By Ivan Salinas
FROM: The Daily Sundial

Every Tuesday evening Luis Antonio Pichardo hosts the Conchas y Café workshop at the Chicano Resource Center in East Los Angeles, open for adults interested in developing skills through the arts. During a recent meeting, the evening workshop began with discussing a quote by German playwright Bertolt Brecht: “In times of disorder, of organized confusion, of inhumane humanity, nothing should appear natural.” The group shared their thoughts casually like friends having breakfast with conchas and coffee, but the gossip was focused on their experience living in “times of disorder.”

This type of discussions is usually held in a university setting, but Pichardo’s audience had a diverse age range and knew that not all of them had access to higher education. The quote reminded Fabiola, an elder regular attendee, of the inhumane death of journalist and civil rights activist Ruben Salazar in 1970. Abraham Jaramillo, a younger attendee, was reminded of government dictatorships. Radu, sitting with his toddler daughter, was reminded of his experience during the Romanian Revolution of 1989.

“It needed disorder but organized to disrupt the natural things so that something would change,” he said. “Somebody was creating that dissipation. Disorder doesn’t come unless it’s provoked by something.”

More attendees kept arriving, many wearing clothes from their workplace. One of them was Radu’s wife; while they learned about art, the couple’s toddler would wander through the aisles filled with rich literature, accessible to her just by stretching out her arms. That need for accessibility is what drove Pichardo to create workshops through his non-profit organization, DSTL Arts. Many of the recently-written works engaged in a form of activism with sociopolitical statements and a protest-art approach.

Pichardo finished the discussion by stating that “a lot of the times calls to action use symbols to push us to do something,” recognizing the timeless activist nature within the quote and writing itself. The upcoming artists from the community take what they learn from the workshops and apply it to their visuals and writing, which can eventually be published in the zines DSTL releases throughout the year.

One of the writers taking this direction is Jeremy Arias. Read Rest of Article Here