Trailer Trash

NOMAD Invasion!

Children with Evelyn Serrano’s NOMAD Lab Art Project toured Sam’s trailer to inspect the progress since his last visit to their neighborhood in December.

Sam and friends gave neighborhood children a tour of the trailer during the Valle del Oro Neighborhood Festival, held May 6th at an apartment complex near Cal Arts. The festival was a chance to highlight the art work of  at-risk children, age 6-14, who participate in the NOMAD Lab Art Project.  Trailer Trash partners with the NOMAD Lab, exploring the importance of home and community through art.

In a public art “lab”,  the children made signs stating their views on the ingredients necessary for a safe and happy neighborhood.  In another lab they designed furniture for the inside of Sam’s trailer and gave pointers how to make it a welcoming place for young people.

Artist and teacher Evelyn Serrano directs the volunteer-run NOMAD Lab with help from Cal Arts students and others. The City of Santa Clarita is one of the project’s boosters and helps with the cost of materials.  In an email thanking the project’s teachers and helpers, Evelyn described  how happy the children were  to put their art (music, drawing, story-telling and photography) on display at festival:

Children at the Valle del Oro Neighborhood Festival watch as NOMADS receive certificates for participating in art projects held throughout the school year on the grounds of their apartment complex.

Test run on an experimental design for modular furniture inside the trailer.

Nomad signage filled in the blanks: "A good home is....", "A safe neighborhood is..."

I was at the verge of tears more than once during the festival. I was just so very proud of the young people and of the work we have accomplished this year. I can’t tell you how many of them came to me pleading that we have class THIS Saturday, that they can’t wait till September…

They have made friends in the program, they have become advocates of the program and understand the importance of it.

A NOMAD reads one of his stories while Evelyn Serrano holds the mike.

The girls shocked me with their impromptu speeches [saying why they like the NOMAD Project].  How proud I was! To see them exercise their collective and individual voices with power and fearlessness. How energized I felt after witnessing them. And seeing the boys so proud of their work (and rightly so).

My best wishes for an extraordinary summer.

Lots of love, Evelyn

Stay Tuned: On June 4th the NOMAD kids will exhibit their signs in a show called “ Slanguage” at a gallery in Willmington, CA.  For more information, check out the blog for the NOMAD Lab Art Project.

This post is part of a series documenting Sam Breen’a Spartan Restoration Project. Please see his first post here and check out the archive here. The CSPA is helping Sam by serving in an advisory role, offering modest support and featuring Sam’s Progress by syndicating his feed from http://spartantrailerrestoration.wordpress.com as part of our CSPA Supports Program.

The Colors of Spring

Textile artist Cybele Moon: "I wanted to share my love of color with others."

Artist Cybele Moon partnered with The Trailer Trash Project to offer her Earth Day art installation to the community of Santa Clarita, CA.

Cybele models clothes fashioned from pre-owned T-shirts

Some artists choose paint as their medium. Others choose stone or metal. Cybele Moon chose fabric–or perhaps it chose her.

“My mother used to weave and make her own clothes. One of my grandmothers worked in a bobbin factory, and she sewed at home. My other grandmother would crochet and do cross-stitch,” explained the Cal Arts grad student who was a professional costume designer before deciding to go back to school to get an MFA.

Textiles are intertwined with her family tree. “Even my grandfather had a connection to fabric. He came to this country at the turn of the century from Slovakia. He made looms and wove rag rugs in the 1930’s and ‘40’s.”

Cybele spends most of her time at Cal Arts working behind the scenes, designing costumes for dance and theatrical productions. Before graduating she wanted to create some of her own textile art and share it with the Santa Clarita community on Earth Day.

Sam Breen's 1951 Spartan trailer provided a backdrop for Cybele's installation.

The result: a textile installation resembling dripping vines, dyed in the soft blue and green colors of spring. The work was fashioned from recycled T-shirts donated by CalArts students, faculty and staff.

