New GCAC Website and Blog!

Grand Central Art Center is excited to announce its newly designed website with blog, now online!

We invite you to visit:
http://www.grandcentralartcenter.com/

Wonderful Day of Celebration @ GCAC

Yesterday, Grand Central Art Center hosted an event celebrating Pakistan Independence Day, organized by artists-in-residence Heather Layton and Brian Bailey, part of their current year long project 59 Days of Independence. They are here in residency through the generous funding support of the GCAC artist-in-residency program provided by a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

The day including a “Malala Trilingual Book Reading for Kids,” with children’s stories of Pakistani-American and Mexican-American culture read in Spanish, Urdu and English, with projections of the illustrations.

Recent Orange County School for the Arts student Miguel Pulido (Class of 2014, beginning Pitzer College this fall) helped to organize the activities, as well as participated in the reading and performed on guitar. His contributions to the event brought a joyful spirit and energy through music.

The afternoon provided an opportunity to view an assortment of craft objects that reflect the development of Pakistani visual culture from traditional to contemporary. A hands-on activity table was set-up within the space, with both children and adults sharing their creative skills. Delicious traditional food for all in attendance was available from Noorani Halal Restaurant.

In addition to Heather, Brian and Miguel, Grand Central Art Center thanks the following individuals for making the celebration possible:
Ifra Khoso, Sheba Akhtar, Almas Asif, Farhan Aziz, Anila Ali, Monica Mouet, Pam Solorzano and the Irvine Pakistani Parents’ Association.

We concluded the day with a GCAC Dutch Treat Dinner at The Robbins Nest Wine Bar here in downtown Santa Ana. A great group of individuals, including CSUF grad students and faculty members, four current GCAC artists-in-residence, a curator and artist coming down for the night from Los Angeles and many of our creative collaborative community members, all joining us for the event. Thanks to Lisa Robbins and her wonderful team for allowing us to take over a big part of her restaurant for the evening of great conversations and connections!

We thank you all for your continued support of GCAC and look forward to having you join us for upcoming programs and receptions.

Wild Times Continue with Susan Robb @ GCAC!

If you’ve been to Grand Central Art Center over the past few months, then you know just how “wild” it’s been, following artist Susan Robb on her journey to conquer the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) through her Wild Times project.

Susan began her trek in Campo, Mexico in April, recently passing the half way mark and today is making camp in Ashland, OR, on her way to the finishing mark of Manning BC, Canada.

You can follow her travel through the “transmissions” on the Wild Times website and by visiting GCAC to see the 2D, 3D and written transmissions in person.

More details on the project at GCAC can be found on our blog at:
https://grandcentralartcenter.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/susan-robb-wild-times-opening-reception-53-gcac/

Wild Times is a project of Creative Capital and is supported by Grand Central Art Center, Palm Springs Art Museum, 826 Valencia, Tacoma Art Museum, Frye Art Museum, and the Henry Art Gallery.

Generous in-kind support has been provided by MakerBot, Microsoft, Projecteo, Washington Trails Association, and Whole Foods Market.

We look forward to having you join us!

Successful “Burial” of the Time Capsule!

Grand Central Art Center held a time capsule “burial” event and reception this past Saturday, July 12th, in association with artist Daniel Tucker’s GCAC artist in residence project Future Perfect: Time Capsules in Reagan Country.

Daniel was joined during the day by Los Angeles based filmmaker Emily Forman, who was there at the ceremony to help document the event and individual interviews, and GCAC Director John D. Spiak, who assisted with the “burial” of the capsule.

The artists overall project was inspired from a speech by former US President and then California State Governor, Ronald Reagan, as he was Addressing the Republican National Convention in 1976, encouraged individuals to look toward the future.

The ten year Santa Ana Time Capsule is a collaboration among the community, artist, GCAC and Santa Ana Public Library’s History Room, organized by Daniel and library archivist Manny Escamilla. Members of the community were encouraged to attend the event and contribute items to the time capsule they felt helps to answer the question “What is Santa Ana like in 2014?”

