LACMA in NoHo: Exploring Bookmaking at the Valley Plaza Library III

LACMA in NoHo: Exploring Bookmaking at the Valley Plaza Library III
We Write The Book

In December 2017 we had a blast MARBLING PAPER AND making Accordion Books at the Valley Plaza Branch Library, in North Hollywood (NoHo).

I was honored to serve as a teaching artist for LACMA (The Los Angeles County Museum of Art) to lead this program.

The stars of the program were mothers, daughters, SISTERS, girls and women.
YEAH! Girl Power! 

Play date at the Library with Mom!

The Mom above’s book…use of “scrap” (repurposed) paper…to colorful effect!

Girls creating together…

Young participants had a great time creating patchworks of color, shapes, patterns and textures on the accordion pages.

Others had fun using rubber stamps!

A material world…

Stickers are a hit.

Another Mom gets into the act.

And another…

Devoted Mom with her two beautiful little guys…

Focused..

The lovely Ivonne of LACMA photographs a lovely accordion book!

YEAH! Girl Power! 

LACMA in NoHo: Exploring Bookmaking at the Valley Plaza Library II

LACMA in NoHo: Exploring Bookmaking at the Valley Plaza Library II
We Write The Book

In December 2017 we had a blast making Tunnel Books at the Valley Plaza Branch Library, in North Hollywood (NoHo).

I was honored to serve as a teaching artist for LACMA (The Los Angeles County Museum of Art) to lead this program.

The stars of the program were mothers, daughters, SISTERS, girls and women.
YEAH! Girl Power! 

“Raw” tunnel book, all in black, ready to have content added to the frames and create a story, scene, drama or all three!

Fun use of stamping in different ways on the frame and backdrop if the book. What is the coyote howling at?

Sisters working side by side.

Smiling mom with her two daughters must be enjoying the creative break, and the opportunity to create side by side with them.

Animals parade through flora under celestial bodies, all in primary technicolors!

Wonderful use of trim….spanning on end of the “stage” to the other, with a butterfly attached!

These four beauties created gorgeous pieces, with attention to detail, and total concentration!

Older sis…

and younger (the middle child!).

Great use of zig zags to create a sea life theme!

A line-up of works in from of Mom.

Pink continues to rule…

Let’s celebrate….Girl Power! 

LACMA in NoHo IV

LACMA in NoHo IV
Making Double Flower-Fold “Exploding Books”!

On-Site: Neighborhood partnerships with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art!
LACMA (The Los Angeles County Museum of Art) began its partnership with North Hollywood in August 2016 with Summer Nights, free art workshops for the community at the NoHo Plaza in the Arts District.  This year in August 2017, we continue the tradition!

Participants learned to create the flower-fold book! Also called an exploding book due to its jutting geometric structure, the flower-fold book opens into a dynamic and magical art piece. Our project was inspired by artists who embrace geometry from LACMA’s collection, such as Jay DeFeo‘s “The Jewel“,

Hearts and hands…

in the making.

Our friends are back….friends with a long history of making.

Lorenzo, MFA student at Otis College of Art and Design offers instruction to participants.

This family is back again for another project!

Flowers, friends, focus.

Beautiful family of talented ladies…daughters made hats as well as

utterly charming flower books.

Cece, a fashion design student, works intently on her book.

The wonderful Karen Satzman, Director of Youth and Family programs at LACMA chats about the NoHo outreach program with devoted participants.

This young maker worked on her book until we folded up the tables! She committed completely to the project, and can complete it at home.

It was fitting to wind up our August of artmaking in NoHo with the “exploding book” project.

 Hopefully the this LACMA program enabled participants to ignite their creativity, and fueled by their imaginations, blast-off into the inner space and outer realms of their creativity!

LACMA in NoHo III

LACMA in NoHo III
Making Scrolls!

On-Site: Neighborhood partnerships with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art!
LACMA (The Los Angeles County Museum of Art) began its partnership with North Hollywood in August 2016 with Summer Nights, free art workshops for the community at the NoHo Plaza in the Arts District.  This year in August 2017, we continue the tradition!

Participants had the opportunity to design books that can be rolled up! Using paper and wooden dowels, they assembled a scroll then added decorative and narrative materials. Our project was inspired by LACMA’s collection of Japanese hanging scrolls displayed in the unique and beautiful Japanese Pavilion.

Creating in community. Participants cut up magazine text and imagery to use on their scrolls.

Mom helps daughter, while son works away nearby.

These frineds have attended every workshop. They have a long history of making.

Pink rules…

“In the Pink”!

A fun date night…

The scroll proivides ample surface to explore text and image,

and lots of texture, color, shapes and forms.

Elle is a consumate maker, and loves to join in community artmaking activities.

Working vertically.

Pink, and pink!

Pink, close-up.

Incredible work with texture, torn edges, and a goth sensibility.

Welcoming the New Year…

with her scroll…a cornucopia of bounty!

May your New Year…be one of new beginnings…of learning, artmaking, growth and joy…

On your Own and in Community!

LACMA in NoHo II

LACMA in NoHo II
Out of the Box: Making Box Art!

On-Site: Neighborhood partnerships with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art!
LACMA (The Los Angeles County Museum of Art) began its partnership with North Hollywood in August 2016 with Summer Nights, free art workshops for the community at the NoHo Plaza in the Arts District.  This year in August 2017, we continue the tradition!

