Clockshop

Collaborating with artists, writers, institutions & Los Angeles.

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Beatriz Cortez’s new sculpture, Tzolk’in is now on view at both the Bowtie Project, and the Hammer Museum. 

To learn more about the Bowtie, visit Clockshop.org.

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Pre-order is now available for our new 140-page catalog, Radio Imagination: Artists and Writers in the Archive of Octavia E. Butler. Orders will ship by April 16.

Radio Imagination documents Clockshop’s yearlong celebration of the life and work of science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler.

This limited edition catalog marks the first publication of Clockshop-commissioned poetry and creative nonfiction by Tisa Bryant, Lynell George, Robin Coste Lewis, and Fred Moten, and highlights works in many mediums by Laylah Ali, Malik Gaines and Alexandro Segade, Lauren Halsey, Mendi + Keith Obadike, and Connie Samaras. The catalog also includes an unprecedented number of images from the Octavia E. Butler Collection, courtesy of the @huntingtonlibrary and the Estate of Octavia E. Butler.

Cover photo: Patti Perret

Learn more about Clockshop’s yearlong program here.

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This Saturday, May 27, join us at the Bowtie Project for Beginnings Marathon! Bring a book of your choice - any language, any genre - and read the first page aloud to an audience of other readers. Stay for the whole day, or come for just an hour. At the close of the event, we’ll enjoy s’mores around the campfire.

More info & link to RSVP: https://clockshop.org/event/beginnings-marathon/

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(Radio Imagination from Clockshop)

Ayana A.H. Jamieson ( @ayanaahj ) is the founder and director of the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network (@oeblegacy). In December 2016, she led a bus tour through Pasadena and Altadena, California, exploring Butler's hometown and the ways its landscapes and politics influenced her worldview. In this episode, Tom Carroll of Tom Explores Los Angeles (@tomexplores)  talks with Jamieson about this tour and the importance of geographical context in understanding Butler as a writer. 

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This is the last week to see Radio Imagination: Artists in the Archive of Octavia E. Butler before the new year! The Armory will be closed December 24 - January 2. Stop in today from 12 - 5!  

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Tracing Octavia Butler’s Footsteps: An Interview with Dr. Ayana A. H. Jamieson - Los Angeles Review of Books

Ayana A. H. Jamieson talks to Rochell D. Thomas about her research of Octavia Butler.

Los Angeles Review of Books: Tracing Octavia Butler’s Footsteps: An Interview with Dr. Ayana A. H. Jamieson

Thanks to @lareviewofbooks, @ayanaahj & @lynellgeorge for their contributions to this interview.  The Octavia E. Butler Legacy Tour was a big success.  Thanks again to everyone who was able to join us!

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New podcast!

In a city as big as Los Angeles, with such a well-documented car culture, we often hear that you need a car in LA. But what can the experience of public transit offer a writer? What about an artist? In this episode, we take a ride from West Hollywood to Downtown with commissioned Radio Imagination artist and LA-native Lauren Halsey. Halsey’s work takes inspiration from her neighborhood in South LA, and the visual culture of small businesses throughout Los Angeles. Like Butler, she gets around on public transit, but there was a time when she used to drive...

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While planning Radio Imagination, we could not have anticipated how directly Octavia E. Butler’s life and work would speak to the challenges we have faced in 2016, and will continue to face over the next four years. Butler wrote in Parable of the Sower:

We can, Each of us, Do the impossible As long as we can convince ourselves That it has been done before.

Butler willed herself—made herself—into a writer, overcoming impossible odds. We have learned from what she achieved, and take these lessons to heart, especially in this moment. Through Radio Imagination, Clockshop was able to support and celebrate emerging, under-recognized, and established artists while creating the conditions for deep, nuanced conversations about our future. This is fundamentally what Clockshop does.

We support artists. We create programs with intent and curiosity. We respond to current events with care and rigor. We bring diverse groups of people together. We create access—to issues, space, and dialogue.

Join us in this work. Make a one-time (www.bit.ly/2g2xYk9) or recurring (www.bit.ly/2gSIw9V) donation today. Clockshop depends on you. Each donation made before the end of the 2016 calendar year will be matched by a generous anonymous donor.

We look forward to standing strong with you in 2017.

With gratitude,

Clockshop

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From the Octavia E. Butler papers at the Huntington Library.

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(Radio Imagination from Clockshop)

Kindred is Octavia E. Butler’s most popular novel. It was published in 1979, and the seed for it was planted at Pasadena City College, where Butler was a student.

This fall, over 2,500 incoming Pasadena City College students will read Butler’s novel as part of their “One Book, One College” initiative. What is it about Kindred - a novel that’s more fantasy than science fiction - that makes it so popular?

Listen in as we talk with John Jennings, illustrator of the forthcoming graphic novel adaptation of Kindred, and Dr. Christopher West, one of the people responsible for Kindred's resurgence on PCC's campus.

Photos: Lynell George (@wanderingfoot), from the Octavia E. Butler papers at The Huntington Library ( @huntingtonlibrary ).

See more of Octavia Butler’s Kindred research notes here.

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Octavia E. Butler on ignorance.  Found in her archive at the Huntington Library.

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THIS THURSDAY at The Huntington, Clockshop is hosting Radical Reproduction, a conversation between philosopher Amy Kind and scholar Shelley S. Streeby, discussing notions of family and radical reproduction as represented in Octavia E. Butler’s writing.  This conversation, moderated by Butler scholar and founder of the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network, Ayana A.H. Jamieson, will take special focus on the short story “Bloodchild.” 

This event is FREE.

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Have you made it to the Armory Center for the Arts to see our show, yet? If not, this week is a good one to come by! Regular gallery hours are Tuesday - Sunday, noon - 5. This Thursday, the gallery will be open late for Lynell George & Connie Samaras in Conversation. Leave us a note and let us know what you think!

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rEbX6VgLaA)

This year, Clockshop is participating in the My LA2050 Grants Challenge to make Los Angeles the best place to PLAY. We’ll need your help to win!

Vote for the Bowtie Project - our innovative partnership with California State Parks​ - as the best submission in the PLAY category here.

Help us as we continue to build a community of stakeholders who will ensure that the Bowtie remains in the public trust, as a place for all Angelenos to play now, and in the future.

Voting is open through October 25 - tell your friends!

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DATE CHANGE!

Please note, in order to fulfill our slightly masochistic patriotic duty of watching the final presidential debate, our event at the Armory Center for the Arts featuring Lynell George and Connie Samaras has been moved to Thursday, October 20.

See you all there.

https://www.facebook.com/events/314778038878323/

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On October 27, flutist-composer Nicole Mitchell and her Black Earth Ensemble will perform work from Mitchell's albums 'Xenogenesis Suite: A Tribute to Octavia E. Butler' and 'Intergalactic Beings' at the @huntingtonlibrary.

The event will premiere Mitchell’s Chicago-based group, Black Earth Ensemble for a rare Los Angeles appearance, merging old friends with new musician friends from Southern California.  The performance will be followed by a Q&A with Mitchell and a reception in the courtyard.

More information and tickets for this performance are available for purchase here: https://clockshop.org/event/xenogenesis-suite-a-musical-tribute-to-octavia-e-butler/

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We have so many great events going on in October. Sign up for our email list to stay up to date: http://clockshop.nationbuilder.com/sign_up