Park, the late Barbara Morrison, who always contributed her tremendous talents to the community. Finally, we know we have not named all who transitioned but I wish to personally acknowledge the loss of Noni Olabissi who I had the good fortune to work with early in 2022 and whose work still stands at the gated entrance in Leimert Park.
In response to these and other traumas, we presented ‘Healing in the Balm Yard’ on Memorial Day, 2022 in Leimert Park. Borrowed from the Jamaican culture, this phrase refers to a yard where spiritual healing takes place. Instead of our traditional outdoor festival, we presented a festival of healing. The day began with a sunrise blessing by Native American elder, Michael Whitehorse, followed by activated merchant spaces within the village where community members could gather for quiet reflection, to make art, experience a sound healing meditation, do yoga, read quietly or listen to poetry. We also created a chimes garden by hanging almost a dozen chimes inside the park to bring an atmosphere of calm and healing.
One of the highlights of 2022 was completing our three year strategic plan. With a 12-member team, we designed a way forward, with specific measurable goals, timelines and deliverables.We are very grateful to our Strategic Planning Team who spent many hours discussing, debating and delivering a strong and effective plan for growing forward. As we experienced growth we hired new staff and volunteers who are supporting our organizaion. We partnered with Levitt Pavilion to produce Caribbean Kaleidocope in MacArthur Park on Juneteenth and closed producton for the year by presenting our Jonkonnu troupe during Holloween weekend in West Hollyood.
Finally we could not have done any of this without our sponsors and supporters and we sincerely thank them for their support.
Thank you for joining us on this journey!
Warmly,
MARIE KELLIER