The Antelope Valley Art group has teamed up with We Are Cedar to open a gallery in Palmdale and to open new opportunities for local artists.
There are several opportunities and calls for submissions that are open right now.
Take a look at their website or follow them on Instagram to find out more and to keep up with all the activity these folks are getting up to.
The Antelope Valley is home to many, many creative artists. There are people here working on everything from painting and mixed media to film and sculpture. Home to a fine art museum, the Antelope Valley is also a place where visiting artists are showcased and celebrated.
Where can you see the work all these artists are doing?
So glad you asked.
Here is a short list of places always showing art in the Antelope Valley.
Downtown Lancaster has partnered a public arts affiliate to implement a nice mural arts program, so the whole BLVD is also a good place to see some art – especially if you like large scale outdoor work.
If you’re looking for more arts and artist information regarding the Antelope Valley region, be sure to check out AV Art.org – our friends with a very similar name doing good work to spotlight and advance the arts in our area.
The City of Palmdale is reaching out to local artists to participate in this year’s Kaleidoscope Music & Arts Festival – happening October 14, 2017.
The event:
Join us for this free event featuring live chalk artists, artisans, entertainment by Grammy-nominated Lisa Haley & The Zydecats, Stone Soul, High-D Boys, Paddy’s Pig and more, visual & performing arts, Art of the Brew, Brushes & Brews, Fresh Made Market, food vendors, and more! Admission and parking are free.
What’s new this time around:
We are introducing a new component this year: Fresh Made Market, if you know anyone who produces any of the following please share the link and application with them.
Kaleidoscope Music & Art Festival is accepting applications for its Fresh Made Market, perfect for cottage industry and farmers market vendors who specialize in handmade candles, home scent products, skin and body care products, baked and canned goods, salsas, pestos, sauces and traditional farmers market products.
The info and applications for Professional Artists, Student Artists and Fresh Made Market vendors can all be found on the Palmdale Amphitheater’s website.
Check it out. Get involved. Get your art out there!
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?
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.
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.
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The City of Palmdale is extending an invitation to a brand new arts event, Kaleidoscope, and reaching out with a call to artists:
The City of Palmdale is pleased to announce we are seeking artisan applications for our inaugural Kaleidoscope event that will be held on Saturday, October 8 2016 at the Palmdale Amphitheater.
Kaleidoscope is a unique art show of exhibitors who create original artwork, providing an opportunity for the general public to learn, enjoy and appreciate art and culture. To meet this purpose, Kaleidoscope is open to all artists as a place for the presentation and sale of their original, creative designs and work.
To participate in this unique event, please complete the Kaleidoscope Application and Agreement (Artisan Application Agreement Final) and mail by September 22, 2016 to:
Recreation & Culture
Attn: Annie Pagliaro
38260 10th Street East
Palmdale, CA 93550
As you can see, the application is included here (just click the link above) and more details are available at the Palmdale Amphitheater website. Those details include booth fees and a description of what the directors of the event are looking for from artists.
The folks behind Kaleidoscope are casting a wide net, inviting participation from those “who work in blown glass, jewelry, printmaking, ceramics, leather, sculpture, clothing and textiles, mixed media, woodwork, fused glass, painting, illustration, photography and other forms of art.” So, if you make something and make it well, it seems like you’re invited. An especially interesting part of the concept for this event is its approach to the artistic process.
As part of each artist’s presentation, Kaleidoscope is asking for video, photo or other background material on the art and artist that will serve as “a demonstration of an essential element of the art/craft.” That little twist might make for a very interesting and engaging exhibition.
Live music is also part of the plan. Actually, the subtitle of the event is “Art & Music Festival,” so music is a big part of the plan. There is a nice article about the Kaleidoscope event over at AV Today with information on the bands that will be performing.
Oh, also, there will be beer. And food too, but, yes, Craft Beer.
So, spread the word. There is a booth fee to participate, as mentioned, but sales are encouraged and the actual event will be a free admission event.
This could be a really good thing.
