The October Surprise converged artists, activists and community members to celebrate our neighborhoods and strengthen creative, grassroots power, using site-specific installations, interventions, art, monuments, performance and other events during the weekend of October 8-10. Documentation will be on view at the Acorn Gallery, 135 N. Ave. 50, until November 7. For additional details about the project, please visit www.theoctobersurprise.org.

Reseeding Los Angeles
Throughout the weekend, Deborah Thomas and Linda Anne Hoag’s Reseeding Los Angeles created a living space for us to reflect on a fateful 1769 encounter between Spanish Captain Gaspar de Portolá and the native Tongva tribe. They shared indigenous Chia seeds and history with “people of the earth” at the site of the new Cultural Gateway Garden near the Avenue 50 Studio.

Linda Anne Hoag (front) and Deborah Thomas (rear) toss seeds at the Cultural Gateway Garden.

GoldLine 2004 (crop of panoramic photograph) Gurdon Miller		Brotteaux Depot, Lyon, France Kevin Hass
Reception for the artists: Saturday, September 11, 7 to 10 p.m. Music by Paraphernalia: Latin/Celtic/Fusion Left: Kevin Hass, Guillermo Hernandez, and Gurdon Miller Gallery Hours: Saturdays and Sundays: 12 noon to 4 p.m. Call for information: 323.850.8566

Collective @Avenue50 Gallery • 135 N. Avenue 50 • Los Angeles, CA 90042
Hours: 12 to 4pm, Saturdays and Sundays 323.850.8566

with artists Judith Amdur, Cynthia Cobb, Ruth de Nicola, Maggie Gerard, Amy Inouye, Elizabeth King,
Pamela Mower-Conner, Karen Neubert, Kacy Treadway, Stuart Rapeport

Opening Reception for the Artists: Saturday July 24, 7 to 9pm

Special Outdoor Video Screening: curated by Astra Price, Saturday July 24, 9pm

SELECTED WORKS

Curatorial Statement:

When I was first approached about curating an exhibition at the Arroyo Arts Collective, I had wanted to take a series of walking tours to visit any of the local artists who desired a studio visit. This proved to be more fantasy than reality as the time approached for selections to be made.

I had contemplated some general exhibition themes - social, political, economic. However, as I began my visits I became more interested in finding one piece by every artist who responded. While on the visits the concepts of compassion, commitment to a creative life and to a creative community surfaced repeatedly in conversation.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the artists for their willingness to participate and for sharing their work with me. I would like to thank Nancy Buchanan for recommending me, Suzanne Siegel for being so diligent in following-up on all details, and Guillermo Hernandez for his assistance placing the work and for taking care of the installation.

The entire experience has been both delightful and enriching.

Joyce Lightbody
July, 2004

Humor Me Is Seriously Funny
by Linda Hoag

Humor Me opening.

A sense of humor may be an artist’s secret strength. Such humor enables the artist to explore contemporary issues in a manner that draws the viewer into controversy in a gentle way. Like the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down, humor can be the carrier of some serious remedies. The Arroyo Arts Collective’s show, Humor Me, at our Gallery, is a great opportunity to see artists who aren’t afraid to be funny on purpose.

Those fortunate enough to attend the show’s opening on June 19 got in the mood quickly with the music of L.A. grrrl band, Kittenfreaky. The trio’s pop with attitude was a far cry from your average boy band. The ongoing gallery show contains a good selection of different art styles and strategies. Maria Elena Castro and Suzanne Siegel both comment on America’s obsession with beauty and dieting. Castro, with her carnival side show imagery, and Siegel, with her deft use of clothing and household objects from the 50s and 60s, suggest that concerns about the female body have troubled us for some time.

Kittenfreaky at the opening.

Victor Ortiz reinvents the haiku, to better reflect the realities of life in L.A. In text and images, Nathaniel Cohen skewers the doublespeak of political rhetoric. Thomas Lee Bakofsky creates portraits of public figures with foibles intact. Isabel Martinez uses religious iconography to take a wry look at cultural assimilation and consumer debt. Deborah Krall and Katherine Ng, the show’s curators, both use childrens’ toys to good effect in their three-dimensional pieces. Krall’s toy soldiers and dollhouse miniatures lend themselves to sly commentaries on globalization and gender roles. In Ng’s sculptural books, Lego blocks turn sinister as they morph into headstones and hanging chads.

Despite the serious themes, visitors to Ave. 50 will likely discover that playfulness, color and impressive technique will entice them to take a closer look. Go ahead, humor these artists, and let their collective wit take you to some surprising assessments of modern life. Humor Me runs through July 17. Gallery hours are 12:00 to 4:00 pm, Saturday and Sunday.

In conjunction with the BID (Business Improvisation District) Exhibit of site specific installations and art works in stores along York Boulevard, the Arroyo Arts Collective presents Consuming Passions. The exhibit will explore the intersection between art and commerce.

