{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/vd6nz82d1h/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Sandy Bleifer, 4/19/23"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["Sandy Bleifer is an artist and activist who headed a committee to preserve the Venice \"walk streets\"."]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["Name of interviewee, date; The Venice Heritage Museum Oral Histories Project; Venice Heritage Museum, Los Angeles, CA."]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © 2024 Venice Heritage Museum"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["MP4"]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["OH_014"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Beach"]}},{"label":{"en":["Access Ss"]},"value":{"en":["access_public"]}}],"summary":{"en":["Sandy Bleifer is an artist and activist who headed a committee to preserve the Venice \"walk streets\"."]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © 2024 Venice Heritage Museum"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/243/188/small/Sandy_Bleifer.mp4_1719245461.jpg?1719245465","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129355/file/243188","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Sandy_Bleifer_short.mp4"]},"duration":761.49333,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/243/188/small/Sandy_Bleifer.mp4_1719245461.jpg?1719245465","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129355/file/243188/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129355/file/243188/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-veniceheritagemuseum.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/243/188/original/Sandy_Bleifer_short.mp4?1719273223","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":761.49333,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129355/file/243188","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129355/file/243188/transcript/68280","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Sandy Bleifer Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129355/file/243188/transcript/68280/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"00:00:08:16 - 00:00:09:12\nSeptember 22nd, 1940.\n\n00:00:09:12 - 00:00:14:13\nMy grandmother lived in Venice,\rand we used to visit her at the beach.\n\n00:00:14:13 - 00:00:17:20\nWe used to go to POP, Pacific Ocean Park.\n\n00:00:20:00 - 00:00:23:01\nGosh, it had to be in the ‘50s,\n\n00:00:25:00 - 00:00:27:17\nlate 40s that we we went there.\n\n00:00:27:17 - 00:00:30:16\nI remember just a lot of sand.\n\n00:00:30:21 - 00:00:34:05\nAnd when we would swim in the ocean\n\n00:00:34:05 - 00:00:37:10\nand come out all dirty,\rit was different than swimming pools.\n\n00:00:38:06 - 00:00:41:06\nI really didn't have a sense of it.\n\n00:00:41:14 - 00:00:44:13\nat that time,\n\n00:00:45:07 - 00:00:47:20\nit wasn't until I had lived,\n\n00:00:47:20 - 00:00:51:12\ngot married and lived in the valley\rand realized that there\n\n00:00:52:03 - 00:00:55:03\nit was not a good environment for,\n\n00:00:55:03 - 00:00:58:03\ncreating an artistic community and,\n\n00:00:58:07 - 00:01:02:02\ngetting, you know,\rthe neighborhood involved in the arts.