(I really love how the wide textured line on the left covers a part of the picture…and how the ocean looks like snow.)

And, here’s the story on the artists from the DDR Projects website:

Living close together in NYC, Ty and Rob see the same things, but have chosen to express what they see with completely different mediums. Ty’s roots lay in illustration, whereas Rob’s is in photography.

Ty lives in the places Rob shoots and can often be found in front of his camera. Rob surfs and is a great comedian and Ty finds himself transferring that to paper. Through artistic measures, they want people to see these two paths and experience the dialogue that they have, operating with the tools they’ve grown accustom to using.
With the release of their first cooperative book, aptly titled “A Pencil and a Lens”, Ty and Rob present a sampling of the works found in that book for live exhibition.

DDR Projects: Art Gallery | Toy Store
3403 East Broadway
Long Beach, CA 90803

Hours:
Tues. – Fri. 12:00-7:00
Sat. 12:00-6:00
Sun & Mon. Closed

Betsy Lohrer Hall in her 4th Street Studio

A couple of weeks ago, I talked to Long Beach-based artist Betsy Lohrer Hall at her studio off of Fourth Street. She had happy eyes, wore an oversized gray sweater and laughed often. In exploring her studio, she showed me the Mount Saint Helen’s ash she kept in a little vial on a shelf and lots of little notes that she’s found on the ground. In a sweet, melodic voice she explained herself:

“I collect handwritten notes and things that people have dropped on the street or maybe something that fell out of someone’s pocket and got run over (laughs). And I pick it up and bring it to the studio and I look at it for awhile and then maybe it goes into artwork. Maybe it just stays here, but I mean I have little collections of things that I look at them all of the time.”

“Some of them were really random,” she says, like, ‘You jerk, would you please move your car. It’s blocking my driveway.’ It’s like peeking into this whole part of life that I don’t know anything about.” Another note says, “‘Please do not use this bin until the other two are full. Thank you.’ And it’s just like a random note. But it’s weathered so beautifully.”

Betsy has used parts of boxes and paper bags that she found on the street to make a whole series of cardboard prints. For those pieces, she “sealed the surface, inked [the cardboard] up, and put it through a printing press.” The result is wonderfully textured, beautifully simple, boxy black images.

She says, “I really do make an effort to see the beautiful and the sacred in every day things. Because life is so- we can get caught up in our heads, get so caught up in what’s going to happen tomorrow. Myself included.”

As we talked longer, she showed me more and more of her findings and I felt like I got to know her better with each one. “Grape stems,” she said holding out the delicate piece of refuse in the palm of her hand, “Really cool texture.”

She doesn’t stay on one item for too long, which reflects her art-making decisions: “Because when I’m working on a certain medium and I’m feeling like I’ve mastered it and I’m controlling it, it ceases to be a good thing for me. So I’ll stop that medium and I’ll try a different medium or I’ll try a new idea.”

“But the weird thing is,” Betsy continues, “I always feel like I fling myself out there, trying something new but it’s always the same thing. To me, I see them all related…I’m never going to get rid of myself. My friends says, ‘that’s okay.’ ‘But it looks like something I would make.’ And they’re like, ‘But that’s okay.’”

A lot of her pieces deal with marking time. Currently, she is in the process of painstakingly using gouache- a kind of opaque watercolor- to mark out thousands of cylindrical dots that eventually will form larger abstract designs. Betsy says, “I guess I’m interested in all of the ways that human beings try to figure out the mystery of life. And one of them is to organize it into little segments like time because that makes it more manageable. I guess if I were to go back to my sociology class, they talked about existential anchors: things that make people feel secure so that they don’t go completely adrift. The things that people find comforting. My work is all about exploring that and in some ways poking holes in it. And In some ways, dealing with the anxiety of it. Because, basically, time passes and we die. And that’s okay. That’s all part of the big picture.”

March 10 through April 9

Long Beach City College Art Gallery

"aroundsound #9 (ohhhhboon)" and "aroundsound #16 (surgingsignal)" by Michael Baton Miller at LBCC FOAM exhibition

For over a decade, Long Beach City College has been without a gallery. But, lucky for us and for it, the Long Beach City College Art Gallery reopened in April 2008. The new gallery director Habib Kheradyar has been curating exhibitions of professional artists as well as organizing exhibitions of student work. A new exhibition entitled FOAM opened March 10 and will run through April 9. The artists included in the show include Bari Ziperstein, Sky Burchard, Christoff Koon, Michael Barton Miller, Jason Rogenes, and Shirley Tse. All of them use foam in different ways in their artwork. I actually got to talk to four of the artists. Bari Ziperstein is friendly and approachable. Her artwork is very comfortable. One of the pieces had a ceramic sculpture of an old man inside of it. She collects things from thrift stores and her artwork usually has used elements in them. The work she is showing at Long Beach City College is called “Growing Beams.” Beams made out of foam core and covered in plaster appear to be non-nonsensical extensions of the wall.  They look something like this.

