Signal Hill Art Scene

"Aggregate" photo by Lisa Connell

The tiny City of Signal Hill has become a mecca for art.  The newest addition to the art scene in the city is Greenly Art Space where the good folks at this non-profit gallery are mounting an exciting new exhibition of two local artists--photographer Lisa Connell and mixed-media artist Kurt Hantzch.

And we are all invited to the opening reception this coming Saturday:

Saturday, May 19th, 7-9 pm


The Greenly Art Space
2698 Junipero Ave., Suite 113
Signal Hill, CA 90755 

"Eclexia" mixed-media by Kurt Hantzch 

Lisa Connel, an award-winning photographer, finds inspiration going back to the 1890s photographic work of her great grandfather.  In today's digital age, she artistically views and interprets her world through the lens and by "Massaging the pixels in a way that could compare to dark room developing."

The mixed-media artist Kurt Hantzch finds inspiration in the work of the renowned--some would say infamous--author and artist Henry Miller, who said "Paint as you like and die happy."

                 ------------------------------------

We'll be reporting more on the  Signal Hill art scene in coming posts; there's so much going on in our little town of 11,000 residents, on the outskirts of L.A. 

To whet your appetite, let me give you a brief preview of what's in  the works here:  

   --  Beginning in the early 90s, the City has been steadily installing public art in connection with parks and other public and private spaces.  We want to take a closer look at those installations, perhaps interview a few people who can tell us how this came about, and something more about the artists, themselves.

   --  In addition to the Greenly Art Space mentioned above, there are other organizations in the city devoted to the promotion of art.  We want to get to know these organizations better: how they were organized, what are their missions, what are they accomplishing, who are their leaders, what is their art.  Among them are the Friends of Signal Hill Cultural Arts, led by Denise Damrow and Dramatic Results, led by Board of Directors President, Julie Mendell.

  --  Further, as libraries struggle to remain relevant in this digital age, many are re-defining themselves as "cultural centers."  We heard this during recent discussions to build a new library in Signal Hill.  The Signal Hill Library already promotes many cultural events.  We'd like to learn more.    

  --  Our interests do not stop at the city boundaries, nor are they limited to the visual arts. Not too far from our city limits--in the Los Altos district of Long Beach--can be found a used bookstore that has become a cultural and community center.  We want to get to know more about Gatsby Books, and its proprietors, Sean and Alisha Moor.

  --  And we will continue to share our interest in Active Arts of the Los Angeles Music Center, and in the arts, culture and heritage being promoted at the Orange County Great Park in Irvine.

  --  Finally, we are very interested in all the things we, as individuals, do to express our creativity--the jewelry we wear, the flowers we plant; and the little things we do to brighten up our lives--perhaps the plastic pink flamingo in the front yard, that weekly bouquet of flowers from Trader Joe's, or the wind chime that brings back pleasant memories of a distant summer vacation.

So stay tuned for more.  In the meantime, let's meet up at the Greenly Art Space on Saturday, the 19th.

           --  RCH

              

  

Christopher Small IV- Musicking 1927 - 2011

Christopher small was a gracious host when we visited him in Sitges,Spain last year.http://bit.ly/oncVfY

He changed our understanding of the meaning of music and offered the philosophical ground for the active arts program of the l.a. music center

this from http://www.musicked.com/

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

Christopher Small - Musicking 1927 - 2011

Christopher Small, a New Zealand-born writer and musicologist who argued thatmusic is above all an active ritual involving those who play and listen to it and only secondarily a matter of “black dots,” as he once called written music, died on September 7th in Sitges, Spain. He was 84.  


He coined the term 'musicking' and argued that music is a verb rather than a noun.  He wondered about the most basic questions of music: why we pick up instruments or raise our voices together in the first place and stressed that all people involved in a musical performance — the musicians, audience, roadies, publicists, cleaning crew — are part of its ritual.


Those of you who are familiar with the Dallas School of Music may remember that we call our adult student performances 'musicking' and that our original online music learning site was called MusickEd.com - both an homage to Small's work. 


Read the full New York Times article here: http://goo.gl/f6hpn

Celebrate the Pulse of L.A.

Click here to Celebrate the Pulse of LA

And if you want, look for my story "Come Walk With Me," on Signal Hill.  On Page 4 of this link.

