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.

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.

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.

Jody Zellen: Time Jitters – Opening June 7th @ Grand Central Art Center

Jody Zellen: Time Jitters
June 7 – August 10, 2014
Opening Reception: June 7th, 2014, 7-10pm

Time Jitters is an exhibition of a series of artworks that take their point of departure from world news images from the New York Times. Included in Time Jitters are gouache on paper paintings, digital images and a two-channel video installation.

Time Jitters is a two channel video projection that juxtaposes a grid of 25 looping animations with a single channel narrative.

The various components in Zellen’s work serve as building blocks that can be reconfigured for different mediums. A line drawing is scanned and used in a digital collage, which becomes a template for a painting, a page in an artist’s book, an image in an iPad app as well as an animation in which the drawing process is made visible. Drawing and the relationship between how the computer generates a line in contrast to what is created by the hand is central to Zellen’s explorations.

Also included will be a series of gouache on paper paintings. These 22 x 30 inch works illustrate the cycle of regeneration – birth and growth, death and decay – collectively becoming a representation of the passage of time. While the specific events may not be discernible, the works poetically and metaphorically alter these cyclical images. The translucent pastel colors of the paintings contrast with the harsher opaque tones in another work; a grid of 40 small digital prints collectively entitled If. If is also a 40- page limited edition artist’s book whose sequence reads as a poetic narrative.

The opening reception will take place on June 7th, 2014, 7-10pm, during the First Saturday Art Walk.

Call for Cast / Audience Members for Recreation of John Cage’s Seminal Performance 4’33”

THE TUBA THIEVES / Directed by Alison O’Daniel
Call for Cast / Audience Members
Date: May 25th, 2014
Time: 12 PM – 6 PM

Alison’s film will be included in the exhibition LOUDsilence, curated by Amanda Cachia, opening this September at Grand Central Art Center. The film is also scheduled to screen at Art in General, NYC (Winter 2015) and Centre d’art contemporain in Brest, France (Summer 2015). The project is supported by Art Matters, the Rema Hort Mann Foundation and the Franklin Furnace Fund.

Call for cast / Audience members for a recreation of John Cage’s seminal performance of 4’33”

Alison is looking for a cast of all ages to act as audience members for a one-day shoot at the beautiful and historic Maverick Concert Hall. Food, drinks, copy and credit and our undying gratitude will be provided in exchange for your time.

Location: Maverick Concert Hall, 120 Maverick Rd, Woodstock, NY 12498
Date: May 25th, 2014
Time: 12 PM – 6 PM
Contact: tubathievesfilmproduction@gmail.com

About the project:

THE TUBA THIEVES is a film about a Deaf drummer whose relationships with her hearing father and hearing boyfriend are impacted by the history of the 1952 Woodstock premier of John Cage’s 4’33” at the Maverick Concert Hall.

About the artist: www.alisonodaniel.com

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!

VIP Reception for Julianne Swartz and Ken Landauer’s Miracle Report

Grand Central Art Center had a very successful VIP reception this past Saturday night, with 125 quality individuals join us to celebrate Julianne Swartz and Ken Landauer’s installation Miracle Report. The artists spent time connecting and reconnecting with individuals in attendance. Attendees included Los Angeles gallery owners, artists and foundation directors; Orange County and downtown Santa Ana business and city leadership; regional museum and art commission colleagues; and a few Southern California art critics.

We would like to thank Dan Bradley, Diego Velasco and the team at Memphis for their continued support of GCAC programs.

Busy End to 2013, Even Busier Beginning to 2014 @ GCAC!

To say it has been a little busy around Grand Central Art Center over the past month is a bit of an understatement – IT’S BEEN EXTREMELY BUSY!

Vincent Goudreau was very active during his last weeks in residence at GCAC in mid-December. As part of his Recordings of an Immigrant project, we decided to fly Juan Aquino out from the island of Maui to join Vincent in residence. Juan is the inspiration/subject for Vincent’s current project.

