It's KPFA's sixtieth birthday in April. I went out on the street this last week and painted a small canvas of the headquarters appropriately located at 1929 Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Berkeley. (Martin was born in 1929 and this first listener supported station in the world was founded by pacifists.)
I will be donating 50% of the sale price of this painting as well as 10% of all sales for the next three Last Sundays to KPFA. My next three Last Sunday exhibitions are March 29, April 26 and May 31. Also, I will donate 10% of sales from this website for the next three months.
Please pass by. I will be serving wine, cheese and cappuccinos, showing new work and I'm sure we will share some lively conversation.
Like most institutions these days, KPFA is having financial difficulties though they do not appear to be anywhere near as grave as those facing mainstream media. As an artist and a progressive I find it impossible to imagine the San Francisco Bay Area without KPFA. Would we have some of the largest political demonstrations in the country without this institution as a cataluyst??
The arts, especially music and literature, would suffer without this eclectic public forum for writers and musicians.
Sculptors, painters, graphic and conceptual artists would find their silent studios bereft without the disquisitions on science by Dr Michio Kaku, the exposition of the Middle Eastern conflict by our generation's most dedicated and eloquent journalist, Robert Fisk, the smorgasbord of literary luminaries like Isabel Allende, and Alice Walker who appear on Cover to Cover... well, I could go on and on. Those of you who listen to KPFA are already aware of these riches.
Those of you who aren't familiar with KPFA should tune your radio dial in Northern California to 94.1 FM or listen online at KPFA.org. What you hear will amuse, shock, irritate and enlighten you as no other radio station can, because this is the voice of our community by turns brilliant, informative and just plain crazy.
When the history of our time is written, KPFA and the national network Pacifica, will emerge as one of the most important forces of this period. With public radio and television severely compromised by corporate underwriters, KPFA , and the Pacifica network which it spawned, are a principal independent source of news and culture - an essential nerve center for activism and the arts.