\n\n00:01:02:06 - 00:01:06:04\nI had always\reyed Venice, during those years,\n\n00:01:06:13 - 00:01:09:10\nas a place that, had the Venice Art walk,\n\n00:01:09:10 - 00:01:14:05\nwhich gave artists\ra lot of public exposure. So,\n\n00:01:15:19 - 00:01:18:19\nI convinced my husband to move there,\n\n00:01:20:13 - 00:01:25:03\nuhh in 94,\rI believe it was. When we moved here,\n\n00:01:25:12 - 00:01:28:12\nI really didn't know anybody except,\n\n00:01:29:03 - 00:01:32:04\nthe broker that found us the house and,\n\n00:01:33:12 - 00:01:36:08\nand the people in the next town over\n\n00:01:36:08 - 00:01:39:18\nSanta Monica\rthat I had worked with for years.\n\n00:01:40:02 - 00:01:43:01\nAnd I found, that\n\n00:01:43:01 - 00:01:46:01\nthe artist community had a,\n\n00:01:47:07 - 00:01:50:07\nsort of an overarching connection.\n\n00:01:50:19 - 00:01:52:08\nthe Venice art walk.\n\n00:01:52:08 - 00:01:55:22\nThey had the Venice Art crawl,\rwhich started, about\n\n00:01:56:23 - 00:01:59:23\nten years ago, I think.\n\n00:02:00:03 - 00:02:03:03\nAnd so there was a network of artists\rthat,\n\n00:02:04:09 - 00:02:07:09\ndoesn't exist anywhere else.\n\n00:02:07:10 - 00:02:11:08\nAnd of course, seeing Venice\rthrough the eyes of Jane Jacobs\n\n00:02:11:20 - 00:02:15:15\nand her perception from living in\n\n00:02:16:20 - 00:02:19:20\nsuch a neighborhood in lower Manhattan,\n\n00:02:20:04 - 00:02:23:19\nwhere shopkeepers had apartments up above\n\n00:02:23:19 - 00:02:28:09\nand even the bigger brownstone\rbuildings had restaurants and,\n\n00:02:29:08 - 00:02:32:08\nlittle shops within walking distance.\n\n00:02:32:08 - 00:02:35:08\nWalkability was a big thing.\n\n00:02:38:15 - 00:02:40:10\nand that was not very well\n\n00:02:40:10 - 00:02:43:10\nappreciated in those early days.\n\n00:02:44:07 - 00:02:46:13\nAnd that's, that's kind of\n\n00:02:46:13 - 00:02:50:15\nwhat creates the community,\rbecause when you walk places,\n\n00:02:50:23 - 00:02:54:18\nyou tend to patronize them\ron a regular basis.\n\n00:02:54:19 - 00:02:58:13\nI mean, you don't walk\ras far afield as you drive.\n\n00:02:59:08 - 00:03:02:22\nSo you it creates neighborhoods naturally.\n\n00:03:03:08 - 00:03:05:18\nUsed to go down to Harry's Market here.\n\n00:03:05:18 - 00:03:07:13\nNow that's closed.\n\n00:03:07:13 - 00:03:10:13\nBut, there are a lot of local places.\n\n00:03:11:05 - 00:03:15:13\nFig Tree Cafe was is very walkable for me.\n\n00:03:15:22 - 00:03:21:07\nVenice had,\rkind of a profound influence on on my art.\n\n00:03:21:07 - 00:03:23:10\nI didn't know,\n\n00:03:23:10 - 00:03:26:08\nhow it,\n\n00:03:26:08 - 00:03:29:08\nit would affect me moving here, but,\n\n00:03:30:12 - 00:03:32:14\nI was, as I say,\n\n00:03:32:14 - 00:03:37:00\nI started it at the workshop\rin Santa Monica doing\n\n00:03:37:00 - 00:03:42:05\nsilkscreen printing,\rand I did landscape, and I did the ocean,\n\n00:03:43:14 - 00:03:47:18\ncoming down Ocean Park Avenue.\n\n00:03:48:01 - 00:03:52:13\nThere is a strip of ocean\rand beach that and sky like,\n\n00:03:53:13 - 00:03:56:12\nlike three ribbons\rright between the buildings.\n\n00:03:56:16 - 00:04:01:02\nAnd I would see that\revery time I would come down for 50 years.\n\n00:04:01:14 - 00:04:06:20\nAnd that became a constant theme\rthroughout my work.