In Daniel’s research, he discovered that many time capsules are buried, and then become forgotten. In an attempt to prevent this from happening, instead of an actual burial, it was decided that the capsule would be hoisted in a more publically visible space of the Grand Central Art Center where it will remain for the next ten years. The capsule is secured with three individual locks, with the artist, library and GCAC in possession of the keys to an individual lock. In the year 2024, all three keys will be brought back together, the capsule will be lowered, each of the three locks removed by their responsible individual, and the contents revealed at a public ceremony.

We look forward to having you join us at GCAC in 2024 as we come together to celebrate the time capsule!

Daniel is in the process of editing a film documenting his research, process and travels during his GCAC artist-in-residence, as well as a publication with critical writing from multiple perspectives, so we will keep you posted as these develop.

Time Capsule Ceremony on 7/12 @ 12noon – In association with Daniel Tucker’s Future Perfect

What’s happening in Santa Ana in 2014?

Time Capsule
To be sealed in a ceremony on July 12th, 2014 @ 12noon

Grand Central Art Center is collaborating with the Santa Ana Public Library’s History Room to “bury” a 10-year time capsule on July 12th at 12pm. The ceremony will take place at Grand Central Art Center, in association with Daniel Tucker’s artists in residence project Future Perfect: Time Capsules in Reagan Country.

Time capsules are like a little treasure chest that we send off for future generations to enjoy. They can help future generations understand questions like: Who lived here? What were they doing? What was important to them?. The time capsule will be buried at the GCAC for 10 years and then replaced with another capsule after it is opened.

Initiated as part of the Grand Central Art Center artist in residence program by Daniel Tucker, in collaboration with the Teen Historians program and Manuel J. Escamilla.

The time capsule is to be opened on July 13th, 2024.

The chest will be secured with three locks. Opening will require three keys, one housed at the Santa Ana Public Library, one at GCAC and another in the hands of artist Daniel Tucker.

We look forward to having you join us!

Cog•nate Collective with Mendez Fundamental Intermediate School

This week, current artists-in-residence Cog•nate Collective (Amy Sanchez and Misael Diaz) presented a listening/walking activity tour through downtown Santa Ana, with Erin Hyatt’s students from Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez Fundamental Intermediate School here in Santa Ana.

The focus of Ms. Hyatt’s current teaching is a living history of Santa Ana, with the goal of exposing students to the arts and culture of their community.

During their visit, the students were provides a tour of the current exhibitions at Grand Central Art Center, including: Jody Zellen: Time Jitters; Flora Kao: Wind House, Abode That A Breath Effaced; and Susan Robb: Wild Times. We discussed with the students the connections between the current exhibitions and the activities they were to engaged with throughout the day – subjects such as journey and discovery; uses of technology as information platform, information and connector; everyday surroundings and place; local history.

Amy and Misael took the students on adventures throughout downtown, sharing along the way audio excerpts for their recently developed BORDERBLASTERS (SNA) // LA CUATRO I-IV series, presented via their radio transmission wagon – collections of oral testimonies of local residents, artists, community leaders and 4th Street business owners as they reflect on the economic, social and cultural dimensions of redevelopment in the Downtown core of Santa Ana. The stories are also available to the public through QR codes and printed binders located at businesses throughout downtown.

The interactions of the day provided the students an opportunity to use their technology to record, through image, sounds and video, new discoveries of their own community. The documentation will be brought back to the classroom where it will be discussed, edited and used in the continued classroom curriculum over the summer course.

UNCOVERING THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL, free public program, July 5 @ 6pm

UNCOVERING THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL
A Grand Central Art Center Educational Outreach Program
in association with the current exhibition/residency
Wild Times with artist Susan Robb
Saturday, July 5 @ 6PM
Grand Central Art Center
FREE

Join us as we demystify the long journey of Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) through hikers and their 2,650 mile trek from Mexico to Canada. As part of Grand Central Art Center’s educational outreach, REI in Tustin will partner with GCAC to present a public program about backpacking. Learn about ultralight equipment, items that make or break pack weight, and the basics of hiking the PCT. This educational program can help you prepare for your next day hike adventure or the journey of a lifetime.

Successful Opening Receptions and Neighborhood Mixer @ Grand Central Art Center

With all the recent installations, programs and activities, we’ve been a little behind on our posting, so forgive us for this late recap…

The First Saturday Downtown Santa Ana Art Walk on June 7th marked the opening of two new exhibitions at Grand Central Art Center – Jody Zellen: Time Jitters and Flora Kao: Wind House, Abode That A Breath Effaced. Both artists were in attendance throughout the evening, greeting the 2,700+ who attended the reception. It was another truly successful evening.

