words from a tiny desk
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(August 2010)

ODCAP is temporarily inactive. JUST ANNOUNCING MY NEW BLOG SPOT. words from a tiny desk I began uploading blogs this in March and by October 2010 all ODCAP archives will be at http://tinedesk.blogspot.com. PLEASE VISIT. MORE...

Curio Kiosks
by Barthosa Nkurumeh/Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(October 2009)

A series of artist interventions for the Kumasi Symposium are posted in the Gallery section this fall. (See Voices section for a report on the symposium by Barthosa Nkurumeh, AfriCOAE General Secretary). Most notable are two solo galleries--Flip/flop House by Patrick Tagoe-Turkson, from Ghana and collaboration Re-Painting the Red by Charlie Michaels, Rex Akinruntan, Kwadwo Asare Apori, Ralitsa Diana Debrah, and Faisal and his Family who own a home in Kumasi, Ghana. MORE...

Life Outside of Pearl
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(October 2009)

Johnny Desarmes has been screening his full-length film, Life Outside of Pearl (2002) about a Haitian-American family who tries to maintain their cultural identity while adapting to life in the United States. As their lives unravel, the stresses of urban life in their home in New Jersey reveal family secrets causing fissures between the parents and their children. MORE...

Nannies and Other Mothers, An Artist Statement
by Laura James
(October 2009)

Laura James sent me a note on Facebook where I saw a few examples of her work. I wanted to see more, especially works from her Nannies and Other Mothers series. We are sharing them with you in our Galleries section but I want you to know more about Laura before you go there to give you a sense of how she came to create this engaging series. MORE...

The Kumasi Symposium
by Barthosa Nkurumeh
(September 2009)

I am a member of the International Advisory Board to NKA Foundation’s Arts Village at Abetenim, a design-build-and-live-in project in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. My colleague Barthosa Nkurumeh sent me a report of this Kumasi Symposium, a first in a series of planned symposiums that encourage collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches to art and community interactions. The next one is planned for 2011. MORE...

Manifest Destiny: Mildred Howard at Moeller Fine Arts Berlin
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(September 2009)

Berlin's new Moeller Fine Art shows Mildred Howard's work in a three person show entitled Manifest Destiny, the nineteenth century doctrine used to justify the territorial expansion of the United States as God's will. The show includes two other artists, Tom Molloy from Ireland and Simon Norfolk from England/Nigeria. MORE...

Thesis Art Projects
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(April 2009)

May 2009 Thesis Projects from Visual Arts Programs Rameses Muslim, BFA Academy of Art University, San Francisco, CA Ming-Ta Du, MFA San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA MORE...

I Want to Know the World
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(March 2009)

“I want to know the world” is what a writer told me while I visited with her in Petrer, Spain. Originally from Peru, a lawyer turned poet, she resides with her Spanish husband and their two daughters. Working for immigrant rights in Spain, she belongs to a growing number of social practice artists whose creative work intersects with social advocacy, affecting what is happening in the world. MORE...

Paris YES
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(March 2009)

This January, David Damoison sent me a link to a set of photographs that he took during a festival in Paris celebrating the cultures of African descendants from Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, and Reunion. I asked David if I could create a gallery on OD-CAP because most people visiting Paris, including US Blacks, do not experience this Paris. Please visit the Galleries to see more. MORE...

Toubabou Spectacle
by Eduardo Pineda
(March 2009)

San Francisco Bay Area muralist Eduardo Pineda completed a mural at Association Sante Communautaire Mekin Sikoro and Centre D'Espoir, a community health clinic in Mekin Sikoro colonia of Bamako Mali in January 2009. The mural project was sponsored by the Global Alliance to Immunize Against AIDS (GAIA) Vaccine Foundation, based in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. Eduardo shares a few observations about cultural perceptions from his month long experience. You can read about the mural project at storytellingwalls.blogspot.com MORE...

Bamako at Night
by David A.M. Goldberg
(March 2009)

Since Eduardo Pineda was in Bamako painting a mural, I asked him if he could contact photographer, Amadou Keita and have a conversation with him about his photographic work. Amadou only speaks French and time didn’t permit a sit-down conversation with a translator but Amadou and I have been communicating via email and he sent me a statement on how he got into photography, how he approaches his work, and how he sees it in the lager context of image-making in Africa. Visit his gallery, Bamako at Night. His curatorial statement has been translated from French. MORE...

In the Light of Play
by Bisi Silva
(March 2009)

Visit a new March gallery. See what the curator, Bisi Sliva says about the work in the gallery. MORE...

What's New?
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(March 2009)

It's March and we're uploading a new edition of ODCAP--new conversations with artists, artists' voices, and galleries throughout the month. Please keep checking in with us. MORE...

Gnanadje Bozo (Bozo cultural event translated from French)
by Amadou Keita
(March 2009)

Bozo Gnanadje is a cultural practice of the Bozo people of Mali that is traditionally tied to fishing. The Bozos mastered the evolution and reproduction of different types of fish. Photographer, Amadou Keita discusses and shares his photographs of this Bozo ceremony which is part of a festival on the river Niger that aims to recall, promote, and safeguard the cultural heritage of Mali through song, dance, and puppetry. MORE...

September 2008
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(September 2008)

In the last issue of OD-CAP I spoke about artist interventions. In the spirit of encouraging viewers to seek out and find creative people and the artwork that they produce, we will continue to include conversations or galleries with/by people whose more public face is in an art related field such as curators of art, education, development, exhibition designers, writers or editors, directors of a gallery. MORE...

