CCLaP

Greetings, if this is your first time to the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography; my name is Jason Pettus, CCLaP's Executive Director, and I welcome you. I thought I would take a moment, for all of you who are new, to explain exactly what the center is all about, and what exactly we do. This information is also laid out all pretty-like in a PDF brochure, for those who would prefer reading it that way; simply right-click on this link and choose "Save Link As..." to your hard drive.

CCLaP's mission is to connect underground artists of outstanding quality with the audience eagerly seeking these artists; we do this by maintaining a uniquely personal relationship not only with our artists but with our audience as well. It's to both groups that we seek advice, project ideas, tips on who to feature, even hosts of our live events, workshops and clubs. And instead of maintaining separate membership and artist-development programs, CCLaP combines the two into one, bringing both artists and patrons together in not only a professional but social way.

CCLaP's specific list of products and services can be broken down into the dozens, but roughly fall under one of the following groups:

Live events: Those we usually charge an admission fee for, unless otherwise noted. Includes the weekly CCLaP Slam; monthly CCLaP Showcases; monthly CCLaP Sessions; as well as special events. All events, unless otherwise noted, are $3 for the general public, free for both Members and Fellows.

Creative work: A growing collection of artistic work on display, made by both Members and Fellows of CCLaP, as well as fans and audience members. This collection will also be turned into merchandise, starting later this year, that will be sold online and in general gift stores in the Chicago area; it is the main way our for-profit center plans on paying our bills.

Community events: Those that are usually free to the general public, unless otherwise noted, most also organized and run by our Members and Fellows. Includes workshops on both artistic and business issues; a series of discussion and hobbyist clubs; an entire series of intelligent family events; as well as our special "CCLaP After Dark" series, specifically for those over the age of 21.

CCLaP Online: Special online features we offer only at our website. Includes a regularly-updated podcast; an ever-growing collection of frequently asked questions; a collection of over 30 RSS feeds; as well as a special section called the Sandbox, where artistic work is released under a special Creative Commons license, for other artists around the world to use legally in "mash-ups." This section will also eventually include the "Cafe Network," a new social network CCLaP will sponsor, linking visual artists with the cafes and other retail spaces in Chicago that feature artists, as well as the audience looking for both these artists and venues. It will also eventually include a wiki, maintained by our Members and Fellows, entitled "The CCLaP Guide to Being a Self-Sustaining Artist."

Publications: Starting early in 2007, there will also be a publications section to the CCLaP website, where you will not only be able to download the latest eBooks for free, but also directly order and pay for our latest paper books, to be FedExed or mailed straight to your home. (CCLaP is currently seeking a publications intern for the 2007 winter semester; to get an early jump, contact us now.)

Regular events start in September 2006; CCLaP is currently hosting a series of special one-time events throughout the summer. To learn more about any of these products or services, please click on their category in the sidebar menu.

Hopefully soon, CCLaP will be bringing you a regularly updated podcast, sometimes consisting of audio and sometimes video as well, giving you little five-minute reports from various artistic events the staff is attending this summer. Before we can do that, though, we have a crucial piece of tech that we need to buy -- the Sony Minidisc MZ-RH1, that is, a portable digital recorder for under $400, that churns out professional-quality audio. This line of recorders is quickly becoming a popular choice among serious podcasters; CCLaP will be taking the time to invest in such equipment as well.

The way we're raising the money for this recorder is through our membership program; to add $50 yourself to our $400 goal, simply click here to apply. Just as soon as that sweet little MZ-RH1 is sitting in our hands, the CCLaP Podcast will begin.

Well, so in a day of bad news and entreaties for help, here's at least one good piece of news I can share: that the CCLaP podcast finally has a start date! It's this coming Tuesday, in fact, September 5th; or for you Americans, the day after Labor Day.

For those who don't know, our podcast is not going to have a standard format so much, but rather be like a little network; a combination of field reports from interesting artistic events, recordings of our own live events, interviews with touring artists, studio-produced "shows" and the like. Our first episode on Tuesday, for example, will be of one of these studio-produced shows; it'll be a weekly "talk show" done from the apartment of our director of live events, Nikki Patin. Each week we'll be inviting three or four interesting people to come hang out and drink over at Nikki's place (yeah, just like Digg); we'll then have a half-hour roundtable discussion about various issues in the news that week, and then broadcast the results here every Tuesday.

And speaking of which, have you ever wanted to do a weekly show on the arts yourself? Now would be a good time to let us know, before our schedule fills up! We're up for just about anything arts-related you want to suggest; studio shows, ones done in the field, by yourself or with friends. Just let us know.

Anyway, hope that all of you will end up enjoying our upcoming podcast, and become regular listeners. And don't forget, we also have an RSS feed just for the podcast too, for all of you who would like to fire up your iTunes and other podcast software in advance. Onwards and upwards, my fellow lovers of the arts!