Pete & Susan Barrett Art Gallery, in the Performing Arts Center

Hours: Tuesday – Friday, 12 to 5pm & Saturday, 11am to 4pm

(Closed for legal Holidays)

Tel: 310 • 434 • 3434

Www. smcbarrettgallery.com

Fall 2009

Gwynn Murrill – Early Wood Sculpture – Known for her sleek & minimalist portraits of animals this exhibit features her early works sculpted from found wood. Gwynn is drawn to animal forms due to their complex beauty. She says: “My interest lies in the fact that I use the subject as a means to create form that is abstract and figurative at the same time. It is a challenge to try and take the form that nature makes so well and to derive my own interpretation of it.” Click here for details.

September 1 – October 24, 2009
Reception for artist

September 12, 6 – 8 pm
Gallery walk-through with artist

September 26, 2 – 3 pm
Art Department Faculty Exhibit – Exhibit of Painting, Prints, Ceramics, Sculpture and Multi-media artwork by Santa Monica College Art department.

Tuesday, November 10 – Saturday, December 5, 2009
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 7, 6 – 9pm

Closed: November 13, 14 & November 26, 27, & 28, 2009

December (Tues)15 & (Wed)16
Annual Student Christmas Sale – Art Gallery

Winter Session (no planned exhibits in the art gallery)

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In an effort to broaden cultural awareness in the greater Los Angeles area, students in instructor John Zarcone’s painting class at Santa Monica College were asked to communicate the identity of a very specific neighborhood, L.A.’s Chinatown, by creating several representational oil paintings. The results will be on view at the Chinatown Heritage Center from June 6th-July 18th 2009.

There will be an opening reception for the artists on Saturday June 6th from 6 to 9 P.M. Students and faculty are invited to attend. Students and faculty are also encouraged to attend Chinatown Art-night, July 11th 6-9PM, when most of Chinatown’s art galleries will be open to the public for night time viewing.

Chinatown Heritage Center: 411 Bernard St., Los Angeles, CA 90012.

Hours: Wednesday-Friday 11 AM – 3 PM, Sunday 12 – 4:30 PM.

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Santa Monica College Art Mentor Program

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Otis Graduate public Practice Program

Otis MFA Public Practice Program Exhibit- Barrett Gallery
Open- Tuesday, May 12 to Friday, June 5
Reception- Saturday, May 9 (4 – 7pm)

Candida Ayala, Andy Manoushagian, Ofunne Obiamiwe, Jules Rochielle, & Tory Tepp

Come meet and mingle with the artists–the first students to graduate as part of the new MFA in Public Practices Program–at a group exhibit of works that are motivated, informed, and shaped by places, issues, and audiences, both internationally and locally. Opening reception on Saturday, May 9, from 4 to 7 pm.

Graduate Public Practice
The program, under the leadership of Suzanne Lacy, the renowned artist, educator, theorist of socially engaged public art and author of the influential Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art, enriches an arts environment marked by a remarkable mix of art schools and a distinguished history of artistic innovation.

Participating graduate students explore new artistic strategies and practices based on observation, research, social commentary and activism, and visual and performance arts productions in the public realm. Students work in individual studios on a single significant project in collaboration with each other, community members, interdisciplinary scholars, and an internationally known faculty.

The program is housed at the 18th Street Art Center in Santa Monica, a nonprofit residential arts institution for artists and organizations dedicated to issues of community and diversity in contemporary society. The College offers outstanding facilities in sculpture, painting, graphic arts, illustration, video, photography, computer-generated model-making and digital technology. An intimate class size supports mentorship, case-study learning, and production skills in installation, performance, process art, guerilla art and interdisciplinary projects. All students create a thesis integrating theory and practice in art, urbanism, civic life, or other subjects supporting a critical discourse on their work. Participants study with internationally known artists and theorists, do field internships with professional artists, and teach as assistants in Otis’s groundbreaking undergraduate Integrated Learning curriculum.

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Special Events
SMC Student Creative Activist
Film Festival & Panel

Join us for an evening of SMC student films and a lively panel discussion on creative activism with producers, directors, actors, and journalists. The panel will be led by Kathy Eldon, Director of the Creative Visions Foundation (www.creativevisions.org) and mother of photojournalist Dan Eldon, killed while covering the conflict in Mogadishu. An award will be presented for the best student film. Dan Eldon’s journals and photographs are on exhibit through March 21 at the adjacent SMC Pete & Susan Barrett Art Gallery. Art gallery will be open before the film festival.

