From Commodity to Community: Rethinking Water Use with Jimmy Ramirez

In this episode of *Art Heals All Wounds*, I sit down with Jimmy Ramirez, an artist and high school teacher from Oakley, California. We talk about Jimmy’s film Above Ground, which delves into the ways that streams and creeks in Oakland have been ‘entombed’ in culverts in Oakland, California. We also discuss re-imagining our relationship to water.

**Key Topics Discussed:**

1. **Discovery of Hidden Waterways**:

   - My personal experience.

 2. **Jimmy's Film "Above Ground"**: The film explores how Oakland has buried many of its natural waterways under concrete, a practice known as "entombing." This impacts local ecosystems previously supporting species like salmon and trout.

 3. **Personal Connection to Peralta Creek**:

   - Jimmy discusses his family's history with Peralta Creek in Fruitvale, Oakland, emphasizing how urban development has drastically altered the waterway.

 4. **Impact of Water Management Practices**:

   - Water management practices designed to prevent flooding have dried out natural water bodies despite heavy rainfalls, disrupting ecological balance.

 5. **Historical Decisions and Urban Planning**:

   - The conversation addresses the historical decisions to bury natural waterways and how early urban planning overlooked long-term environmental impacts.

 6. **Environmental and Mental Health Implications**:

   - We discuss the concept of "slow violence" where the lack of natural elements in urban areas contributes to mental health issues and community stress.

 7. **Neighborhood Disparities**:

   - Disparities between wealthier neighborhoods with more greenery and lower-income areas in Oakland are highlighted, showing the uneven distribution of environmental resources.

 8. **Community Initiatives and Successes**:

   - Some residents have successfully removed culverts to restore natural water flow, though legal ambiguities persist.

 9. **Government and Political Dynamics**:

   - Oakland officials have shown interest in Jimmy’s film to raise awareness about these environmental issues, and the conversation touches on the politicized nature of water management in California.

 10. **Reimagining Water Use**:

    - Jimmy advocates for a collectivist approach to water systems, inspired by indigenous wisdom, contrasting America's individualistic mindset.

 11. **Challenges and Resistance**:

    - Addressing restrictive regulations around rainwater collection and gray water reuse, and how contractors are now more conscious about concreting over backyards.

 12. **Future Projects and Art's Role**:

    - Jimmy discusses future projects and the significance of art in processing climate grief and inspiring change. He also expresses gratitude for support from the California Arts Council.

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Transcript

Pam Uzzell [00:00:12]:

Do you believe art can change the world? So do I. On this show, we meet artists whose work is doing just that. Welcome to Art Heals All Wounds. I'm your host, Pam Uzzell. 

I went to undergraduate school in Providence, Rhode Island. This was in the mid 80s, and in general, urban areas were not at their best. Downtown Providence was considered sketchy, but it did have some very cool music venues and restaurants. To get to them, you'd have to venture down the hill from campus and cross over into downtown, and I literally mean crossover.

Pam Uzzell [00:01:09]:

The Providence River ran between the hill where campus was and downtown. I'd crossed over the Providence River many times before I even realized it was there. It had been covered in concrete, and when you walked across, you could barely hear the faintest sound of flowing water beneath the traffic noise. When someone told me that there was a river there, I was shocked. I didn't know anything about the history of development in urban spaces, and I thought, well, that's nuts, and that this was just a crazy thing that had only happened in Providence. Today, I'm talking with Jimmy Ramirez, an artist and high school teacher. Jimmy made a film called Above Ground, about the ways that Oakland has used culverts and concrete to cover many of its creeks and streams. In the film, I learned a word for this, entombing, entombing an area's water.

Pam Uzzell [00:02:15]:

Instead of hosting the salmon and trout that used to swim in Oakland's creeks, water flows through culverts from the hills directly into the bay, with no opportunity to create and nourish the ecosystems for plants and animals that once relied on them. 'Above Ground' is, in many ways, an elegy for these lost ecosystems, but also a call for us to reimagine our relationship to water.