“Fabric is my medium. I can dye it, paint it and manipulate it,” she said. She is particularly fond of the challenges presented by recycled fabrics. “I can take a piece of clothing, cut open the seams and make something else.”

Cybele’s Earth Day offering demonstrates her dual passion for ecology and art. “We waste and throw away so many things. I wanted to show that you can take a common T-shirt and transform it into something completely different – like a piece of art.”

Drawing on her skills as a costume designer Cybele, along with Jessica Ramsey and Emily Moran,  two Cal Arts BFA students in costume design, conducted a workshop for kids demonstrating how to transform used T-shirts into trendy scarves, vests, tank tops and other items of clothing.

With graduation coming up, Cybele’s thoughts have turned to the future. Her dream? To live some place where she can have a huge garden and chickens. Her career goal is to be costume design professor and to continue working professionally as a costume designer.  She will also continue to explore her own textile art.

Cal Arts students Cybele Moon (r) and Jessica Ramsey (l) conducted a workshop for kids to show how to turn a used T-shirt into something unexpected.

The experience on Earth Day in Santa Clarita has inspired her to try to take on more collaborative community projects in the future, especially those geared for children.

 

Her off-campus art project comes at a time when she and other Cal Arts students are working at a hectic pace, trying to finish up the school year.

Emily Moran (l) helps a youngster work magic with recycled clothing.

“I didn’t know what I was getting into or how it would turn out,” she explained on evening before the event,  her hands covered with thick rubber gloves while she prepped another batch of T-shirts for dying. “It was a challenge to see if I could do it, to get all those people to donate T-shirts. But I just kept on trying.”

Sam’s vintage trailer provided a framework for Cybele’s piece, giving the trailer’s metal exterior a soft, whimsical look. It could be the beginning of a colorful, art-inspired and Earth-friendly spring.

For more on Cybele Moon, click here for her web site. 

This post is part of a series documenting Sam Breen’a Spartan Restoration Project. Please see his first post here and check out the archive here. The CSPA is helping Sam by serving in an advisory role, offering modest support and featuring Sam’s Progress by syndicating his feed from http://spartantrailerrestoration.wordpress.com as part of our CSPA Supports Program.

Trash Piles On the Acts

Graffiti artist Jose Estrada

Click Here The events at Sam’s trailer kept on coming throughout the Arts In the One World Conference, January 27-29. The 1951 Spartan trailer  moved to the CalArts’ front lawn for the event.  The trailer is still a work-in-progress; the scheduled completion date is June, 2011. Some of the artists were so happy with the trailer they returned to the stage for repeat performances – film, dance, music and multi-media productions – throughout the weekend.

Many remarked that the space was inviting – even the inside in its unfinished state seemed to welcome artists and audiences alike.  Night time performances inside the trailer were especially intimate and light-hearted.  Daytime events staged outside under an awning in the warm provided a welcome space to relax on three sunny California days. Several dancers mentioned that they liked the way the floor (still only a subfloor) swayed with their movements during indoor performances.  Multimedia Interdisciplinary Artist  Kenyatta Hinkle said as she worked inside the trailer, she felt it had a life of its own.

Arts In the One World is a gathering of artist-activists interested in using their art to help bring about social change. First convened in January 2006 by Erik Ehn, AOW at CalArts is linked to it’s sister Arts in the One World conference at Brown University.

The CalArts blog Seen and Heard recently posted two articles about The Trailer Trash Project. Tatiana Williams wrote that many students at CalArts have gotten involed with the project.  And Lindsey Lollie wrote this post about an encounter she had at the trailer during the Arts In the One World Conference:

This past weekend Sam Breen and his amazing trailer was a great hit.  He renovated an old trailer which kind of looks like a space ship and transformed it into an art space.  Musicians, dancers, artists, singers, animators, filmmakers and photographers came to gaze and participate in what was a series of performances and installations.  It started on Thursday and ended Saturday.  I along with some other dancers choreographed small pieces to be performed inside and around the trailer.  meanwhile, in between performances, a bunch of us were waiting for more people to arrive and we started our own little dance party/show on the stage.  We took turns going up and making a fool of ourselves.  We were having fun in the moment.  There was a stage, and nobody around to judge us, just close friends and the opportunity was taken.  I filmed various people dancing and I hope you will enjoy.