Fri, March 13 • 7pm=2 0 • Free • The Edye Second Space • SMC Performing Arts Center

Barrett Art Gallery
SMC’s Pete and Susan Barrett Art Gallery is located at the SMC Performing Arts Center (Santa Monica Blvd. & 11th St., Santa Monica). For information and gallery hours, please call (310) 434-3434 or (310) 434-8204, or visit our gallery website (www.smcbarrettgallery.com). Exhibits and opening receptions are free.

Dan Eldon: Traveling Exhibit
Tues, February 17 – Sat, March 21
Join us for an exhibit of remarkable travel journals and images of war and peace photographed by journalist Dan Eldon, who celebrated his life and death at 22 as a creative activist and whose art became a means of positive social change. Opening reception on Friday, February 27, from 6 pm to 9 pm. A film festival and panel discussion with producers, directors, actors, and journalists on creative activism will also be held. Please see the SMC Stu dent Creative Activist Film Festival listing in Special Events for details.

SMC Student Creative Activist
Film Festival & Panel (See listing in Special Events for details)
Fri, March 13 • 7pm • Free • The Edye Second Space • SMC Performing Arts Center

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BBC Piece on Dan Eldon’s Manhattan Exhibition
BBC world produced this piece the second week of Dan’s images and art at their permanent home in NYC’s SoHo at the Candela/Decker Gallery.

Dan Eldon: The Art of Life

www.DanEldon.org

Pete & Susan Barrett Gallery

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Pete & Susan Barrett Art Gallery:
Tue, October 28 – Sat, December 13
Emeritus College Art Gallery:
Thu, November 20 – Sat, December 13

Bettina Brendel Resume

Bettina Brendel
Born 1922 Luneburg, Germany

1940 Abitur (B.A.) Hamburg, Germany
1941-43 Kunstschule Schmilimsky, Hamburg-Eppendorf
1945-47 Staatliche Hochschle fur Bildende Kunst, Hamburg
1955-58 University of Southern California (Art History & Printmaking)
1967-72 Hanya Holms School for Social Research, New York (History & Theory of Physics)
1968-69 New School for Social Research, New York

Solo Exhibitions •

1946 Hamburger Griffelkunst (two-person)
1952 Lynn Kottler Galleries, New York
1954 Los Angeles Art Association
1957 Ester Robles Gallery, Los Angeles (two-person)
1958 Comara Gallery, Los Angeles
Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA
Whittier Art Association, Whittier, CA
1959 Dana Branch Library, Long Beach, CA
Downey Museum of Art, Downey, CA
1960 Esther Robles Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1961 Esther Robles Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1962 Downey Museum of Art, Downey, CA
La Jolla Art Center, La Jolla, CA
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, CA
1966 Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
1967 Spectrum Gallery, New York, NY
1968 Spectrum Gallery, New York, NY
1983 University of California, Los Angeles, CA
1984 L. A. Artcore Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1991 Gallery 1634, Santa Monica, CA
1998 Long beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA
1999 Galerie am Bahndamm, Giessen, Germany
2000 David Lawrence Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA

Group Exhibitions •

1949 Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany
1950 “Zen 49”, Munich, Germany
1955-61 Los Angeles County Museum of Art Annual Exhibition, LA, CA
1958-61 Long Beach Museum of Art & La Jolla Art Center Annuals, CA
1959 “Arts of Southern California V: Prints”, Long Beach Museum of Art, CA
1960 “Arts of Southern California V: Prints”, Long Beach Museum of Art, CA
1961 “Form Concepts: 10 California Painters”, Downey Museum of Art, CA (Curator)
1962 “Strutture e stile”, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, Turin, Italy
San Francisco Art Institute 81st Annual Exhibition, San Francisco, CA
1964-65 “Musee-Manifeste”, traveling exhibit in Italy, Austria, & Germany
1966 San Francisco Art Institute 81st Annual Exhibition, San Francisco, CA
1969 “Espaces Abstraits”, Galleria d’Arte Cortina, Milan, Italy
Pennsylvania Academy of Art “Prints & Drawings” Annual
1972 Beaumont Art Museum Annual, Beaumont, TX
1973 Santa Monica College Art Gallery Drawing & Print Annual Exhibition
Downey Museum of Art, (three-person exhibit), Downey, CA
1975 Santa Monica College Art Gallery Drawing & Print Annual Exhibition
1977 “Women Artists “, Santa Monica College Art Gallery
1980 Annenburg School off Communication, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
1981 Santa Monica College Art Gallery Drawing & Print Annual Exhibition
1987 “Zen 49”, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden, Germany
1994 Galerie Bender, Dusseldorf, Germany
“Molecular Graphics”, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
1995 Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, CA
Galerie Bender, Dusseldorf, Germany
1996 San Diego Art Institute, San Diego, CA
“Creativity & Cognition”, University of Technology, Loughborough, UK
2003 “Liebig Konkret”, Galerie am Bahndamm, Giessen, Germany

