Full Circle – Paintings by Stevie Chun @ Sagebrush Cafe

Does it sound paranoid to say that we’re seeing circles everywhere? No matter where we look – circles, and circles within circles.

They are in our eyes, double circles of pupil and lens. They are in the sky, one blazing sphere burning down at us by day as another struggles through the night, grasping always to be complete. There are circles made by man down here. There are children swiveling the hoola hoop until they let it fall at their feet. And it all repeats. Cycles. Circles within circles.

It’s all connected. It’s all about connection.

As Stevie Chun writes in her artist statement for the show:

The circles in “Full Circle” signify events in life. These life events are monumental in shaping who we are as individuals while connecting us to one another, all of them, big and small.

For this series, Chun is painting with ink and watercolor and attaching the paintings to wood. Each piece features a multitude of circles, which Chun describes as a “modest shape” but one that also “has many symbolic meanings across cultures. Circles represent the complexity and completeness of life. In this circular form we can all be connected – able to find common ground.”

An ancient symbol of unity, the circle also evokes notions of the cycle of life, tying it to the most fundamental mythologies of origins – life emerging, cresting, blazing a fullness of being, and returning from whence it came.

The images here recall the feeling of first seeing deep space telescope images from the Hubble – bright galaxies wheeling reaching back toward beginnings too dim to recall.

But the brightness is what we see in those telescopic images. The fecundity of the cosmos…shining like a party in the distant corners of the sky. Each image, like each piece in Chun’s “Full Circle,” is a celebration of this well-spring, this energy.

Showing Now:

Full Circle

Paintings by Stevie Chun

at Sagebrush Cafe

42104 50th Street West

Quartz Hill, CA 93536

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Reconciling the Horizon – June Marie Milham

There is a school of thought that says we can only know the world through the senses. What we see and hear and feel is not just an impression of a more objective world – what we see and hear and feel is the world.

But what happens when the senses are confronted by contradiction? What happens when we aren’t sure what we’re seeing or hearing or feeling? How do we reconcile the facts that seem to say that the world is not one thing, but several things at once?

June Marie Milham’s current gallery show at Sagebrush Café wades into questions like these, using vibrant colors, mixed media, and complex geometries to approach the concept at the heart of her show – “Reconciling the Horizon.”

The work in “Reconciling the Horizon” brings to life a line from Allen Ginsberg:

Detach yrself from Matter, & look about

At the bright snowy show of Iowa

Earth & Heaven mirroring

eachother’s light

This isn’t Iowa, but Milham’s art evokes Ginsberg’s very intentionally as a means of exploring the ways that the horizon is a location of collapsed concepts, a place where earth and heaven are no longer distinct but instead become blended into one sensory experience.

There is an emphasis here on elements of composition. There are tricks of colors, weighted one against another. There are layers of paint (and language too) that play like memories within the moment of each piece, just like memories inhabit each moment of our own waking lives.

In her statement for the show, Milham talks about how the horizon is a site where things that we usually see as opposites actually meet, pushing us to reconsider the relationship between present and past and between emotion and intellect.

At the horizon, we see that these notions really do mirror one another. Opposites, yet somehow complicit in the very essence of that which exists on the other side of the line.

But there is a high and a low. There is a sky and an earth. These opposites cannot stand together. They must stand apart. Our senses tell us this is our reality. But the theory that our world is only what our senses tell us won’t suffice as a full explanation of what happens along the line of the horizon, that site where opposites collapse into one another.

Milham’s new work takes up this idea as a focus and offers a fluid set of responses – some joyous, some calm, some challenging and wild – and she invites us to reflect with her on this strange place of division that, by some magic, is also a place of reconciliation.

 

Showing at Sagebrush Cafe

42104 50th Street West

Quartz Hill, CA 93536

A Special Art Show: Hosted by Bravery Brewing & Sagebrush Cafe

Bravery Brewing and Sagebrush Cafe have teamed up to craft a beer together. To celebrate the event, Bravery is throwing a beer release party with an emphasis on collaboration and the arts.

Two local small businesses, bringing their strengths together.

And you can be a part of it.

Artists  interested in displaying art at the event should send in their work (following the guidelines listed on the flyer) before May 5th.