March 6 through March 14

week of arts and literature in Long Beach

"Obisbo 619," Photograph by Sarah G. Vinci, Part of "Rose Park – Living with the Past in the Present" Exhibition at Portfolio Coffeehouse

Visions~Voices is 50 storytelling events- whether it be firemen telling stories about fighting fires or a photographer telling the story of the restoration of an historic building through her pictures- taking place all over Long Beach for the next 9 days.  Visions~Voices is the first-time combination of the Arts Council for Long Beach’s “Smithsonian Week” and the Long Beach Public Library Foundation’s “Long Beach Reads One Book” Week.  Here are some of the events that I am most looking forward to:

Friday, March 6

Long Beach Spoken Word Festival, Bixby Knolls “First Fridays”

Nino’s Italian Restaurant, 3853 Atlantic Avenue, 8:30 PM  

This festival kick-off event features performances by famous Los Angeles poets Rachel Kann (UCLA Extension) and Juwanza Dumisami (Director of the Anansi Writers Workshop at The World Stage).

For more information, call (562) 570-1930

Saturday, March 7

“The Rebirth of ART”, A Photo Presentation

Art Theatre, 2025 E. 4th Street              11:30AM – 1:30PM  

Photographer Tami Graham narrates her photo journey of the restoration of the Art Theatre.

“Deco On Broadway”, Presentation & Book Signing:

Long Beach Heritage President & Long Beach Art Deco expert, John Thomas, presents the theatre’s architectural significance and signs copies of his recent book, Long Beach Art Deco. Proceeds to benefit the Historic Society of Long Beach.

Refreshments Served.

For more information, please call 562.438.5435  or visit www.arttheatrelongbeach.com

Sunday, March 8

MoLAA Celebrates International Women’s Day: Las Mujeres (Target Free Sundays)

1:00 – 4:00 PM            MUSUEM OF LATIN AMERICAN ART

628 Alamitos Avenue

1-3pm  Art Workshop – Herstories, Create personal story using images. 

2-3:30  Women in the Arts: Power, Presence, and Voice. A conversation with three Women in the arts : Susan Mueller ,                President of Southern California Caucus for Art , Idurre Alonso , Curator  Molaa, and Maria Luisa de Herrera, art          consultant and scholar.

1-2pm  Gallery Tour Women in the Molaa Permanent Collection. 

3-4pm  Performance: Viver Brasil – Dance Company 

Rose Park – Living with the Past in the Present

4:00 -6:00 PM              PORTFOLIO COFFEEHOUSE

2300 East 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Cherry

Join Long Beach Photographer Sarah Vinci and Rose Park residents in a discussion on the history of their homes in Rose Park, Long Beach. Exhibit runs from March 1 – 31.

For more information, call (562) 434-2486 or visit www.portfoliocoffeehouse.com.

Wednesday, March 11

Long Beach Spoken Word Festival

LONG BEACH I LOVE YOU

Presenting Media Sponsor Gazette Newspapers

AQUARIUM OF THE PACIFIC

100 Aquarium Way

Poetry and unabashed patriotism come to the Aquarium of the Pacific in this unique event celebrating the book release of the poetry anthology The Good Things about America. Join us for a private VIP Pre-Event at 6:30 pm. Tickets are available for a minimum donation of $40 at www.artslb.org. Enjoy drinks and light snacks, the relaxing soft-lit exhibits of the underwater world and a benefit performance of Long Beach I Love You with a special appearance by local poet Mindy Nettifee. Proceeds will support the Arts Council for Long Beach. Performers include Derrick Brown, Michael C. Ford, Brendan Constantine, Michael Roberts, Jason MacBeath, Ratpack Slim, Danielle Potter and Christopher James. This multi-media show will feature live music, artwork from the book and new photographs from Matt Wignall. 

For more information, call (562) 570-1930.

NOTE:  You can attend this event for FREE after 8 p.m.  Well, it costs $7 to park at the Aquarium, but other than that it’s all free.  A few sections of the Aquarium will be open to check out and, more importantly, there will be live performances by the poets listed above and a band will be playing as well.

Thursday, March 12

2nd City Council Gallery + Performance Space, 435 Alamitos Avenue

“More Words for Gravity,” 8 p.m.

An Evening of LGBTQ Poetry featuring Buddy Wakefield & Thea Iberall

Curated by Mindy Nettifee

Light Refreshments

FREE

Call (562) 901-0997 for more information.

Saturday, March 14

Long Beach Spoken Word Festival

6:00 -10:00 PM                  THE LAFAYETTE BUILDING

140 Linden Avenue (between Broadway and First Streets)

The festival’s finale poetry show and dance party! As part of the East Village’s Second Saturday Art Walk, the festival will be taking over space at the historical gem The Lafayette to feature performances by poets Jerry Quickly, Beau Sia, Eitan Kadosh, and Mindy Nettifee and soul music goodness from DJ Dennis from Good Foot.

For more information, call (562) 570-1930.

For a full list of events, go here. 

Spread from America by Zoe Strauss, published by AMMO Books, 2008.

So true.  So true.

Here is some of his work:

Here is some other contact info: (562) 961-3708, www.fa4gallery.com.

The gallery will host an opening event from 6 to 9 tonight.

Here are some examples of the types of works you will see at the gallery’s first exhibition:

"Summer Song" by Parvis Payghamy

unnamed watercolor by Adam Weis

a detail of "Remembering The Pike" by Betsy Lohrer Hall

Party like it's 1945!

This is such a great youthful, fun picture.  Too bad they’re celebrating the defeat of the Japanese.  Wouldn’t it be great if they were just stoked for no particular reason?  Check out some more war-related photos here.