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Hi, Jimmy. Thank you so much for being on Art Heals All Wounds. Can you start by telling us who you are and what you do?

Jimmy Ramirez [00:03:14]:

Thank you, Pam. So, so good to meet you. So, so lovely to have the time with you. We are 2 mountain ranges away from one another. I'm out here in Oakley, California. By day, I am a teacher, so I teach US history to juniors in high school and ethnic studies. So engaging our young people in historical truths and then by night, I'm an artist.

Pam Uzzell [00:03:42]:

Wow. I wish I'd had a teacher like you in high school. That's really cool that you do that. And I'm talking to you because of a film that you made called Above Ground. Can you just give a brief description of this film?

Jimmy Ramirez [00:03:58]:

Yeah. Above Ground is a story about how a neighborhood really is reclaiming water in their neighborhood, reclaiming the management of water, facilitating a liberation of water in their neighborhood. My families followed the crop. That's how we arrived to California. We are not first peoples of California, but we are first peoples of, you know, this continent. And my family arrived here through the crop, and my grandmother was really attracted to the water and the delta here, where I currently live and where my family is. And I was in Fruitvale a lot because it just became part of my my practice to visit this creek, that has a very special family history and and to to my family and, began to really just kind of go and lay my sorrows into this creek and observe this creek. And I was just fascinated.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:04:56]:

It was in the middle of the Fruitvale, in this urban dwelling, in the middle of all this concrete, and it just became my place to rehabilitate and come back to myself. And in the midst of all of this, the atmospheric rivers were happening. So California was being saturated with all of this water. And where I am, you know, 2 mountain ranges away from Oakland, our reservoirs filled up, our canals filled up. But this area that you know, this natural creek that I had visited where salmon and fish had swam through it, nothing happened to it. So no water. And so that began a lot of conversations with community members on the history of this creek, what's happening to the water.

Pam Uzzell [00:05:44]:

This is so interesting. So just first of all to clarify to people listening, Fruitvale is an area of Oakland and your film does talk about what's the name Peralta? Is it Peralta Park where this is this creek should be

Jimmy Ramirez [00:05:57]:

Peralta Creek.

Pam Uzzell [00:05:58]:

Yeah. Peralta Creek should be running through this park. I don't know as much about this as you do, but I'm not even going to jump in yet because this is too soon to say this, but I, I find it fascinating considering the last two winters we've had that this creek would not be overflowing considering all the water that has poured down on parts of California, the Bay Area in particular. So what answers did you find out? Why was there no water getting into this creek?

Jimmy Ramirez [00:06:33]:

A lot of our water in California is managed by water districts. So, it's a very scientific surgical process that our water entities and municipalities take on when when trying to manage floods, because floods have the potential to ruin property. And you talked about the 2 winters in the past. California has experienced decades of drought. So, this missing of water and then this past 2, winters of water reemerging. When water hits the top of our, you know, a watershed. Right? When a water hits the top of a mountain, it comes down and it goes not only above ground, right, not only on the surface, but below the surface of the ground. And a lot of what our civic approach to water management is to divert that water, to entomb it, put it into concrete pipes to divert it away from property.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:07:35]:

So this creek that salmon had once swam through no longer is able to do that because of the way we've approached water and flood management.

Pam Uzzell [00:07:47]:

I'm so curious about this. I have learned through experience in my life, but then also seeing your film, quite often, a lot of our streets, maybe even our own homes are built on top of what used to be free flowing creeks. And who decided at what point that this was a good idea that you would put these creeks through culverts and then just pave over them? Do you know the history of that, especially here in Oakland development? That's what you were working on in your film.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:08:21]:

So the the park, like, where the where the creek runs, then the creek that I look at specifically in my film, it runs alongside Peralta Hacienda Historical Park. Mhmm. And Peralta Hacienda Historical Park even has this very interesting history. It was the site of it still has the Adobe footprint of the first colonists and colonizers who arrived to what we call Oakland today. And it became a park after eminent domain, so there was actually an apartment complex on the site. There was this, you know, adobe structure on the site where first peoples, notably, California American Indians, were placed in this forced labor, what some have referred to as a peonage system. So the the layers of history on this land even before the city of Oakland arrived to it is is very interesting. But I can't tell you the full history.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:09:17]:

