Search Results

Up Threads of Entanglement Orly Cogan Hand embroidery typically conjures up images of docile women, silently working on their expected domestic duties through their needle work. This traditionally feminine medium was once seen as an indicator of marriage suitability, teaching ideas of modesty, virtue, and obedience. Artist Orly Cogan reclaims the medium, using vintage fabrics as a foundation for her hand stitched explorations of modern women. Cogan challenges the idea of embroidery being a symbol of female domesticity and injects themes of sensuality, feminism, and power to portray the evolving role of women in society. Cogan’s love for embroidery stems from her early years in grade school where she would learn to knit and crochet with natural fiber materials. This fondness for the material was also encouraged through her mother's collection of samplers — pieces of embroidered cloth meant to represent a larger whole — and quilts. Cogan describes her work as intuitive, figuring out the stitching as she goes, utilizing an embroidery hoop, appliqué, and paint to bring movement within the stitches. The result is a dreamy and ethereal quality that speaks to the feminist fairytales she creates in her pieces. May 13 - August 20 Back to list

Brandon Kim < Back October 18th, 2020 By Brandon Kim The last time I touched this journal was three weeks ago. You see, since I was so preoccupied with the cruel yearly abscission, I simply could not be bothered to put everything aside to update my own journal. My maple leaf siblings and I all were carefully administered by the tree we grew on throughout our entire lives. We lived almost leisurely, but there is always a catch to everything that seems too good to be true. It would never have come to my mind that we would all be abandoned by the very maple tree that supported us when resources began to run short. I have chosen to move past the decision of being left behind to die on the concrete sidewalk instead of sulking about the decision that was made. I should have seen it coming from a mile away, but I did not know any better a few months ago. In the previous months, I remember clinging onto the maple tree that gave me life, only looking down and waiting for my impending doom that would soon arrive. Every fall, hundreds of us maple leaves would be left behind and abandoned without a moment of hesitation as a means to conserve resources and survive the harsh, cold winter. The process would repeat itself every year; no matter how strongly connected the leaves were with the heartless maple tree, they were always cut off selfishly. Our hard work to gather resources for the tree would be disregarded every time. After each harsh winter ended, the remaining leaves that somehow managed to live through the winter despite being left on the ground continued to rot. It would only be a matter of time before all the leaves wholly decomposed. Some continue to sulk about the tree’s unsympathetic and cruel methods of taking all the resources for itself, and the rest just were not able to make it through the winter or were moved to a completely different location in the cold gusts of wind. I feel betrayed rather than depressed as I lie here on the cold sidewalk. We are ultimately used and given special treatment only for a certain amount of time, and it feels that all of our hard work was for nothing. Our existence as maple leaves is an enormous contribution to why the very tree that abandoned us is standing there to this day. Now our only option is to watch the new maple leaves grow in our place, not knowing what they are in for, as we continue to slowly rot away on the pavement with the maple tree’s back turned to us. Previous Next

2013 < View Public Art Projects Yarn Bomb At City Hall 2013 Temporary Art Project To kick off the 27th annual Antelope Valley union High School District Student Art Exhibition, local artist and art educator Kris Holiday organized this public installation project with the help of pioneering yarn bombing artist Nicola Vruwink, her students, and community members. The concept was to create public art by knitting scarves around trees, cozies on bike racks, and decorating benches, lampposts and even sculptures with vibrant covers.

Up Collaborate and Create Various Artists Collaborate and Create is an extension project conceived by the directors of Kipaipai Workshops, a non-profit organization that focuses on the professional development of artists. Kipaipai Workshop’s mission is to encourage, inspire and build community. Collaborate and Create pairs two artists with varying artistic styles to problem solve and produce a collaborative work pushing boundaries outside the artists’ regular studio practice and experimenting with styles and materials. This process generates creative growth, builds bonds and partnerships that establish a vibrant creative community. For #CountMeIn , the Collaborate and Create exhibition includes the works of 40 artists creating 20 new unique works. This is the second iteration of Collaborate and Create which debuted at The Loft at Liz’s in Los Angeles in January of 2020. The collaborative duos include Joy Ray and Dianna Stevens Woolley, Kimberly Brooks and Rob Grad, Terry Cervantes and Marthe Aponte, Alex Couwenberg and Lisa Schulte, Samuelle Richardson and Catherine Ruane, Vicki Walsh and Jim Daichendt, Margo Ray and Scott Yoell, Jane Szabo and Jill Sykes, Annie Seaton and Ray Beldner, Dani Dodge and Chelsea Dean, Snezana Saraswati Petrovic and Chenhung Chen, Karen Hochman Brown and Ann Marie Rousseau, Randi Matushevitz and Debbie Korbel, Marisabel Bazan and Gay Summer Rick, Terry Arena and Chris O’Mahony, Bailey Ferguson and Michelle Schwengel-Regala, Jeanne Dunn and Edwin Vasquez, Stevie Love and Cudra Clover, Vojislav Radovanovic and Kira Vollman, Marne Lucas and Steph Sydney. May 9 - August 16, 2020 Back to list

2016 < View Public Art Projects Astral Challenger 2016 Permanent Art Project Commissioned by the City of Lancaster as part of the Arts and Public Places program, “Astral Challenger” was created by Los Angeles-based artist Shana Mabari. The sculpture was commissioned in honor of the thirtieth anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, and was installed at the intersection of Challenger Way and Avenue L. Challenger was assembled at the Palmdale Lockheed plant and used what is now known as Challenger Way as its transportation route from Palmdale to Edwards Air Force Base. Formerly named 10th Street East, the street was renamed shortly after the disaster by the Lancaster City Council to honor the lives that were lost. The blue panels on the sculpture represent the seven lives lost, plus an additional panel for the remaining loved ones who still mourn their loss. The roundabout was opened in February, 2016, and “Astral Challenger” was installed in May.

