John Ferraro Council Chamber at City Hall
3rd Floor Council Chamber
200 North Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Please join ONE Archives, Councilmember Bill Rosendahl, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the Los Angeles City Council for the LGBT Heritage Month Opening Ceremonies where ONE Archives will be honored along with other honorees including Adam Lambert, openly gay recording artist; Mia Yamamoto, community activist; Karina Samala, Rodney Scott, President of Christopher Street West/PRIDE parade in West Hollywood; David Reid, Producer, AIDSWatch.org; and Cathy Salser, Founder, A Window Between Worlds.

Councilmember Bill Rosendahl will honor ONE Archives for having a profound impact on the lives of all Angelenos while building a strong foundation of pride for the next generation of LGBT youth in Los Angeles.

From Councilmember Bill Rosendahl:

Seven years ago, I started a tradition to honor courageous trailblazers in our Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community in the City of Los Angeles.

The special recognition was — and still is — an important moment for me to honor great achievements, take pride in who we are, and love our LGBT brothers and sisters.

This year, the LGBT community has so much to celebrate. We have seen our President stand with us on equality during his historic Inaugural address, and we now have a fifth of all 50 states that recognize same sex marriage. We still have some work to do, and will only receive our basic civil and human rights if we continue to press on.

Once again, I will join Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and my council colleagues to celebrate LA’s gay community during a special ceremony for LGBT Heritage Month on Friday, May 31, at 10 a.m., in the John  Ferraro Council Chamber at City Hall.

This year, our theme is Claiming the Dream, Building the Legacy. My three honorees are having a profound impact on the lives of all Angelenos while building a strong foundation of pride for the next generation of LGBT youth in Los Angeles.

This year, I plan to turn the council spotlight on the following groups:

ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives
ONE Archives is the oldest existing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) organization in the United States and the largest repository of LGBT materials in the world. Since 2010 ONE Archives has been a part of the University of Southern California Libraries.  ONE Archives collections contain over two million items, and also operates a small gallery and museum space devoted to LGBT art and history in West Hollywood. Director Joseph Hawkin will receive the honor on behalf of the organization.

David Reid
Producer, AIDSWatch.org
AIDSWatch first appeared on (what was then) Century Cable in the Los Angeles area on December 1st, 1996 and continues as an art project, primarily in the Los Angeles area.The art project moved to the West Hollywood Citychannel television facilities where the city has dedicated a channel each year for the entire 24-hour program. When a viewer logs on, they see a name for that brief three and a half seconds they will be reminded of someone’s lost love. Another lost life to HIV/AIDS. AIDSWatch was created as a memorial to remember and remind.

Cathy Salser
Founder, A Window Between Worlds
A Window Between Worlds is a nonprofit organization dedicated to using art to help end domestic violence. Through creative expression, battered women and children gain a sense of renewal and power. Their images of hope, survival and strength educate the public and become “a window between worlds” for survivors taking steps to change their lives. Since 1991, AWBW has provided creative expression as a healing tool for over 112,000 battered women and their children in crisis shelters, transitional homes, and outreach centers throughout the United States.

The Mayor also has three honorees: Adam Lambert, openly gay recording artist; Mia Yamamoto, community activist; and Karina Samala, Rodney Scott, President of Christopher Street West/PRIDE parade in West Hollywood.

Queer Youth Advocacy Day at the State Capitol in Sacramento

ONE May Culture Series: “James Baldwin: A Soul On Fire”
May 19, 2013

The ONE May Culture Series featured Audelco Award nominee, cultural architect and editor Charles Reese who brought famed American writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin to life at this rousing literary salon. Mr. Reese performed selected excerpts from the acclaimed off-Broadway play “James Baldwin: A Soul On Fire” to a packed, standing room only crowd, followed by a Q&A and book signing. The program was an inspiring and enthusiastic look into the 50th anniversary of a secret meeting between James Baldwin and Robert Kennedy, which took place on May 24, 1963.

Also taking that place during the event was a recognition ceremony honoring ONE Archives Board Member Bill Kaiser who retired this month from his long time post as Chair of the Culture Series. We thank you for all your years of service and for you generosity, vision and commitment to presenting LGBTQ culture to the public on behalf of ONE Archives!