This post is part of a series documenting Sam Breen’a Spartan Restoration Project. Please see his first post here and check out the archive here. The CSPA is helping Sam by serving in an advisory role, offering modest support and featuring Sam’s Progress by syndicating his feed from http://spartantrailerrestoration.wordpress.com as part of our CSPA Supports Program.

Sam’s Post #5: Keep Moving, It’s the American Way

NEWS FLASH! Sam Accepted at Edinburgh Fringe Festival  (details to follow)

Sam and other Cal Arts Actors to Showcase in NYC

Sam's 1951 Spartan Royal Mansion, viewed from a hill at Cal Arts. Photo credit: Scott Groller

My trailer, our trailer, which I inappropriately refer to as “The Mansion”, was acquired in August 2010, in Torrance CA. Shortly before, my mother– a one time filmmaker for the United Nations, once a Katrina refugee, currently a freelance journalist with a fervent passion for social justice and a newly developed interest in sustainable living – and I, a one-time private banker employed by philanthropist and all around jolly good guy, Mr. John Pierpont Morgan.

Well, my mom and I we’re on the phone..Truth is we’ve grown apart quite a bit over the last 10 years. More often than not we’ve been on opposite sides of the country, opposite sides of the Atlantic, sometimes unintentionally (and admittedly) sometimes with quite a bit of intention.

We’ve been through a lot, and it’s just the two of us. So, you know, tension ensues, occasionally, sometimes, often, whatever. So we’re on the phone, and the topic of this particular conversation is one that comes up every couple years.

It goes something like this:  “So, whaaaaaat’s next ?” You see, my mom’s been a nomad for a little while now. That tends to happen when a storm like Katrina hits an already fragile community like New Orleans.

But me? I’ve been in denial about my nomadic nature. I had a proper desk job for a couple years before coming here, a serious girlfriend. I had a PLAN, a checklist, which I adhered to methodically: a sequence of suit-and-tie jobs, then auditions, which eventually, allowed me to be here, right here, at this very moment.

At the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, 2010, Sam played Godzilla in Eric Ehn's adaption of the play. Here he hawks the production in the streets of Edinburgh.

The thing is, I’m about to graduate, as an Actor. (Did I mention that?) And my future is quite uncertain again. And so…

My mom and I are on the phone, my grandmother has passed away and left her a little bit of money, and she wants to buy a trailer and live in it.  And I have been wanting to restore a trailer – I want to MAKE something, something living, and useful to someone, something longer lasting than a two-hour play.   And that’s as far as my thought process went ..

So a month later we buy the trailer. And I park it on campus, THIS campus, tucked away behind the basketball courts and I start BUILDING and my mom starts BLOGGIN’ and we call it “Trailer Trash” because it’s a GREEN restoration, and we’re using recycled materials.

So after having grown apart over the years, here we are collaborating, truly collaborating, in a way that’s completely new to me. We’re collaborating on a project that’s very personal to both of us. We are building, in fact we are RE-building from old fragments, a new home that is both unconventional and yet, in the most American way, as conventional as can be.

I don’t know about building houses, or little. I don’t know about trailer living. I don’t know about doing all this while going to school full-time and sometimes feeling like I’m losing my mind!

This project has been a true experiment, from the beginning. The most amazing thing about embracing the experimental nature of this project has been to watch it grow and evolve. What began as a guerrilla building project has become–because of this place [Cal Arts] this faculty, this student body– a PERFORMANCE PIECE.  (Why the hell not?)  And it’s about building a HOME for a family that’s been without one for a while. About learning to work the system of a higher education establishment [to get permission to put the trailer on campus.] It’s about learning to become an artist- and not just a performer. Learning to put my thoughts into words (believe it or not this is not something that comes naturally.) It’s about figuring out what this project is, what it means to me, to us, and so this thing is THERAPEUTIC, baby.