The show will be held on May 11th at Bravery Brewing.

It’s going to be a blast. If you don’t get a chance to submit and participate as an artist in the event, you can participate by coming out to celebrate the artists of our community as well as a couple small businesses that are known for showcasing local talent in the Antelope Valley.

Cheers!

Sagebrush Cafe Arts & Crafts Fair

Sagebrush Cafe will host its biggest ever Arts & Crafts Fair on Saturday, April 6th from 10-4.

 

This year will be bigger than ever: 30 Vendors – All Local Artists & Artisans

10 am to 4 pm
April 6, 2019
the First Saturday of April

Come on out to support local culture in the Antelope Valley!

Find Locally Made:
– Fine Art
– Pottery
– Gifts
– Handbags
– Jewelry
– Literature
– Soap & Candles
– Who-Knows-What-Else!?!

We’ll have activities for kids – crafts and face painting – as well as activities for adults. It’s going to be a big day. Sagebrush Cafe is turning ten years old, after all, so we wanted to do it up this time.

Bring your friends, fam!

Food – Drinks – Arts – Crafts – Good Times

Sagebrush Cafe

42014 50th Street West

Lancaster, CA 93536

 

Acton’s Harmonic Breeze and Palmdale High School Choral Union and Sunday Night Singers to Participate in PBS SoCal Holiday Celebration

This year’s L.A. County Holiday Celebration, put on by the Music Center and PBS Socal  will feature performances by the Harmonic Breeze, representing the Acton-Agua Dulce communities, and the Palmdale High School Choral Union and Sunday Night Singers.

The event is live, televised and streaming. Read on for details from the event announcement. Tickets are free, so if you are interested in attending just plan  your trip and go.

The Emmy® Award-winning 58th Annual L.A. County Holiday Celebration — Music ensembles, choirs and dance companies from the many neighborhoods and cultures of the region celebrate the season during this free three-hour holiday show that is perfect for the whole family. PBS SoCal KOCE will broadcast this beloved program.

Highlights of the Holiday Celebration include theHarmonic Bronze Handbell Ensemble performing a classical handbell piece that celebrates Christmas and Hanukkah; holiday songs sung by the Palmdale High School Choral Union and Sunday Night Singers; the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Band playing a medley of holiday favorites; MUSYCA Children’s Choir performing Christmas songs written by contemporary artists; Mostly Kosher playing upbeat Jewish folk and holiday songs; the Jung Im Lee Korean Dance Company on Korean drums; and Las Colibriperforming a collection of holiday songs. .

New groups to the show include City Ballet of Los Angeles, adding a new twist to The Nutcracker; JC Culture Foundation performing both Chinese dragon and Chinese lion dances; West African drum and dance company Le Ballet Dembaya with a West-African mask dance; and the Los Angeles-based ensemble vocal group m-pact singing popular holiday songs.

For those who can’t make the free event at The Music Center on Dec. 24, the program will air live on PBS SoCal KOCE and stream live on pbssocal.org from 3 p.m. – 6 p.m. The program will be re-broadcast from 9 p.m. until midnight on Dec. 24. On Christmas Day, Dec. 25, the show will be available to stream beginning at noon.

WHEN:
Sunday, Dec. 24 from 3 p.m. – 6 p.m.
• Doors open at 2:30 p.m.
• Patrons may come and go throughout the three-hour performance
• A live broadcast of the show airs from 3 p.m. – 6 p.m. on PBS SoCal KOCE
• Live streaming at pbssocal.org
• The PBS SoCal KOCE broadcast repeats from 9 p.m. – midnight on Dec. 24, and again on Dec. 25 at noon with streaming also available; the program will air on PBS SoCal 2 on Dec. 25 at 3 a.m., 6 a.m. and 7 p.m., and on Dec. 26 at 11 a.m.