Photographs By Bruce H. Andrews

ONE Culture Series
Sunday, May 19, 2013, 2-4pm

ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives
909 West Adams Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90007

Admission is free – suggested donation of $5

Audelco Award nominee, cultural architect and editor Charles Reese brings famed American writer and civil rights activist James Balwin to life at this literary salon. Mr. Reese will perform select excerpts from the acclaimed off-Broadway play James Baldwin: A Soul On Fire by Howard B Simon (Published by Azaan Kamau/Glover Lane Press, 2011), for which he was an editor. The performance will be followed by a brief conversation, “James Baldwin: 25 Years Later & Still Relevant!” and book signing. This salon experience salutes the 50th anniversary of a secret meeting between James Baldwin and Robert Kennedy (the premise of Simon’s play), which took place on May 24, 1963.

About the Speaker

Charles Reese is native of Washington, DC and a graduate of Morehouse College who now resides in Los Angeles, CA. He is a professional working performance artist, educator, and consultant in televison, independent film, micro web series and theatre. Reese is currently a series regular on the hit comedy web series, WHO (available only on www.ajakwetv.com). He is best known in the theatre community for his critically acclaimed off-Broadway performance in the title role of James Baldwin: A Soul on Fire. David DeWitt of The New York Times declares, “A Soul on Fire is funny, thrilling and wise buoyed by the passionate performance of Charles Reese in the lead role.”  Reese is the official USA affiliate for The Collectif James Baldwin in Paris, France. James Baldwin: A Soul On Fire, written by the late playwright Howard B. Simon (1962-2000), marks Reese’s first editorial/publishing endeavor for the HB Simon Literary Canon, in association with Azaan Kamau/Glover Lane Press. Reese served as a special guest panelist at the 42nd annual Congressional Black Caucus Authors Pavilion 2012 in Washington, DC. He has presented his highly popular James Baldwin Book Salon Reading Series for the DC Commission for the Arts & Humanities (Washington, DC); Mayme Clayton Library & Museum with Emmy Award Nominee, CCH Pounder (Culver City, CA); Playa Vista Branch Library (Los Angeles, CA); James Washington House & Studio (Seattle, WA); The Enoch Pratt. Free Library (Baltimore, MD); and 651 ARTS (New York). For more information, please email soulonfire63@yahoo.com or visit www.JamesBaldwinASoulOnFire.com.

ONE Archives Gallery & Museum
626 North Robertson Boulevard
West Hollywood, CA 90069

Admission is free – suggested donation of $5

Please join ONE Archives at the opening reception for an exhibition of work by Joey Terrill at the ONE Archives Gallery & Museum in West Hollywood, covering five decades of the artist’s work including paintings, drawings and artist publications. Rooted in a commitment to social justice issues, Terrill’s work contests categories of Chicano and queer art and identity, consistently blurring the line between art, life, archive and activism.

Image: Joey Terrill, Detail of He Wore Ray Bans Glasses… Courtesy of the artist

ONE Archives is excited to collaborate with RECAPS Magazine to infiltrate (by invitation) the upcoming Los Angeles CSW Pride Festival (June 7th & 8th in West Hollywood). “reclaim:pride” seeks submissions of original posters for display as well as designs for buttons that will be distributed on site. The project will call attention to the radical beginnings of the pride parade as a defiant claiming of public space while connecting the archive to contemporary queer issues ignored or omitted from mainstream gay and lesbian politics.

Ideas floating around in our heads include consumerism and corporate sponsorship at pride, undocuqueer, queer strategies for prison abolition, queer critiques of marriage, and ecofeminism, as well as other radical forms of play, perversion, and resistance.

Submitted work will be displayed alongside a freewheeling selection of documents, photographs and posters from ONE in the CSW “Art & Heritage” display area. Submissions and archival documents will also be uploaded to RECAPS alongside additional resources, original text, and project documentation.

Let our identification with the past inspire new forms of resistance!

Please send submissions for “reclaim:pride” to recapsmagazine@gmail.com by Friday, June 1, 2013.

Buttons: Buttons will be 1.25 inches in diameter. Click here to download a button template (available in .psd, .ai, .jpg, .doc & .crd).

As mentioned in previous newsletters, ONE Archives at the USC Libraries is proud to be the recipient of a generous grant from the National Historical Publications & Records Commission (NHPRC).  Through this grant, we will be able to catalog and make accessible hundreds of collections never before available to the public.