\n\n00:04:06:20 - 00:04:11:17\nEven now, it's the view\rI see from my roof deck, but even more so.\n\n00:04:12:09 - 00:04:13:22\nI noticed all the graffiti.\n\n00:04:13:22 - 00:04:16:22\nWe didn't have the graffiti\rthat in the valley\n\n00:04:17:01 - 00:04:20:12\nthat we had here,\respecially around Abbot Kinney.\n\n00:04:20:12 - 00:04:22:06\nThere was a lot of graffiti.\n\n00:04:22:06 - 00:04:25:08\nSo I photographed the graffiti\n\n00:04:25:08 - 00:04:28:21\nand I was doing paper walls.\n\n00:04:28:21 - 00:04:30:21\nIn other words,\n\n00:04:30:21 - 00:04:33:04\ndoing these collages that look like peeled\n\n00:04:33:04 - 00:04:36:18\npaint and, and old stucco and bricks\n\n00:04:37:17 - 00:04:42:00\ndid handmade paper\rand, and collage papers.\n\n00:04:42:10 - 00:04:46:12\nAnd so I started doing graffiti\ron my walls.\n\n00:04:46:12 - 00:04:50:15\nSo, I have, let's see, maybe over 50\n\n00:04:51:10 - 00:04:55:22\nwalls pieces that I did\rwhen I first moved to Venice\n\n00:04:55:22 - 00:05:00:01\nthat were influenced by the graffiti\rin the neighborhood.\n\n00:05:00:15 - 00:05:02:05\nAnd one series,\n\n00:05:03:21 - 00:05:05:10\nI invited a graffti,\n\n00:05:05:10 - 00:05:08:10\ngraffiti artist into the studio,\n\n00:05:08:22 - 00:05:13:22\nand, I would make the wall\rand then let him graffiti it.\n\n00:05:14:11 - 00:05:17:21\nThen I would white it out\rlike the city does.\n\n00:05:18:10 - 00:05:21:10\nThen he would come back\rand graffiti it again.\n\n00:05:21:18 - 00:05:25:04\nAnd so I have this whole series\rthat's a collaboration\n\n00:05:25:20 - 00:05:28:08\nbetween my making the walls\n\n00:05:28:08 - 00:05:33:15\nand trying to paint out his graffiti\rand and his graffiti on it.\n\n00:05:33:15 - 00:05:38:00\nSo that was one very specific example.\n\n00:05:39:04 - 00:05:42:04\nMy main motivation for coming to\n\n00:05:42:20 - 00:05:44:22\nVenice was to be a participant\n\n00:05:44:22 - 00:05:48:12\nin the art walk,\rand anybody that was working in Santa\n\n00:05:48:12 - 00:05:52:07\nMonica was geographically undesirable\rfor the circuit.\n\n00:05:53:05 - 00:05:56:04\nAnd then Art walked as Sheila\rGoldberg ran it .\n\n00:05:56:04 - 00:05:59:12\nwas really supportive.\n\n00:05:59:12 - 00:06:02:12\nIt was the big boost\rfor all the artists for the year.\n\n00:06:02:12 - 00:06:06:12\nIt got people to see their work and sales\rand so forth.\n\n00:06:06:18 - 00:06:08:13\nSo I really wanted to be part of that.\n\n00:06:08:13 - 00:06:11:17\nAnd then one of my artist neighbors,\n\n00:06:11:17 - 00:06:15:03\nJean Edelestein,\rwho has subsequently passed away,\n\n00:06:16:08 - 00:06:17:14\nintroduced me to a\n\n00:06:17:14 - 00:06:21:12\ngroup that was forming\rthat became the Venice Art block.\n\n00:06:21:14 - 00:06:28:00\nAnd this was the group\rthat, of about 50 artists who, had studios\n\n00:06:28:00 - 00:06:33:23\nbetween the Venice Skill Center\rand Hampton and Vernon and Sunset.\n\n00:06:33:23 - 00:06:37:02\nThat one block, much of it\rowned by the same\n\n00:06:37:02 - 00:06:40:03\ntwo landlords, were artists,\n\n00:06:40:22 - 00:06:43:22\nindividual artist studios.\n\n00:06:44:00 - 00:06:48:14\none artist, Pamela Weir-Quiton, woodworker,\n\n00:06:48:14 - 00:06:52:13\nhad been there 45 years,\rand some of the others as long and\n\n00:06:53:13 - 00:06:55:09\nceramics studios and everything.