I don't have a PhD in in city planning, but I do serve on the planning commission in my hometown. And, locally, your planning commissions, your they decide on these. Right? They decide how many native plants go on a site on a construction project. And so just to say that when a city incorporates or becomes a city, there's these different commissions that arise, like a planning commission in Oakland or like the port commission for the port of Oakland. And these entities decide what happens when large scale development projects take place. I think Fruitvale, just to kind of close out this thought, Fruitvale was a very agricultural place. I mean, the colonizers who arrived there, you know, fruit trees, fruit vale. And so we don't see that now.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:10:04]:

Now we see concrete everywhere.

Pam Uzzell [00:10:07]:

Right. And this was a great film to see, particularly in the context of Oakland because all cities have tons of concrete, but many of them also have a lot of green, a lot of trees, a lot of landscaping. And Oakland, I would say, is lacking in that more so than even its neighbor, Berkeley. And it's interesting because in my experience, which I am only gonna give anecdotal experience, but I would imagine that the initial thought was like, well, let's control the water so that it doesn't flood. But maybe that's not true because concrete is actually produces more floods in my just anecdotal experience of watching what happens when too much water comes down. So why were these streams and creeks covered up with the idea that somehow that would be a sustainable way to build a city? And I'm sorry. I'm asking you to.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:11:11]:

No. This is cool. I love it. I love it. It's it's, I love it.

Pam Uzzell [00:11:15]:

It's not really fair because I'm I want you to tell me, like, as if you know the entire thought process process of when Oakland was being developed. But yeah.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:11:25]:

Well, I mean, we did so much research, and we had so many experts on the project and, our characters. So I think what what you're referencing in relation to concrete itself being, contributing to more flooding is concrete is not a permeable surface. So when we have concrete, water has nowhere else to go. So it can't seep through the concrete down into the ground. Right? And I don't think I this is just my guess or gut. I haven't read this in an archive or in any report, but I think the folks who who incorporated Berkeley and Oakland were not really thinking 7 generations forward and thinking, okay. All this concrete we're putting down, where does the water go? I don't think that folks were thinking through that at all. So all that concrete and now you'll see that developers and a lot of folks in who are thinking forward, thinking Right? Because we will experience more drought.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:12:22]:

We will experience more flooding. Flooding is a natural part of the ecological process. It brings good nutrients to the ground like flooding is a part of life. Right? And so now we're seeing rain gardens in Berkeley. Right? That's a pretty avant garde approach to planning. But I don't think anyone I think just to sum it up, I don't think anyone in that initial, let's use all this concrete here. I mean I mean, we weren't even thinking through lead paint that was put on Oakland homes, that now seeps into the soil. And now when floods do come up from the bay, like, all of that, we weren't we weren't thinking.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:12:56]:

Right? The system of of city making and capitalism on the ports there, we're not thinking through what happens when sea level rises and all the lead in the ground is going to come up. Right? The other thing, I think, in the context of Oakland, one of my characters, Rob, who is, you know, in the neighborhood, grew up in the neighborhood, his placenta was buried in the neighborhood. He's just such an energy. He talks about violence in the neighborhood, and that's something that brings him peace is thinking about the water underground. And I think the other context of Fruitvale, you know, I had an opportunity to serve on the board of Peralta Hacienda Historical Park, which is, you know, the where a lot of this footage comes from. And the neighborhood experiences, you know, young people in the neighborhood, gun violence is is very, very, very real. And so, Elizabeth Garcia, who's an who is another character in the film who who wrote on the film, she talks about this concept of slow violence. And, I think thinking about violence as it relates to our landscape is really, the meditation of the project.