Work in Public Collections •

Armand Hammer Museum (Grunwald Graphic Arts Foundation)
Downey Museum of Art, Downey, CA
Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkain, Lisbon. Portugal
Long Beach Museum of Art, Long beach, CA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Max-Planck-Institu, Munich, Germany
Museum fur Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt, Germany
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
Sprengel Museum, Hannover, Germany
University of California, Los Angeles, CA

Honors •

1956 Art In America “New Talent” citation
1958 Prizewinner, La Jolla Art Center Annual
1960 Prizewinner, Long Beach Museum of Art Annual
1961 Prizewinner, La Jolla Art Center Annual
1961 Prizewinner, Long Beach Museum of Art Annual
1965 Purchase prize, San Francisco Art Institute Annual
1995 Purchase prize, Palm Springs Desert Museum Annual
1996 Purchase prize, Palm Springs Desert Museum Annual

Teaching and Lectures •

1946-47 Landschulheim, Marienau, Germany
1955-58 University of California Los Angeles, Extension Program
1971 College Art Association of America, Annual Conference, Chicago,
1971 Optics Colloquium, Institute of Optics, Rochester, NY
1976 University of California Los Angeles, Extension Program
1980 “Light, Color, the Optical Illusion,” University of Southern California Thematic Option Program
1985 & 87 “Art, Science, & Technology” conferences, Gulbenkian Foundation, Paris & Lisbon
1988-94 Artist-in-Residence, California Museum of Science & Industry, Los Angeles, CA
1991 Werner Heisenberg Institut of the Max Planck Institut, Munich Germany
1996 “Creativity & Cognition” Symposium, Loughborough University of Technology, England

Excerpt from an article by Bettina Brendel,

…Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle of quantum physics were not without influence on the art and literature of the 20th century – an influence that is growing with the understanding of the principles involved.
New forms of light and energy have expanded our horizon of visual impressions and have changed the image of the physical world. We know now that there is an invisible portion of the spectrum that is also part of our environment: x-rays, gamma rays, infrared light, radio waves, the electron beam of the electron microscope, polarized light as in laser light, are all part of it.
The artist who would want to visualize the mystery of these unseen forces at work would have to create first a metaphor for it. The visual metaphor that I adopted for the representation of particles of matter and energy, electrons and photons, is a short, straight line that intersects with other equal lines at various angles. The concept behind this visual metaphor is the realization that a particle is not a point but a probability of linear energy in time and space.
It is these ideas of modern physics and the philosophy connected with them that interests me as an artist. For example, a series of my paintings deals with the process of ionization: an electrically excited gas, also called plasma, emits radiation of light due to collisions of electrons with atoms. The diffraction of photons and that of electrons shows a similar pattern of concentric rings, thereby demonstrating the wave-particle duality of matter and energy that has been recognized in quantum physics. I expressed this phenomenon in a diptych entitled Diffraction.
A series of paintings depicts the conversion of solar energy ions on the surface of photovoltaic cells. Another group of paintings shows the light of laser beams created by a metal-vapor system that display brilliant colors of the spectrum after having passed through a diffraction grating. In all instance, the space that I am projecting in my work is not based on the old concept, but is created by layers of lines that through repetition, suggest depth and motion.
Modern physics is opening up a new world of ideas to the artist who is part of the nuclear age. Light and energy in the nuclear age have assumed affirmative, but also destructive, potentials. The discovery that some form of light is involved in the communication of our thought processes is of international importance! Let us hope that the light of the human mind- a bio-electric reality- will prevail to lead us to a more peaceful future!

Bettina Brendel,

From the “The Artist as Physicist, “ in Nunes dos Santos, A.M., ed. Arte e Tecnologia, Lisbon: Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkian, 1993, pp. 22-29.

