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The shock troops of gentrification

My friend Ian used to say that “Punk kids are the shock troops of gentrification” meaning that these were people who were less afraid to go into a neighborhood and begin it’s transitioning into a different neighborhood. This could be viewed as good or bad depending on where you are in that chain of cultural demographic shifting. I think for the most part though – he’s right. The “Punk” scene is often made up of the disenfranchised – be it gay, mixed raced, artists, punks, grifters, and cheapskates or a little bit of all of that.

Do you remember when Dupont circle was a great place to go? I do and I miss that. these days it seems to be crappy shopping from emerging mainstream international brands and the flavor that “The Circle” used to have is pretty much gone.

In the paper recently there have been articles about artists leaving New York – not for Brooklyn but for Cleveland. I’m hearing more and more about cities courting the creative class and Cleveland has been hit really hard – artists want space and Cleveland is ripe with cheap spaces and low prices due to it’s economy. A few months ago when I was speaking to Patti Smith, she mentioned that for an art scene to be really successful, a city needs people up and down the economic food chain to develop into a fully realized community that can support the arts. The jury is out on Cleveland and I wish everyone there the best of luck, because they will need for more than that. They will need infrastructure, jobs to come back to Cleveland – we all need jobs to come back to Cleveland because if they do – that means jobs will be coming back everywhere.

I was speaking to the Artist Austin Thomas (who runs that great space in Bushwick, Pocket Utopia) the other day and we were talking about how I was inspired by Jerry Saltz (she had a great story as well – but that’s her story) – and I know that a few eyebrows will go up when I say that I was inspired by Jerry, however you get inspired where and when you do and in my case it was at Art Basel Miami Beach. Saltz had a brief presentation about money leaving the market – so what are we doing now?

He laid it out in a way that made a ton of sense in a way that was the direct opposite of everyone else. Bottom line was this – we are artists, we make art. What are we going to do stop? That’s almost laughable. If your Going to Cleveland, Oil City Pennsylvania, Plattsburg or Paduchah, I wish you the best. I think we all do.

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