Along with the opening receptions, our current artists in residence, Ingrid Reeve, Barbara Milliorn and Evan Senn, presented a screening of the film Cutie and the Boxer, as a public program for their current project/residency Life of an Artist. The audience loved it!

And we continue the current exhibition/residency Wild Times with artist Susan Robb. Susan continues to send transmissions from her journey on the Pacific Crest Trail, as well images and three-dimensional objects back to GCAC, resulting in an ever-expanding exhibition in the gallery.

In our GCAC Graduate Studio Spaces, California State University, Fullerton’s Kimberly McKinnis (MA in Exhibition Design) collaborated with Heather Bowling to present artist Taylor Correa. Taylor activated the space, creating work on site and presenting past work on display. Individuals were welcomed into the space for conversation and shared engagement.

We followed our First Saturday activities with a Downtown Santa Ana Neighborhood Mixer event on the evening of June 11th. Over 100 of our neighbors joined us at GCAC to connect further and meet new friends. It was a solid representation of our business community, our GCAC students who live on sites, and residences who live in the lofts of our downtown. The event included a Bites Battle, with delicious appetizers provided by Downtown restaurants Diego’s and Boldo, as coordinated by Downtown Inc.’s Ryan Smolar. Beverages were provided and served by Alova, through the in-kind generosity of Karen Gonzalez and her team. The amazing Delilah Snell was key to helping making this event a reality. GCAC’s team thanks each and everyone who donated and attended the event. WE LOVE OUR NEIGHBORS!

A few more updates are coming soon, so keep an eye on the blog, or just come over for a visit.

Recapping A Grand First Saturday – Hike / Gallery Talk / Reception / Art Walk @ GCAC!

Saturday, May 3rd, marked another successful first Saturday art walk! The monthly art walk event in downtown Santa Ana provides a night of open galleries and institutions, studios and street vendors, great live music and all the wonderful food of local restaurants. It’s always an enjoyable way to spend a southern California evening!

The day kicked-off a little early this month as Fallen Fruit. Fallen Fruit is an art collaboration originally conceived in 2004 by David Burns, Matias Viegener and Austin Young. Since 2013, David and Austin have continued the collaborative work. David and Austin led a day hike with participant collaborators Sue-Na G., Stephanie Kern, Emily Lacy, Husam Salman, Sarah Shewey and Faith Purvey, to Deep Creek Hot Springs in the San Bernardino National Forest. Fallen Fruit’s project, Rainbow Day Trip, was organized as a collaborative program of Susan Robb’s project and exhibition Wild Times, currently on exhibition at GCAC.

The group of Rainbow Day hikers joined Fallen Fruit on the adventure to become “trail angels,” an effort to connect with Pacific Crest Trail hikers for encouragement and inspiration along the 5-month journey from Mexico to Canada (more details on Wild Times below).

Here is the way Fallen Fruit describes how their preparation and adventure unfolded:

“Prior to Saturday, each collaborator chose a color to embody for the day hike.  They thought about each color and what that color means in the world.  They thought about flavors, histories and songs.  They constructed characters based upon our individual research and imagination.

The evening before the hike we connected to fine-tune our characters collectively.  We told each other stories and made embellishments to our color characters.  We used feathers and spray paint, working out the details of each of our individual performances, which we would reveal as a color performances to the group the next day. At the trailhead, we geared up and embarked on our experimental day trip to perform all of the colors of the rainbow.   Rainbows don’t last forever; they are fragile and temporal like our group.  We became a visual spectrum of color and spanned an arc within a landscape we couldn’t capture except by photographs.

The Rainbow Day Trip was a mind-body experience that constructed a narrative created by individual experiences that was group authored.  Each color performed in independent ways, as meditations, as series of declarations about each participant, completely in song and through silence.  We realized that colors are many things.”

Back at GCAC, we kicked off our evening with a 6pm gallery talk by current exhibiting artist Julia Haft-Candell. Julia shared insights into the current body of work included in her solo GCAC exhibition Fast and Slow, on exhibition in the Project Gallery through May 11th.   The artist provided insight into her process, her philosophies on art making practice and her current career activities. It was an appreciative audience in attendance who asked great questions, engaging the artist in wonderful dialogue.