Up Vanity Various Artists Justin Bower: Thresholds Roni Stretch: Not Vanity Austin Young: To Be Determined / TBD The Musical Shana Mabari: Diametros Petals Laura Larson: Grace and Glory Leigh Salgado: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Tina Dorff: Human Story Told Ted Meyer: Scarred for Life Justin Bower: Thresholds San Francisco native Justin Bower paints his subjects as de-stabilized, fractured post-humans, a person or entity that exists in a state beyond being human, in a nexus of interlocking spatial systems. His paintings juxtapose how individuals define themselves in this digital and virtual age and the impossibility of grasping such a slippery notion. Bower compares his use of paint to an instrument of dissection and inquiry into the idea of the body as an original prosthetic subject. Flesh acts as the complex layer of biological boundary from externalized technologies; all the while revealing that the same externalized technologies are already inside the body. Bower paints his subjects in a world where humanity and materiality are interwoven symmetrically, where the purity of human nature is being replaced by new forms of creation and evolution. His paintings are influenced by today’s culture that privileges patterns of information by using optical art configurations as the context for most of his artwork. Bower’s paintings open a dialogue of the destabilizing effect and trauma technology has on the individual. He shows this through the technique of doubling features - multiple eyes, spliced noses, melting mouths – and a whiplash-like motion invoked in his abstract expressionist process. Bower received a Bachelor Degree in Art and Philosophy from the University of Arizona and his Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from Claremont Graduate University. Since receiving his MFA, Bower’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Ace Gallery in Beverly Hills, Unix Gallery in New York City, and has been part of a group show at Patrick Painter and many international exhibitions. Bower has been the recipient of several awards, among those the Feitelson Fellowship Grant and the Joan Mitchell Award. His artwork has been published by Art Forum, New American Paintings, American Art Collector, Bl!sss Magazine, Modern Painters, Artillery Magazine and the LA Times. Ronic Stretch: Not Vanity Roni Stretch has pioneered the dichromatic process, exploring photorealistic under-paintings that emerge ghost-like from a void of color. His dichromatic oil paintings are meticulously created by executing a layering process whereby two different colors are alternately applied and built up over many weeks. The subjects play against a sharply lined border intended to ground each painting in the physical and force a visual meditation. The image is not so much painted over as optically embedded within the multiple layers of the alternating colors. Stretch’s work is a lesson in contradictions: photorealism and abstraction, light and dark, reality and altered states, smooth and rough textures all ultimately leading to an emotional experience. British artist Roni Stretch grew up in St. Helens, Mereyside, England where he attended the St. Helens College of Art and Design. Stretch has been exhibited throughout California including shows at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art at the Geffen Contemporary Museum, the Westmont Museum of Art in Santa Barbara and the Cooperstown Museum in New York. His work has recently been included in the permanent collections of the Pasadena Museum of California Art, the Museum of California Design, the Cooperstown Museum in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Austin Young: To Be Determined / TBD The Musical “I am fascinated by identity. Who am I? Who are you? How do we arrive at these conclusions? We all have stories about growing up, making friends and our first loves. These experiences form our relationship to the world and ourselves. Our fears and experiences solidify our identities and make them real. If our identity becomes fixed, it can keep us in a box. Some of us never stop wishing we were something other or more. I continually talk myself out of doing things. For example, I always wanted to make a musical but my fear got in the way. So, recently, I decided to just set up the dates and announce it. I invited the public to join in for a series of workshops where they shared their stories and experiences around the topic of identity and ‘coming of age.’ The call was heard by many amazing people and LA-based artists as we collectively placed emphasis on radical authenticity and spontaneous creativity. For this show at MOAH, I recreate my studio in the gallery, showing behind-the-scenes footage, intimate coming of age stories, notes, photos and final edited scenes from the musical in progress. In short video interviews, participants delve into the stories that formed their identities then sing or act them out in this unusual and revolutionary musical experience.” -Austin Young Austin Young is a photographer and trans media artist. Young has been documenting pop and sub-culture since 1985 through portraits. Young confuses personality and identity issues in confrontational and unapologetic image-making of people who often mix gender roles or otherwise confound stereotypical constraints of socially-constructed identities. In addition to photography and filmmaking, Young is co-founder of Fallen Fruit, a contemporary art collective established in 2004 that uses fruit as a material for projects that investigate the hyper-synergistic qualities of collaboration. Young's video works explore pop-culture, celebrity, gender and identity. TBD The Musical explores the new realm of performance, installation, video and public participatory art. Through a series of workshops, Young invites the public to co-create this project alongside him, sharing stories and experiences around the topic of identity and “coming of age.” In turn, he creates an ongoing, experimental, collaborative musical that emphasizes radical authenticity and spontaneous creativity. Young brings individuals who are pushing boundaries in their respective disciplines together, including musicians, dancers, fashion designers, singers, drag queens and the public. As new collaborations take place, scenes are added to TBD The Musical , as well as the documentary and exhibition of behind the scenes footage, photography and notes. Shana Mabari: Diametros Petals Shana Mabari is an American contemporary artist working in Los Angeles. Working through the intersections of art, science and technology, Mabari orchestrates light, reflection, color contrast and geometry with the intent to play with and expand the reality and experience of physical space. Through her sculptures, installations and environments, she investigates the ways in which worldly stimuli and phenomena are absorbed and processed through sensory and visual perceptions. Mabari is part of the continuum of the Light and Space movement, which originated in California in the 1960s. Science has fueled her artwork, leading her to collaborate with world renowned scientists at the Institute of Neuroinformatics in Zurich, Switzerland. Shana Mabari was born in Los Angeles, California. She has traveled extensively and lived in Paris, Northern India and Tel Aviv. Her education includes studies at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris and Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. She holds a patent for the design of “Dynamic Spatial Illusions,” a portable version of a visual and sensory experimental environment. She is a recipient of the Center for Cultural Innovation ARC grant. She has exhibited work in the United States and internationally. Laura Larson: Grace and Glory Laura Larson grew up in Chicago surrounded by the influence of the Chicago Imagists, a group of artists that were known for representational work that drew references outside of fine art. Her work reflects the dual interests of story-telling and theatrical production – the building blocks for her consistent interest in sculptural installations and narrative Tableau. In the late 1970s Larson moved to Los Angeles where she became a member of a collaborative group of women and men, working with Judy Chicago to create The Dinner Party , a controversial, ground–breaking feminist art piece rendered in porcelain, china painting, textiles and embroidery, recognizing significant women in history who were forgotten or under–recognized. Over the last 10 years Larson’s work has touched on two topics: our relationship between nature and our animal co-inhabitants; and investigations of the cultural, historical and spiritual through lines of the female trinity: mind, body and spirit. Completed through three different bodies of work, Grace and Glory will be the final part of Larson’s trinity. Larson states: “This serial investigation examines the cultural, historical and spiritual through–lines of the effects of religion – Christianity in particular – on women. Its genesis was my reaction to the Getty Center’s exhibition “Bernini and the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture.” While Bernini’s gorgeous busts glorified popes, cardinals and kings, I wanted to re-imagine the exhibit by flipping the gender to female – shifting the focus from power and piety to grace and glory, celebrating historical (mythical) women who have shown grace under pressure and who have been bestowed or sought glory for their actions. This series has been created in opposition to the Baroque artists’ “dazzling virtuosity” and their ability to create a "speaking likeness" from the intractable medium of stone. The faces of these women are made of immobile Styrofoam wig heads. However, each head is treated in a different way to exemplify their life’s situation using various mediums such as paint, modeling epoxy/resin, paper mache, fabric, leather, or beads. The bust in general personifies the woman in a symbolic, rather than expressive way. The materials used have associative powers such as black and white leather gloves, which become hair and headpiece for the Queen of Sheba, and handkerchiefs collected over a lifetime, which become a bouquet of roses for Aimee Semple McPherson." Laura Larson has exhibited her work extensively throughout Southern California, and has shown her work internationally. In 2004, she received the Artist Resource for Completion Grant from the Durfee Foundation. Larson graduated from Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin, receiving a dual Bachelor of Arts degree in fine art and theatre arts. Leigh Salgado: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Leigh Salgado’s sculptural drawings incorporate an organic yet precise process through cutting paper by hand and burning some parts of the composition along with the use of ink and paint. These labor-intensive finished pictures are of abstracted imagery that occasionally morph into recognizable subject matter including lace, lingerie, netting, fabric, clothing patterns and original woven abstractions. Salgado’s current work includes an ongoing interest in subjects and forms that have associations developed during her girlhood and womanhood. Salgado states: “What drives me: Attraction to patterns, fabric, fashion objects, elaborate ornamentation and respect for labor. My work is about persistence in spite of the impossibility of perfection. My memories, experiences and women who have formed my worldview are present in the work.” Leigh Salgado received her Bachelor’s Degree in painting, sculpture and graphic arts from the University of California, Los Angeles and her Master’s Degree in clinical art therapy from Loyola Marymount University. After practicing art therapy professionally for several years, she renewed her fine art studies at Santa Monica College of Design in Art and Architecture. Her artwork has been exhibited nationally. Tina Dorff: Human Story Told “Some emotive narratives in these paintings can be quite obvious, but most are undercurrents of a story told by the figure. My painting themes run the gamut from darkly emotive to lovely trickeries on canvas. Watch the playful antics of the fuzzy headed girl naked and chatting with a figurine. If you listen carefully the woman in the blue shirt will tell you her special tale. There is a woman standing on a half shell reaching out to you because the self-shame is killing her. Turn again and you see a naked nymph lazing in the grass under the breeze of a fan. The black sweaty torso of a soldier reaching up to the skies in despair on those awful human decisions made. Then there is the 21st century knock off of an Ingres countess with her black lace dress and blank stare.” – Tina Dorff Tina Dorff’s oil paintings delve into emotional narratives taken from personal experiences and external observations. She uses canvas as a journal and release. Growing