And things are moving along fast!  ONE has already processed more than 60 collections through the NHPRC grant, and researchers are now able to access…

Beth Chayim Chadashim, date unknown

…the records of Beth Chayim Chadashim, the nation’s first LGBTQ synagogue founded in Los Angeles in 1972.  As a progressive community of LGBTQ Jews, BCC was also a pioneer in creating the first gender-neutral prayer book…

Lynn Edward Harris, 1968

…papers and photographs of Lynn Edward Harris, an actor, lecturer and intersex person who was also the winner of the Costa Mesa Junior Miss pageant in 1968.  Born intersexed, Harris was raised as female but later became an intersex advocate and spokesperson after going through a number of legal battles resulting from not having a legal gender…

SCWU Board of Directors 5th Anniversary, 1981

…records and photographs from Southern California Woman for Understanding, founded in 1976 and formed to create a supportive environment for women and lesbians.  The collection includes hundreds of photographs and editorial content used in the publication of the organization’s newsletter…

BWMT, Photograph by Pat Rocco, c. 1980s

…records from the International Association of Black and White Men Together, founded in 1980 to foster supportive environments where racial and cultural barriers can be overcome.  A BWMT group first formed in San Francisco in 1980, and within the first year, 30 chapters sprung up in cities throughout the US…

Illustration from “Outhouse Story” from Underground erotica collection, date unknown

…manuscripts and drawings from the Underground Erotic Graphics and Literature Collection, anonymously (and crudely) published collection of gay male erotic short stories created between the 1940s-80s.  Sometimes with illustrations, sometimes not, these short fictional works were photocopied numerous times and distributed secretly as result of growing censorship in the 1950s…

…papers from ACLU gay rights attorneys Susan McGreivy and Jon Davidson…

…and records from Alliance for Gay and Lesbian Artists, Asian/Pacific Lesbians and Gays, Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), Lambda Literary Foundation, Stonewall Democratic Club, Municipal Elections Committee of Los Angeles (MECLA), Long Beach Center, Outfest, Riverside Coalition Against Discrimination, Long Beach Lambda Democratic Club, and Los Angeles Shanti; as well as papers from individuals like Arch Brown, Daniel Warner, Gregg Strom, Henry Gerber, Jesse Jacobs, Jim Yousling, Joan Corbin, John Paul Hudson, Robert Craig, Scott Masters, Sidney Bronstein, Steve Berman, Valerie Johnson and many, many more.

To find out more about the NHPRC and their programs, visit archives.gov/nhprc. ONE would like to thank the NHPRC for their generous grant and ONE’s many donors for your continued support.

Loni Shibuyama
Archivist 

El Tovar Parking Lot across from the ONE Archives Gallery & Museum
8752 El Tovar Place
West Hollywood, CA 90069

This event is free and open to the public; suggested donation of $10.

ONE Archives is excited to sponsor the second installment of the pop-up arts festival INSTALL:WeHo, this year presenting a series of installations and performances that explore the idea of “Good Queer.” For the festival, artists examine what it means to be a good queer in today’s society. Does it mean challenging traditional definitions of homosexuality and heterosexuality? Does it mean embracing the moveable feast of letters (LGBTQI) that has come to stand for those under the queer umbrella who are in need of more explicit protection? How does it affect our private and public lives and perceptions? How do the actions of performance and object-making intersect with the actions of challenging and embracing within this queer discourse? The manifestation of these questions and sentiments once again find a home in a caravan of U-haul trucks and a day-long celebration of queer art, installation and performance in the Greater Los Angeles Area.

Featured Artists:
Brian Getnick
Julie Tolentino
Suzanne Wright

Returning INSTALL:2012 Alumni:
Apt 3F (Andrew Henkes and David LeBarron)
Patrisse Cullors
Onya Hogan-Finlay & Kim Kelly
Thinh Nguyen
Amy Von Harrington

New Truck Artists:
Sarah Barnard
Jason Jenn (The Lavender Effect)
Shelia Malone & Gwynn Shanks

New Featured Performers:
Beloved Spritis (Jas Wade & Three Breazell)
REACH LA
Liz Toonkel

ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives
909 West Adams Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90007

Admission is free – suggested donation of $5

I to thee: thee to me! Come, join and be one with us!

From last year’s presentation at Highways Performance Space’s “Behold!” series to this year’s PantheaCon and now, at ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, we bring a growing/changing/evolving lesson of Love from the Labyrinth and the 13th Fairy.

Together, we will find and reclaim the lost, weave seemingly disparate threads of tradition, faith and discipline, in order to create new magic, spells and rituals to be performed with, by and for Love. And through all these things, the process that claims us all, will also create a brighter, more colorful & stronger communion/community with each other and the Universe. See the Lion of the New Year chase away the Demons of the Past… Witness the Ancestors and the Levantine God do a gesheft…

Be a Radical; be a Faerie; be a Devil; be a Saint!

