"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." If you have had any contact with the Orange County art scene over the past decade then you know what ISM: a community project is, what they do, why they do it and who they are. Right? Well, partially. In the spirit of the above saying by Abraham Lincoln, ISM is as an organization as elusive and open-ended as the classic definition of the term and that is...
Santa Ana, CA. Downtown Santa Ana Artist’s Village gets a kick in the contemporary art butt with newest creative addition, Grand Central Art Center’s (GCAC) new Director and Chief Curator, John Spiak. Spiak is a whirlwind of creative energies, and his expertise in Relational Aesthetics and Social Practice are giving the Artist’s Village a transformative new take on the art scene in Orange County. Spiak is bringing in artists from all over the world, to engage and exchange with the Orange...
Hello All! I wanted to let you know that local curators Martha Lourdes Rocha & Martin Corigan need your road trip photos for their upcoming exhibition titled Common Tread that will open at the Begovitch Gallery at CSU Fullerton on September 8th. Please help them out and get your favorite road trip photos in an art show. They can be contacted via the Common Tread Facebook Page. Thanks!
Emulex Corporation is usually a computer parts manufacturer based in Orange County, but this year Emulex has taken an interest in spreading their wealth-- with their never-ending supply of creative materials, otherwise known as e-waste, and their passion for Orange County art, this computer parts company has partnered up with Cal State Fullerton to create The Art of Convergence, a sculpture competition featuring Emulex parts and products and CSUF sculpture students. The Art of...
San Antonio, TX. At the 2012 SSCA annual conference, this year held in The Alamo City, San Antonio, three Orange County writers were shocked and amazed by this fascinating and artistic city! Who would have thought that The Alamo City had good art! Ok, maybe Los Angeles and Orange County have warped my mind into forgetting about the other states outside of New York and California for art in America, but I stand corrected! Texas definitely has art. With a slew of public sculptures that brighten...
Joe Sorren's paintings remind me of the sweetness of the simple moments in life, like a flower covered in dew sparkling in the sun or a child quietly playing in a garden. We have to intentionally stop being mentally absorbed in the incessant activities of our lives, to mindfully notice these sweet and movingly beautiful moments happening before our eyes everyday. Going to see Sorren's paintings on display feels like this. Like a visit to a park just to lay down on the grass and stare at the...
The OC Art Blog is hosting a re-launch party for it’s website in the back room of Memphis at the Santora on Saturday April 7th from 7-10PM during the Santa Ana Art Walk. The OC Art Blog is dedicated to the Orange County art community and has re-launched with a new format, new features and new writers. Enjoy drinks, appetizers, art by Suzanne Walsh, Sarah Walsh, Joy Shannon and Natasha Shah all while learning more about the new OC Art Blog. The OC Art Blog was started in 2004 to build community...
This edition of Beyond the Orange Curtain is coming to you from Anchorage, AK. While here to catch the Iditarod and basically just see Alaska, we had the opportunity to participate in Anchorage's first Friday art walk. One stand-out from the walking tour exposing us to a slice of Anchorage's cultural life, was the work of Anchorage based artist Erin Pollock. A favorite pastime of mine is people watching, and Erin Pollack is a pro at the art of people watching. Pollock traverses the many coffee...
Los Angeles, CA At the 100th Annual CAA Conference in downtown Los Angeles, I got a chance to sit and listen to a panel of women that could impress even the most haughty of elite art folks with their hard work, dedication, and professional experience. Among these women, Carrie Yury knocked my socks off with her helpful advice and personal experience in the art world. Carrie Yury, a professor at CSUF, an occasional writer for Artillery Magazine, and a creative photographer, and art world...
Last year in Europe, I happened upon the second film in Yael Barlana's trilogy, ...and Europe will be stunned. Mur I wiieza (Wall and Tower 2009) shows a new kibbutz being constructed in the what was the heart of the Jewish residential area in Poland before the war, and then a part of Warsaw Ghetto. In this film Barlana tracks the activities of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland (JRMiP), a new political group established by the artist Barlana, that calls for the return of 3,300,000 Jews...
I have never separated the arts into sections. The music I make sounds like how my visual art looks and vice versa. For my bachelors degree, I created a specialized major which included visual art, theatre, and music because I could not choose just one of the arts to focus on. So, somehow it makes sense that I've been asked to create a new music column for the OC Art Blog, to expand their focus from solely the visual arts into more of the performing arts. I feel privileged to be the first...
