La Prensa San Diego – “The Self-Help Graphics Crisis”

Early Rumblings

The warning signs began early, slowly trickling in while I was Director of Programming for the 2004 San Diego Latino Film Festival. I had set up a deal to license the artwork of Los Angeles based artist/activist Alfredo de Batuc for the 2005 Festival. In March of 2005, while the festival was in full swing, De Batuc came down to promote his work. I showed him the local sights: the murals at Chicano Park, Chicano Perk Café and Adams Ave. We spoke of community art spaces, in particular, the situation at San Diego’s Centro Cultural de La Raza.

Five years after a new administration employed draconian measures that resulted in a rift between the Centro and the local community, the organization was largely absent from the local art scene. Both Alfredo and I had visited the site in its heyday, and we lamented its spiral downward.

De Batuc spoke of the problems of many organizations throughout the nation, all started 30+ years before, and facing the challenge of maintaining their viability without choking off the vision of its participating artists. Without the artists, the centers had no creative resources to fundraise with, no stellar shows to publicize, no audience base of adoring art patrons to provide a revenue base. He began to tell me about similar problems at Self-Help Graphics, that started after its founder, Sister Karen passed away. Her assistant, Tomas Benitez became the new Executive Director, even though it was not a title he had actively sought out. The role of ED at any institution in this age of budget cuts and lack of federal funding, was certainly a heavy one to bear.