Today we’d like to introduce you to Sue Bell Yank.
Hi Sue Bell, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I moved out to LA in 2003 after growing up in Philadephia, and immediately fell in love with the city – its diversity, creativity, collaborative spirit, and cultural production. I started my career in education, teaching 4th and 6th grade in Lynwood, but I always have been very interested in the nexus of contemporary art, social justice, and community engagement. I went to graduate school at USC’s Public Art Studies program, and it was there that I met a network of artists and culture workers that were all aligned in this thinking. I worked at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Academic programs and 18th Street Arts Center, and in both of those places was able to create programs that connected communities, artists, civic agencies, and public spaces. In 2022, I was thrilled to take over as the Executive Director of Clockshop, an organization that combines all of my passions and is sited in my own neighborhood. The mission of Clockshop is to work with artists to connect communities to public lands in Los Angeles, in order to envision a future based in belonging and care. We do that in collaboration with California State Parks, and most of our programming takes place at LA State Historic Park in Chinatown, and the soon-to-be-constructed Bowtie Park in Glassell Park. Clockshop was founded in 2004 by filmmaker Julia Meltzer, and continues to do work that feels crucially relevant in a sprawling, often isolating city like Los Angeles.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It is hard to work in a non-profit in Los Angeles – burnout and low salaries are extremely challenging, and as the city has changed and become so much more expensive. Along with recent federal and local funding challenges, I worry about the future of small non-profits in our city.
When I took over at Clockshop, I instituted a Culture of Care Initiative that is collaboratively constructed with our team of 8 people. This includes paid quarterly office recesses (where we shut down the whole office for a week each quarter), professional development opportunities, staff bonding, generous additional PTO, and fully paid healthcare for all employees. This is an evolving and ongoing process, but has really helped combat burnout and helped us perform much more effectively in a creative field.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m proud of how Clockshop has grown over the years. I started working with the organization in 2015 as a board member, and it has been amazing to see it grow and develop over the past 10 years. When I started as Executive Director, I brought two new programs to the organization, including our Take Me To Your River Cultural Atlas, an oral history and storytelling project that tells the hidden histories of riverside neighborhoods in Northeast LA from many different perspectives. It feels especially important as these neighborhoods are gentrifying beyond recognition. We also started a Summer Youth Art and Advocacy Fellowship, which trains Northeast LA public high school students in leadership around civic engagement and advocacy for their neighborhoods through the arts, and gives them a generous educational award. Each year we commission artist projects that are deeply researched and specific to place – one of our powerful recent works (What Water Wants, by artist Rosten Woo) was a unique meditative audio experience about the Los Angeles watershed designed to take place by the banks of the LA river at sunset. We also put on a yearly People’s Kite Festival in LA State Historic Park, which has grown so much over the years. The first year was 2021, just coming out of the pandemic, and 750 people came out. In 2025, we had 7,000 people. People tell us every year that it is their favorite day to be an Angeleno.
What were you like growing up?
I’ve always liked building things. I think that is why community-engaged art and art in public spaces has always been so attractive to me – in many ways the projects that really move me are ones that propose new ways of being, of reimagining our relationships to one another beyond the status quo of capitalism and transaction. Maybe that’s also why I like science fiction so much. I like being challenged by wildly different conceptions of our future world.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://clockshop.org
- Instagram: @clockshopla
Image Credits
All images by Gina Clyne, except for the Youth mosaic mural image, by Mathew Scott.
