April is Arts Month and it’s perfect timing for Angels Gate Cultural Center’s Spring 2024 Open Studios Day on April 27. In 2019, California declared April as Arts, Culture & Creativity Month, intending to engage arts advocates and raise awareness of the impact of the arts within communities.
Since 1987, Angels Gate Cultural Center has grown to fulfill this goal year-round, doing one of the things it does best — community connection — where more than 45 local artists will open their doors to the public for a look into their art practice. The mission of Angels Gate is to provide space for artists to work and to engage the community through arts education, exhibitions of contemporary art, and cultural events.
The site was originally established as Fort MacArthur in the early 20th century, serving as a coastal defense installation for the Los Angeles Harbor. Its strategic location played a role in safeguarding the region during times of conflict. Eventually, the campus’ purpose and landscape evolved. In 1977, the City of Los Angeles acquired the site, recognizing its potential as a cultural and artistic hub. Former military buildings were transformed into a thriving center for arts and culture, officially opening as the Angels Gate Cultural Center.
Open Studios Day, an all-ages event, provides the public a glimpse into the process, art, and lives of local artists who create at the center. AGCC hosts one of the largest studio artist programs in the region with a diverse range of artistic disciplines including ceramics, photography, printmaking, writing, sculpture, videography, music, and painting. This self-guided tour of artist studios provides a unique opportunity to interact with the artists and purchase contemporary works of art. And … an exciting update; three new studio artists, Karla Diaz, Melody Chan and Emma Rault have joined the cultural center.
Live community class demonstrations will take place throughout the event and include: painting, screenwriting, printmaking, music exploration, Raku, and ceramics. Find a schedule of classes for Open Studios Day below.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of FLOOD presenting SoundWalk. soundplay < = > southbay provides both a glimpse and glitch into two decades of sound art within the context of Long Beach SoundWalk and soundpedro, produced by the artist group. Through installations, videos and performance, the exhibition will trace early SoundWalk events (which started in 2004) and bridge time, up to the current soundpedro2024. The exhibition runs through June 1, with additional programming information available on the AGCC website.
FLOOD produced the SoundWalk annually for ten years, within a shifting footprint of urban streets, sidewalks, unexpected indoor spaces and alleys of downtown Long Beach. This evolved into soundpedro, the more recent iteration of the sound art festival. From the one-night SoundWalk, soundpedro has expanded into a season of sonic experiments and ear orientation, both in-person and online. The signature on-site event takes place annually at Angels Gate Cultural Center, where participants respond to and react within the wild, varied landscape and complex history of the site.
Direct from the Classroom: Spring Selections the floor 1 gallery will showcase student art by local K – 6th graders in AGCC’s Artists-in-Classrooms or AIC program. Paintings, creative writing, sculpture and dance works represent 1,512 students taught by artist-teachers in 54 classrooms throughout San Pedro and LA County during the Spring academic term.
The All-Ages Musical Instrument Making Station invites participants to join AGCC’s artist-teachers Julie Borkin and Dalia Palacios in making their own musical instruments. Inspired by the soundplay < = > southbay exhibition, guests will make and decorate their own drums and tambourines in this walkthrough workshop.
Angels Gate Cultural Center enriches its programming through events like artist talks, panel discussions, and workshops where participants can delve deeper into each exhibition. In addition, AGCC executive director Amy Erikson noted that it’s getting back to pre-pandemic levels of visitors and class takers, as a result, the center is expanding its community classes. Angels Gate invites the public to explore a diverse array of instruction year-round on its stunning coastal campus. Offerings include woodworking, welding, Art Lab science and art workshops, ceramics, printmaking, watercolor, family art workshops, Raku, hand-building pottery, master painting, life painting and drawing, dance, Kyudo (traditional Japanese archery) meditation, ukulele, and guitar and piano.
A few of the center’s community partners will be in attendance at Open Studios; so far confirmed are Deane Dana Friendship Park and Nature Center, Best Start Wilmington, and Toberman Neighborhood Center. Angels Gate works with partners in San Pedro, Los Angeles, and beyond to ensure that the arts are part of a standard K-12 school curriculum.
Further, check out Angels Gate Cultural Center Studio Artist Emporium. You can find inspiration and support the cultural center through your purchase of contemporary artworks by AGCC studio artists. A portion of all proceeds from the Emporium are donated to support Angels Gate Cultural Center.
AGCC Studio Artists include: Adam Gaxiola, Andrea Lien, Ann Weber, Anna Erneholm, Ashton S. Phillips, Beth Elliott, Candice Gawne, Catherine Burce, Da Aie Park, Deborah Wright, Daniel Porras, Delora Bertsch, Dennis Keeley, Elyse Pignolet, Elizabeth Casuga, Emma Rault, Frank Minuto, Frank Rodriguez, Gil Mares, Henry Krusoe, Jesse Small, Joe Barile, Jon Nakamura, June Edmonds, Kim Kei, Leah Shane Dixon, Lowell Nickel, Lucinda Rudolph, Marco Schindelmann, Melodie Reay, Mike Watt, Nancy Voegeli-Curran, Perry Okimoto, Phoebe Barnum, Regina Herod, Rene LaRue, Robert Alexander, Scott Anger, Susan Rawcliffe, Syracuse residency students (Gary-Michael Tuzinkiewicz, Jalal Ghias Beygi, Pegah Bahador), Tianlu Chen, Tim Maxeiner, Vanessa Madrid, W.S. Milner, Yoon Jin Kim and Yuichiro Roy Kunisaki.
Open Studios Classes All Day
1:30 to 1:40 p.m. Master Painting – Barbara (Painting/Speaking)
1:40 to 1:50 p.m. Ceramics- Lowell Nickel (Clay Demo/Speaking)
1:50 to 2:00 p.m. Music exploration – Shane (Performance/Speaking)
2:00 to 2:10 p.m. Film & Screenwriting – Larin ( Flyers/Speaking)
2:10 to 2:20 p.m. – Public Art & Storytelling – Rachael (Speaking/Activity)
2:20 to 2:30 p.m.- 3D Printing Art- Jesse Small (3D Example/Speaking)
2:30 to 3 p.m. – Raku ceramics demo – Perry Okimoto
Nguyen Ly will be working in the printmaking studio with students all day. Guests can visit to discuss printmaking and their work.
The instrument-making workshop will happen all day and people can drop in as they like. And visitors can purchase art directly from the artists in their studios.
AGCC’s campus is located within Angels Gate Park and is open during park hours from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. AGCC’s galleries are open to the public.
Open Gallery Hours: Thursday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Open Studios Day
Time: 12 to 4 p.m., April 27
Cost: Free
Details: https://angelsgateart.org
Venue: Angels Gate Cultural Center, 3601 S Gaffey St., San Pedro