Venice Arts, founded in the early 90s, is one of the most important organizations in fostering young talent in California. With eight full-time staff and around 10 part-time employees, it serves to ignite, expand, and transform the lives of LA’s low-income youth through photography and film. Speaking to Executive Director Lynn Warshafsky, she elaborates on the origin story surrounding this most highly renowned initiative. 

“Soon after the civil unrest in Los Angeles, and after one of what were to be many cuts to arts education in Los Angeles’ public schools, a group of Venice residents—artists, businesspeople, and other community members—came together to determine how to link Venice’s then large community of emerging and established artists with the significant number of kids living in poverty,” Lynn explains. “Our dream? A vibrant, neighborhood arts center opens to the whole community, but with a core commitment to nurturing creativity and possibility in the lives of low-income young people. So, in 1993, Venice Arts was born.

“With an all-volunteer crew of photographers who understood the power of visual storytelling and self-representation—especially for kids marginalized because of their economic class, race, or immigration status—our first workshop, Venice Through Our Eyes, was conceived. It taught 10 kids how to use their camera to explore, describe, and share their world, and launched our pioneering work in what is now called participatory or participant-produced media, which is still a strong component of our programs today. It has evolved to include filmmaking, animation, and sequential arts, as well as creative career and college development services.”

Venice Arts offers a highly respected and extensive program and, in many cases, life altering for the students. “We use education and use our participatory storytelling practices to amplify the voices of underrepresented communities around the world. Our core programs, all of which are free to low-income families, include:

·      Media Arts Education & Mentoring which is designed to develop the next generation of Los Angeles’ storytellers and visual media artists.

·      Beginning workshops to Advanced Studies’ programs offering college-level classes, our standards-aligned curriculum and teaches photography, filmmaking, animation, and sequential arts to young people ages 10-18.

Venice Arts ensures that there are no more than 12 participants per class and has an artist to youth ratio of 1: 3 with their programs focusing on fostering creativity, arts knowledge and skills, and visual, digital, and media literacy.

There are other programs such as Creative Pathways, set up to support teenagers’ aspirations and offers access to life-altering opportunities. There are Education and Mentoring programs in which students talk to professionals in all avenues of the arts as well as gaining practical knowledge of the business side of the entertainment industry. There is also the College Pathways program for teens enrolled in Venice Arts, many of whom are the first in their families to attend college. These are just a few of the programs Venice Arts offers. For more information their website is: http://www.venicearts.org.

Venice Arts has evolved over its thirty years of existence. Lynn says, “Venice was a very different community [back then] than it is currently. Venice Arts harnessed the energy of its large population of artists, both emerging and renowned to develop and grow its programs for young people living in poverty, attending failing schools, and contending with community violence. Today, we call ourselves a “Los Angeles serving, Venice-based organization” as we work with young people from throughout LA County. Approximately 48% of participants live in neighborhoods with high pockets of poverty in Venice, Mar Vista, and West Los Angeles, over 30% live in mid-City, Inglewood, and South LA, and the balance live throughout the LA region, including traveling from as far as the Antelope Valley, Norwalk, and Monterey Park to participate in our programs—a testament to their uniqueness in Los Angeles.”

Appreciative of the financial assistance the HFPA has provided, Lynn explains how funds are distributed. “Because of HFPA’s support, Venice Arts was able to fully sustain our high-caliber, college-level Advanced Studies Film programs for talented, low-income teens. The program supports young filmmakers to develop their creative, conceptual, and technical knowledge and skills through the creation of original works of art. They also develop at least proficient levels of mastery with professional equipment and software, and graduate with a portfolio representing their work, which serves both the college and career pathways.”

Venice Arts is also instrumental in following through and providing mentorship to students who have completed their programs. “We not only welcome young people to continue to be involved in its programs after they graduate high-school, we also support them with other learning opportunities: our aforementioned, paid pre-internship and pre-apprenticeship education and training programs, which include creative career mentoring; paid creative sector internships; film festival submission opportunities; and more.”

Without question, it’s impressive what Venice Arts has achieved. “Venice Arts is one of the County’s—and the nation’s—pre-eminent media arts organizations, respected for our high caliber, project-based and experiential educational programs in filmmaking, photography, animation, and sequential arts. Among many awards, we were named one of the top 50 creative youth development organizations in the country. Since our inception, we have built our organization through an equity lens, teaching commonly marginalized young people to develop and uplift their own stories and those of their communities.”

Lynn continues. “Year-after-year data show positive outcomes for young people in our programs, and data from a longitudinal study show extraordinary impacts. Some highlights: 100% of respondents 21+ attended college; 85% had graduated (77% with a BA and 8% with a Ph.D. or advanced degree). This compares to research that found 71% of those with a similar demographic profile attended college and only 27% earned a B.A. One hundred percent of respondents 21 years or older and living with a single parent while at Venice Arts, graduated from college. By comparison, data show that college completion rates are less than 15% from children of single-parent families, overall.”

The statistics speaks for itself. “83% of college grads planned to attend graduate school, with 100% planning to attend within 4 years of receiving their B.A. By comparison, data found that only 39% of those with a B.A. enrolled in grad school within four years 97% of respondents had graduated from, were in, or anticipated attending college; 42% of those graduating from 4-year colleges had an arts degree; 38% had interned or worked in creative sector jobs; of the 56% of working respondents, 50% were on a career pathway.”