I’m starting to ask myself, with no real expectation of reaching any answers: Why is it that I still haven’t unpacked my stuff after Katrina? And why do I still refuse to settle down and put pictures up on the wall?

…maybe it’s not just me…[he stops to address conference participants] If I were to stop and ask: How many of you in this room consider yourself in TRANSIT? How many of you have ever lost a home?

I realize that most artists are nomadic by nature. We have to be, to survive, to pursue our dreams, to make, to MAKE .. We gotta’ keep on moving. And if possible, we ‘gotta do it in STYLE.

It’s the American Way.

This post is part of a series documenting Sam Breen’a Spartan Restoration Project. Please see his first post here and check out the archive here. The CSPA is helping Sam by serving in an advisory role, offering modest support and featuring Sam’s Progress by syndicating his feed from http://spartantrailerrestoration.wordpress.com as part of our CSPA Supports Program.

Trailer Trash Kicks Off Arts Conference

Late night set-up in preparation for Arts In The One World Conference, Jan. 27-29

Last night, Sam and fellow students towed the Spartan trailer to the entrance of Cal Arts where it was used as a performance space during the  Arts In the One World Conference, January 27-29. Sam kicked off the conference with a presentation of the Trailer Trash Project tomorrow morning.  Over the course of the event, participating artists will also perform inside and around the trailer. A stage is being constructed around the trailer today.  The stage was designed and construction under the direction of Ben Womick, MFA student at Cal Arts in technical direction.

Participating artists include: Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, choreographer Lindsey Lollie, dancer Andrew Wojtal and playwright Isabel Salazar (No Comas Tomates antes de Dormir porque Tendrás Pesadillas).

This post is part of a series documenting Sam Breen’a Spartan Restoration Project. Please see his first post here and check out the archive here. The CSPA is helping Sam by serving in an advisory role, offering modest support and featuring Sam’s Progress by syndicating his feed from http://spartantrailerrestoration.wordpress.com as part of our CSPA Supports Program.

Border Art in the War On Difference

El Mexterminator

When Sam presented The Trailer Trash Project at the Arts in the One World Conference (Jan. 27-29) he heard  Guillermo Gómez-Peña give the keynote talk.   We thought you might like to read more about this extraordinary performance artist, poet, playwright and teacher.

In the border region between the United States and Mexico who are the insiders and who are the outsiders?    Guillermo Gómez-Peña puts borders – between people of different nationalities, ethnicities, religions and sexual preferences – at the center of his work. This “stubborn Aztec hipster” plays with some of the iconic images that invade our subconscious and feed our fears.  His personas include a Narco-Dandy, El Mexterminator  and San Poncho Aztlaneca, a shaman/saint from an unknown border region.

Earlier pieces explored the loneliness of the immigrant experience in the United States.  While still a student at CalArts he wrapped himself in a batik cloth and lay down on the floor of an elevator.  Another time he dressed as a homeless Mexican and begged for food. (No one stopped.)

The human body is often used as a metaphor for the body politic.  In the Mapa Corpo Series, performed with Violeta Luna and an acupuncturist, he re-created a ritualistic sacrifice in which members of the audience were invited to help stick needles topped with flags into Luna’s naked body.  The piece is a statement against the War On Terror which Gómez-Peña calls “the War On Difference.”

Using his artistry, wit, intellect and considerable compassion, Gómez-Peña invites us to examine the transgressions of western society and overcome our fear of the other.

In a seven-hour workshop held at the conference,  he gave the participants a suitcase full of simple props, telling them to improvise.  “Think of it as a performance jam,” he said. “Performance artists jam just like musicians.”