WHO:
• Performing artists from across Los Angeles County (see below for complete list)
• Sponsored by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
• A presentation of The Music Center produced in association with CDK Productions 
• Live telecast on PBS SoCal KOCE is produced by CDK Productions

WHERE:

​​

The Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
135 N. Grand Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

HOW:
Information hotline: (213) 972-3099 or MusicCenter.org/holidaycelebra tion

ADMISSION:
FREE; no reservations or tickets to the show; first come, first seated

PARKING:
FREE in The Music Center parking garage

ARTISTS PERFORMING IN 58th ANNUAL L.A. COUNTY HOLIDAY CELEBRATION:

​​

• Citrus Singers is a 45 member voice and handbell ensemble from Citrus College.

• City Ballet of Los Angeles, blending classical and contemporary dance with music from around the world, will perform Nutcracker Swings to a mix of Tchaikovsky and Duke Ellington.

• Colburn Children’s Choir and Young Men’s Chorus, the advanced vocal ensembles of the Colburn School of Performing Arts, will perform festive songs for the holiday season.

• Daniel Ho & Halau Keali’i o Nalani will present Ho’s original songs in English and Hawaiian with captivating hula choreography.

• Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles returns to the Holiday Celebration for the 23rd year in a row to perform traditional holiday songs.
​​

• Harmonic Bronze Handbell Ensemble, a music ensemble of 11 to 18-year olds representing the communities of Acton and Agua Dulce, will perform iconic holiday classics.

• Immaculate Heart of Mary and Precious Blood School Children’s Choir, a dynamic youth ensemble with an arsenal of multilingual and multi-genre repertoire, will perform songs that celebrate the Christmas holiday.

• JC Culture Foundation, a cultural and arts organization that provides programs for Chinese cultural activities, will perform both a Chinese lion and a Chinese dragon dance.

• Jung Im Lee Korean Dance Academy, the official Korean cultural ambassador to Southern California, will perform Korean drumming in traditional costume.

• Korean American Youth Performing Artists (KAYPA) will perform a traditional Korean fan dance.

• Las Colibrí, or “The Hummingbirds,” is an all-female mariachi ensemble that will perform holiday songs blending vocal harmonies with unique arrangements and interpretations of traditional sones, huapangos and rancheras.

• Le Ballet Dembaya, a professional West African drum and dance company based in Los Angeles, will perform a mask dance from the Mandenyi people of Guinea.

• The Los Angeles Children’s Orchestra, known for its members’ young ages and their advanced level of musicianship, will perform classical repertoire that celebrates the holidays.

• Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Band, an all-volunteer group of musicians dedicated to giving their very best for the band, the Sheriff’s Department and the community, will play a traditional medley of Christmas and holiday carols.

• m-pact, an award-winning professional a cappella group, will perform unique renditions of popular holiday songs.

• Mostly Kosher, a Jewish cultural revival band, will play upbeat klezmer, plaintive Yiddish melodies and other Jewish heritage folk genres spun with a modern twist.

• Mt. San Antonio College Chamber Singers, an award-winning 38-member vocal ensemble, will perform a medley of traditional holiday songs.

• MUSYCA Children’s Choir, bringing together gifted young people ages four to 18 to create a community of singers built on respect, love for music and artistic excellence, will perform Christmas songs by contemporary artists.

• Pacifico Dance Company, a 32 member ensemble dedicated to the preservation and reconstruction of classical and contemporary Mexican dance forms, will perform an excerpt from Jaranas y Danzones de Yucatan — a glimpse into the Yucatan Peninsula.

• Palmdale High School Choral Union and Sunday Night Singers, a 45-member chorus made up of current high school singers and alumni singers from Palmdale High School, will perform traditional holiday repertoire.

• The Spirit Chorale of Los Angeles, a professional ensemble dedicated to keeping alive the Negro spiritual along with jazz, blues and original Gospel works, will perform inspirational songs of the season.

• VOX Femina Los Angeles, a choir of 34 women that gives women voice through the performance of quality choral literature, will perform songs celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah.
OTHER:
As Los Angeles’ largest multicultural holiday celebration, the annual L.A. County Holiday Celebration, presented by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, provides Angelenos of all ages an opportunity to come together on December 24 to experience and honor the dynamic, rich cultures of the County. During the event, many diverse L.A.-based artists and community groups showcase their talent, artistry and traditions on The Music Center’s iconic Dorothy Chandler Pavilion stage. The show is broadcast live in Southern California on PBS SoCal KOCE – home to PBS for Greater Los Angeles and Southern California – and on the Armed Forces Network. Viewers can also live stream it on pbssocal.org. While an estimated audience of more than 4,000 watch the show live at The Music Center, more than 18 million local viewers can enjoy the program on television and online.

