Patch Blog: New Opportunities, New Ways to Share and Reflect

I had a great meeting with John Stephens today about beginning this blog. It's really exciting to have a place to try out my voice and see how it resonates with our community. I've been an artist, writer and educator for most of my adult life and as I move from one chapter to another I sometimes feel the continuity of my life is lost.  

New  job, new set of circumstances, new relations, new community of peers.  I think a lot of us experience that as we travel through our lives and Sierra Madre has always been a warm community to come home to from my journeys, and now the Patch is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on that experience outside of a small circle of friends and family.

It's Friday afternoon and I am with artists Star Higgins, Gurdon Miller (fellow Sierra Madreans), Ibarionex Perello and Brande Jackson. Star and Gurdon are installing an exhibition of photographs, collages, story boxes and mixed media. We are at LoveBirds Cafe, 921 E. Colorado Blvd. between Mentor and Lake. 

The five of us are having an exhibition at LoveBirds entitled, "Five Foothill Artists" which opens tomorrow night, Saturday, May 14, with a evening celebration from 6:30-9:00 p.m.: Wine, Refreshments, Art and Good Company.  

All are welcome and we hope to see you there. Owner John Jomehri has opened his Pasadena cafe to local artists for exhibitions and asked Star Higgins to be the general jefe. Star is my partner and collaborator in a new business Art Beast (art plus business).  

Since last fall we have been installing exhibitions of area artists in local  business venues. So far we have installed at three Sierra Madre businesses including Salon Zelo, Bella Rouge and Charcuterie. Part of our effort is to support local artists but we also have the mission to enrich the cultural life of our community by exposing the general public to locally produced art of quality. (Think Global, Act Local) Gurdon Miller, also a member of the Arroyo Arts Collective, creates silver gelatin prints in which he interrogates the built environment.  Star has created a series of beautiful, funny and theatrical surreal Story Boxes,  Brande has created collages of reflected images using mysterious darkroom techniques which you just have to see and I am displaying photographs whose subjects are revealed through the enhancement of other media and digital software.

Also included in the exhibit are  photographs by Ibarionex Perllo. Ibarionex,  is  a truly gifted photographer and his new book, Chasing The Light, about his own photograph was just published las month and will be available at the opening. The photographs that he brought in today to exhibit  are absolutely luminous and we all stood around admiring them. He doesn't exhibit much, but works as an educator, editor, and interviewer. We have worked together in the past and he instills his own wonder for his medium in his students.  Along with Gurdon Miller, he has brought some serious photography to the show. 

The exhibition will be on display from May 14- mid June.

We hope you'll find time to come by.

Elizabeth