\n\n00:06:55:09 - 00:06:58:09\nSo we organized to do our own art block\n\n00:06:58:16 - 00:07:01:09\nwhen the Venice Family Clinic\n\n00:07:01:09 - 00:07:05:19\ncut back on their studio\rvisits, to the artists\n\n00:07:06:05 - 00:07:09:04\nand we created our own art walk,\n\n00:07:09:04 - 00:07:14:05\nand that gave me, a sense of the community\rthat I had been,\n\n00:07:14:13 - 00:07:17:13\nyou know, looking for,\n\n00:07:17:23 - 00:07:19:04\nfor a long time.\n\n00:07:19:04 - 00:07:24:07\nOne of the things I noticed about Venice,\rand it's been consistent throughout,\n\n00:07:26:02 - 00:07:28:08\nis a very mixed\n\n00:07:28:08 - 00:07:31:08\nneighborhood. Where we lived in Encino.\n\n00:07:32:16 - 00:07:35:07\nOther people who lived around us\n\n00:07:35:07 - 00:07:38:11\nlived in the houses\rthat were similar in price\n\n00:07:39:12 - 00:07:45:04\nand design, and they were of our same\rsocioeconomic group.\n\n00:07:45:04 - 00:07:48:22\nBut in Venice,\rbecause of the way it developed.\n\n00:07:48:22 - 00:07:53:17\nAnd then it started out, you know,\rit was never like a planned community.\n\n00:07:54:04 - 00:07:57:15\nIt kind of grew from the early days\rof Abbot\n\n00:07:57:15 - 00:08:00:15\nKinney's vision\rand then different waves of,\n\n00:08:01:19 - 00:08:04:19\npeople came in\rand it was grungy for a while.\n\n00:08:04:19 - 00:08:07:19\nSo bits and pieces of Venice’s  history,\n\n00:08:09:19 - 00:08:12:19\nare all around us, you know,\n\n00:08:13:05 - 00:08:16:05\nit's not like it was ever master planned.\n\n00:08:16:08 - 00:08:20:11\nAnd because the prices\n\n00:08:20:11 - 00:08:23:11\nthat reflect the condition and age and\n\n00:08:24:00 - 00:08:27:11\nnature of the house\ris different for each property,\n\n00:08:27:19 - 00:08:30:19\nyou have a mixture of people\rwho can afford to live there.\n\n00:08:30:19 - 00:08:32:17\nSo I live on a street\n\n00:08:33:20 - 00:08:36:20\nthat has single family homes.\n\n00:08:36:21 - 00:08:40:12\nSome of them are newer, like mine, newish,\n\n00:08:41:03 - 00:08:46:06\nand there is apartment buildings\rand there's older houses\n\n00:08:46:17 - 00:08:49:11\nand that get replaced one\n\n00:08:49:11 - 00:08:52:08\none at a time as time goes on.\n\n00:08:52:08 - 00:08:54:07\nBut you have a diversity of people.\n\n00:08:54:07 - 00:08:58:03\nYou have diversity of age,\rethnic diversity.\n\n00:09:00:23 - 00:09:03:16\nsocioeconomic diversity.\n\n00:09:03:16 - 00:09:04:21\nAnd I really like that.\n\n00:09:04:21 - 00:09:06:21\nA lot of people\rlike to move in a neighborhood\n\n00:09:06:21 - 00:09:09:00\nwhere everybody's like them.\n\n00:09:09:00 - 00:09:12:02\nBut I happen\rto like living in a neighborhood where,\n\n00:09:14:04 - 00:09:17:04\nthere are all kinds of people that,\n\n00:09:18:05 - 00:09:23:02\nyou can, you know, it\rbroadens the way you see the world.\n\n00:09:23:02 - 00:09:25:01\nIt broadens your experience.