Next he invited the group to transform each other into icons representing the sacred and profane.  With an eccentric selection of music playing while the actors got into character,   he likened the exercise to a cabaret where the audience is invited to participate:  “Think of it as an obscure German lounge bar  where the images connect in a common theme.”

At the end of the workshop he encouraged aspiring performance artists to create “a borderless ethos,” experimental laboratories for change where divisions between outsiders and insiders begin to fade away. “The way forward requires hospitality across the divide,” he said.

Participants emerged with huge smiles on their faces. CalArts multimedia artist Mersiha Mesihovic said she felt the workshop changed the way she would approach her work in the future.  Dancer Lindsey Lollie agreed, adding she hopes to attend the International Summer Workshop in Oaxaca, hosted by Gómez-Peña’s troupe, La Pocha Nostra.

( Merisha and Lindsey collaborated on another AOW performance, “On The Subject Of Freedom,” which you can read about by clicking this link.)

Sidebar: “On The Fear Of the Other”

do you hear the police sirens? beautiful, eh?

Ammmeeeeeeerica, what a beautiful scary place to be

but then living in fear is normal for us

we are all scared shitless of the immediate future

by the way, are you scared of me?

of my accent, my strange intelligence,

my obnoxious capability to articulate your fears?

an articulate Mexican can be scarier than a gang member

que no?

are you scared of my moustache?

my unpredictable behavior?

my poetic tarantula,

my acid politics,

my criminal tendencies,

my tropical diseases,

my alleged ancient wisdom?

my shamanic ability to exorcise the evil out of white people,

yes or no? que si que no; que tu que yo

’cause I’m scared of you,

of your silence pinche mustio

your silence makes you really scary

& the distance between you and I makes it even worse.

For more on GGP’s workshops, see this link .  For resrouces, check out La Pocha Nostra’s bookstore. See also this article, “Disclaimer:  Notes on the death on the American artist,” from In These Times (May 19, 2006).


[1] Reprinted in Dangerious Border Corssers. (200: 61) 

This post is part of a series documenting Sam Breen’a Spartan Restoration Project. Please see his first post here and check out the archive here. The CSPA is helping Sam by serving in an advisory role, offering modest support and featuring Sam’s Progress by syndicating his feed from http://spartantrailerrestoration.wordpress.com as part of our CSPA Supports Program.

Nomads: From Empty Spaces Emerge Dreams – And Possibilities

Click to view slideshow.Gallery Photos by Karina YanezTo control slideshow speed,  place your cursor over  the slide and  press the  pause/start button.

As part of the Trailer Trash Project,  Sam will be working with the Nomad Lab Art Project, a program for at-risk children aged 6-14.  and their parents from the Valle Del Oro Neighborhood in Santa Clarita, CA.  The program currently offers art classes or labs) in writing, photography, guitar and public art.  Computer and cooking classes are available for parents.   It is run under the voluntary direction of Evelyn Serrano who also teaches a class on art and activism at CalArts.

The classes focus on the meaning of home – a theme Serrano has previously explored in her work as an artist and curator.  Coincidentally, it is also the theme that Sam is focusing on in his Trailer Trash project. On November 6th, Sam brought the Spartan to the Nomads, asking for their help figuring out what makes a house (or a tin can) a home.

The following article describes how the NOMAD LAB Art Project got started.  Over time, Sam’s Spartan Revival will keep you posted on the design ideas the Nomads come up with for the trailer.

They gather in empty spaces to turn dreams into art.  And as they draw and write,  they are planting the seeds of a peaceful community.

Meet The Nomads, children aged 6-14, who gather Wednesday and Saturday mornings at The Village Apartment Complex in Santa Clarita’s Valle del Oro (VDO) Neighborhood.  Here they have time to slow down, to get to know and trust each other.

The NOMAD LAB Art Project offers labs (or classes) in photography, public art, story telling and guitar. At the same time, their parents can participate in cooking and computer labs.   But art is just a starting point. It provides opportunities for neighbors in Santa Clarita’s troubled Valle del Oro Neighborhood to come together to explore what they like and what they want to change in their community.