On August 12th…we had a blast “transforming  boxes into  textured dioramas and assemblage work of art.” Participants used tiny toys, fabric, ribbon, repurposed and found objects, a wild assortment of papers and more to elevate a simple cardboard “gift” box into the gift of art and creativity, fueled by their imaginations, and all the materials and supplies that were available to them right onsite.  Our project was inspired by artists who create box works from LACMA’s collection. such as assemblage artist Betye Saar, and the inimitable Joseph Cornell, as well as the boxes created by iconic artists featured in the amazing show, “Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959-1971“, a must-see, up through September 10th, at LACMA.

Working in community…

adults and children alike,

creating the work of our/their hands…

in “material heaven!

Friends,

and family

and sole practitioners, came together to celebrate their creative spirits.

is Fall in the air? orange was a big color theme…

adorning this box-work from beginning

to completion,

inside,

and out.

There was lots of laughter,

and contemplation,

smiles,

and complete immersion.

A glorious evening!

LACMA in NoHo I

LACMA in NoHo I
Making Accordion Fold Books

On-Site: Neighborhood partnerships with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art!
LACMA (The Los Angeles County Museum of Art) began its partnership with North Hollywood in August 2016 with Summer Nights, free art workshops for the community at the NoHo Plaza in the Arts District.  This year in August 2017, we continue the tradition!

Setting up. Team member arrive at 4pm to make the “People Street” of NoHo Plaza ready for our accordion bookmaking workshop.

About 90 artmakers attend during the course of the evening, from 6 – 9 pm.

The range of the participants” creativity, and imaginative use of materials was breathtaking.

Whole families got into the act (of artmaking)

and fathers and sons worked together.

Some innovative artists took the materials at hand and created something entirely new, as
our wonderful DJ played accordion music, to work with the accordion-book-making event of the evening!

Friends shared…

Mothers and daughters spent hours…

Young artists played with stickers…

while others worked hard on collage.

Stories were told, and

the completed books exceeded the sum of their parts…

Which is what great art does, and always will do.
We need the art, and people need to make it. 

An ever unfolding cycle.

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The Art of the Samurai…Layer upon Layer

The Art of the Samurai…Layer upon Layer

There is an incredible exhibition at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) called Samurai: Japanese Armor from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Collection.

These works employ an extraordinary use of layering: materials, colors, forms, shapes, textures.  They are a visual feast, steeped in history. Below is a selection of highlights…please take the tour!

There is another wonderful exhibition at the Pavilion for Japanese Art entitled Art of the Samurai: Swords, Paintings, Prints, and Textiles, which showcases Japanese swords, samurai robes, battle screens, and woodblock prints depicting legends and battles.

This beautiful installation complements the exhibition Samurai: Japanese Armor from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Collection at LACMA.

BOOKED (5): German Expressionism in “The Written Image” at LACMA

BOOKED (5): German Expressionism in “The Written Image” at LACMA

“The Written Image: Books and Portfolios from the Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies” is a gem of a show at  LACMA, and a fitting accompaniment to the big exhibition  Expressionism in Germany and France: From Van Gogh to Kandinsky,which you can read about here.

You can read about the show, which is comprised of books and prints fusing visual art, writing and design, created in fruitful collaboration by expressionist artists, writers, teachers, innovators, book designers and publishers.

The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies “….is a research facility devoted to the study of the expressionist movement, which flourished in Germany during the early twentieth century. The center houses a collection of approximately 5,000 prints and drawings and a catalogued library of more than 6,000 volumes. This collection is available by appointment only to art historians, scholars, and students.” –-http://www.lacma.org/rifkind-center

“Utopia I-II: Documents of Reality“, by  artist, teacher and color theorist  Johannes Itten, with a cover designed by artist  Oskar Schlemmer, both Bauhaus teachers, was a first attempt at formulating what became the basis for most modern design school curricula.  Bauhaus was a new design school at the time. This original volume has a oddly quaint hands-on quality, its cover combining watercolor and metallic paints with lithography.

Kurt Schwitters designed this cover of “The Cathedral”. Schwitters was a practitioner of  Dada, and the creator of  Merz: “Merz has been called ‘Psychological Collage’. Most of the works attempt to make coherent aesthetic sense of the world around Schwitters, using fragments of found objects. These fragments often make witty allusions to current events.” –http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Schwitters#Dada_and_Merz  Schwitters said, “In the war, things were in terrible turmoil. What I had learned at the academy was of no use to me and the useful new ideas were still unready…. Everything had broken down and new things had to be made out of the fragments; and this is Merz. It was like a revolution within me, not as it was, but as it should have been.” –http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Schwitters#Dada_and_Merz

An richly textured book cover and design, made by artist Richard Janthur.

The Expressionist artist Oskar Kokoschka combined lithographs and text in this extraordinary work. The vivid colors and black outlines belie the adult subject matter, although the piece was commissioned as a children’s’ book.

I had not heard of the artist Carry Hauser before seeing this show, but was entranced by the combination of powerful woodcut image and side stab binding technique.

The beautiful simple sewn binding and use of black in this piece by Josef Achmann allow the powerful image to take center stage. The words are masterfully integrated into the design of this piece entitled, “The small town“.

Max Oppenheimer, (not to be confused with the film director) achieves incredible detail in this etching and drypoint, “Untitled (Stag Hunt)”. The piece is small, and you really have to look closely. If you do, you will be rewarded by a glimpse of intaglio genius.

Not a large show, this gathering of works is intimate, yet requires time and effort to take in. It requires thoughtful observation, indeed scrutiny, and a reading of the historical period in which these (many collaborative) works were created.  Knowing more about the artists, writers, designers, and the political and cultural climate in which they were working will make your viewing experience all the richer.  As a lover of books and the integration of the verbal and visual, I found “The Written Image” to be the gift that keeps on giving. Revel!