---  RCH

Spain: Meeting Christopher Small, III

This is the final post of our meeting with Professor Christopher Small in Sitges, Spain.  Again, those of you with an interest in the Arts in Our Communities may find this particularly interesting.  Next we move on to Madrid and Andalucía.


Once in Barcelona, I telephoned Small and arranged a day, time and location where we would meet.  He said he would be waiting for me at the train station.  Instead of the giant man of letters I expected to meet, I found a small, somewhat shy, graying older man holding a cane; a gentleman of delicacy and reticence, ready to receive strangers from abroad as his guests.  It was this meeting of Christopher Small, the person, that explained the "heart" I had seen in his work -- its deep core of humanity and compassion that is evident throughout.


As we gathered in the living room of his apartment filled with books, artwork and a piano, Chris (at his initiative, we quickly moved to using our first names) talked about Sitges, a charming seaside village, where there is always something interesting to do, usually something connected with the arts.  He also talked fondly of his long-time partner, Neville, who died in a local hospital some four years ago, from a brain tumor.  He dedicates Music of the Common Tongue -- which I think is his most passionate work -- to Neville, writing: "To Neville Braithwaite, who taught me what it was all about."  Chris praised the Spanish healthcare system, thankful that their European Union passports gave them both access to it.


Sitting comfortably in the living room and sipping the good local red wine Chris brought out, we began talking about his work, and I gave him the letter of gratitude Irvine Foundation's Director for the Arts, Josephine Ramirez, had asked me to deliver.  As he read, it was clear that he was moved.  He quietly said he is pleased that his work is being put into practice, not limited to being read in academia.  It has been only in the last ten years that his books have received much attention, which still surprises him, he said.  He pointed out, too, that none of the books have ever gone out of print.


Chris seemed reluctant to talk much about the substance of his work, seemingly satisfied with my simple -- perhaps simplistic -- summary of it.  He refuses to be pigeonholed, however.  When I asked if he considers himself a musicologist, he simply said, "I'm a musician who thinks about his music," refusing, even, to contend that his music is art -- maybe because even that would be too much of an abstraction.


He did venture one strong opinion:  He said he doesn't much care for the music of John Cage.  He said music requires "human intentionality" that is missing in the chance and random ambient-sound orientation of much of Cage's work.  He didn't say this, but from his comments in Music of the Common Tongue,  I think Chris might have added, if given the chance, that Cage is too much the precious and disingenuous elitist for his taste.


Chris disagreed with me on one point.  I had suggested that lagging ticket sales at performing arts centers would make for a good reason to apply his ideas.  My argument was the more "everyday" people are encouraged to engage personally in the arts, the more likely they will also increasingly support and attend professional performances that arts centers promote.  He wasn't specific about his reasons for challenging this, but Josephine Ramirez agreed with him in a later letter to me, saying "[E]verybody wants to do that but, at least originally, when we created it, our [Active Arts] program was never supposed to do that."  Further, she said "In my years of looking at these things, there's no data yet to solidly suggest that programs like Active Arts ... are helping to remedy falling attendance at PACs."  She also expressed concern that the acceptance of that argument might even lead to giving undue attention to "the old butts in the seats" model of PACs.


After finishing the bottle of wine, we moved from Chris' apartment to an Argentine restaurant on the water, just a half block away.  Several people warmly greeted Chris as we strolled by, asking not only about him, but also about local activities that they shared an interest in.  Chris is clearly well known and an engaged local favorite.


Returning after lunch, and as I gathered my things to leave, I snapped a few photos -- the ones you see here -- and turned to ask: "And what about your own music, Chris?", pointing to his piano.  "I'm afraid I haven't been much inspired since Neville's passing," he said.


We said our goodbyes and expressed our appreciation for each other with a big "abrazo," a bear hug.  And, as I worked my way through Sitges, back to the train station -- a tad tipsy from the wine -- I couldn't help marveling at this experience; at having come from a half a world away to meet this giant man of letters, with a heart to match.


Here are a few more photos from our time in Sitges.


--RCH 

Spain: Meeting Christopher Small, II

This post continues the discussion of our meeting with Christopher Small in Sitges, Spain.  Once again, those of you with an interest in the Arts in Our Communities, may find this particularly interesting.