\n\n00:09:25:01 - 00:09:28:05\nThere are features of Venice\rthat were built in,\n\n00:09:29:02 - 00:09:33:02\nprobably inadvertently,\rby Abbot Kinney, who designed, designed it\n\n00:09:33:02 - 00:09:36:02\nsort of like Disneyland and,\n\n00:09:37:10 - 00:09:39:21\nit was designed to be,\n\n00:09:39:21 - 00:09:42:20\ninteractive\rbetween the public and the private space\n\n00:09:43:05 - 00:09:48:12\nand to offer as much as it offered\ramenities to the public\n\n00:09:48:12 - 00:09:52:16\ncoming down by the streetcar\ror coming on holiday from the  East Coast\n\n00:09:53:01 - 00:09:58:08\nor from LA to get,\ryou know, get to the beach environment.\n\n00:10:00:11 - 00:10:02:01\nthere were many things in the\n\n00:10:02:01 - 00:10:05:06\ndesign of Venice that made it extremely,\n\n00:10:08:11 - 00:10:10:01\nextremely rich,\n\n00:10:10:01 - 00:10:12:17\nresidential experience for the neighbors,\n\n00:10:12:17 - 00:10:15:17\nthe canals,\n\n00:10:15:22 - 00:10:18:00\nthe shops,\n\n00:10:18:00 - 00:10:20:17\nthe little shops within the neighborhood's\n\n00:10:20:17 - 00:10:23:17\nwalkability. So,\n\n00:10:24:20 - 00:10:28:00\nthat became, that became a model\n\n00:10:28:13 - 00:10:31:18\nfor a lot of, new development,\n\n00:10:33:02 - 00:10:36:14\nturning away\rfrom the convenience of freeways.\n\n00:10:36:14 - 00:10:38:04\nAnd I,\n\n00:10:38:04 - 00:10:41:04\nI did a mural in Encino,\n\n00:10:41:05 - 00:10:44:06\non the freeway, experience\rMy Can of Cardines\n\n00:10:44:15 - 00:10:47:17\nbecause the the reality of life in Encino\rwas that you\n\n00:10:47:17 - 00:10:52:02\nIf you ever wanted to go anywhere,\rlike, would go down to the theater\n\n00:10:52:02 - 00:10:57:01\nor the museums or good restaurants,\rwe'd have to get on that darn freeway.\n\n00:10:57:13 - 00:11:00:01\nAnd that's not enjoying your neighborhood.\n\n00:11:00:01 - 00:11:02:14\nThat's escaping your neighborhood.\n\n00:11:02:14 - 00:11:06:11\nSo that that particular book by Jane\rJacobs\n\n00:11:06:22 - 00:11:12:09\nreally tuned my perspective on urban development. And,\n\n00:11:13:19 - 00:11:17:05\nit enabled us to, save our walk streets.\n\n00:11:18:15 - 00:11:20:10\nI organized the neighbors.\n\n00:11:20:10 - 00:11:24:16\nI got on my bike and knocked on doors\rand got the neighbors\n\n00:11:24:16 - 00:11:27:16\nto sign a petition to,\n\n00:11:27:18 - 00:11:31:10\nallow us to keep our fences\rso that we had the privacy\n\n00:11:31:10 - 00:11:35:05\nwe needed to exist in a very public,\rdomain.\n\n00:11:36:18 - 00:11:43:12\nAnd, you know, so we\rwe can all enjoy that now.\n\n00:11:43:12 - 00:11:46:16\nAnd, it wasn't destroyed by some,\n\n00:11:47:17 - 00:11:51:02\nyou know, fire department, desire for,\n\n00:11:51:04 - 00:11:54:13\nyou know, like, they're the only ones\rthat need to use those streets.\n\n00:11:54:17 - 00:11:57:22\nWhat we need in our neighborhoods\rand in our city is,\n\n00:12:00:02 - 00:12:03:02\na sense that we're all part of the fabric,\n\n00:12:03:02 - 00:12:06:14\nthat there's not us where we live\ras a stronghold\n\n00:12:06:14 - 00:12:09:21\nagainst incursions\rby people that are not like us.\n\n00:12:10:14 - 00:12:12:09\nAnd I think the more you can,\n\n00:12:18:05 - 00:12:21:08\nhave a sense of community that includes\n\n00:12:22:18 - 00:12:25:11\npeople of all socioeconomic\n\n00:12:25:11 - 00:12:28:11\nand racial and ethnic and age\n\n00:12:28:11 - 00:12:32:21\ngroups, the better it is for everybody.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129355/file/243188#t=0.0,761.49333"}]}]}]}