out of years of emotional turmoil and disappointments, Dorff uses her work to access emotions and establish a bridge to the outside world. Most of her models are close friends or family, Dorff feels fortunate to have models with a sharp insight into painting. For her, the relationship between the model and painter is powerful and to be cherished, she states “there is always a story behind my faces.” She hopes that when viewers take in her art their sense of reality will be altered for that viewing time and that they can relate to it. She states “I tell my stories through the painted figure for you to interpret...and now it is your story.” Dorff studied at the Art Institute of Philadelphia, Hussian School of Art and received an Associate of Science degree from Temple University. Her work has been exhibited across the United States and internationally. She currently lives and works in Lancaster. Ted Meyer: Scarred for Life Ever since he was a small child with a serious illness, Ted Meyer has mixed art and medical images as a way to understand his experiences. Through his art he highlights the emotional impact of pain and healing on everyday people—patients, families and medical personnel. When medical treatments improved his own situation as an adult, Meyer began to work with other survivors of traumatic health issues. Scarred for Life is a multi-faceted project that includes printing on paper from the subject’s body, interviewing the participants about their experiences and photographing the process. The resulting, ever-expanding, presentation of monoprints, narratives and photographs has received press coverage from the New York Times, USA Today and the Chicago Tribune . Scarred for Life, has been exhibited nationally, including at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C., New York University School of Medicine, Bravard Museum of Art in Melbourne, Florida, the Museum of Art and Culture in New Rochelle, New York, and at Sierra College in Rocklin, California and Biola University in La Mirada, California. Meyer has lectured on art and health at Yale University, New York University and UCLA. Ted Meyer is an artist and designer living in Los Angeles. He earned his Bachelor’s degree at Arizona State University. He is owner of and principal designer at Art Your World, a full-service design studio. He is currently an Artist in Residence at UCLA’s Geffen School of Medicine and Visiting Scholar at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C. Ted has exhibited his paintings and photographs internationally, including at the Chicago Art Institute, the United Nations in New York City, in Osaka, Japan and Istanbul Turkey. December 5, 2015 - January 24, 2016 Back to list

Up The Muse Tina Dille Tina Dille's artwork echoes inspiration from the natural wildlife and domesticated animals of the Tehachapi Mountains. The personalities of the animals she coexists with fuel her distinctive animal portraits, giving life and spirit to each friendly face. The most impactful muse arrived with a rescued, semi-tamed raven named Penut. The crafty and charismatic personality of Penut became a fulfilling and influential source of creative energy for Dille. The Muse reflects the wonder and personalities of Penut through various depictions of ravens. The animals' eyes are a focal point of her creative intent, while the rest of the piece is composed of the natural forms and shapes of watercolor and fluid acrylic mediums. The splattering, flowing, and dripping of the paint is part accident and part skill, creating a unique art piece that cannot be duplicated. Dille began her artistic career at a young age; early on, she was drawn to the livestock and ranchers in her hometown of Jerome, Idaho, and the backyard creatures she discovered when her family moved to Southern California. As an adult, Dille operated a small ceramics business that created and sold hand-painted ceramic animal figurines nationwide. Dille relocated to the Tehachapi Mountains in 2006 to focus on fine art and immerse herself in the area's natural wildlife. 2022-2023 Back to list

Lara Cruz < Back Roses By Lara Cruz Roses are gorgeous and universal; they can mean love or friendship. Many people relate to them because everyone loves roses. Someday I wish I could be like a rose. Having everyone adore me from the way that I look to the way that I smell. Letting my aroma enchant whoever passes by me. As well as always carrying a suit of armor as protection. Every rose is different though, their colors are symbolic for everyone. Red means love and passion and is given to someone special, someone you can not live without. While white tends to signify purity, and in the Catholic church, the Virgin Mary is continuously surrounded by white roses. If I could pick my color as a rose, I would want to be a yellow rose. My color would symbolize happiness, and people that would see me as a yellow rose can relate to a happy time in their life. They would have flashbacks of their childhood memories and remember how easy life was. A time in which they were energetic and optimistic about life and would want to go back to that same state of thought. My thorns would help protect me from anyone who tries to hurt me. Sometimes, as humans, we forget how much words can impact others' lives, but as a rose, my thorns will symbolize all the hardships I have endured. As I continue to learn from past experiences, I will gain more thorns from them to ensure that those experiences will no longer hurt me again. My thorns are a shield, but they are swords as well. Anyone that wants to take advantage of my beauty will be pricked by my blades made of thorns. As a rose, I would be happier because I would share beauty and confidence with the world. As well as understand the difficulty the world has to bring. I will adapt to my living conditions and use my thorns for protection. Most importantly, as a rose, I will learn to love and accept myself, which is one of the most complex challenges in life. Previous Next

ECIC Exhibitions Artists in Residence at the Preserve PDWP Public Art Projects ECIC Exhibitions ECIC Exhibitons Lorraine Bubar Desert Cuts July 12, 2025 - December 14, 2025 Download Artists in Residence at the Preserve Lorraine Bubar Celebrate the Lunar New Year with Papercutting Craft January 29, 2025 - Saturday, May 3, 2025 Download PDWP Public Art Projects Nancy Baker Cahill Lifelines 2023 Download Nathaniel Ancheta and David Edward Martin THEN | NOW | A | DREAM 2021 Download Devin Thor Paleolithic Herd January 2021 Download Ann Weber Little Giant November 2020 Download Artists in Residence PDWP Public Art