Pam Uzzell [00:14:02]:

Yeah. I was going to bring up that line that that line really hit me. I mean, I live, I live in East Oakland as well. I walk my dog all over the place and I actually love my neighborhood, but I often cross over into San Leandro because they have trees. And when you step into this, it's not an urban forest by any stretch, but just mile after mile of tree lined streets. You feel different. I mean, you physically feel different because you're not as hot as you are walking just these bare streets. And when I look at our neighborhood, I feel that absence of things in the natural world that could help take care of us as well, and that change how you feel about your surroundings.

Pam Uzzell [00:14:58]:

And I don't really know. I know that both Berkeley and San Leandro sorta advertised that there was at some point this government grant that gave cities money if they planted trees. And I don't know the history of Oakland well enough to know why they didn't take advantage of that grant, but it is it's an interesting difference between the way the cities look and despite its name, Oakland. You know, most of the neighborhoods down in the flats, which is the, you know, the hills are supposed to be fancier. The flats are lower income. They don't have trees, and I can think of a lot of reasons for that. But what I find interesting is that your character did talk about this idea of slow violence and that you feel differently when you don't look around and see these plants and these trees that are growing there in this space with you. I wanna move on to one more topic, but I wanna say one last thing too is that the last 2 years, what we've experienced with these atmospheric rivers and storms is the failure of the culvert system.

Pam Uzzell [00:16:15]:

So many roads that have culverts going under them have washed away because that system failed. So I do think, again, you were talking about 7 generations. If there was some idea that this would help prevent flooding, it didn't when there was too much water. So I find that fascinating that there's this choice made that didn't prevent flooding anyway.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:16:37]:

I think, right, if you look up FEMA, FEMA has flood maps. So you can see in your neighborhood where, you're susceptible to flooding, and God forbid, like, a a large event happened. Right? So I think it it just from my research and kind of observation, we got to go to, the Berkeley's geography library and look at old maps of Oakland, for this project, for the research. And it just we also got to look at to your point about, shade and cooling zones. We got to see, like, old, like, very, very, old maps that showed what plant coverage looked like before colonization and the amount of trees that were taken out for highways and for roads. Right? Those are no longer with us, and I think there's a there's a sadness to that, to your point about an absence of it. And as it gets hotter, there's, you know, less cooling zones, less zones for us to take refuge. The point on this flooding that takes place in this culverting and, you know, and I've come across this word, this entombing of water.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:17:42]:

Right? Like, we put it in a tomb, and we kinda let it die. When the water doesn't right. We're diverting it away from property. Right. It's intentionally doing that to preserve homes in the hills, right, and homes, property. Right? But the water, it doesn't allow for fish to swim, right, when we put it in a pipe. It doesn't allow for nutrients to go back into the soil. It's, like, run up against a concrete wall, and then all that just goes into a saltwater bay.

Pam Uzzell [00:18:12]:

Right.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:18:13]:

So, yes, I think there's there's a number of failures taking place.

Pam Uzzell [00:18:18]:

One really beautiful section of the film, I was this Rob's neighborhood that several neighbors got together and decided that they would remove the culverts from their property, and so now there is a creek flowing through there. Is that his neighborhood?

Jimmy Ramirez [00:18:33]:

So all, yes, local folk.

Pam Uzzell [00:18:35]:

How do people do that? Is there any sort of repercussions if you decided that you were going to release a creek back across your property?

Jimmy Ramirez [00:18:44]:

It's funny, because the city of Oakland so this film premiered at the San Francisco Urban Film Festival, thanks to Fay Darmawi and Kristal Çelik. And some of the folks from the city of Oakland came up. And, you know, we we premiered it at the Port of San Francisco, which is another governmental entity. And some of the folks in the city of Oakland actually, like, really wanna screen it to their to their colleagues, which I found interesting. I've talked to my students about this, and I've asked them what do they think. Is it legal or not legal? And the moment I say it's government property, they're like, oh, it's totally illegal. So I I don't no comment on, if anyone will get in trouble or not.

