A Day on the Artship

A Day on the Artship

On any average day on the Artship you could find musicians recording in acoustically unusual spaces of the ship. Visual artists making things, for example, Ben Trautman creating sculptures as a part of the accessibility route of the ship, schoolchildren touring the ship and having ship specific art and interpretive projects, local non profits meeting, (we were in a coalition of 30 local community-orientated groups). Dancers, clowns, actors, musicians rehearsing, knitters knitting, poets reciting, welders welding, cameras clicking, wood chips and plaster in unlikely places. The images here are just a sampling of what happened to be recorded and was at hand.

1992 Establishing ARTSHIP Foundation.

The Artship initiative started as an outcome of the Windows Project.

1991 - 2004. The Windows Project. Since its inception in 1991, The Windows Project has showcased over 5,000 artists in vacant storefronts on Broadway and in Jack London Square in downtown Oakland. “Filling the windows with art proved to be a hit not only among passers-by, but also for the owners of the commercial spaces, who found it much easier to rent their vacant stores once their windows were filled with art displays.” (Oakland Tribune article, March 2, 1997 by Jolene Thym). In addition to revitalizing downtown Oakland and helping artists exhibit their work, the Windows Project addresses “audiences who wouldn’t usually set foot in some haughty gallery.” (Oakland Tribune, 10/14/93). Slobodan Dan Paich initiated and orchestrated the Windows Project in close collaboration with Augusto Ferriols. Signature Cultural Venue: Through the success of the Windows Project as a grass roots effort with the coordination of S. D. Paich, the artists, the business and community leaders were gathered and met in a series of public meetings. The meetings took place at the Waterfront Plaza Hotel, in Oakland’s Jack London Square, which has for a year and a half donated meeting spaces. Furthermore, the Windows Project success naturally reinforced the emergence of Jack London Square as a potential waterfront cultural district. The community meetings identified the need for a signature venue, at the municipal scale capable of being a symbol for as diverse a community as possible. After lots of discussions the idea of a decommissioned ship was adopted and the future cultural facility was named ARTSHIP and the Artship Foundation began to form its founding board. The historic Grove Street Pier at the square, now demolished, was to be its home.

Developing Cultural Facility. Parallel to running vigorous cultural programs, the newly formed ARTSHIP Foundation began to look for a ship in the U.S. Reserve Fleet and in government catalogs of retired ships. Through this process the founders learned that the California Maritime Academy training ship “Golden Bear” was slated for decommissioning. After seeing it, the ARTSHIP Foundation Board of Directors unanimously voted to pursue the vessel. Built by the U.S. government in 1939, using some of the finest art deco elements available, the ship was sent into service as a passenger-cargo ship, and was licensed to Delta Lines for coffee trade between New Orleans, Argentina and Brazil. The U.S. Navy commissioned the ship to serve as a troop carrier and combat vessel during World War II. In 1970 the vessel became the California Maritime Academy training ship serving until 1995. To acquire the ship for Oakland the ARTSHIP Board of Directors was told that it needed an “Act of Congress.” Without fully knowing what they were up against, the Board accepted the challenge. S. D. Paich worked on this critical component of the project with then U.S. Representative Ron Dellums’s staff Teresa Saragosa almost daily from 1993 to 1998, when President Clinton finally signed legislation authorizing the transfer of the ship to the ARTSHIP Foundation

Urban revitalization model. -- creating a destination. The generative nature of Artship Initiative began to show through its development of international partnerships, leading to cultural tourism. This interest was anchored in Artship’s highly developed and diverse grass roots programming and participation. The programs on the ship and in the community were becoming a recognizable nexus for developing a signature venue, a dynamic capable of becoming a destination and an epicenter of Oakland specific urban revitalization

Economic development model. Jobs training for the maritime and culinary industries

“CRISIS OF PERSEVERANCE” as articulated by Slobodan Dan Paich and Artship initiative members was a response to a local need addressing a contemporary problem, particularly among youth of having no role models or witnessing a success through perseverance. Artist of all types are the embodiment of achievable mastery and tangible experience of completion. Hence the name “Artship,” an exciting, ever changing campus surrounding a hardcore job training programs.

Initially Artship planned and crafted two programs and was on the brink of bringing in $1.5 million support from the US Department of Commerce for maritime and culinary industry job training. The Sailor's Union of the Pacific indorsed the project. Maritime curriculum was created by one of the founding members of the Artship and Captain Ray Addicott who had been chairman for seven years. The program was implemented in the San Diego School District while waiting for Oakland to adopt it. Concurrently curriculum for the culinary jobs training was created by Paul Carrara, renowned local chef and restaurateur. The Artship Board was in open discussions with the Laney College culinary school toward possible partnership.

The possibility lost. The pressures of real estate development and the neo-suburban models of gated communities left no room for the Artship initiative's deeply urban and people/community centered approach. The clear cutting mentality - versus ecological approach, or deregulated crops - versus fair trade, are the similar dynamics to Oakland’s waterfront development. The City of Oakland sued and evicted Artship on January 1st 2004. Its agency the Port of Oakland strong-armed ARTSHIP Foundation to renounce its title to the ship and sold it for scrap.