During their time together Vincent and Juan, along with videographer Randy Mills, spent a number of days searching for a specific house in Fullerton, CA – the location where coyotaje delivered Juan upon his arrival into the United States over twenty years ago. Now a legal US citizen, the visit by Juan brought him back to a connection/transition location that marks an important part of his amazing life journey. We will share the results of this search soon, as the video is currently in the editing phase for a short documentary we will be releasing online in the coming weeks.

Vincent and Juan, joined by GCAC Director/Chief Curator John Spiak, presented a public conversation about Vincent’s residency, his journeys with Juan and thoughts for the project moving forward. The evening included the screening of two of Vincent’s past short film/video works – Harry and Janet and Villa Capri, providing insight into how Vincent’s projects often deal with the topic of global connection and place. As the screening concluded, patrons were invited to join the artist for an informal ice cream social, a tribute to an important scene from Villa Capri.

As the week concluded, we were visited by two of Danielle Susalla Deery’s classes from Irvine Valley College, Museum and Technologies and Museum Marketing. We are proud of the fact that Danielle is a Cal State University, Fullerton alumna and love when she returns with her students to share her enthusiasm for contemporary art. The students of her classes enjoyed a full tour of GCAC provided by GCAC Director/Chief Curator John Spiak. They talked about the technologies included in Matthew Moore and Braden King’s installation Cumulus and shared stories of successful marketing strategies by art institutions. They also had the opportunity to visit Vincent Goudreau in the GCAC Artist in Residence studio and talk with him directly about his project and process.

Vincent has now returned to Maui, but keep an eye here for updates on the project and the soon to be released short documentary of the search for the drop house with Juan.

That following week GCAC was visited by Peter Held, Arizona State University Art Museum Curator of Ceramics. Peter and John Spiak worked together for many years at the ASU Art Museum. The day was spent visiting Orange County Museums and Galleries, including the Orange County Museum of Art, Irvine Fine Arts Center and Laguna Art Museum. The timing for the Orange County Museum of Art visit was perfect, as it provided for a preview tour of the new exhibition California Landscape into Abstraction curated by OCMA Chief Curator and Interim Director Dan Cameron. The day concluded with a late lunch across our 2nd Street plaza at Memphis and a full tour of Grand Central Art Center. We are excited to see what Peter does with the move of the ASU Art Museum Ceramics Research Center to its new location!

2013 ended with the arrival of artists and educators Heather Layton and Brian Bailey from Rochester, NY. Heather and Brian were here for a second visit in the continued development of projects with GCAC. We anticipate them back for a third visit later this year. During this most recent visit, they worked towards a specific project as part of their larger 59 Days of Independence project.

As part of this project, and for our First Saturday Art Walk kicking off 2014, Heather and Brian celebrated Burma’s 66th independence day on January 4th at GCAC by giving away 66 hand-painted lanterns they created during their residency. Creating an installation in the artist in residence studio space, they opened the storefront studio doors and invited the public in to select a lantern. People were lined-up waiting outside the door when they arrived. It took less that six-minutes for the 66 lanterns to be spoken for that evening. Truly magical!

After all the lanterns were gone, Heather and Brian joined us in the main gallery spaces for our receptions. The evening provided great opportunity with a productive 40-minute conversation for Brian and Heather with Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido, his son Miguel Pulido Jr., GCAC Santa Ana Sites co-founder/collaborator Allen Moon and our GCAC Director/Chief Curator John Spiak. So many collaborative possibilities in the works for their return visit!

The January First Saturday Art Walk also kicked-off with a meet and greet event for GCAC Artists in Residence Ingrid Reeve, Barbara Milliorn and Evan Senn, as they begin their project The Life of an Artist. The project is a proposed television/webcast series that follows the lives of two Orange County artists and their manager, an art historian and art critic, as they strive for their professional dream to solidify careers as professional artists.