Contemplating Personal Projects and Zwischenstadt
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(September 2008)

Contemplating the intersection of my creative writing and digital photographic images while reflecting on the idea of Zwischenstadt--those in-between places. MORE...

Eduardo Pineda: Centripetal Heart
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(September 2008)

Art education can be seen as art intervention that provokes thought and discourse in communities. MORE...

Renewing a First Voice
by Eduardo Pineda
(June 2008)

View Eduardo Pineda's gallery featuring the mural work of Jean LaMarr. MORE...

Prominent Artists Honor Community Arts
by Kay Lindsey
(June 2008)

An Historic Gathering at an Original Los Angeles Alternative Community Space MORE...

Something to Consider
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(June 2008)

At OD-CAP we question what we are doing, what we hope to do in the future, how we are impacting our users lives with the information that we provide. We are a small fledgling effort but as we continue to grow, we have morphed into an online public benefit community cultural development organization. MORE...

Lauren McIntosh at Dancing Moon Farm
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(June 2008)

Enjoy the bounty from a small farm near you. MORE...

El Obama (El Presidente)
by Eduardo Pineda
(February 2008)

Here's a drawing I thought you'd appreciate! It’s the Obama Lotteria card. Are you familiar with this Mexican game? MORE...

What's on YouTube?
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(February 2008)

One of OD-CAP’s contributors was going to write a piece about how Black video artists are using YouTube and while awaiting her entry, I decided to browse YouTube myself to see how Black artists from different artistic backgrounds are using this medium. MORE...

It's Our One-Year Anniversary!
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(February 2008)

It’s our one-year anniversary this month and in OD-CAP’s effort to explore themes that are valued by our contributors and users, this issue continues to consider works of art that engage us. MORE...

A Degree in the Arts
by Jaime Lowe
(January 2008)

Jaime Lowe talks about making a degree in art work for her until she gets that art job that she studied for. MORE...

A Conversation with visiting artist Wangechi Mutu
by Aimée Crystina Reed
(October 2007)

Wangechi Mutu was in Marfa, TX for the opening of "Every Revolution is a Roll of the Dice". Our blogger, Aimee Crystina Reed had a conversation with Wangechi about her residency at Marfa. MORE...

What's Going On?
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(October 2007)

Elizabeth Catlett at the de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA--If we reflect on different parts of our modern history in America, we realize that the artists that have aligned themselves with human rights struggles and who have been unafraid to devote their creative energies to visually speak out against injustices that actually affect all of us, have contributed to guiding our conscious. Their visuals speak often louder than words, but considering visuals through words led me to conceptually revisit the 1960s and 1970s and reflect on Marvin Gaye's landmark album and specific song What's Going On in particular. Gaye's recording of What's Going On debuted in 1971 ushering in a brand of soul music that revealed a popular soul singer's consciousness about politics and social conditions that had previously been the purview of folk singers. MORE...

AUCTION: Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company Art Collection
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(September 2007)

I remember Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company for its tall edifice and the small soda shop that it dwarfed nearby. I knew that Golden State was one of the few places in Los Angeles where Black people could go and see works of art by Black artists. MORE...

Painting!
by Lily Wei
(September 2007)

Reprinted by permission from Lily Wei. "Painting!" appeared in the exhibition catalog published in 2002 by the Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson Mississippi for the retrospective exhibition, Mary Lovelace O'Neal. Lily Wei, a New York-based art critic, essayist and independent curator writes frequently for Art in America and other publications in both the U.S. and abroad. She is a contributing editor at ARTnews and Art Asia Pacific and has curated exhibitions on a wide range of subjects. In this article she traces the evolution of Mary Lovelace O'Neal's painting over several decades. MORE...

Chinati Foundation Tour -- P.M. Tour
by Aimée Crystina Reed
(September 2007)

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Chinati Foundation Tour -- A.M. Tour
by Aimée Reed
(September 2007)

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Returning to Marfa, TX and the Chinati Foundation
by Aimee Reed
(September 2007)

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Are you experienced?
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(August 2007)

Hendrix has influenced countless musicians everywhere but nowhere is his influence felt more that in the Pacific Northwest. Are you experienced?--the bluesy funk and soul rock hit was released by the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1967 in the UK and a few months later in the US. MORE...

OD-CAP during PICA
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(August 2007)

Watch for continuous uploads of OD-CAP during (PICA) Portland Institute for Contemporary Art's Time-Based Art (TBA), September 6-16, 2007. MORE...

Glimpses in Time A Juried Exhibition in Honor of Gordon Parks
by Michele Elizabeth Lee
(August 2007)

Photography submissions came from as far away as South Korea, Australia, the United Kingdom, Scotland, and Canada, not to mention the four regions of the United States. Not bad for the first ever juried exhibition at Joyce Gordon Gallery in Oakland, CA. MORE...

Opening the Discourse
by Lizzetta LeFalleCollins
(August 2007)

The significance of a history that recognizes the importance and legacy of the Middle Passage from Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean weighs heavily in the cultural and artistic discourses on the OD-CAP site. MORE...

August Uploads
by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
(August 2007)

There are several new uploads on OD-CAP. We are happy to reprint "Identity & History: Personal and Social Narratives in Art in Jamaica" by Dr. Eddie Chambers, Nicole Caruth's recent conversation with artist, Modou Dieng, Michele Lee's review of "Glimpses In Time, A Juried Exhibition in Honor of Gordon Parks" MORE...