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/

ARTIST TALK: Flora Kao – Wind House, Abode That A Breath Effaced (8/2 @ 6PM) – GCAC

Please join us on Saturday, August 2nd at 6:00PM for a conversation with Flora Kao. The artist will be discussing her work and her current installation in the Grand Central Art Center Project Room – Wind House, Abode That A Breath Effaced.

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.

Flora Kao: Wind House, Abode That A Breath Effaced – Opening June 7th @ Grand Central Art Center

Flora Kao: Wind House, Abode That A Breath Effaced
June 7 – August 10, 2014
Opening Reception: June 7th, 7-10pm

The Mojave Desert is a space of tenuous order and inevitable decay. Shacks in varied states of ruin punctuate the scrubby expanse of sand. Allowing homesteaders to claim up to five acres of expendable public land, the Small Tract Act of 1938 spawned a mid-century desert land rush. The majority of these homes were eventually abandoned due to the extreme living conditions. In Wonder Valley, a collapsed shack seems to have melted into the ground. A single gable stands erect, surrounded by an explosion of white shingles.

Wind House, Abode That A Breath Effaced explores the poignant associations of this fallen form through a life-size rubbing of the homestead’s debris field. Executed on a thousand square feet of white silk, gestural black marks map the house at a specific moment of decay. This rubbing is transformed into an installation of eight panels suspended askew across the gallery. Upon entering, the viewer is immersed in a sensuous drawing that can only be comprehended in fragments over time, never at once. With each turn, one’s experience oscillates between compression and openness, as new vistas are framed and cropped, lines advance and recede, and textures unfold.

Capturing the physical evidence of failure, Wind House, Abode That A Breath Effaced archives the effect of entropy on an architecture of economy. Mapping absence and presence, the rubbings present a visceral encounter with erasure and accumulation. Breathing with the viewer’s movement through the space, the installation suggests the precarious balance of a structure on the verge of collapse. Referencing shrouds, fossils, and grave rubbings, the installation’s black wood grain and white fabric suggest sails, shipwreck, and surrender, linking the vastness of the ocean with the extremes of the desert. Ultimately, Wind House, Abode That A Breath Effaced meditates on the fugitive nature of home and the ease of loss in a land of new beginnings.

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!

ARTIST TALK: Julia Haft-Candell discusses her installation Fast And Slow

Join us on Saturday, May 3rd at 6pm for an exhibition walk-through with Julia Haft-Candell. She will be discussing her installation Fast And Slow in the Project Room.

The talk is free to the public and starts one hour before the art walk! 

Starting March Off Right @ GCAC!

We kicked off March with a powerful program this past Saturday night and the energy continues today!

GCAC artists in residence Ingrid Reeve, Barbara Milliorn and Evan Senn continued their dialogue with the public, through their project Life of An Artist , on what it means to be a feminist and a working female art professional.

The three organized the panel discussion Feminism Today: Art and Life, with artists and educators Micol Hebron, Arzu Arda Kosar, Dr. Joanna Roche and Carrie Yury.  The scheduled one-hour conversation extended itself into a two-hour lively conversation discussing past experiences with gender discrimination, how one defines “success” for oneself and in their practice, the demeaning word choices used in our society, and much more.

Grand Central Art Center thanks the panelists, the Life of An Artist team and the 80+ in attendance braving the rain that evening to join us.

Saturday evening also marked the opening of two new exhibitions, Heather Bowling and Amanda Patenaude: You Are What You Concede Curated by Kimberly McKinnis, CSUF MA in Exhibition and Design
, and Julia Haft-Candell: Fast and Slow,
 Curated by Yevgeniya Mikhailik, GCAC Curatorial Associate.  The exhibitions were received extremely well by the over 1,000 individuals in attendance throughout the evening.

