Distant Relatives, a show of mixed media works by june marie milham, puts a new spin on the concepts of 20th century nostalgia and the personal histories that inform it, creating a sense of shared and intimate American history.
On display now at Sagebrush Cafe. Details below.
Sagebrush Cafe (click to go to website)
42104 5oth Street West @ Ave. L-14
Quartz Hill, CA 93536
(Click for larger view.)
A new show of illustrations by Brynn Metheney is set to open at the Sagebrush Cafe gallery space on Saturday November 20th.
AV Arts Blog will be hosting and posting an interview with the artist before the show goes up, so stay tuned for the inside scoop (we know that this a corny line, the whole “inside scoop” thing is passe as they say, but corny things like Neil Diamond, sweat pants, and saying “inside scoop” are worth their weight in…um…mixed metaphors. Don’t you think so?)
Take a look at Brynn’s work: brynnart.com
Arts Spotlight –
Camera Obscura
Slideshow – Hosted by Rheagan E. Martin
August 11 (Wednesday)
7pm
Part-time AV resident, full-time arts scholar, Rheagan E. Martin is putting together a group of artists to present recent works in a slideshow format at Sagebrush Café.
Photography and digital media will wow, woo, and inspire you.
Monkeys, Monsters & Mermaids – Gallery Show – Nicelle Davis
August 14
6 – 8pm
Sagebrush Café’s gallery will be putting on several new faces, in a show by Nicelle Davis. Working with various media including clay & clay tablets, Victorian paper cutting and poetry, Davis presents a varied and animate perspective on the interior worlds we all possess, and which sometimes possess us.
Information Courtesy of Sagebrush Cafe newsletter.
Gallery Opening : Feb. 27th 5-7 p.m
The photography of Flint Fernweh will be on display in Sagebrush Cafe from February 20 to May 21, 2010.
Ground Hog Day
Antelope Valley
One of the strangest and most magical holidays of the year, Ground Hog Day, comes at the beginning of one of the strangest months, February.
This odd holiday, adorable for its quirkiness, features a rodent who can predict the weather. Winter will come sooner or later depending on whether a ground hog emerges from his hole to see his own shadow or sees nothing.
These are the fascinating details of ground hog day, rivaled in strangeness only by the egg-bearing rabbit of Easter.
In the Antelope Valley of southern California, we do not have a Puxatony Phil or any famous ground hogs. In fact, we don’t have ground hogs really. We have gophers. That didn’t stop Sagebrush Café from celebrating Ground Hog Day.
At the Quartz Hill coffee shop, free cookies were given away to each and every customer all day along with a “Happy Ground Hog Day” salutation. Door prizes were also given out. Greeting cards and coupons for free coffees and free lattes were waiting for the lucky customers to walk in at specified times.
Additionally, Sagebrush Café celebrated Ground Hog Day by hosting a good-old-fashioned coloring contest. The first entry posted inside the café was a tongue-in-cheek depiction of a ground hog as a gangster, tear-drop tattoos at his eyes and everything.
It was all for fun at Sagebrush Café. They didn’t explain why they were celebrating Ground Hog Day because no one asked. As of 2 o’clock in the afternoon, no one had taken up the owner’s challenge to dress up in a Ground Hog Day costume for free coffee.
What price, dignity? I think we’ve found an answer…
Punxatony Phil did see his shadow today, whichn supposedly suggests another six weeks of winter. But, as the Sagebrush Café owners said, what does he know? He’s only a ground hog meteorologist. He didn’t even go to college.
If the professional weather people can’t predict the weather 50% of the time, then how can we expect some untrained, superstitious rodent to do it?
Gallery vs. Museum Some people seem to know everything about the “art world”. You meet them at a friend’s house or at a coffee shop. They joke about Duchamp and his pipe that isn’t a pipe or his fountain that’s really just a urinal. Their offhand familiarity with the world of high art makes you worry there’s a gap in your education.
Don’t worry. It’s not you. It’s them.
Some people just get really into art. It’s their thing. The art world is their world.
For most of us however this is not the case.
