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Art space robbed of rent money

by Jeremy Hunt

Daily Lobo

Virginia Hampton just wants to move on after a robbery last week at Out ch'Yonda, the art space she helped found five years ago.

"We're not going to focus on trying to find the person and catch them and bring them to justice," she said. "We're going to do art and hope the community can come together and help us."

Out ch'Yonda is a live art space in the Barelas neighborhood at 929 Fourth St. S.W.

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During a performance Wednesday, several things were stolen, including $750, which is about half of Out ch'Yonda's rent money.

The organization is asking for donations to cover the rent, Hampton said.

She said it has gotten about $200 so far.

"We're grassroots," she said. "We wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the community. So, that's who's going to keep us there, people from the community."

Out ch'Yonda brings society's outcasts together and gives them a place to express themselves, said Elisa Pintor, a member of the cooperative that runs the studio.

"The people that are furthest out in the margins in our society today are pretty much at the center of Out ch'Yonda and the work we do - whether you're a woman, a woman of color or a queer woman of color," she said.

The organization is accepting of everyone, as opposed to art studios where homosexual minorities don't seem to belong, she said.

"From being a queer woman of color, I know what it feels like to feel like you don't belong in an area," she said. "At Out ch'Yonda, it's just come as you are."

Pintor said the organization serves an important function by allowing anyone to do art.

"Our attitude about who can do art is also very open," she said. "It's everyone can do art, and what we call art isn't meant to be put in a box."

The organization also gives out food once a week to people in the surrounding community, she said.

Out ch'Yonda wants to reach out more to the Barelas neighborhood and get its residents to appreciate art, said Stephanie Willis, a member of the cooperative.

"If we're being creative, we might be less destructive," she said. "I personally have to make art because I feel like it makes me sane. The world around us, including what we just experienced, is pretty violent."

Hampton said changes would be made to prevent another

robbery.

"We're doing what we can just to have better protocols for dealing with the money - sort of making things more secure," she said.

Donations can be dropped off at or mailed to Out ch'Yonda.

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