2022 < View Public Art Projects Dan Droz's The Greeting 2022 Permanent Art Project By Dan Droz The Greeting , a new permanent, public art sculpture by artist Dan Droz, is now installed at the corner of Lancaster BLVD and Ehrlich Avenue. In collaboration with the Lancaster Museum of Art and History (MOAH) and Droz, the museum commissioned the new public art sculpture to engage and elevate the public space around the museum. The sculpture will serve as a defining landmark for the community, where people can gather and create meaningful connections between the museum, public space, and community members. The sculpture depicts colorful, abstract figures gathering to meet at MOAH, but from a different angle reveals other images like people high-fiving one another. The color palette is also an essential part of the design for the sculpture, connecting the story of the desert landscape and the diversity of the Antelope Valley community. Droz believes that sculptures like The Greeting help people understand that art is not just about the aesthetic but can speak to a story that is relevant to peoples’ lives. Droz is a full-time sculptor that engages with themes surrounding relationships, family, and the community. Before becoming a sculptor, Droz had a 45-year career as a design and marketing consultant and was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. In addition to being shown at the Lancaster Museum of Art and History, Droz has been commissioned for work at the entrance to the Heritage Trail in downtown Pittsburgh, and Oxon-Hill Sculpture Park in Washington, DC, among others. Take home your own miniature The Greeting , available in The Vault Store. Purchase Now

Samantha Martinez < Back Rosemary By Samantha Martinez Name Rosemary, Rosemary they say originally from the Mediterranean which in Latin means dew of the sea. Date of entry unknown: I remember being sprouted from a tough, dry ground, only receiving water once in a while, allowing me to expand my roots slowly. Around me were my three older plants, and later on, the pitiful woman I call mother gave birth to seven more despite my pleas. I would plead to her to stop sprouting because we were poor, POOR something she could not grasp. I was forced to take root much faster than my family as I was in charge of nourishing my siblings and washing their aromatic leaves, feeling how they were connected by a delicate stem pricking myself each time. However, after 21 years, I had my own seed to worry about. I still remember coming home each day, being unnourished from traveling miles in a pot, somehow finding my way home each time only to find that there was no food in the garden knowing better than to ask my mother plant I would withhold the pain I felt in my stem. The only thing my son received daily when in my womb was water and the nutrients my soil provided me with. In two years’ time, my sunshine was pulled away from me; I was being ripped away from my sprout by a man who picked me up from my roots and confined me until we reached what was known as “ the land where dreams came true.” I had made it; I had escaped my poverty but at what cost. The cost of leaving my tiny sprout behind with the motherly plant I hated? With the plant, I had promised to shelter him from? NO, NO, I could not accept this reality, so I went back, back, back on my own terms. I remember hiding through the bushes that seemed familiar, the sunshine that became the fear of being caught, the abuse I had to withstand each day ripping my long, skinny, and once beautiful leaves from my stem, allowing me to feel each emotion and temperature brush my skin. Then when I had given up all hope, I started to smell an air that I had grown to find comforting; I had made it, I made it back to my land to see my bud. Forwarding a couple of months, the MAN returned, pleading for me to grab my once rejected bud and go back to America. My innocent and fragile self back then thought it was the best thing to do. So I go back except this time my flowerlet is feeling the way the dirt becomes an accessory on our delicate green leaves, how the ground goes from cold to hot from dry to wet—counting the days that would go by, by taking note of when the sun rose and when it set. In a week’s time, we made it; I had successively done the impossible Twice. Nevertheless, life was not all sunshine and daisies but more like pouring rain and thunder. I was getting physically and mentally abused by this MAN who swore he was going to change. Plumule, my plumule, was asking for a sister because he felt lonely and unwanted, but I had learned from my momma plants flaws. I had learned not to bring an innocent seed into a world full of neglect. Then my Plumule told me something that shattered my heart; he missed his “mom,” he missed the motherly plant I had grown to hate. So we returned, we went back to the tunnels of darkness, the place where chills ran up and down your peduncle no matter the weather. The mountains that stunk of fear and desperation reminding me of my once comforting smell of bitterness with a slight sweetness. An aroma that would start to burn if you stood and smelt it for too long. Again my bud and I found ourselves in our Tierra, Linda, y Querida (land), and this time; I promised myself that I would start a life in the land I wanted to escape from so severely. But it is said that once you see shadows, they will never leave your side, and in 6 months, the man returned, and I was back by his side in the promised land. Again how could I be so naive to believe his trancing words? He would leave for months on end, leaving me alone in a tiny room in a city I did not know with no nourishment and no one to talk to. It got so bad that I felt as though I was shriveling and drying up in the corner I called home. One thing, however, did stay true about my promise to myself, and that was never neglecting my flowerlet as my mother plant did to me, which is why for ten years, I would attempt the impossible just to see my plumule for a few weeks until his wish came true and my daughter sprout was born. She was born, and the bud who wished for her so badly could not enjoy the blessing God gave me. He gave me this blessing to have someone to talk to in my solidarity and a guardian angel to guide me through my torment life. Always remember my kids the Name is rosemary, rosemary they say originally from the Mediterranean, which in Latin means dew of the sea. A journal that is written using the stories my vigorous mother told at “storytime.” By the daughter that became familiar with neglect through a different path. Previous Next