On First Saturday, the exhibit Gothic opened at the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Ana, featuring 56 artists from around the world working in a variety of different mediums, all within the genre of “Goth.” During opening night, the warehouse turned art co-op was transformed into a New Wave nightclub with artists and attendees dressed in their most morbid and theatrical attire. It was a dark and dapper atmosphere which began in full force when exhibition curator Amy V. Grimm...
For the last several months the Los Angeles art world’s attention has been captured by the blockbuster Pacific Standard Time exhibitions happening throughout southern California. In the midst of this dominant viewing of the past art of Los Angeles there has been a few brave souls staging exhibitions that sit outside of this particular lens. One of these shows is the quiet survey of current Los Angeles painting that recently opened at the Torrance Art Museum titled To Live and Paint in LA...
Although unplanned, the combination of the Cacophony Society opening at Grand Central Art Center and the Gothic show at OCCCA brought out some great people watching at the always fun Santa Ana Artists Village Art Walk. Enjoy: ...
Fullerton, CA Sculptor, S.A. Hawkins had his MFA thesis exhibition open this past saturday at Cal State Fullerton and rocked it! Alongside the large and impressive Faculty exhibit, S.A. took both of the other galleries (The East Gallery and the West Gallery) on the CSUF campus and dominated the night. His abstract and hypnotic glass and metal artworks are surprising and comforting, compelling narratives involving abstract life forms made of glass, metal, rust, found objects, and brightly...
The Huntington Beach Art Center currently has an open call for Artists in Residence. This residency will utilize three continuous galleries as studio space for up to three individual artists, teams or collectives. We invite applications from all creative disciplines, including visual, performance and interdisciplinary arts. This rare and exceptional residency will take place from March 3 – March 31, 2012. Each residency artist, team, or collective will receive $500.00. Payment will be issued...
Creative Orange County presents TEDxSAArtistsVillage, on Saturday, October 1, 2011 from 9am – 5pm at the historic Yost Theater in Downtown Santa Ana. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. TEDxSAArtistsVillage is an independently organized event licensed by TED. Curated and produced by Creative Orange County, TEDxSAArtistsVillage will examine the meaning and...
This Saturday night is the opening of Visual Integrity at the Coastline Community College Art Gallery. A few of the artist featured in this mixed media exhibition include,Laurie Hassold, Thinh Nguyen, Jeff Gillette, and David Jang. The opening will run from 5 to 8pm. The Coastline gallery is located at 10156 Adams Avenue in Huntington Beach. Local artist/curator David Michael Lee is taking over the reigns at the CCC Gallery so expect many exciting things to come. The website can be found HERE...
Riverside, CA. UCR Sweeney Art Gallery & Culver Center of the Arts present The Great Picture: The World's Largest Photograph & The Legacy Project, an exhibition in three parts that tells the tale of the successful campaign to make the world's largest camera and photograph. The photo's mammoth scale of 32 x 111 feet earned it a place in the Guiness World Records, and made it a photo history landmark. "It is also an exploration of the 172-year-old conflict between painting and...
The OC Art Blog was created in 2004 as a way to build community and promote the marginalized but dynamic Orange County art scene.
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British artist Natasha Caruana joins the OC Art Blog to talk about her ongoing exploration of intimacy, secrecy, and the rituals of modern relationships. Known for projects like Married Man and Fairytale for Sale, Caruana’s work blurs the line between truth and...
Join me for a walk through one of the world’s most influential contemporary art fairs, Frieze London 2025. From blue-chip booths to experimental installations, Frieze offers a snapshot of what artists, collectors, and institutions are thinking about right now. If...
In a landmark move for the region’s cultural landscape, UC Irvine has officially completed its acquisition of the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA), forging a new unified entity under the name UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art. UC Irvine News A Fusion of...
Installation view of Obsesiones/Obsessions at Golden West College Art Gallery. Photo by Tyler Stallings By Tyler Stallings Walking into Obsesiones/Obsessions at Golden West College Art Gallery feels both timely and uncanny. Timely, because the exhibition is...
By Tyler Stallings Brennan Roach, Garden of Earthly Absurdities, 2017-2025,paper, pencil, pen, acrylic, oil on triptych wood panel, 55 x 102 inches. Photo by Tyler Stallings.] Brennan Roach’s Visual Morphology, his first solo exhibition in twelve years, is less a...
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