Pam Uzzell [00:19:22]:

Right. But I guess the culverts are government property, but the land itself is not. But this is a great segue into another issue that's brought up in your film. This idea of water as a commodity that you have water flowing through your land in a culvert that is not accessible to you, to the plants, to the animals that really could use that water. There's a really amazing artist, Tasha Golden, who says "nothing is as it has to be." So I think when we think about how things have been developed, it's really hard to imagine daylighting this water as the same guy Rob talks about, but I'm going to put you on the spot again. Could we do that without wholesale mass destruction of property? Or is it just kind of like, that would be a limited idea at this point? Or is that the wrong question?

Jimmy Ramirez [00:20:26]:

No, I think it's a beautiful question. I think it's, not what was it? Nothing is as it has to be?

Pam Uzzell [00:20:33]:

Nothing is as it has to be.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:20:35]:

That's beautiful. I am not a California American Indian. Right? This is not my territory. I'm very intentional about that. I was born here. But from leaders in the community whose land this is, right, because so much violence has been done to it over time. There's, from what I've gathered, a reimagining, a redreaming of, like, what this can be. I think I I attended the Sogorea Tei Land Trust, land, shell mounds giving back of sacred sites and was able to hear miss Karina Gould speak, about land being returned.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:21:17]:

And I think there is potential to reimagine, if we listen to the first peoples of this land. Their their ancestors nurtured it. I think if folk do their research on their neighborhood and look to leaders like those who are leading Sogorea Te Land Trust, we could reimagine together. But that that's kind of been my my approach.

Pam Uzzell [00:21:43]:

Yeah. And I can tell you, honestly, sometimes it's hard for me to even wrap my mind around water not being a commodity. Do you know what I mean? It's so ingrained in there's this stuff that comes out of the tap and you have to pay to use it. And to a certain sense, I guess I could support a tax that supported, like water filtration, water distribution, but that you're actually paying another company money to use that water is mind boggling. And then that there could also potentially be water running under your property. That if you wanted to have a beautiful little natural area surrounding a creek that you may not even know that that's accessible to you because so many years ago, it was decided that this entombed, I that word is just I'm gonna think about that all day. But, yeah, that this water would be pushed through this concrete or metallic system straight to the bay and bypassing all the land that is between the hills and the bay. I mean, it's a lot.

Pam Uzzell [00:23:07]:

It's a lot.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:23:09]:

It is. And I think, right, you can't go like, if you say the creek does run under your under your house, you can't do that with just your parcel. Right? It's I think the American imagination is so individual, so binary, so one Right. That I mean, this is gonna require collectivist approach, which I think the the film examines. Like, it was a collective of folks who came together, and I think it's very hard for the American imagination to think beyond the individual.

Pam Uzzell [00:23:40]:

Yeah. It's so true. And I even just imagine, well, what if I wanted to dig up culverts and have a creek on my property? I feel like my neighbors would call the police on me or something because of it's so risky to let nature take its course in a certain way. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Jimmy Ramirez [00:24:01]:

Mhmm. We're scared of nature. I think in, I was in Philadelphia, you know, the site of where the Army Corps Engineers made their base at. The fort name is escaping me, but at this fort, you know, the earliest colonists to this land, you know, folks coming from England to here, thought that wetlands were toxic and pollute and were a threat to them. And now after all that we know that wetlands are precious and they, you know, they sequester carbon from the air and

Pam Uzzell [00:24:36]:

And they help prevent flooding as well.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:24:39]:

Yes. Because of all that vegetation. Yeah. The fear of nature. The fear of yes.

Pam Uzzell [00:24:45]:

It's interesting. This is such a tiny sliver, but one thing that's made me hopeful is that I have heard from a couple of people that they asked contractors to completely concrete over their backyard and the contractor said they wouldn't do it. And I was like, Oh, that's so awesome. They said, Yeah, they said, No, it's going to cause everything to flood. We're not going to do that.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:25:08]:

It just makes everything to your point about cool and hot. It makes everything hot and the water when it rains, it has nowhere to go. Right. And that sun, it just gathers there. So it's.