Hispanic Heritage < Return to Exhibitions September 13 - November 9, 2014 Guillermo Bert: Encoded Text Main Gallery Juan Delgado & Thomas McGovern: Vital Signs South Gallery Linda Vallejo: Make 'Em All Mexican East Gallery Johnny Nicoloro: Virgin Mary Education Gallery Luis Fileto: Pasajeros Vault Gallery Pageantry: Roping, Riding, Escaramuza Andrea Kaus, Leslie Mazoch, Omar Mireles, Libby Wendt & Robin Rosenthal Wells Fargo Gallery 2-_Cover-CatalogLowRes Vital Signs Book cover 047 Edited BobsBigBoy-Muchachote photo 1_edited Boyle Heights Guillermo Bert: Encoded Text Guillermo Bert's Encoded Textiles creates hand-woven, large-scale tapestries that combine electronic scanning codes with Indigenous design methods and the first-person voices of Native peoples. The series was inspired by the artist's observation that QR (“quick response”) codes, which electronically read data, closely resemble graphic designs in the textile arts of Native peoples. Using software that translates words into barcode patterns, the personal stories of indigenous participants become woven into the tapestries, forming new designs and relationships. By combining high-tech software and industrial processes with Indigenous design and loom techniques, and then translating spoken narratives into tapestries themselves, the artist highlights the interaction of the “ancient” and “modern” in our intertwined globalized world. Through the weavings, laser cut cubes, podcasts and film clips that comprise the exhibition, the artist offers his commentary on the issues of identity and cultural loss in our global society. Guillermo Bert and the Lancaster Museum of Art and History would like to thank Michael and Francis Weber and the Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation for their support in making this exhibition possible. The narrative thread that forms the baseline for the project began through Bert's own personal journey as a Chilean artist among the Mapuche people of his home country. There, he interviewed weavers and other community members, bringing to light the relationship of symbolic culture, environmental concerns, and the impact of economic interventions on the Indigenous land base. By enlisting the input of Indigenous weavers to re-insert the codes into traditional design motifs, the artist collapses the duality of Indigenous/Contemporary and enables a new and more timely conversation to take place. The conversion of a poem or piece of spoken history into a high-tech bar code - and then its re-conversion back to a traditional weaving - represents the creation of an innovative cultural artifact that celebrates and revives traditional art forms. The Incubator cubes that form the sculptural element of the series derive from the same principles of recognition and reconciliation. Drawing from similarities in ancient symbols and contemporary matrix bar codes, the laser-cut cubes and their associated designs explore the link between the cryptic and the quotidian. Entering through the portal of the bar codes and QR codes, the viewer is transported into the world of oral traditions, poems, and first-person narratives from the Mapuche community of Southern Chile, Zapotec weavers from Oaxaca, Mexico, and Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico. In effect, the artist Guillermo Bert serves as a visionary and curator to a much larger project – one that connects international communities through the forms best known to their own traditions, while centering our current modes of technological communication and commercialization into a growing awareness of the need to use them for greater purposes of inter-connectedness. Thomas McGovern and Juan Delgado: Vital Signs Vital Signs is a collaborative photography/poetry project about the Inland Empire region of Southern California, starting with the City of San Bernardino. The combination of images and words suggest the expansive nature of art-making where seemingly unrelated things, memories, impressions and relationships coalesce through the shared sensibility of the artists and viewers. The project began in 2006, when Thomas McGovern started photographing hand-painted signs and murals throughout the Inland Empire. His photographs are emblematic of the rich cultural heritage of the community and region and represent the recent past, when hand painted signs were an inexpensive way to advertise a business and decorate a building. As digital technology brings printing costs down and makes vinyl signs affordable, these unique icons are becoming obsolete. Unfortunately, as neighborhoods develop and prosper these signs— and the vitality and shared cultural heritage they represent—are painted over or destroyed, homogenizing what was once unique. Like Thomas McGovern, Juan Delgado has lived a major part of his life in San Bernardino, writing about the region for decades. His poetry for Vital Signs evolved through extensive discussions while the collaborators were driving, walking and celebrating their city. In Delgado's poetry, narrators focus on the unappreciated, exploring the relationship between identity and place. One poem celebrates vecinas (neighborhood women) who fight to regain their streets. Another narrative points to the closing of a local grocery store and the burdens of change on families. Some lament the tragic lives of people deeply rooted to this place, and others tell of journeys of migrants whose stories are uplifting because they embody the best of the human spirit. The fusion of cultures and the shared sensibilities of the artists are apparent in both the book and exhibition, which are a tribute to the region and a celebration of cultural diversity, ingenuity, and entrepreneurship. McGovern is a photographer, writer, and art professor at California State University, San Bernardino. His photographs are in the permanent collection of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Museum of the City of New York; and The Baltimore Museum of Art, among others. He received his BA from Empire State College, New York and his MFA from California State University, Fullerton. Delgado is an English professor and director