As the official art walk began at 7pm, we opened the doors to our three galleries. The night marked the opening reception for Susan Robb’s Wild Times project. In mid-April, Robb embarked on a 5-month adventure from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail. Using the trail as a nomadic studio and her experiences as inspiration and medium, she is creating digital works—photos, videos, and 3D files— sending them to Grand Central Art Center where they will be displayed. Over the course of the 5-months, the exhibition will continue to grow through physical object, engaged programming and hands-on activities provided by Robb through the Wild Times website.

Thanks to a generous donation by Microsoft, we have numerous Surface tablets connected in the space, as well as a Microsoft Perceptive Pixel (PPI) touch screen device, allowing patrons the opportunity to browse the current activities of Robb on the trail. The connection to the project website also allows for individuals to post their own responses and interactions with the project, adding a truly collective voice to the project and gallery space.

Through our new Makerbot 3D printer, we are actively printing objects Susan is scanning along the way and transmitting back to us. The objects are being printed in color codes that indicate the altitude on the trail where the object was discovered and scanned by the artist. We printed three rocks on Saturday evening that became, and will remain, part of the exhibition.

The exhibition space also contains an Epson large format printer, being used by GCAC to print 2D images Susan sends from her journey. After being printed, the photos are framed and become part of the overall installation. Over the course of the exhibition the photos will begin to hang layered upon one another, creating a topographic map extending out from the gallery wall. The images and installation will provide a sense of the terrain the artist has traversed to date.

If you haven’t seen it yet, we thought you might enjoy reading the interview with Susan regarding her Wild Times project on the Creative Capital blog. Creative Capital is a major granter of this project. Here is the link: http://blog.creative-capital.org/2014/04/susan-robbs-wild-times

In addition to Grand Central Art Center, you have the opportunity to see elements and programs of Susan’s Wild Times project at collaborative venues including: Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Desert, CA; 826 valencia, San Francisco, CA; Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA; Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA; and Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA.

We are excited to be able to support and to be on this journey with Susan. We hope you will join us throughout the project, to engage with its programming and to support the artist as well!

Saturday marked the last week of Julia Haft-Candell’s Fast and Slow exhibition, as noted earlier, and the last week of the extremely successful and well received exhibition by artists Julianne Swartz and Ken Landauer, Miracle Report. If you haven’t yet had the opportunity to see these exhibitions, stop by this weekend, as both exhibitions are open through this Sunday, May 11, when we close at 4pm. Lots of wonderful restaurants here in Santa Ana, so it could be a great way to celebrate Mother Day.

And the activities and outreach of Grand Central Art Center on Saturday evening were not limited to Santa Ana. Current GCAC artist in residence Daniel Tucker was busy with his own activities in Los Angeles as well. During his residence, Tucker has been developing a documentary project entitled Future Perfect – Time Capsules in Reagan County, dealing with the legacy of Ronald Reagan and the phenomenon of time capsule burials in California. As part of his residency, the artist has been traveling the entire state of California, visiting research libraries, Reagan related monuments and parks, and presenting talks at various locations and institutions. On Saturday night, Daniel was part of the group exhibition PRESENTS that opened at Commonwealth and Council in Los Angeles, which runs through May 24th. For his contribution to the exhibition, Tucker created the project The Preface to Future Perfect, a photography installation presenting materials from his ongoing research while in residence at GCAC.

You would think all those activities would be enough to fill a weekend, and you would probably be right, but not for us here at GCAC. Sunday we welcomed back our ongoing artist in residence Lisa Bielawa, who is in town this week for a series of meeting, arranged through our Director/Chief Curator John D. Spiak, in the development of her upcoming GCAC project, a serial Opera titled Vireo. Lisa also had time to connect with our new GCAC Cal State Fullerton graduate assistant Amanda Leader, who is working on her Masters Degree in Music, Voice Performance with emphasis in Opera. Amanda has been an excellent addition to the GCAC team and will be helping manage major components of Lisa’s serial opera as Project Coordinator. We’ll provide you more details on this project as it progresses.

