Artists' Group Meeting, July 2001

Meeting Report

The July meeting of the Artists' Group was held on July 1, 2001, 2:00 PM-approximately 5:30 P. M., at the home of Wendy Burch and Jon Steel. Those attending: Nancy Beckman, Tom Bickley, Wendy Burch, Brad Fischer, Philip Gelb, Kathy Kennedy, Kathy Gresham Lancaster, Scot Gresham Lancaster, Marianne McDonald, Lisa Mischke, Katherine Setar, Mary Setar, Jon Steel, Toyoji Tomita, and Joe Zitt.

The meeting consisted of a snack pot luck, group discussion, a group sounding, occasional jazz renditions, and a ritual burning in "a small fire of surrender." You can see photos of the meeting.

An encapsulation of the salient points of the discussion are as follows.

• In advance of the meeting, Wendy Burch asked Pauline Oliveros to comment on her aspirations for the POFBA. In brief, Pauline hopes that the group would devote time to their listening practice, and that members of the POFBA would submit proposals for projects under the aegis of the POF. A administrative fee for awarded grants would be remitted to the POF, and would thereby be a source of income. These comments elicited the following discussions:
  • Toyoji Tomita hoped that someone could clarify how working within the POFBA would help in the acquisition of funds for projects designed for individual artists. Specifically, he wondered how POF underwriting would help him acquire a grant from the City of Oakland.
  • Katherine Setar suggested that one possible project that might eventually lead to a grant proposal could be a Pauline Oliveros retrospective. (Other composers, such as Cage and Catalano, were also mentioned.) The POFBA consists of several dozen members, and by pooling our talents and resources, we could produce some of Pauline's earlier (and possibly large-scale) works. Specifically, Katherine explained that she had examined all of Pauline's written works from the 1950s through the early 1980s as a part of her doctoral research, and that this project could fill an artistic and musicological niche by documenting rarely performed or poorly recorded works.
  • Philip Gelb announced that the POF is (tentatively) planning a seventieth birthday celebration for Pauline in 2002. Currently, Philip is in the process of trying to rent Grace Cathedral for this purpose.
• One member (sorry, I can't remember who made this comment) noted that Clorox Corporation is a good source of funding.
• Wendy mentioned that several POFBA members might prefer meeting every other month.
• Philip commented that the POF is offering a position for someone to focus on fund-raising projects.

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