Conjuring Marz

If you grow up in a family of artists, it’s not always easy to be an artist yourself. Instead of being “the creative one” and standing out, your creativity is given automatic comparison. Any artistic freedom and open-ended exploration of ideas can be dampened by a sense of a pressure to compete or to perform at a certain level. It can drive you away from art entirely.

With an artist for a mother and two artistically talented older sisters, Maggie SanFilippo was not always sure that she wanted to enter the fray. She followed her own path. But – and here’s the thing – that path seems to have always pointed back to art.

Doing costume design in the film industry and working for years as an entrepreneur in the area of vintage and hand-made furniture, SanFilippo never strayed far from art, even if she didn’t think of herself as an artist. She works in fields where design and aesthetics are central. Her furniture work in particular had her hustling to rescue and refurbish furniture, applying some imagination to give life back to thrift store finds and in that way bring new ideas to life.

She found herself naturally drawn to musicians and photographers. Maybe she tricked herself in a very quiet way into becoming an artist despite the fact that she wouldn’t have given herself that title. Or maybe she was just waiting for the right encouragement.

When her boyfriend and business partner, musician Ainsley Hubbard encouraged SanFilippo to take her occasional sketches and run with them, the moment seemed right and she did.

In Conjuring Marz, SanFilippo’s show at Sagebrush Café and her first solo show – you can see the process of “running with it” at work in a collection of pieces combining sketching and water color that become a sort of jazz-couture style: firm lines and inventive improvisations of color, gesture and attitude that bring to mind both Ella Fitzgerald and Coco Channel.

And there is a very deliberate harkening back to the past in Conjuring Marz. SanFilippo was inspired to create some pieces for the show while she was watching Feud, the television series about Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, figures of glamour and great emotion – and a scrappy determination to insist on themselves and on their own success.

The style that is at work in Conjuring Marz calls on a certain understatement that hides in plain sight. Many of the pieces contrast vivid splashes of color with images of composure and self-possession. There is something in the drawn figures that the color points to, but the faces aren’t giving anything away.

So the joy that seems to shout itself from the bright and quite direct works in the show becomes at least a little bit complicated. There is something else here too.

Many of the figures in the drawings are wearing sunglasses, holding something back, maintaining a cool secret. That, in a way, is what elegance is – flair that is at the same time somehow restraint.

In Conjuring Marz, SanFilippo gives us a set of pieces that seem like the result of a meditation on this dance between the said and the unsaid. There is a sense that the stage sees what the actress wants to show but those inevitable off-stage incidents, those episodes in the wings are what stand behind the knowing smile when the actress takes her bow.

Conjuring Marz

Showing @ Sagebrush Cafe

42104 50th Street West

Lancaster, CA 93536

 

 

Women and Nature: Collages by Ulrica Bell

Energy is a difficult element to pin down. But you know it when you see it. And you feel it right away when you see Ulrica Bell’s collage work.

The energy jumps right out at you.

Bold colors and innovative patterns highlight Bell’s collages, which are being showcased in a new show at Sagebrush Café in Quartz Hill this summer. “Women and Nature” is a collection of new work that promises a fusion not only of mixed media components but also of ideas.

As an artist, Ulrica Bell seems to call on a variety of influences in her work as she knits together a body of ideas, sometimes taking chances, often asserting a palpable confidence, which may be borne from years of teaching. Bell went to college on the east coast, at Bryn Mawr, and built a career in the classroom.

Today, in person, she cuts a striking figure with a balance of deep sympathy and no-nonsense honesty. She clearly sees past the first layer of things – and people – and her artwork invites us to do the same.

If we are going to dance, then let’s dance. If we’re going to speak, then let’s say what must be said. Take the straight path, she seems to say, and we will be where we are going.

What form will this message take in “Women and Nature”?

