A Safe Place

I had a one, two, three experience today causing me to ponder and this blog is the result.

I’m one of many singers with Urban Voices Project (kind of sort of the community choir of Skid Row) and we performed during The Renewal Summit by Atlantic magazine. After that, I read an online article about American Idol alum Antonella Barba getting sentenced to Federal prison. I then spent time at the Skid Row History Museum and Archive.

What I pondered was money and fame as trap.

The Renewal Summit was live streamed and so for Urban Voices that might be one more step in our journey becoming quasi-celebrities. Antonella Barba was sentenced for drug distribution and her family talked about how she was “normal” before the sudden fame of American Idol. The Skid Row History Museum and Archive has a current exhibit of two Skid Row/Downtown Los Angeles visual artists.

A nice thing about the Museum as art gallery is it’s low key, folksy, yet one can claim if one wants to that it’s prestigious, with the potential for artists to make money (but don’t count on it). Add it all up and it’s a safe space.

A safe space for what? A place to be, relax, middle ground between extreme of Hollywood fame and fortune and extreme of being ignored and unappreciated. A place of community.