Christopher Small was born in New Zealand where he studied piano and, despite difficulties locating a teacher in the then-sparcely populated country, some violin.  On the strengths of a ballet he wrote as a young man, he received a scholarship to study in England.  He completed his studies there and remained, eventually becoming a Senior Lecturer at Ealing College of Higher Education in London.  He retired in 1986 and moved to Sitges, with his partner Neville, a Jamaican-born dancer and promoter of community arts in London.

Small's life's work is reflected in three books.  They are: Music, Society, Education; Music of the Common Tongue: Survival and Celebration in African American Music; and his manifesto, Musicking: The Meaning of Performance and Listening; published in 1977, 1987 and 1998, respectively.

These are scholarly works organized around two broad questions: "What is the nature of music?" and "What is its function in human life?"  He has thought about these questions for years.  Instead of applying conventional abstractions, ideologies or theories to explore these themes, he questions old assumptions and turns to what he sees (and hears) directly in the world.  For Small, music's significant meaning lies in the vernacular.

He draws heavily on the thinking of anthropologist Gregory Bateson and his notion of the "pattern that connects," and finds the significance of music in our social processes that are much more personal, and much more pervasive than those found in the concert hall or on a CD.  Music is not a thing, he would say, not limited to the work or the score, or even the performance.  Rather, when seen broadly, music is a process that explores, affirms and celebrates human relationship.  He coined the term "musicking" to show this.


To fully appreciate these ideas, Small's books -- linked above -- need to be read.  For a quick introduction, and for a taste of Christopher Small, the man and scholar, I suggest reading his lecture given at the University of Melbourne in 1995, linked here.

The next post -- our final installment of our Meeting with Christopher Small -- will describe our actual encounter with him in Sitges, Spain.


-- RCH

Spain: Meeting Christopher Small, I

This launches a series of three posts about a meeting that began in Los Angeles and culminated, a half a world away, in Sitges, Spain.  Those of you interested in the Arts in Our Communities may find this worth reading.


Meet 83 year-old professor and much respected author Christopher Small, who devotes his life to trying to understand the meaning and significance of music in our lives.

I learned of Small at the Los Angeles Music Center where I volunteer in its Active Arts program.  Small's works, among those of others, provide the intellectual grounding for this program that promotes amateur music making in Los Angeles.


When I learned that the now-retired Professor Small lives in Sitges, just 30 minutes by train southwest of Barcelona, I resolved to visit him -- a sort of mission of our tour of Spain.  To do this, I contacted his publisher, Wesleyan University Press, then started a communication with him via e-mail, and also contacted others influenced by his work, including Josephine Ramirez, to make this visit a reality.  She eagerly offered to write a letter of gratitude to him for me to deliver -- this becoming a poignant focal point of the visit.

Ramirez is the individual most responsible for the creation of Active Arts and is the former Vice President for Programing and Planning for the Music Center.  She is now the Arts Program Director for the Irvine Foundation, administering more than $20 million each year for the arts in California.  (You can see her on the video at the Active Arts Web site linked above.)  She discovered Small's works while on a year's sabbatical at Harvard in 2002-03, and from that created a loose theoretical framework about building arts policies and programming with "everyday" people as its focus.

The Active Arts program at the Los Angeles Music Center is putting Christopher Small's ideas into practice, as the Center broadens its mission from being a performing arts center to becoming a civic cultural center for the city.  The program challenges our passive, detached-connoisseurship orientation to music, so often encouraged by performing arts centers, and exhorts us to personally engage in the arts -- to unleash the artist in each of us.  It encourages us to step back to an earlier time of parlors and dusty porches, when we actually made music, rather than simply purchased it.  Small's work provides both a catalyst and rationale for this.

A couple of years ago, I was asked to give brief remarks to the Music Center board of directors, to share what Active Arts means to one of its volunteers.  At the meeting I heard one of the directors ask, "How does this relate to our core programs?"  Josephine Ramirez, who was moderating the meeting, replied spontaneously, "This is a core program."

In our next post, we will present some background on Christopher Small and try to summarize his thinking.


-- RCH

Spain: Olé, Olé; It's Heating Up for the Trip to Spain

It's heating up around here, in more ways than one. Sure, this week the all-time heat record for downtown L.A. was set at 113 degrees (this was before the official thermometer broke), but just a few days earlier, the sounds of Latin music had things really steaming on the L.A. Music Center Plaza.

