San Diego Art Project

Over the past three months our bathroom hallway has been covered with chalkboard paint so that you could write to us about what shade of green you think you are?  Here are a few things that were up on the walls last week. 

Patricia Patterson, Just Another Thursday

For months Now Olivia [Our Museum Director] and Mary [our Museum Registrar] have been working on curating the upcoming exhibition, Patricia Patterson: Here and There Back and Forth.  Every Thursday at 9:30 a.m. they meet at Patterson’s house to discuss and work on the exhibition.  To give you all a peek into this process and Patterson’s home, I snuck into last Thursday’s meeting to take some pictures of Patricia’s house and Studio.  It is an amazing place, every artist should be envious of her studio.  Above are some pictures of my visit; below is a brief statement on the exhibition to wet your appetites. 

Patricia Patterson: Here and There Back and Forth

Opening date: February 12, 2011

This exhibition will attempt to summarize a lifetime of artist Patricia Patterson’s work.  Patterson, a nationally recognized and locally based artist and University of California, San Diego professor emeritus, creates theatrical installations and sumptuously painted snapshots that provide a visual account of facets of domestic and outdoor life on Inishmore (one of the Aran Islands located off the western coast of Ireland) and her home in Southern California. 

Born and raised on the East Coast, Patterson studied at Parsons School of Design in New York before embarking on an adventure that would steer the course of her artistic career. At the age of nineteen she read J. M. Synge’s The Aran Islands, and soon found herself on the island of Inishmore. Patterson was instantly captivated by the island, and set plans to return a year later after finishing her degree at Parsons. Upon her return to Inishmore, she spent the next two years immersing herself in an “ever changing spectacle” of land, sky, water, and language. Patterson found a craggy, rugged terrain and difficult living conditions that provided a sharp contrast to the warm and generous character of the people she met. Since this original visit, Patterson has returned to the island a dozen times for extended sojourns. These experiences serve as the origin to a life’s work that offers a series of individual glimpses into the lives of others like scenes from a film that define a set of characters and places of daily life—an everyday theatre.  At the core, Patterson makes art about “ordinary things,” a subject matter that is, as she puts it, “…tricky…Using domestic material is risky; it can seem too sentimental, too intimate.”

Artist in Residence Week Wrap-up

Artist in Residence week has now come to a close. It was invigorating to have all the artists back in the Museum galleries activating the space once again. In response to all your changes each artist has come back to their artworks and altered or added to them in order to create their ‘finished’ piece. As expected the artists surprised us with great happenings during this process and have left the galleries and hallways with more stirring work for everyone to enjoy. I would like to thank the artists for working with us on this project.  Above are a few pictures of the changes.  The show will be up until December 31, 2010 so get in here and see the changes yourself before then.
Keep your eyes peeled; there are still a few changes to come in Marisol Rendon’s installation, Esperanto.

Concert and Crash, A Huge Hit!

Last weekend [Friday Nov 12^th, 2010] the Center Museum had its first ever sleepover in the Museum.  This event included a concert with music by Meg & Bryan and Joel P. West with violinist Kelly Bennett [see image], a gourmet dinner designed and prepared by our very own Chef Justin Robinson and a fun adult friendly sleepover.  Above are some pictures of the night.  Thank you everyone who helped make this possible it was an amazing evening and we hope to do it again in the future!

Leveled - Art Events in San Diego

This day has been nuts.  We rarely have two TV camera crews come through the Museum in one day, but today was the day!  Kelly Bennett came through representing NBC to take footage of Leveled and interview our artists.  The clips from this footage along with Bennett’s piece on our show will air on NBC this Friday, November 12^th around 4:30 p.m.

In addition we just finished up shooting with FOX news about Concert and Crash and Ms. Augustine Greane.  This footage will air tonight at 10 p.m.