In the interest of beginning at the beginning with some information about the arts, here’s a little crash course on a basic but important facet of the art world – the difference between an art gallery and an art museum. If you already know the difference, skip down to the bottom of this article for the big, hilarious, better-than-you-can-even-imagine conclusion.
Ok. Nine out of ten people just skipped to the last sentence and they’re irked and/or sadly disappointed that there is no punch-line. Sorry. But, in your face you know-it-alls.
To get down to business…the distinction between a gallery and a museum comes down to one thing. Galleries sell art work. Museums do not. A gallery will offer their space to an artist so that the painter or photographer can reach an audience. That audience will have a chance to view the work while it hangs in the gallery. Every piece of art on the walls of a gallery is for sale.
Museums, on the other hand, buy works from galleries or directly from artists. Generally speaking, artists begin by showing their work in galleries and, if they successfully make a name for themselves, move up into the museum realm. Most artists don’t get that far, so galleries remain the most important art spaces for a majority of painters, photographers, sculptors, and collage artists. The life of an artist is famously difficult, sometimes tragic. Galleries help make this suffering possible. Ahem, I mean, galleries really make the art world possible.
If there were no place to sell paintings, there would be no professional painters. Plain and simple. 
So, next time you visit a museum, remember that the works there are created by people who have already “made it”. And next time you stop into a gallery, remember that the artist showing there is still on her way, or on his way. If you like what you see, find a way to let the artist know – or, go ahead, buy a painting.
In the end, art is about participation. Don’t be afraid to get into it, even if you don’t technically know the difference between Duchamp’s fountain and a urinal.
The first Man to use language was not hailed as a genius. He said, “rock.” And everyone just stared at him. They had no idea what he meant. They thought he’d gone insane. There was no way to understand the noise he’d just made, no “rock” history, no “rock” context. It wasn’t until later, when a whole clan was using the word that the invention of language could be appreciated. The “co” in communication is absolutely critical.
For a very similar reason, poets read poetry. Journalists read newspapers. Musicians listen to music. Novelists read novels. Photographers look at photographs. And painters study paintings.
Dialogue is an integral part of the artistic process, so when a painter goes to a museum she is not necessarily going for inspiration. She is not going only to marvel at the great works of the masters. She is going to see how and where her own vision fits.
The painter interested in color fields will buy books on Mark Rothko – or check them out from the library – just like the poet interested in the spiritual angst of the mechanized age will read Eliot; the novelist concerned with the interwoven nature of personal and cultural history will read Faulkner.
The goal is to gather insights, to learn about both what these artists were thinking and also how they transformed those thoughts into works of art.
To illustrate this idea, you might try a simple exercise. If you are the poet, you’ll do it this way:
Sit down.
Write a poem.
Now pull out a book of poems by a published writer.
Compare your first line to his/her first line.
Compare the rest of the two poems.
You can see that this process isn’t about inspiration. It’s about learning. It’s about seeing your own poetry in relation to a larger world of poetry.
If you are a painter or a photographer, then you will adjust the exercise to fit your needs. Step one will be “stand up” instead of “sit down”.
And when you are ready to compare your work to someone else’s, you won’t need to look in a book. You can take your work to a gallery and compare it there to live works. In the Antelope Valley we have several venues for this part of the exercise (listed below) and they are all free.
In the end, if you are creating works of art and you want to be understood – or if you want to be the genius – make sure you keep the “co” in communication, get into the dialogue of art. Otherwise, like the fist man to say “rock”, you’ll just be “mmunicating”, people will look at you funny and no one will have any idea what you’re talking about.
Free Local Culture: Art on Display
Lancaster Museum/Art Gallery – Tuesday through Saturday: 11 am. -4 pm.
Cedar Centre Art Gallery – Saturday and Sunday: Noon – 4 pm.
Antelope Valley College Art Gallery – Monday through Thursday: 9 am -9 pm., Fridays: 11 am -4 pm.
Lakes & Valleys Art Guild and Art Center – Saturday and Sunday: Noon -4 pm
Sagebrush Café Coffee & Art House – Monday through Friday 6:30 am –8, Saturday 8-8, and Sunday 8-3
(See More: here)
Antelope Valley Arts 