You Are What You Concede was developed through a series of community trash collection days organized by the two artists, with assistance provided by Gerardo Mouet, Executive Director, Parks, Recreation, and Community Services Agency at the City of Santa Ana.  The artists worked with the wonderful team and volunteers associated with Back To Natives RESTORATION, and their Natives Nursery at Santa Ana’s Santiago Park.  The artists and volunteers worked together collecting trash from the riverbed of Santiago Creek.  The materials collected were used to create the installation, which includes opportunities for individuals to take an element of the work home, as well as participate in the “Recraft” workshop  space to create new objects.  The installation provided for great dialogue and a truly engaged experience throughout the evening.  More information and images from the project can be found on the You Are What You Concede Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/youarewhatyouconcedecollaboration

Along with the receptions for the two new exhibitions, Santa Ana Girl Scout Troop #2363 joined us at the openings to sell cookies and collect donations for the Southwest Community Center (homeless shelter) of Santa Ana.  During the evening, we were provided with some great facts as reported by a recent Girl Scouts of America impact study (2013) that we thought we would share: 92% of female astronauts were Girl Scouts; 68% of all Congresswomen were Girl Scouts; 80% of all female business owners were Girl Scouts.  Some impressive stats!  Thank you Karla Frizler for connecting with us and bring your troop to the art walk!

Today, artist Marisa Jahn and the NannyVan team visited, to discuss future residency possibilities with GCAC.  The NannyVan team are in town to begin their Los Angeles based residency at the 18th Street Art Center in Santa Monica.  REV created the NannyVan through lead artist Marisa Jahn, a project working in collaboration with The National Domestic Workers Alliance.   The NannyVan is a bright mobile design lab and sound studio that “accelerates the movement for domestic workers’ rights nationwide.” With its pullout craft carts, colorful design and acoustic recording booth, the NannyVan convenes domestic workers and employers alike to produce and provide new fair care tools.

This Wednesday, March 5 from 9:30-10:45am, Marisa and her team will hold a press conference to launch the NannyVan’s CA Tour with California Coalition of Domestic Workers at Downtown Los Angeles, La Placita at Olvera Street.  They invite you to join them for the event.

The beginning of March also marks the last few days to help support the upcoming Wild Times project by artist Susan Robb.  GCAC is proud to be supporting the artist as a GCAC artist in residence and activation/exhibition site for Wild Times, occurring this spring through fall!  This is an extremely ambitious project, so Susan is reaching out through Kickstarter to generate additional funding support needed to realize this endeavor to its fullest potential.  There are only a few days left to support her project directly.  Every little bit helps to ensure the success of her journey, so please visit her Kickstarter page and pitch in!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1130079042/wild-times

We look forward to having you join us!

March 1st from 6-10pm – Opening Receptions, Public Program and Cookies @ GCAC!

Join us to kick-off the month with two new exhibitions, a public program and other activities celebrating our First Saturday Art Walk scheduled for March 1st – Public Program at 6pm, Opening Receptions from 7-10pm, Girl Scout Cookie Sales from 7-9pm.

Here is what we have planned to engage you…

PUBLIC PROGRAM – 6PM

Feminism Today: Art and Life
panel discussion
March 1,  6PM
Grand Central Art Center A.I.R. Basement Studio

On March 1st, Life of An Artist (Ingrid Reeve, Barbara Milliorn and Evan Senn) will continue their dialogue with the public on what it means to be a feminist, a working female art professional, and more.

Through a panel discussion with some of Southern California’s prominent and influential female artists, art professionals, critics and professors, the Feminism Today: Art and Life panel presentation and conversation will focus on feminist art practices in both contemporary art and life. The women involved will open up to the public, and to Life of an Artist: a reality TV web series, in a discussion of how everyday life and art-making intersect.  Topics will include sexism, racism and/or the trials, tribulations or benefits of being a women, and feminists, as female art professionals have experienced in their respective artistic careers and personal lives.

Confirmed panelists include:

Carrie Yury: Carrie Yury is Head of Research and Insights at BeyondCurious, Inc., and she writes for the Huffington Post regularly. Yury is also a nationally-exhibited fine artist, mother, wife and feminist. She is based in Orange County, and is represented by the Sam Lee Gallery.