AV Arts Convo – Pottery and Paintings by tjCervantes
SATURATION 2.0: The Arts in Conversation project at Antelope Valley Arts is an ongoing, weekly publishing series: Local artists (painters, poets, photographers, fiction writers) have been invited to submit art and partake in a conversation on artistic influence and inspiration as the print arm of Antelope Valley Arts goes digital.
The conversation today turns to thoughts on collaboration, inspiration and the poetry of pottery in an interview with artist tjCervantes. Working across a number of media, notably uber-creative pottery, tjCervantes always finds a way to bring the whimsy of the Fantastic into her work, evoking the magic of mythology and the charm of fairy tales in pottery and paintings that reach back to the elfin and elemental sensibilities of the Middle English. In these works tjCervantes gives meaning to the idea that art is kind of “dreaming out loud.”
But she is not doing it alone.
tjCervantes mentions an ongoing collaborative project with Marthe Aponte in her interview and some works from that collaboration are included here.
And now, on with the show…
Is there a certain emotional valence or emotional register that characterizes your work?
My artwork is characterized by the human emotion in a way that is both satirical and whimsical. I am a lover of fantasy, and like most storytellers, it is about the human condition.
I am a lover of moons, and nature, and a good story that will make me laugh, and make me think. Mostly, it’s about laughter, and that we are all in this together.
I love elegance in a morbid and surreal way. So the gods and goddesses show that side of me, as do my bugs that I am just developing. A collaboration is in the works with Marthe Aponte and I to show entomology at it finest. I have done a few insects with watercolor, but Marthe’s picote gives so much elegance to the insects that I feel there will be more to come. Three are finished already!
My gods and goddesses masks, moons, even the skeletons dancing on the cups show that whimsical, satirical side. This affects everyone. They say, “oh, that reminds me of my brother, my friend’s child, or it just gives them a good feeling.
Who or what are your major artistic influences?
I studied to be an illustrator, and I am a lover of a good fantasy. Combined with my love of pottery, I want my pottery to tell the story of a fantasy with moons talking, gods and goddesses pleasantly ruling in all their majesty, skeletons dancing, and insects and animals are having parties and weddings all by the light of the moon. Yes, I am a dreamer, and dreams do come true!
My major influencers are from the past, Rene Magritte, he has been my life long influencer. One major influencer from the present is Kit Williams, who is an illustrator of a most fun type of book for adults and children. His book, Masquerade, is one of my favorites. And in pottery, I just found Kurt Weiss, who illustrates wonderful surreal scenes around wonderfully misshapen pottery that he has formed.
There are two people that stand out as catalysts for me to become a potter and an artist. Rich Sim is one. He taught me pottery and motivated me to go on to college to finish my degree in art. He is the only one that was my formal teacher of ceramics. And my dear, long time friend, Debra Bridgman., if it wasn’t for her, I would have been an accountant, lol. She encouraged me to take art classes in college with her. I am not sure I would have taken any art classes if it weren’t for her.
There are really so many more people and things that influence me. My friends have especially influenced me. We bounce ideas off of one another, and critique our artwork together. 
And if it wasn’t for the current art scene, I am not sure I would have done the amount of art or met my artist friends that I do art with. The art crowd in the Antelope Valley is so enthusiastic to help other people show their art. The Sagebrush Café and MOAH are doing an exceptional job of putting current artwork and local artwork out to the public. Thank you, Eric Martin, Andi Campognone, and Robert Benitez for influencing me, and all of us artists in the Antelope Valley and beyond, to share our art!
And today’s world is what drives me to share my art to the public.
Since retiring six years ago, to become an artist, in the professional sense of the word, I started learning how to market my artwork online. Today, we can embrace the Internet and potentially the world. The art world has become so huge, art abounds. And we can influence the world with our art. I am my own teacher now, and learning and loving every minute.
Take a look at the latest from tjCervantes and see what she has on offer in these places:
More from the AV Arts Convo
AV Arts Convo – pop artist Michael Jones
SATURATION 2.0: The Arts in Conversation project at Antelope Valley Arts is an ongoing, weekly publishing series: Local artists (painters, poets, photographers, fiction writers) have been invited to submit art and partake in a conversation on artistic influence and inspiration as the print arm of Antelope Valley Arts goes digital.