In celebration of Latino Heritage Month, the Music Center's Active Arts program presented A Taste of Dance on Saturday. The hot dance sounds of mambo, rhumba, afro-Brazilian, among others, could be heard throughout the day. But the genre that really got my juices flowing was FLAMENCO.

We're gearing up for our trip to Spain--reading, planning, making reservations, all of which seems a bit abstract. But a brief flamenco lesson, from a professional flamenco dancer, and teacher suddenly makes it more real.

Our teacher, Linda "La Matadora" Andrade, dressed in gypsy garb and full of inspiring attitude, encouraged us to "stand erect, chest out, show some pride," and then introduced us to one of flamenco's simpler rhythms, the rumba flamenca. She talked of the energy of "palmas," rhythmic hand-clapping, and spontaneous and heartfelt shouts of encouragement--Olé, a gypsy's equivalent of "bravo."

She also told us of the centuries of migrating gypsies, who much like the American blues singer and the Argentine tango

dancer, came to express their souls in their art form. If everything clicks and you're in the groove, when you're feeling the vibe deep in your soul, then you're said to have "duende," she said. Then she got us moving... some of us only moderately "deep in our souls."

To recorded music, she had us clapping hands held high, clicking heels, and turning as we gyrate hips, our arms snaking to the sky.

Finally, she placed us in a circle to create our own version of the gypsy jam session, a " juerga," clapping and clicking heels and shouting olés of encouragement to the brave souls who dared show their stuff in the center.

"Matadora" is Spanish for female bullfighter, but the term is derived from the word "matar," to kill, which is what a matadora does to the bull at the end of the elaborate display of gore and grace we know as the bullfight. Just between you and me, I doubt that Linda "La Matadora" Andrade has ever killed a bull, but I do know from direct observation, that she is a killer flamenco dancer and teacher. She also has a killer Web site and Blog.

And she inspired this old gringo to pack his laptop in order to be able to blog from Spain--to make the trip a sort of pilgrimage where engaged creativity trumps detached connoisseurship.

More about this later.

                ---  RCH

(Click on "Active Arts" and "Spain" labels for related posts.)

Active Arts of the L.A. Music Center Poised to Step Up for Downtown's Renaissance

The Los Angeles Music Center is poised to take a big step in support of L.A.'s Downtown Renaissance. We learned recently in an LA Times article that the Music Center's president, Stephen Roundtree, is in early discussions to take over management and programming of the 12 acre Civic Park, once its major makeover is completed.

This is good news for the arts, for L.A., and for the Music Center. As attendance drops and as communities become increasingly disenchanted with the "citadel on the hill" as the civic icon for music presentation, performing arts centers are looking for new paradigms for success.

In response, with leadership from its Active Arts program, the Music Center is broadening its mission and is re-thinking the architectural persona it presents to its community. It is transforming itself from a performing arts center to a civic cultural center.

And it is about to embark upon a redesign of its own plaza, with its iconic Joseph Lipchitz "Peace On Earth Fountain," in conjunction with the redesign of the Civic Park across Grand Avenue, both seen in the photo of a model of the site above.

Plaza re-designers will be challenged to make the structural links to the park that are necessary for embracing the community, since the Music Center is built upon a "hill" on top of an existing structure that provides essential parking, but serves to distance itself from the community. If the Music Center were built from scratch today, it is likely it would follow the path taken more recently by the Newark Performing Arts Center, keeping entryways at street level, and creating pathways that connect visitors with the city as part of their musical performance experience.

But, despite the architectural challenges, it is encouraging to note that, if handed the reins, the Music Center's Active Arts program would overcome these physical limitations for integration of the site with the community, through its unique management and programming.


(Click on "Active Arts" in "Labels" for this post below for previous posts on related topics.)


---RCH

Public Practice at the Disney Concert Hall Garden

Its one thing to sit inside the elegant Frank Gehry-designed Disney Concert Hall--as we did last night--and feel the rapture and excitement of sounds made by world class musicians. Its quite another to pick a tune--as I did today on my guitar--just outside, in the garden. Both experiences were thrilling.