“If we are successful, the kids and their parents will get to know each other,” says artist and NOMAD LAB organizer, Evelyn Serrano. “They will learn to be tolerant and respectful of each other.”

The program started off modestly enough last year with 30 children and Serrano as their  teacher.  Since then attendance has doubled to 60 kids and their parents, with five teachers, some from Serrano’s class at California Institute for the Arts.  Classes are free and everyone works on a volunteer basis.

“It’s a great program,” said Cynthia Llerenas, Community Services Supervisor for the City of Santa Clarita.  “I would like to see it modeled in different locations.”

Llernas, who also head’s the City of Santa Clarita’s Anti-Gang Task Force,  was an important force in helping Serrano get the program up and running.  Two years ago she was attending meetings with the Valle del Oro Neighborhood Committee to address problems of crime and racial tensions in their community.  Neighbors were feeling unsafe and they were their fingers at the young people.

Serrano, who was living in the Valle del Oro Neighborhood at the time, was aware that youngsters were joining gangs in the 5th and 6th grade.   As an artist and teacher committed to community art,  she agreed to run a program for at-risk youth in the neighborhood.

“Having worked with kids, I knew we shouldn’t place all the blame on them.” she explained. “The truth was more complex. There were no after-school or weekend programs in that area of town.  We needed to provide positive alternatives to gangs. And the voices of young people needed to be part of the solution.”

She went in search of a venue for classes, approaching the local elementary school and a youth organization. All requests were denied until she got a green light the management company at The Village – an apartment complex where much of the trouble was taking place.  Classes could meet in a vacant apartment until it was rented out and they would have to move into another one that was vacant.   The changing venues inspired the name, The Nomads.

“It’s like we are a gang,” explained Serrano. “But what we offer is another way of being together.  A lot of our kids see violence in their homes.  Art is the starting point for them to learn how to be together respectfully, to learn to collaborate successfully when we work.”

Nomads who participate in the writing, photography and music labs sit on the floor or in folding chairs. The minimalist, temporary nature of the venue creates a setting that seems conducive to creative output.

The public arts lab, taught by Serrano, takes place outside in the apartment courtyard. They are encouraged to closely observe their community and think about what they like about it and what they would like to change.

(See photo gallery of the public art lab: The Art of Observation.)

“I want the labs to be a special opportunity for the kids to re-engage with their neighborhood.  I want them to re-consider what it takes to make their home and community safe, healthy and sustainable,” Serrano explained.

Cynthia LLerenas is pleased with how all the pieces of this program are falling into place, and she wishes similar opportunities were open to other young people.   “If we had recreational opportunities for kids in every apartment complex it would eliminate 95% of our problems,” she says.

Her experience working 17 years as a prevention specialist has taught her a thing or two. “Kids don’t want to be involved with gangs, but they get sucked in, partly because there aren’t other viable alternatives, partly because the parents have lost control at home.  But there are no easy fixes.  A program like the NOMAD LAB requires on-going commitment from organizers, teachers and parents:  “You have to be passionate and you have to have a vision.”

“These kids are finding their niche,” she says.  ”Some of them come from a background where they have no self-esteem.  Now they are raising their hands in class and trying out for sports.  It’s all about building confidence.”

A big part of her job is to help parents and youth to learn how to access resources that will help them keep their neighborhoods safe.   In meetings that take place after the labs, parents learn how to access social and legal services as well as employment opportunities.   For communities to be sustainable, so it is important the talents and resources of people who live in the neighborhood must also be utilized.

Serrano says the mothers are in the cooking lab are “incredibly bright and resourceful.” Their energy and organizing talents help make the whole project run smoothly. It’s not just the moms.  When Nomad dad Jose Chunga  proposed labs for parents, he volunteered  himself to teach a computer class which has become a success.