of the MFA program in creative writing at California State University, San Bernardino. He has won the Embers Press Poetry Contest for A Change of Worlds and received the Contemporary Poetry Series Awards for his collection of poetry Green Web. He received his BA from California State University, San Bernardino and his MFA from the University of California, Irvine. The artists thank California State University, San Bernardino, for their support, and the Robert and Frances Museum of Art (RAFFMA) in San Bernardino for mounting the first incarnation of this exhibition. Linda Vallejo: Make ‘Em All Mexican Los Angeles-based artist Linda Vallejo consolidates multiple international influences gained from a life of study and travel throughout Europe, the United States and Mexico to create paintings, sculptures and installations that investigate contemporary cultural, political, spiritual and environmental issues. Critically acclaimed as breakthrough work, Vallejo’s Make ‘Em All Mexican re-contextualizes familiar iconography through a culturally personal lens by re-purposing objects ranging from postcards and posters to figurines and statues. Karen Mary Davalos, Professor and Chair of Chicana/Chicano Studies Department, Loyola Marymount University notes: “Vallejo has produced a provocative new series that re-appropriates Western and American icons. Using widely recognized images, such as Hollywood celebrities, Norman Rockwell paintings, Victorian figurines, classical European portraiture, and the school primer, Dick and Jane , Vallejo repaints the figures as Mexicans. From one perspective, Vallejo creates the fear of every anti-immigration activist and recolors the world with brown skin and black hair and eyes. Vallejo is conceptually performing two critical acts, first she defaces the work that she recolors, and second, she takes the image (and its history, power and meaning) and changes it for her own purpose.” Vallejo carefully selects her objects from antique stores, yard sales and estate sales then gives them new identities with auto body paints, acrylic, gold leaf, oil and Wite-Out. By transforming figurines of pop icons such as Elvis and Marilyn Monroe into chocolate-skinned El Vis and Mariela , Vallejo imbues her figures with the polarities between the iconic and kitsch and tongue-in-cheek humor while questioning the politics of color. These transformed characters bring questions of race and class to the forefront. Each item is potentially comical and unfamiliar all in one glance. For Vallejo these issues hit close to home; she states “even as a third generation American, I remain invisible in the cultural landscape. Thus, Make ‘Em All Mexican creates a space that is inclusive of the Latino community while at the same time exposing its absence and the cultural divides that exist in our country.” Highly accomplished, Vallejo has enjoyed numerous solo exhibitions of Make ’Em All Mexican at the Soto Clemente Velez Cultural Center in New York in 2014, the George Lawson Gallery and the University Art Gallery of New Mexico State University and at Arte Americas in collaboration with the Fresno Art Museum and the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art at California State University, San Bernardino. In 2014, Vallejo received the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs COLA Individual Artist Fellowship. She has exhibited at the National Museum of Mexican Art, the Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art New York, the San Antonio Museum and Mexico City Modern Art Museum. She was included in two exhibitions associated with the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA 1945–1980 initiative: Mapping Another LA: The Chicano Art Movement , at the UCLA Fowler Museum; and Doin’ It in Public: Art and Feminism at the Woman’s Building , at the Otis College of Art and Design Ben Maltz Gallery. Her work is in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, the Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard, California, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the California Multicultural and Ethnic Archives at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the Chicano Studies Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. The George Lawson Gallery in San Francisco, California currently represents Vallejo. Johnny Nicoloro: Virgin Mary Johnny Nicoloro is an award-winning artist who creates colorful layers of visual imagery by utilizing his signature technique of double-exposed compositions created entirely in his camera. Recently, the artist turned his lens to the Virgin Mary, one of the most revered and iconic figures in the world. In Virgin Mary , the artist layered images of the Virgin Mary with signs, objects and the commercial artifacts of urbanity in collages depicting the hardships and challenges of our times. Of note are his often-whimsical titles that share his deeply personal devotion for the protection and grace the Virgin Mary is honored for in communities across the Southern California landscape and beyond. His Virgin Mary series, showcased in the intimate setting of the Education Gallery, offers a contemplative space where the viewer may take in his personal and creative manifestations of the Virgin in relationship to contemporary times—times we all can relate to. The work of Johnny Nicoloro has been featured at the Farmington Art Museum in Farmington, New Mexico; The Latino Art Museum in the Pomona Art Colony in Pomona, California; The Annex @ Core New Art Space in Denver, Colorado and the Los Angeles Center for Digital Arts in Los Angeles, California. His work is also part of the permanent collection at The Latino Museum of History, Art and Culture in Los Angeles, California. Nicoloro, a native of Los Angeles with a BA in Theatre from UCLA and self-taught camera artist, has also taught Creative Photography for Personal Growth at The Village in Hollywood and has been an art and photography instructor for CoachArt, a non-profit charity providing free lessons in the arts to kids with life-threatening illnesses. Luis Fileto: Pasajeros Palmdale-based artist Luis Fileto’s current body of work is driven by action, emotion, intuition and his search for meaning through painting, photography and mixed media. Drawing from the legacy of abstract expressionist painters, his material application ranges from using nail polish to finger painting and action painting. In his work, Fileto embraces his