Active Arts at the Los Angeles Music Center is wrapping up its spring Public Practice program for amateur instrumentalists at its campus downtown--at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

The debate about the value of investing public funds for the arts always seems to heat up in tough economic times. We are hearing more about how a community can become more vital, even spur economic growth, by keeping it arts programs alive. And on the level of the individual, we are told that music can improve the mind, raise test scores and make us better learners, young and old, alike.

But, as reported in March 1, 2010 edition of the L.A. Times,( Beyond the Mozart Effect) you have to be a hands-on participant, not just a listener to gain these individual benefits. Said another way, engaged creativity trumps detached connoisseurship. This does not mean we should value any less sitting back and enjoying a fine performance. But it does point to where we should be putting our public and private dollars, and investing our own time.

Compared to most European countries, we in the United States invest a paltry amount of public funds in the arts. Usually the big concert halls, the symphony orchestras, the opera are dependent upon charitable contributions made by wealthy patrons. Public and non-profit organizations will team up with many of these same patrons to minimally fund hands-on arts programs--but those mostly are limited to children.

The times, they are a changin'. And a perfect storm's a brewin'. We are better understanding the value of the arts both to the individual--of any age--and the community. At the same time, performing arts centers like the Music Center--along with museums, historic sites, and live music performances in general--are on a long-term slide down, in terms of attendance. In this high-tech, user-generated, YouTube world of the 21st Century, it is not enough to bring in exciting young geniuses like Gustavo Dudamel, and expect the slide to reverse itself.

Performing arts centers are searching for a new, transformative model, and Active Arts at the Music Center is a leading scout on the search. Public Practice is one of its more innovative programs.

(Scroll down for two more posts on Active arts.)

-- RCH

Public Practice at the LA Music Center

This month more than 30 adult amateur musicians of all skill levels, playing various instruments--from harp to harmonium-- will help animate the outdoor spaces of the LA Music Center. They will be practicing--not performing--their instruments there, as part of the Music Center's Public Practice program. (Click on link.)

I chose to practice my guitar in the program--I'm learning a Villa-Lobos piece--for several reasons:

1. It is a thrill to practice at the Music Center, and to be somehow connected to the creativity that this great institution has promoted and shared for so many years. But, more importantly, the institution is changing. It is transforming itself from a performing arts center to a civic cultural center, using participatory arts and its public spaces to build community. I want to support that transformation.

2. Music is more than a product--a performance or a CD. It is a process, (See Process Philosophy for a synopsis of Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy.) and an important part of that process is practice. Practice is disciplined preparation to achieve a performance goal, or it may be a heart-felt letting go to simply enjoy the sound and the process of learning. I want to experience that.

3. Music is RELATIONSHIP. It explores affirms and celebrates one's link with the Great Pattern that connects the whole living world. The late composer John Cage had a very expansive understanding of music. He urged us to fully listen to our soundscape, where we might find music in what may be formerly considered cacophonous noise. Public Practice offers me the opportunity to be in, and contribute to, the downtown LA soundscape.

4. Finally, the West Coast, and Los Angeles and the Music Center in particular, are known for their spirit and promotion of experimentation in the arts. I feel fortunate to be able to participate--in some small way--in that experiment.

Seen from this perspective, Public Practice is at the heart of arts promotion for building community. I look forward to my time next week of practicing in public, along with the sounds of the Peace Fountain (see photo) and the City.

-- RCH

Active Arts in Signal Hill and Long Beach ?

There was a period in America when music was played live, frequently in parlors and on dusty porches. Creative expression reigned; and the term "amateur musician" was something to be proud of, a lover (to use the term's French origin) of music not a bungler of music, that seems to be a derisive and dismissive use of the term in common use today.

Since then, recorded and commercialized music and has turned us into "passive and detached connoisseurs, " rather than citizens engaged in creative expression that is so vital to a healthy and thriving community.

The Los Angeles Music Center--through its Active Arts program (watch the video)-- is transforming itself from principally a performance art center to a civic cultural center, using participatory arts and its public spaces to build community. This is a complex task that challenges our assumptions about the meaning of art, as well as our own personal and institutional roles in that.

I've been fortunate to be involved with this transformation the last four years. I will be posting here developments at the Music Center, with the hope of creating a dialogue among interested arts and culture advocates in the Signal Hill-Long Beach area, to see if there may be something to be learned and applied locally. Stay tuned; engage in the dialogue!

-- RCH