Serrano says the NOMAD LAB Art Project is all about breaking down walls of fear and insecurity between neighbors.   “It’s hard for people to invest in their community when they are afraid of each other.  We are trying to create a safe context for people to interact and see each other as people who are very rich in resources.”

As for the kids, Serrano hopes that the observation skills she is teaching them as artists will carry over to change the things they don’t like about their community.   “I want them to learn to be critical observers in a positive way.  I would like them to ask themselves: ‘What is my say? Even though I am young, I have a lot of power.’”

“If we do anything right at least we can give them models and other alternatives about what a home can be.  We can encourage them to become dreamers.  And their dreams can influence their lives and the lives of other people.”

———-

The NOMAD LAB Art Project is a collaborative effort between the Valle Del Oro Neighborhood Association, the City of Santa Clarita, the Los Angeles County Human Rights Commission and The Village Apartments.

This post is part of a series documenting Sam Breen’a Spartan Restoration Project. Please see his first post here and check out the archive here. The CSPA is helping Sam by serving in an advisory role, offering modest support and featuring Sam’s Progress by syndicating his feed from http://spartantrailerrestoration.wordpress.com as part of our CSPA Supports Program.

Nomad Alert (Sam’s Post 3)

As part of the Trailer Trash Project,  Sam will be working with the Nomad Lab - children and their parent from the Valle Del Oro Neighborhood Association in Newhall (Santa Clarita) CA.  The Lab offers all kinds of  art workshops in graphic design, print making, music, acting, etc.  It is run under the direction of Evelyn Serrano who also teaches a class on art and activism at CalArts. Sam recently met with the class. Here are his notes: [ed.]

-by Sam Breen, October 17, 2010

I met with Evelyn’s class, and we are starting to make a plan.  Our first date with theNomads and their parents is in Newhall on Nov 6 . There should be about 30-40 students there, ranging in age 6-14. Evelyn wants me to bring the trailer, so I will need to install a work-floor in the Spartan  by then! Nomad workshops in photography and creative writing are already under way. Teachers are exploring the idea of what home means to them. So they’ve begun thinking about this theme (which is great ’cause that’s my theme, too!) I’ll give the kids a small presentation of the project and take them

What makes a house a home?

on a tour of the Spartan. Then the photography kids will take pictures. Some will start writing, some of the Arts and Activism students from CalArts will lead theater games (with the idea of home in mind). Some of the Nomad kids will be commissioned to talk about what they’d want in the trailer if it was their home (they could draw, write etc.) We could have a projector in there, so I might put up some ideas for my wish list – things like solar panels, a grey water system, compost. I’ll also be asking them about ways to use the trailer as a performance space – even before it’s finished.

On Oct 20, well’ll have another meeting of the Arts and Activism Class.  Stay tuned.  [Sam will have got to install a temporary floor in the Spartan in the next three weeks. That also means floor insulation, a belly pan, and tanks for storing clean and water. -ed.]


This post is part of a series documenting Sam Breen’a Spartan Restoration Project. Please see his first post here and check out the archive here. The CSPA is helping Sam by serving in an advisory role, offering modest support and featuring Sam’s Progress by syndicating his feed from http://spartantrailerrestoration.wordpress.com as part of our CSPA Supports Program.

A Long Way Home (Post: #1)

– by Sam Breen
I’m a 27 year-old graduate student in acting, at CalArts. I’ve just embarked on the final year of my master’s degree and the fun and games are over in class. The focus has shifted from voice classes , movement  and Shakespeare scene-study, to entrepreneurship.  In less than a year, my classmates and I will be classically trained professional actors. But before we graduate we’ve got a whole lot to learn about the business of acting- these days it’s all about “booking the job”.

On evenings and weekends, however, my mind is elsewhere– you’ll find me on the lower parking lot, renovating my 1951 Spartan trailer.

I’ve convinced the school to let me park the 36 foot monster on campus. This gives me easy access to the Institute’s scene-shop and mostly importantly, to the theater school’s technical designer, Michael Darling. My carpentry skills are basic, at best, and Michael’s mentoring has been absolutely essential to the project.