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The Mentor Program serves as a unique learning experience for a select group of students in the Santa monica College Art department. Students have the opportunity to work intensively with faculty members, visiting artists and fellow students toward the development of individual bodies of work. the program consists of frequent visits to galleries, museums and artist studios, in addition to focused discussions and critiques. The program features an open studios event in the spring, an annual group show in the summer, and a web site.

Some images of the 2008 Art Mentor Program


The Mentor Program, helmed by Professors Ronn Davis and Kavin Buck, is in the process of being completely redesigned. New approaches to educational and art making processes are being implemented in order to better reflect (a) the strategies used in the nation’s leading art schools, and (b) the ideas and issues discussed by art practitioners, educators, curators, and critics around the world.

Through conversation and interaction, students are challenged to explore their own work and those of others, and to solve problems in relevant and innovative ways. Students are also exposed to different aspects of becoming an artist including the preparation of individual portfolios, collaborative work in small groups, and gallery level preparation and installation practices. Students are also introduced to the art world and the dynamics of working with galleries, museums, curators and collectors.

One of the main objectives of the Mentor Program is to serve as a stepping stone; to help students become better prepared and more competitive at the University level, and to provide the intellectual tools and awareness to present themselves as professional artists in the local and international visual art communities.

Peter Frank – The Waking Dream: The Mentor Program 2007-08

When you create a different kind of learning experience, you get a different kind of learning. You don’t attract a different kind of student; there aren’t “different” kinds of students, only the same kinds there have always been – and the kinds you want to attract, and want to select into your program, are the kinds who need the different learning. These aren’t simply the burgeoning right-brained minorities who can only think outside the box, but the ones who are eager to get to work in that nebulous region, decorating the box itself and even rendering its walls transparent so that the rest of us can gaze out into the universe of the elaborated imagination.

The Mentor Program at Santa Monica College may not be the Bauhaus or Black Mountain, but in its own modest and focused way answers to the needs of the visually gifted and refines their skills so that their chops, manual and mental, come to equal their vision. This requires a different kind of learning, a tightened relationship between teacher and student that can awaken a coherent thought process in the student and inspire an understanding of and love for the discipline that brings the student’s vision to fruition. Art is a waking dream, after all; the Mentor Program shows its students how to sleepwalk deftly.The range of achievement among students in this year’s program is at least as broad as the range of styles. But apparently every student, even the most obstinate of underachievers, has proven capable of something while participating in this program. The Mentors Program may not be a boot camp for the imagination, much less an old-fashioned atelier, but it kicks just enough butt to alert the would-be artist to what must be, and it still coddles just enough spirit to encourage the stifled talent to blossom forth at last.

Whether what blossoms forth is what the world will celebrate is another question altogether. But, while mentors bring students to an at-least passing knowledge of contemporary artistic practice, they do not force students into styles – or, conversely, prevent them from emulating trends. A classroom is a place for experimentation, and the ephemera of the outside world, whether objects or ideas, are perfect grist for that mill. So if some of the work on view looks imitative and epigonal, well, it is. But that bespeaks not lack of imagination, but heightened sensitivity to the outside world – the waking dream.
– Peter Frank, May 2008

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Illustrator and Photoshop are both made by Adobe. What are the differences between the two programs and why use one instead of the other?

ILLUSTRATOR
Illustrator is vector based and calculates mathematically from point to point.
Illustrator works with anchor points and straight or curved line segments or paths.
Objects in Illustrator will look smooth and sharp regardless of the size at which it is displayed or printed. File size in Illustrator is usually smaller in size than that created in Photoshop.
Print quality is dependent on printer resolution.
Illustrator is good for logos, typography, and illustrations and for creating sharp, smooth edges.

PHOTOSHOP
Photoshop, like the name suggests, was initially created for manipulating and adjusting photographs. Today, it is an industry workhouse with a wide variety of uses.
Photoshop is bitmap/raster/ pixel based. Pixels are tiny squares that can be seen when images are highly magnified. They are the “building blocks” of the program.
Files created in Photoshop tend to be large or “heavy”
Printout quality is dependent on image resolution.
Photoshop is good for creating/manipulating images with subtle gradations – such as photographs.

Photoshop can also be used to create (drawn or painted) artwork from scratch.

The beauty of both Illustrator and Photoshop is the ability to move back and forth from one to the other, by copying and pasting, or by exporting.
Additionally, Adobe products tend to have similar interfaces that could make it both familiar and/or confusing for beginners.

TIP – One of the most important aspects of learning any software is to know where tools, menus and palettes are located.
* All palettes are under the Window menu in Illustrator and in Photoshop.

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