Micol Hebron: Micol Hebron is an interdisciplinary artist and is an Assistant Professor at Chapman University. She is the founder of the LA Art Girls, the (former) co-founder of the artist collective The Elizabeths, and a contributing editor at X-TRA Magazine. She lives and works in Los Angeles, where she is represented by Jancar Gallery. Her latest project is featured on the cover of Artillery Magazine this month.

Arzu Arda Kosar: Arzu Arda Kosar is an international artist now residing in Los Angeles. She is the founder of Yarn Bombing Los Angeles, a member of the MapConception. She is the co-founder of TransIstanbul Collective that worked with inner city youth in Istanbul, Turkey and co-founder of International Survey of Alternative Artscene that examined contemporary art practices outside of the museum-gallery system in different parts of the world.

Joanna Roche: Dr. Joanna Roche, published poet and Professor of Art History, is a specialist in contemporary art. She specializes in Modern Art, Theory and Practice in New Media, Methods and Historiography. Her publications include articles and reviews on Joseph Cornell, Goat Island, Carolee Schneemann, Cindy Sherman, Pipilotti Rist, Tom Nechtal, Christian Hill, Joe Forkan and Nobuhito Nishigawara. Her scholarship examines the interworkings of memory and making in contemporary art.

Carrie Paterson: Carrie Paterson is an artist, writer and professor whose work crosses interdisciplinary boundaries between the arts and sciences. Paterson has taught various courses at many universities in Southern California since 2001 in sculpture, expository writing, visual culture, and the narrative structures in contemporary culture. Paterson has contributed essays, reviews and critical articles to a variety of publications including Sculpture, Flash Art, X-TRA, Artillery and Artweek, and currently she is Reviews Editor for Artillery Magazine.

–
OPENING RECEPTIONS – 7 to 10PM

Heather Bowling and Amanda Patenaude: You Are What You Concede
Curated by Kimberly McKinnis, CSUF MA in Exhibition and Design
OPENING RECEPTION – MARCH 1 from 7-10pm
March 1 through April 13, 2014

East Coast artist Amanda Pantenaude will team up with West Coast artist Heather Bowling, for a first time collaboration, creating a site-specific installation made from recycled materials collected within the Santa Ana community.  The artists are interested in social awareness and have created previous participatory projects in the hope to educate the public about current and pressing global issues.

The collection of materials will be organized through a series of community events, collaborating with local individuals and organizations. Hands-on workshops, panels and programs are being developed for the course of the exhibition.

Julia Haft-Candell: Fast and Slow
Curated by Yevgeniya Mikhailik, GCAC Curatorial Associate
OPENING RECEPTION – MARCH 1 from 7-10pm
March 1 through May 11, 2014

Julia Haft-Candell‘s sculptures are physical records of their making, and a reflection of their own history. Using small components to build larger forms, the artist continually invents, reassesses and makes endless decisions about how the work takes shape. Ultimately the goal is to form a composition that most effectively speaks to the ambiguity of perception and the complexity of being.

Using forms inspired by nature and the body, as well as ideas derived from quick doodles and sketches, she focuses on the space in between two contrasting concepts as a metaphor for my experience as a human being. In Haft-Candell’s words “I express contradictions. I seek the intersection of the conscious and subconscious, construction and destruction, fast and slow, serious and funny, hard and soft.”

–
GIRL SCOUT COOKIES

Grand Central Art Center welcomes Santa Ana Girl Scout Troop #2363, who will be selling cookies for $4/box, plus collecting donations for the Southwest Community Center (homeless shelter) throughout the evening.

–
CONTINUING EXHIBITION

Julianne Swartz and Ken Landauer: Miracle Report
January 19 – May 11, 2014

Julianne Swartz and Ken Landauer explored the miraculous through people’s perceptions of it in their lives, interviewing students, school children and community members of all ages and backgrounds. They combined their findings in an installation of fleeting vignettes playing on all of the available sound and video equipment in the museum’s possession. In the words of the artists, “Our installation strives to embody some beauty, some hocus-pocus and some unexplainable magic.”

More details on the exhibition can be found at:
https://grandcentralartcenter.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/julianne-swartz-and-ken-landauer-miracle-report/