Sculptor and faculty member, Michael Darling works with CalArts students in the scene shop.

In exchange for letting me house the Trailer Trash Project on campus, I’ve offered to put the Spartan to good use. Once finished the trailer will be a home for my mother, a journalist and Katrina evacuee, but while it is being built I want it to serve as a work and performance space for the artist community at CalArts and beyond.

Inspiration piece.

The notion of displacement is one that my mother and I are all too familiar with.  As I began my studies in art school it became  clear to me:

…all artists are, at one time or another, displaced. We’re perpetually confronted with the reality of having to leave home to pursue our craft. Art-making can often distance us from our families.  And when we’re away, the feeling of longing inspires us to make more art.

Over the course of 7 or 8 months, the Spartan will take the form of a mobile performance space/ make-shift classroom/ screening room, used to explore how displacement and artistry go hand-in-hand.

Evelyn Serrano, a member of CalArt’s faculty in the Art School is onboard with this idea. Evelyn is an artist who means business. She’s a staunch supporter of education through the arts and teaches a class at Calarts, Arts and Activism, designed to

From the Nomad Lab web site: “The “NOMAD LAB is a program created to support the goals of the Valle del Oro Neighborhood Committee in partnership with the City of Santa Clarita Community Services Division, The Village Apartments and the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission. As an initiative of the Valle del Oro Neighborhood Committee, NOMAD LAB is devoted to building a better neighborhood through programs and activities for youth and their families.”

help her students develop and pursue their own social agenda. One of her latest projects is Nomadlab in nearby Newhall, which offers free creative writing classes to young students in the Valle del Oro neighborhood, who are at risk of gang activity. She’s offered to make the Trailer Trash Project a key element of her Arts and Activism class this year. Her students and I will be devising ways to use the Spartan as a means to collaborate with Nomadlab. But ultimately, I want to leave it up to the kids of Nomadlab to come up with ways in which the trailer can best serve their cause.

Another source of inspiration for my project has been Side Streets, a community arts project co-founded by Cal Arts, alum, Karen Atkinson along with RIDS grad Joe Luttrell, two artists committed to the belief that the creative process belongs in the streets as well as in studios and galleries.  More on Side Streets in future posts.

My mother, who has been researching and writing about the green revolution sees this trailer as an opportunity to display mobile, sustainable living. So we’re going eco!

This is a former FEMA trailer turned into a mobile disaster art studio by Paul Villinski. The trailer has solar panels and a wind turbine. We’ll use both on the Spartan, along with a composting toilet, and sustainable building materials. Credit: http://www.emergencyresponsestudio.org/

My Trailer Trash Project will be carried out in collaboration with The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts, founded by CalArts alumni, Miranda Wright and Ian Garrett.   The CSPA is a network providing artists and arts organizations with resources to help them adopt more sustainable practices in their work.

The Trailer Trash Project will be carried out using safe, clean and renewable materials as much as

feasibly possible.  (See for instance, posts on “green” insulation materials.)  Believe me this is no easy task. To give you an example, I was convinced bamboo flooring and cabinetry was the way to go. It’s super renewable (it only takes bamboo 3-5 years to reach maturity) but in recent years controversy has surfaced over the use of bamboo: it has to be flown over from China, lots of chemicals are used in the manufacturing process, deforestation and others.

Keeping up with this has been a little too much for me to handle right now– I’ve got my hands full as it is. So I’ve charged my mother with this task. This blog has lots of interesting info about sustainable materials, information that Michael and I use when deciding how to proceed.  Perhaps it will be of interest to you as well.

Stay tuned.  It’s going to be a wild ride!

The CSPA is helping Sam Breen with the Spartan Trailer Restoration Project by serving in an advisory role, offering modest support and featuring Sam’s Progress by syndicating his feed from http://spartantrailerrestoration.wordpress.com as part of our CSPA Supports Program.