As an aside: These observations are based on conversations, on encounters with Bell’s work in person and online, and on her social media persona. In sharing a few thoughts there is much left to tell – and to figure out. The art of Ulrica Bell is something to conjure with, to quote a phrase. Something to see for yourself.

Bell is an active and award-winning Antelope Valley artist. At MOAH’s Cedarfest, Bell won a prize for her mixed media work. But she also shows paintings and plans to bring original poetry into “Women and Nature.” These things point to a certain diversity of character that makes Bell difficult to summarize (if one were to try).

This little speech is not a summary. It’s more of an invitation.

“Women and Nature” will be showing from late June at Sagebrush Café.

Graphic Experience & Lakes and Valleys Art Guild present “Riding Coat Tails”

Graphic Experience & Lakes and Valleys Art Guild present “Riding Coat Tails”

A Spontaneous Art Show Showcasing Local Talent

 in the High Desert Communities.

Lancaster, California June 17th, 2017 – Graphic Experience and Lakes and Valleys Art Guild invites the surrounding community of Antelope Valley to attend “Riding Coat Tails” art gallery opening reception, on Saturday June 17th, 2017 from 4-8 pm.

This art event will be held at the Graphic Experience Gallery located at 622 West Lancaster Blvd, Lancaster, CA 93534.  This event is free to the public.

The opening reception will include music, hors d’oeuvres, and the opportunity to meet some incredibly talented artists.

Within the High Desert communities, opportunities for local artists are growing with each year that passes.  Graphic Experience and Lakes and Valleys Art Guild are excited to be a part of it.

There are multiple community-based art events on June 17^th.  In addition to the “Riding Coat Tails” gallery opening reception, the Museum Of Art & History (aka MOAH) will also be hosting their “32^nd annual Juried Arts Festival” at the MOAH Cedar center, which is on the same city block.  If that’s not enough, afterwards you can walk down Lancaster Blvd to enjoy the twelve murals that are a part of a global public-art event called “Pow!Wow!”

The engagement and support of residents like you; will ensure the successful advancement of community-based art for years to come. Visit us Saturday June 17th, and bring your friends and family to enjoy a Saturday on the BLVD, surrounded by art.

If you’re a local artist and you’re interested in exhibiting or supporting more community-based art events, please contact Kristi Arzola at lakesandvalleysag@gmail.com.

The Lakes and Valleys Art Guild is a member-driven nonprofit organization formed in 2003; dedicated to the artists of the communities within the High Desert in and near the Antelope Valley.  Our members are drawn from a wide variety of backgrounds – from professional artists, and teachers, to those who have a strong interest in, and love for art.

Our goals are to provide support and encouragement to our artists and give them a place to meet, attend classes and workshops, and to display their work.

It is the goal of LVAG to positively influence the communities.

What’s going on in the Antelope Valley?

What is going on in the Antelope Valley? Hey, thanks for asking.

As it happens, there is a good bit going on. If you are looking for some sites to see in the AV, check out the art scene.

The MOAH is currently featuring a show called, “British Invasion.” Among the two dozen artists included in the show is David Hockney, “one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century” (MOAH).  The work ranges in medium and in style as the show intends to both reference and update the 1960s musical and cultural British Invasion. Fittingly, these artists are showing work inspired by American culture, just as the American blues spurred the inspirations and innovations of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

 MOAH is excited to feature the work of several of the artists who participated in the original British Invasion of the sixties as well as a diverse group of up-and-coming and recently established Britons, whose California-inspired body of work could be said to comprise a contemporary British Invasion.

Also on exhibit at the downtown Lancaster art museum – “The Mojave Project.” This show includes paintings and photography by regional artists and artists interested in the desert region. Kim Stringfellow, Ron Pinkerton (image below) and Terry Cervantes are three of the eight artists taking part in this show.

The current exhibit is part of a larger, ongoing project that promises to fascinate desert and city dwellers alike.

From The Mojave Project:

The Mojave Project is a transmedia documentary and curatorial project led by Kim Stringfellow exploring the physical, geological and cultural landscape of the Mojave Desert. The Mojave Project reconsiders and establishes multiple ways in which to interpret this unique and complex landscape, through association and connection of seemingly unrelated sites, themes, and subjects thus creating a speculative and immersive experience for its audience.