The Arroyo Arts Collective invites all members to submit:
One piece in any media that relates to this theme. The curatorial committee reserves the right to eliminate work that is not relevant to the theme. Work should be ready for hanging or installation.

Participating artists will be asked to sit the gallery for one weekend afternoon during the run of the exhibit. Although all care will be taken with the work, there is no insurance available for art work in the gallery.

Hand deliver work to the Collective@Avenue 50 Gallery, 135 N. Avenue 50 on Saturday, May 1, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Opening reception: Sunday, May 16 from 1 to 4 p.m.

Work will continue on view until June 6. Gallery hours are Saturday and Sunday 1 to 4 p.m.

"Hunter" by Mahere, age 8, Zimbabwe

The International Child Art Collection, a program of Barnsdall Arts/Friends of the Junior Arts Center, will be on view in the Arroyo Arts Collective Gallery from April 3 through May 2, 2004. These framed artworks created by youth ages 5 to 18 years, depict family and friendship in diverse cultures. Delicate watercolors from China and Zimbabwe portray rural country lifestyles; from India colorful tin paintings and fabric collages of family gatherings; from Africa and England–family pets are painted in exuberant temperas.

The artworks were collected by UNESCO in San Francisco in the 1960s and later donated to BA/FOJAC as the basis for an outreach teaching program for schools, libraries, art centers and social service agencies. This non-profit arts organization is dedicated to providing and supporting quality art programs that educate children and enrich our communities through the celebration of the arts.

Barnsdall Arts/Friends of the Junior Arts Center supports programs at the Junior Arts Center, Barnsdall Art Park, a facility of the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department. For more information, visit our web site: www.fojac.org or contact Patty Jones, Program Director for the International Child Art Collection at 323.276.6209.

The Collective@Avenue 50 Gallery is located at 135 N. Avenue 50, Gallery Hours are Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. For this exhibit, the gallery will be closed for Palm Sunday, April 4; Easter, April 11 and May Day, May 1. There will be a free children’s art workshop and exhibition opening on Saturday, April 10 from 1 to 4 p.m.

Sunday, March 28, 4-7pm

Our surrounding hills are green, the skies are blue, and the scent of blossoms is in the air. It’s spring—time to think about gardens and the outdoors! You are invited to put on your straw hats, pastel dresses, white suits, or gardening gloves and overalls and come to our second annual Arroyo Arts collective auction/fundraiser, “Growing Green”—an indoor garden party on Sunday, March 28 from 4:00 to 7:00 PM at the Collective@Avenue 50, 135 N. Avenue 50 in Highland Park celebrating the kick-off of the Highland Park Cultural Gateway Garden.

Looking southeast across railroad track toward Avenue 50 Studio building. The Cultural Gateway Garden
space would be on the far side of the tracks. Photos by Kevin Hass, collage by Cidne Hart

The Highland Park Cultural Gateway Garden is a project of the Collective, the Avenue 50 Studio, and other community groups that proposes to transform the empty dirt and trash-filled lot between the galleries and the Metro Gold Line railway into a pedestrian-friendly sculpture garden to provide a warm welcome for commuters’ entry into Highland Park.

For the “Growing Green” auction, Collective members will be creating special pieces with a garden/landscape theme. There will be garden sculpture, birdbaths, bird houses, flower pots, vegetable markers, paintings, wall works and other surprises dreamed up by our talented members. Like last year’s auction event, collectors will find exciting, quality art work that’s also affordable. All pieces will be auctioned, some silent and others live.

Some images from the auction.

On Sunday, March 28, “Growing Green” featured a gala array of delectable morsels by chef Douglas Johnston, live music, and drinks. If you were at last year’s auction party, you know that this is a highlight of the season!

Garden art for the “Growing Green” auction will be on preview display Saturday, March 27 from 1 to 4 PM at the Collective@Avenue 50, 135 N. Avenue 50. Advance tickets to the party/auction will be available for purchase at that time and at Galco’s, 5702 York Boulevard in Highland Park, or online HERE, or by mail by sending your check to the Arroyo Arts Collective, Post Office Box 50835, Los Angeles, California. Tickets are $10.00 in advance and $15.00 at the door on March 28.

The Pin Up Show opened Saturday, January 10, 2004 from 7 to 10 p.m. and ran Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. through February 8. This was an exhibition of drawing works done in a life drawing workshop currently meeting at the Avenue 50 Studio on Tuesday nights. The work shown was a survey of works from new students to accomplished professionals and was meant to give the viewer a sense of what it is like to attend the workshop and view the works as they are being made. As such, the accent was on works that best represent the process and the progress of the workshop participants and ranged from brief sketches to longer, more complex studies from the live model. The title comes from the practice of pinning or taping up work during such workshops so that work can be viewed from a distance and shared with other participants.