Michael Jones, an exciting young pop artist whose vibrant colors and iconic images make his work timely and powerful. Michael’s positive message art created under street name Dream Bigger works to change the inner city dialogue of anger and hopelessness.
Who is your favorite visual artist? How does he or she influence your work?
My favorite Artist is Basquiat aka Samo, his work inspires me because he wasn’t afraid to do what he wanted.
One of the most original and influential artists of his generation, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960 – 1988) produced deceptively unsophisticated-looking works that belied a complex and unique talent. Born in Brooklyn of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent, Basquiat first gained notoriety with graffiti artwork. He catapulted to fame with paintings that incorporated a fusion of words, symbols, stick figures, animals, and historical and cultural references. Befriended by Andy Warhol, Basquiat collaborated with the renowned Pop Artist on 100 artworks. Despite a career tragically cut short by a heroin overdose, Basquiat introduced the unique African-American and Latino experience to the elite art world.
Is there a certain emotional valence or emotional register that characterizes your work?
Yes I would say happy haha Most of my art is bright, with bold colors. I want to portray happiness on canvas threw colors if that makes any sense at all.The art to losing yourself in life, is to first love yourself and appreciate the beauty of your place in the world.
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AV Arts Convo – featuring museology – art, design and display – by Larissa Nickel
SATURATION 2.0: The Arts in Conversation project at Antelope Valley Arts is an ongoing, weekly publishing series: Local artists (painters, poets, photographers, fiction writers) have been invited to submit art and partake in a conversation on artistic influence and inspiration as the print arm of Antelope Valley Arts goes digital.
Museology is a term that Larissa Nickel uses as part of her description of what she is up to as an artist, what she is looking at and looking through.
I create works and collective projects that address the museology process as more than just a container of materialism, but also as a conceptual space with performative qualities that activates object theatre and expressive curiosity.
A long time advocate for local artists, Nickel is a professor and museum scholar with ties to KCET through arts projects like Hinterculture that emphasize a creative and ecologically-sound relationship between locals and the local landscape. In an article for KCET, Nickel quotes artist David Hockney describing “the process of looking” as a focal interest in the creative experience, as well as the experience of viewing art. Nickel’s museology approach is seems bound up with this notion of “the process of looking” and so becomes as complexly intellectual as it is frankly aesthetic.
Who is your favorite writer? How does he or she influence your work?
I don’t necessarily have a favorite writer, but there is a common literary thread in theme and device that is influential in my work. Specifically narrative and storytelling concepts such as nonsense literature and the visual/sound devices in Alice in Wonderland, and the wider genre of science fiction such as Frankenstein or Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer have influenced my work including ideas in bioengineering, and nanotechnology. I love magical realism such as Love in the Time of Cholera, and recurring issues of utopia/dystopia which have been in my work for some time. My projects and research on the utopian/dystopian community of Llano del Rio, and dystopian/utopia of illegal dumping in the eco-art project DEHSART (trashed backwards) address our preconceived ideas and the speculative future of these nonsensical binaries.
Who or what are your major artistic influences?
Life is probably the biggest influence, but that can be considered more specifically as the transdiciplinary reach of the arts and humanities. Art, design, philosophy, literature, music, science, film, architecture, new media, etc are all influential factors as well as curiosity, memory, and my muse the museum. Theorists such as Donna Haraway, and Elizabeth Grosz, have weighed on my ideas in many ways, as well as aesthetic and conceptual connections with the visual art practice of Hannah Wilke, Louise Nevelson, and Marcel Duchamp. The history of technology, and the cabinet of curiosities are things I am constantly wondering about, as are mapping, surveillance, and theories of place/identity such as in Lucy Lippard’s critique and explorations. I’m also engaged in the hybridized identity of artist, curator, educator, and activist and how those entities coalesce and divide in our evolution, and ethics as yet another approach to understanding/influencing our future selves.
Keep up with Larissa Nickel and find out more at her website – larissanickel.com.