So stop by Grand Central Art Center and be part of the action, we would love to see you!

SUSAN ROBB: WILD TIMES – Opening Reception 5/3 @ GCAC

SUSAN ROBB: WILD TIMES
What is wild? Where is wild? Are you wild?
May 3 through October 12, 2014

Opening reception: Saturday, May 3 from 7-10pm

Artist Susan Robb‘s Wild Times merges new media, social engagement, and a 2,650 mile hike as an invitation to explore wildness as a geographic ideal and a state of mind.

Robb will walk the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, making and sending digital artworks to Grand Central Art Center and collaborating West Coast museums and art centers.

Only 3% of the contiguous United States is still considered protected wild space.

As our culture increasingly pressures us to maintain a personal “brand,” be in constant contact, and snapchat every moment, maybe it’s not just our geographic wild spaces that are endangered, but our internal wild spaces as well.

Artist Susan Robb‘s Wild Times merges new media, social engagement, and a 2,650- mile hike as an invitation to explore wildness as a geographic ideal and a state of mind.

Beginning in mid-April 2014, Robb will embark on a 5-month adventure from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail. Using the trail as a nomadic studio and her experiences as inspiration and medium, she will create digital works—photos, videos, and 3D files—periodically sending them to Grand Central Art Center and a series of additional West Coast art venues. There they will be printed, projected, and installed, evolving into cumulative exhibitions, a meditation on what it means to be wild today.

In addition to Grand Central Art Center, collaborative venues include: Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Desert, CA; 826 valencia, San Francisco, CA; Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA; Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA; and Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA.

At its core, Wild Times is a proposition to YOU to seek out and explore your own wildness. To aid this process, Robb has developed satellite events and programming. The project website features “Hack Your Wild” instructions for creative action, the results of which can be posted and shared. Additional experiential opportunities are being offered at the venues: a “hero’s journey” writing workshop, group “therapy” explorations, improv comedy situationist dérives, and a “trail magic” master class.

Collaborators include: artists Fallen Fruit, Eroyn Franklin, Mandy Greer, Anastasia Hill and Eric Olson, writer Michael David Lukas, psychoanalyst Nicole Wiggins, artist and improv comedian Graham Downing, designer Katrina Hess, radio producer Jenny Asarnow, and writer, filmmaker and cultural critic Charles Mudede.

To further deepen the conversation, Robb has collected stories from “everyday explorers,” individuals who investigate or embody wildness by their own light and mettle. These media-rich features, shared online and in print, explore disaster edens, portray the life of a dominatrix, and consider the social and emotional toll of wild fires, among other subjects. Together, they depict diverse paths taken in pursuit of, or in response to, the wild.

The exhibitions, programs, and participatory website will enable venue visitors and the public at large to serve as collaborators—interacting with the project, with Robb, and the broad Wild Times community.

From the untrammeled spaces of the PCT, and with the host venues and her collaborators, Robb hopes to plot the coordinates of wildness in contemporary life. Through Wild Times, she offers her body and work as a conduit between gallery and wilderness, public and trail, form and formless, as a way to cultivate the wild terrain that resides in us all.

Wild Times is a project of Creative Capital and is supported by Grand Central Art Center, Palm Springs Art Museum, 826 Valencia, Tacoma Art Museum, Frye Art Museum, and the Henry Art Gallery.

Generous in-kind support has been provided by MakerBot, Microsoft, Projecteo, Washington Trails Association, and Whole Foods Market.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Susan Robb’s work is an ongoing investigation of people, place, and our search for utopia. She orchestrates temporary, site-responsive, and socially-engaged projects to transform contemporary concerns—climate crisis, social isolation, high-speed daily living—into opportunities to re-envision and re-connect. Her projects include The Long Walk, ONN/OF “a light festival”, Parking Squid, Sleeper Cell Training Camp, and Warmth Giant Black Toobs. Robb’s work has been funded by a Pollack Krasner Foundation Grant, two Artist Trust Fellowships, a Stranger Genius Award, 4Culture, and the City of Seattle’s Office of Arts and Culture. In 2013, she received a Creative Capital grant to produce Wild Times. Her work has been collected and shown nationally and internationally.

More Wild Times details:
http://www.wildtimesproject.com

More information on Susan Robb:
http://www.susanrobb.com/