Pam Uzzell [00:25:20]:

Yeah. I'm asking you to answer these huge questions in this thing mostly because I don't have the answers and you have done much more research than I have. But what about this idea of water as a commodity? And also what was really cool is that you did show these urban planners who are thinking about this in your film, and you said that people from Oakland came to watch your film. So do you have a thought about ways that water and all of these things could are being rethought?

Jimmy Ramirez [00:25:58]:

I think it's important to caveat that a lot of my uncles and even, you know, my father built windmills. So I grew up knowing that, you know, wind can be made into a commodity. So I think that's I mean, it's ingrained in kind of our approach to to the environment and to just like with American society. Water as a commodity, I think that to our earlier parts of the conversation about why did folk culvert this, why did, folk do this, I think the move to commoditize water, really influenced all of that. I think also there's a lot of restrictions in the state of California for even gathering rainwater from on your property. So I think for better or worse. Right? Because there is a you know, if you do if you're not collecting water if you are collecting water in a bin, it could bring mosquitoes and things like it. Right? So, like, there is this everything has a reason behind it, but I don't know if the reasoning, again, like I said, is thought out and from a planning perspective, 7 generations

Pam Uzzell [00:27:03]:

out. Right. And even reusing gray water, you know, the permitting process is so steep and in some places impossible. But I just feel like surely at this point, we would have figured out a way to have people store rainwater without allowing mosquitoes to lay eggs in it. I mean, doesn't it just seem like put a lid on it, like something, you know, just like

Jimmy Ramirez [00:27:31]:

You'd think.

Pam Uzzell [00:27:32]:

Yeah. It just seems like that is so not the most impossible task compared to the drought that we suffer from lack of water here that I I don't know. I get really perplexed sometimes at how simple things are made hard. And that means that the really hard things, we are so far from being able to come together. And our water is so politicized in California too. It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. You know, it's like, yes, wildlife need water.

Pam Uzzell [00:28:04]:

Yes, farmers need water. Let's talk about it. Let's figure this out. Maybe I'll get hate mail probably, maybe fewer golf courses, maybe fewer swimming pools in places where there's no water. You know? But let's, yeah, let's do prioritize wildlife and farmers. I have nothing against farmers who are watching their lives work, die off because of lack of water. But by the same token, I don't think that water being diverted for nature is the enemy. I think that it's just so politicized that I would love to hear hope that people could actually sit down and talk about it in a way that creates this idea of water as a common good.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:28:51]:

I always struggle with the word hope, and I know it's important to leave listeners and folks with hope. It is. But I think to the whole point of your project here, art heals all wounds. Right? This project got a lot of was just a, you know, exercise in thinking what these could be. Right? What our relationship to water and flooding could be. I recently returned from the Venice Biennale, which is the, you know, biannual art exhibition in Venice, with a collective of indigenous artists through the Institute of American Indian Art. And the focus of the trip was not to be another tourist trip. We actually communed and broke bread with Venetians.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:29:37]:

You know, folk who, in Venice, this canal city, who have a special relationship with plants, have a special relationship with with their respective land, and we got to learn about what was invasive there, what wasn't. And it was just this beautiful, beautiful convening. And, we mourned that, Venetians can't swim in their water. Mhmm. We we mourned that. And it's not just specific to Cal I mean, this is a global so I I I hate to leave on a down note, but, I mean, I think I think we can make change in our neighborhood for sure. Like, thinking about, I think, you going on your your walk with your dog and, you know, not seeing the trees there and, hoping and and, putting your hands in the soil to make it so that the next generation can have trees is is one way to do it. But I think that this relationship to water, this kind of moment of collapse that we are in, is global.

Pam Uzzell [00:30:39]:

Yeah. I don't want you to feel like you can't say what's real because that's really important. And also, it is important for me to plant a tree, but we know that it takes so much more than one person planting a tree. And that it it is gonna take some sort of collective and policy passed to address these things.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:31:04]:

We don't wanna see that tree get cut down, you know, because you could plan it and then boom, city planner comes through. This isn't allowed here. But yeah. I hear you on the poll. I hear you on the policy front.