connection to spirituality and the importance of family, friends and the big picture of life. Fileto has shown extensively across Southern California including KGB Gallery in Los Angeles, SCA Project Gallery in Pomona and Garboushian Gallery in Beverly Hills. Pageantry: Roping, Riding, Escaramuza A grand spectacle, a dazzling display—of flying manes and flaring nostrils, palpable air and rivers of dust, sun and shadow, silk and sweat, well-worn leather and glinting silver—this is the visual allure of rodeo. In a split second the unique moment is captured, and even what the camera can’t see—the smell of damp hide, the outburst of a bull’s wet snort, the skill, the pride, the centuries of tradition, the years of practice—the photographer knows, and all are present in the photograph. Pageantry: Roping, Riding, Escaramuza , guest curated by filmmaker Robin Rosenthal, invites the viewer to experience these sensory details and the timeless beauty of our shared rodeo heritage as seen through the eyes of photographers Andrea Kaus, Leslie Mazoch, Omar Mireles and Libby Wendt. Andrea Kaus first picked up an SLR camera under the instruction of her physicist father. “Those early lessons are mostly forgotten, apart from his introductory sentence that light is made up of photons and waves and a foreboding feeling that it gets a lot more complicated after that.” While undertaking fieldwork for a doctoral degree in anthropology, Kaus used photos as a way to connect with ranching families in northern Mexico. They taught her that a photograph is not taken but is instead a random moment captured as one might catch a wild horse. The thrill of photography remains for her the thrill of the hunt for a universally recognizable tick mark in time. Shooting rodeo allows Kaus to combine her own experience with horses with observations of people, in search of unpredictable and unrepeatable moments. The photos included in this exhibition were taken at rodeos across Southern California. Texas-born photojournalist Leslie Mazoch began her career on the Mexican border with a stint at The Brownsville Herald, and continued southward as an Associated Press photographer covering political, financial and social issues in Venezuela. She became a photo editor in 2007, and is now based at the A.P. headquarters for Latin America and the Caribbean in Mexico City. Becoming a photo editor has allowed Mazoch the time to work on personal projects, chief among them her documentary photography series on the Escaramuza (“skirmish”)—the women’s sport in La Charrería. Rooted in the cattle culture of Colonial Mexico, Charrería blends the equestrian skills, handcrafted tack, elegant costumes, music, and food of that rich heritage into a living folk tradition. Between the men’s riding and roping contests, the escaramuzas charras perform their perilous, precision horse ballets, bending and twisting their galloping reining horses around each other in intricate synchronized patterns. Mazoch’s Escaramuza photographs have been honored with awards from the National Press Photography Association, and will soon be published in book form. Ten images from the series are here at MOAH. Omar Mireles’s body of work documents the Charrería tradition and culture he grew up with and sees daily. In his birthplace of Jerez, Zacatecas, Mexico, Mireles’s grandfather schooled him in all things charro—horses, ranch life, coleaderos, charreadas. When his grandfather passed, Mireles devoted himself to photographing this lifestyle in his honor. From his current home in Oxnard, CA he began by shadowing the local escaramuza team Charras Unidas De Villa, and is now a well-known presence at charreadas throughout Southern California, capturing the characteristic combination of skill and artistry of all the participants —charras and charros alike. Mireles returns to Jerez every spring for his hometown’s Sábado de Gloria (Holy Saturday) celebration, a fiesta comparable to Mardi Gras. On the Saturday before Easter, charros gather from all over Mexico to break the Lenten fast. The main event of the day is a cabalgata (procession) of mounted charros numbering in the thousands. The photographs shown here are from a series taken at Sábado de Gloria Jerez in 2014. A tag-along to her best friend’s beginning photography class at Chaffey College in Alta Loma, CA started Libby Wendt down a 35-year path as a photographer—shooting everything from pro football to college and high school sports; newspaper features to breaking news; music concerts and CD covers to animal portraits. When her daughter began running for rodeo queen titles, Wendt put her sports photography background to good use, and started looking for those special moments in the rodeo events. Several of these photographs were taken at last year’s California Finals Rodeo at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds, including two portraits of 2013 PRCA Specialty Act of the Year and Charro Ambassador Tomas Garcilazo and his matinee-idol stallion “Hollywood.” Guest Curator Robin Rosenthal is an independent filmmaker based in Littlerock, California. An avid horsewoman and rodeo fan, her most recent documentary, with Bill Yahraus, Escaramuza: Riding from the Heart , delved into the equestrian culture of La Charrería, deepening her appreciation for the connections between Mexican and American rodeo traditions. Rosenthal’s documentary practice draws from her background as an artist, educator, and motion picture industry professional. Rosenthal received her bachelors degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and went on to Queens College, City University of New York, for her Master of Fine Arts. She taught studio art at San Antonio College and the San Antonio Art Institute, and exhibited her video art throughout the Southwest, before moving toward documentary work. She edited Chamoru Dreams for Pacific Islanders in Communications' Pacific Diaries series, and the award-winning Mary Jane Colter: House Made of Dawn , both broadcast nationally on PBS. With filmmaking partner Bill Yahraus, she made the feature documentary A Circus Season: Travels with Tarzan (PBS) and the Eclipse-winning series On the Muscle: Portrait of a Thoroughbred Racing Stable . Robin also oversees a small niche market distribution arm for their company Pony Highway Productions. Bert Delgado Fileto Pageantry Nicoloro Vallejo View or Download the Hispanic Heritage Exhibition Catalog by clicking on the cover image or here.