Ingrid Reeve, Barbara Milliorn and Evan Senn are recent graduates of higher education programs at California State University, Fullerton. Throughout this coming year year, the artists will be hosting and participating in monthly events in their artist in residence opportunity at Grand Central Art Center (GCAC), in downtown Santa Ana. The monthly events will include panel discussions and workshops, as well as performances that will engage the community of Santa Ana and the larger Orange County.

Their residency at GCAC is meant to help them in their goal to educate and entertain interested parties on the life of an up-and-coming female artist in Southern California by creating a window into the art world as well as providing historical context for contemporary practices in the arts, and a focus on the unique struggles and benefits of being a woman in today’s world.

That night as well marked the closing of the successful run of Matthew Moore and Braden King‘s installation Cumulus. It was yet another well attended First Saturday, with over 2,000 individuals through the door and engaged with the exhibitions. We feel so fortunate to be a part of this amazing downtown and Santa Ana community!

But there is no rest for the weary, as two days later the GCAC team was in full de-installation mode of Cumulus. It was a short de-install time, so everyone leant a hand, even Curatorial Associate Yevgeniya “Jenny” Mikhailik and CSUF GCAC student intern Shauna Hultgrien (she write our INTERNal Affairs blog posts).  We were able to get the work down and the gallery resorted backed to its normal configuration in less than a week – ready for the arrival of Julianne Swartz and Ken Landauer to begin their major installation just a few days later. Thanks go out to the entire GCAC team of amazing individuals for their hard work and dedication!

The beginning of January also brought a surprise visit from a few folks, Curator Sara Cochran and graphic designer Eric Montgomery. It was just announced that Sara has accepted the position of Associate Director at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. Cochran left her position as Modern and Contemporary Art Curator at Phoenix Art Museum in November 2013. Prior to that, she was Assistant Curator at Los Angeles County Museum of Contemporary Art (LACMA). She had also held positions at the The Getty Center in LA and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. It was so great to have her and Eric here for a visit and tour of Grand Central Art Center!

Also paying us a visit was artist Brent Green and FLOWN drummer and vocalist Kate Ryan. The two spent a couple of days with us as Brent packed some of the work from his To Many Men Strange Fates Are Given exhibition that took place at GCAC last year. It’s been a very busy year for Brent, with many major new projects in the works and the recent acquisition of one of his works by the UCLA Hammer Museum to their permanent collection. We also found out during the stay that Kate was scheduled to make an appearance in an upcoming episode of HBO’s Girls, jamming on her drums.  It also provided Brent and Kate the opportunity to connect with Julianne Swartz and Ken Landauer who have been in residence the past couple of days as well.  It’s so wonderful to have them all staying with us at GCAC!

And yesterday we were visited by Los Angeles based artist Julia Haft-Candell for a site visit for her upcoming solo exhibition Fast and Slow. She meet with GCAC Curatorial Associate Yevgeniya “Jenny” Mikhailik, who is curating Julia’s GCAC exhibition, to discuss her project and installation details. We are excited to see the project develop for the opening in March!

Now we are in full installation mode for Julianne Swartz and Ken Landauer’s Miracle Report, a project that includes at current time 26 monitors, 6 projections and numerous speakers. This is a MUST SEE EXHIBITION! We hope you will join us at the public reception during the First Saturday Art Walk on February 1 from 7-10pm.

There is a lot more planned and in development for GCAC in 2014, we are excited to share it with you!!!

Julianne Swartz, Brent Green, Ken Landauer, Kate Ryan @ GCAC

It has been a fun few days at Grand Central Art Center. We are in full installation mode for Miracle Report by artists Julianne Swartz and Ken Landauer, plus a quick return visit by artist Brent Green, who returns with Kate Ryan (who apparently will be making a small cameo playing drums in this weeks episode of Girls on HBO). Lots of incredible energy floating through the building!