More from the AV Arts Convo
AV Arts Convo – featuring painting and mixed media work by AJ Currado
SATURATION 2.0: The Arts in Conversation project at Antelope Valley Arts is an ongoing, weekly publishing series. Local artists (painters, poets, photographers, fiction writers) have been invited to submit art and partake in a conversation on artistic influence and inspiration as the print arm of Antelope Valley Arts goes digital.
Painter AJ Currado has described herself as “creating little villages of art” and she has certainly had a hand in doing that off the canvas as well. A youth art teacher substantially inspired by travel, Currado is also a founding editor at SATURATION: Antelope Valley Arts Publication. Back in 2011, Currado helped to launch an annual series of print volumes showcasing the prose, poetry, painting, drawing and wit of local artists (and at this very moment that project moving into the digital space).
Even as she looks to help others shine, Currado has herself continued to grow as an artist, winning awards, embarking on projects of increasing scope, and pushing herself into new areas of expression. Currado’s work will be on exhibit at the MOAH juried show in June and at MOAH Cedar’s LVAG show in July-August. Seek out her work. You’ll be glad you did.
Who is your favorite writer? How does he or she influence your work?
GK Chesterton is one of my favorites. He explores everyday life with an optimistic twist, leading from content seemingly fluffy and cleverly twisting it into some thousand pound gem. I love his optimism and cheerful sobriety.
I like to think that I achieve something similar in my painting. Anything on face value can be simplistic, but you have to pause and think a moment to get at humor or depth. I present simple imagery in my paintings but I see them as portals to an immense web of ideas. A stack of books is not merely a stack of books, it is the thirst for knowledge being simultaneously satisfied and unquenchable. It is achievement in educational goals. It is preparation for travel. It is centuries of humanity past. It is the unending landscape of adventure inside the mind.
What artist or writer from the past would you most like to meet and why?
Vincent van Gogh. My work is nothing like his but I’ve always loved his style and been intrigued by him as a person. I admire his tenacity to keep working and creating so many beautiful paintings with so much pain in his life and so little encouragement. He is a maverick. I was fortunate enough to go to the south of France this past year and spend some time in Arles where van Gogh lived and worked for many years. The terrain is rugged and really inspiring, even in the winter. Easy to see why he painted the area.
Track AJ Currado down at her website – www.ajcurrado.com.
More from the AV Arts Convo
AV Arts Convo – featuring photography by Douglas Paul Wade
SATURATION 2.0: The Arts in Conversation project at Antelope Valley Arts is an ongoing, weekly publishing series: Local artists (painters, poets, photographers, fiction writers) have been invited to submit art and partake in a conversation on artistic influence and inspiration as the print arm of Antelope Valley Arts goes digital.
This week we are excited to showcase the work of Douglas Paul Wade. President of the Lancaster Photography Association (LPA) and chairperson of the Antelope Valley Fair Photography Exhibit, Wade is active both in getting his own work out there and in helping other artists find an audience too. On his website, Wade describes himself as “Striving to become GREAT at photography! Wanting bigger things in life, dreams of them often. Loves when the inner kid takes control.” There is quite a bit more to say about Douglas Paul Wade, but let’s let him and his work to the talking from here.
Who is your favorite visual artist? How does he or she influence your work?
As a photographer, I favor the work of many masters, such as Irving Penn (Entertainer Portraiture), Man Ray (Fine Artist), J. H. Lartigue (Fashion, Motion). Some more modern masters, such as Arno Rafael Minkkinen (Fine Artist), Clarence Sinclair Bull (Portrait), Jerry N. Uelsmann (Fine Artist) and Keith Carter (Fine Artist).
I prefer more often black and white over color images. I believe it is better at telling a story and invoke an emotional response.
What artist do you currently find yourself talking about most often and why?
I spend more time talking to my peers, such as James Poynor, Juan Roberts, and Kathleen Blacklock to find out what they see in their images and their post processes.
Who or what are your major artistic influences?
I love to read and view images of non-photographers, as painters in all kinds of media. To be a better a photographer, I should not study photographers but rather museum presented artists.
Catch up with Douglas Paul Wade and find out more about his work at douglaspaulwade.com.
More from SATURATION 2.0 – the AV Arts Convo 
Antelope Valley Arts 