The scope of the conversation represented by the Mojave Project is admirable, especially in a climate wherein flashy news trumps deeper discourse and distraction is king. The artists working with Kim Stringfellow on this project are going against the grain of the instantaneous and developing a substantial and sustained artistic dialogue on what the desert is, what it means, and what it kinds of ideas it contains.

Looking for more inspiration?

Chuck Tedecshi

The city of Palmdale is hosting “Inspired by Nature” – Art by Chuck Tedeschi. The exhibit beings with an opening reception on January 26 and will be on display through March 12 at the Palmdale Playhouse.

Chuck Tedeschi

 

Information on Tedeschi is hard to come by, but his work seems to speak for itself. The artist will be present at the opening reception so you can ask him how in the world he is doing what he does…

Also, as you scan the horizon for more arts-related events keep an eye out for happenings groups like these: LPAC, The Lakes & Valleys Art Guild and The Antelope Valley Thespians.

For an outsider’s take on how the intersections between the arts, the desert’s open spaces and the Antelope Valley, check out this article from Curbed LA by Jennifer Swan.

Swan still has a 661 area code, according to her bio, so she is not the outsider here, not exactly. But she portrays an interesting image of the Lancaster, Palmdale, Mojave area – seen through the eyes of Venice Beach folks as a place simultaneously full of potential and kind of down-at-the-heels.

Giving a good amount of space in the article to local figures like Robert Benitez (a director of/at MOAH) and Larissa Nickel (artist, advocate, writer and professor), Swan ultimately poses a sort of bizarre question about whether or not the art scene is about to be gentrified here where the population has surpassed 500,000 and the average annual income is just slightly under the California state median income of $60,000.

Presuming Swan is clear on what gentrification means, she poses a strange and intriguing question that seems fitting for a region on the outskirts of Los Angeles, a city of big dreams, big incomes and also little dreams and little incomes. If there is a “culture creep” spreading from Los Angeles, what exactly does that culture consist of? And what does it mean if that culture – however vibrant, however exploratory, however chic – shows up on the outskirts of town?

The desert of the Antelope Valley certainly has wide open spaces and unoccupied territory, but if people occupy the scrub-brush and the dry-washes does that mean Palmdale has been gentrified? In Brooklyn, people didn’t gentrify the alleys and the warehouses…they bought the brownstones, right?

The Antelope Valley is often a projection, for Angelenos, of their own fantasies and biases and Swan would appear to ask what projection might win out: Will it be one that invites notions of a creatively inspiring blank slate and uses this invitation as a call to take ownership of the region’s arts mantle or one that sees the Antelope Valley as place with an identity of its own, defined by the people and artists who already live here?

The answer may clarify the fact that the ideas behind “desert gentrification” are anchored to psychology and class-consciousness as much as or more so than they are to actual class. Ultimately, Swan’s article examines the battle of ideas and identity that persistently crops up in and around the Antelope Valley. Take a look if you have a chance. It’s a really interesting read.

“The last artist’s haven in Los Angeles” by Jennifer Swan.

 

 

CEDARFEST Juried Arts Festival – June 11

Event: CEDARFEST juried arts festival at the MOAH facilities in downtown Lancaster, California. Saturday, June 11.

This event brings artists of the region together to show the varieties of artistic talent that calls the desert home. The opening reception for this show, which is kind of a big deal, in on Saturday, June 11.

There are certain events that tend to show just how many artists there are in the Antelope Valley and the surrounding area – – and it is a sizable group. But maybe because artists so often busy themselves making art, if you aren’t paying close attention it can be easy to forget or just not realize how much art is going on here.

This yearly event can be a corrective to that forgetting.

The Lancaster Museum of Art & History (MOAH) and MOAH:CEDAR are hosting the 31st Annual All-Media Juried Arts Festival, CEDARFEST, from Saturday, June 11 to Saturday, July 16. The festival and opening reception will be held on Saturday, June 11 from 4 to 8 PM.

One of last years’ prize winners was Marthe Aponte, an artist featured here. The CEDARFEST helped to launch Aponte into showing all over the place, both in the Antelope Valley and in Los Angeles. Who knows what will happen for this year’s winners…?