Pam Uzzell [00:31:13]:

We we plan on getting a permit when we are gonna plant a tree in front of our house and we plan on getting a permit so that hopefully that will not happen. Cool. It's crazy too that you would have to get a permit to plant a tree in front of your own house. But anyway, so what else would you wanna say before we end this conversation? I I really every time I walk on the ground now, I wonder what's under there. So what what else would you wanna say about this project, about water, about anything in terms of what this film is for you.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:31:47]:

Yeah. I just wanna thank you for for keeping the arts alive. I think we've seen you're talking about policy. We're seeing a divestment of arts across the country, and, this project would not have been possible without the California Arts Council. I was able to gain an emerging artist grant in conjunction with Youth Speaks, and this project was not right, as an artist, this wasn't this was a costly endeavor, but you do it because you need to heal, right, to the whole point of this project that you are you are leading. I'm a big believer in the arts as a medium to process this climate grief, what is happening, and I just, I hope that the state of California continues to, and folks who have the capacity to donate, give and invest in the arts because we can't afford to lose young people who are thinking about this every day. They need to be able to process and reimagine and think and, you know, plant trees and and all of that good stuff. And I think just as an artist, I'm thinking a lot about water in my neighborhood.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:32:53]:

So I I bring up that I'm 2 mountain ranges away. I'm right next to where the freshwater meets the saltwater. And so I'm working on a project on October 11th or 12th out here. I'll have an exhibition I'll share with you if you wanna share with your your followers. I'll be premiering the film in my my hometown as long as some other thinkings and thoughts around my learnings in in Venice. So, again, this, like, incredible grant that came from the California Arts Council has spawned new thinking and new projects to kind of push a lot of your questions that you've asked that are really big, give them momentum.

Pam Uzzell [00:33:35]:

That's so good to hear. And I'm so glad you're in, I'm assuming it's a public school that you're teaching in.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:33:41]:

Yeah, I am.

Pam Uzzell [00:33:42]:

I am so glad. I'm so glad. And I'm so happy to talk to you about this film. Thank you for making it. And thanks for talking about it. And thanks for continuing to bring what you've learned to other people because it will spark other people's imaginations and help people to see things in a different way.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:34:01]:

I have a question for you before we wrap.

Pam Uzzell [00:34:03]:

Okay.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:34:04]:

So you're walking around on the ground. This is something I've been thinking about a lot, but does the wind go underground?

Pam Uzzell [00:34:10]:

No, I don't think so.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:34:13]:

I don't know. I don't have an answer. I don't know. It's just something I've been thinking about.

Pam Uzzell [00:34:17]:

That's a great question. I have to say what I do love on a hot day, when you turn on a street that goes to and from the bay, that breeze just hits you and cools you right off. So I do love that. That's a great question though. Air goes underground. Does the wind have to think about that, but I love the wind. I'm a big fan of the wind on these hot days.

Jimmy Ramirez [00:34:43]:

I love it.

Pam Uzzell [00:34:47]:

You're listening to Art Heals All Wounds.What do you think? Does the wind go underground? Thank you so much to Jimmy Ramirez for being on the show. I'll put links up in the show notes so that you can follow Jimmy and see upcoming events. My apologies to Providence for thinking that you are the only weird place to cover your waterways. And since I've been gone, the Providence River has been uncovered. Also, I've read that today environmental regulations in Oakland prevent building over streams and creeks. Do you have a story about how art and creativity play a role in your life? I'd love to share it on the show. Just go to my website and click on the widget that says, leave Pam a message.

Pam Uzzell [00:35:59]:

If you like this show and feel able to donate a little something, you can also do that on my website by clicking on buy me a coffee.Thanks for listening.The music you've heard in this podcast is by Ketsa and Lobo Loco.This podcast was edited by Iva Hristova.