From Wild Magic to High!

Through the Labyrinth: Reverse the Curse of the 13th Fairy is an experimental work-in-progress by Tyr Jung-Hall, which integrates a complete ritual with a narrative component. It is multi-cultural and ecumenical in nature and the process seeks the complementary aspects of the human experience from both the divine and scientific spheres. Physics and Religion are not and should not exclude one another, but describe human existence from different points of view in order to give the experience of the human condition greater meaning. But most importantly, Through the Labyrinth is about the experiential journey that an individual voluntarily takes when entering sacred space.

There will be a Chinese Lion to chase away the lingering fears and demons of the previous year. People will be given the opportunity to walk the Triple Goddess Labyrinth, which Tyr designed for the Gaia Festival and Goddess Drummers of Santa Barbara, and there will be other components from the show exhibited to create a more complete picture of both the structure and show, which will be revised for a full performance at Highways Performance Arts Space in Santa Monica, California this upcoming Sept. 13, 2013.

About the Artist

Tyr Jung-Hall is greatly flattered to have been invited to participate in the ONE’s Culture Series. He comes with a background which includes producing, political activism, non-profit work, performing and visual art. Some of the projects on which he has worked include most recently: Faerie Inter-Faith Ritual & Design for PantheaCon 2013; Through the Labyrinth: Reversing the Curse of the 13th Fairy for Highways Performance Space’s 2012 Behold! A Queer Performance Series; Gaia Festival, Santa Barbara; Here Comes the Kicker; Into the Arms of Strangers (Where Have the Children Gone); Manchester Girl (Off Broadway); Mozart’s Requiem w/Los Angeles Philharmonic (Festival of Sacred Music); If I Were Lost (Highways’ Ecce Homo, Ecce Lesbo Festival); Hustler White (Sundance, Berlin, OutFest, London, and Amsterdam Film Festivals); AIDS/US II, Queen of Angels and Camille (Artists Confronting AIDS); Alliance: a Youth Education Organization; and Co-Chairing the Youth & Education component on the National Steering Committee for the 1987 March on Washington.

His artwork has been shown at Aquent Partners, Gaia Festival, Wild Parrots of Los Angeles, LA Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center, A Different Light Bookstore, Six Gallery, and Lizards. Tyr has also conducted a workshop on masks and mask-making for California Men’s Gathering, and has been giving informal lectures on the Labyrinth.

Tyr currently works with The Lavender Effect, the startup project for a state-of-the-art LGBTQ History Museum for Los Angeles and is also active with Nomenus, the church of the Radical Faeries at the Wolf Creek Sanctuary.

Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
USC Stage (located at the intersection of Trousdale Parkway and Childs Way across from Tommy Trojan)
USC University Park Campus

Admission to the Festival of Books is free

ONE Archives is excited to support Dear ONE, a rendition of a work-in-progress written and directed by Zsa Zsa Gershick and featuring Dalila Ali Rajah, Hunter Lee Hughes, Paul Jacek and Beverly Mickins. Dear ONE‘s first iteration was a performance for “Letters to ONE: From Fringe to Forefront” held at the archive last October as a part of ONE’s 60th Anniversary. Dear ONE illuminates the lives of LGBTQ Americans as recounted through letters written between 1953 and 1967 to ONE Magazine, the first widely distributed publication for homosexuals in the US. Looking for love, friendship, advice or understanding, readers wrote of loneliness and longing; of joy and fulfillment; and of their daily lives, hidden from history. Dear ONE is adapted from materials in the records of ONE Inc. at ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries.

Image: “Letters to the Editor” in ONE Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 8 (December 1956)

Saturday, April 20, 2013, 5-8pm
Performance by boychild: 7pm

ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives
909 West Adams Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90007

Admission is free – suggested donation of $5

Please join ONE Archives and Artist Curated Projects (ACP) at the opening reception for Stand Close, It’s Shorter Than You Think: A show on feminist rage. Exploring the promises and pitfalls of thinking with rage as a meditation, an inspiration, a medium, and a process, this exhibition co-curated by Katherine Brewer Ball and RJ Messineo includes work by boychild, RJ Messineo, MPA and Guadalupe Rosales.

Image: boychild, Part of http://instagram.com/boychild, 2012-present. Courtesy of the artist