A glowing fort belonging to a character named Ms. Augustine Greane. Larger-than-life fabric florets, lounge-able legumes and pillows sewn to look like peas. A tricycle that drips green paint from its wheels. A musical instrument created to embody the feeling of being a greenhorn: three cultures abutted.
Usually galleries don’t let you touch the art. At the the California Center for the Arts in Escondido, you’re supposed to. These four works connected by the word “green” are part of an interactive exhibit I stopped by to see last week.
The artists, all local, were there to see what visitors have changed in their pieces in the last couple of months, and to build those changes and tweaks into the finished art pieces. Here are some observations from my visit last week and our segment with our news partners at NBC 7/39 from Friday afternoon.
In other news:
• Our arts blog has been playing host to a rousing discussion of local arts and arts journalism after a local artist left the Union-Tribune’s blogroll in a fiery outburst last Monday. Check out the comments from readers and journalists all over town, including Katherine Sweetman, the artist in question, former U-T art critic Bob Pincus, the U-T’s managing editor, and voices from CityBeat, the Reader, KPBS, the now-dormant Art as Authority blog, San Diego Magazine and several others. Have you weighed in yet?
• Guide from the inside: Our blogger, local artist and writer Dani Dodge, shared a few stories this week: a look at a local artist mentorship program she went through, a taste of artwork that teenagers made and the view from her perch inside a chiropractor’s office turned gallery during Ray at Night, a monthly art walk in North Park.
• Archiving art: A local foundation seeks to capture artists’ lifework on film and share it for free.
• Furry typist: The Grinch sends an update from his backstage blog.
Elsewhere:
• Learning to create: UCSD’s graduate school programs in visual arts, theater and dance and music are highly ranked and stocked with “some of the most innovative figures” in those fields. (Union-Tribune)
• Pounds of dry ice: 5,150, and more numbers from behind the scenes at The Old Globe’s production of the Grinch. (U-T)
• Roll the credits: After 38 years as movie critic for the San Diego Reader, Duncan Shepherd is stepping down. (Reader)
• Mysterious end: Young artist, whose work “gravitated toward the dark side,” dies. His Escondido parents have questions. (CityBeat)
• Gender identity: Malashock RAW cast women as men for a weekend of performances at Sushi Performance and Visual Art in East Village. (Review at sandiego.com)
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• Punchy proposal: CityBeat’s Best Of issue highlights the annual readers-vote winners and staff picks for venues and shows.
• Out of Africa: Behind the La Jolla Playhouse’s new production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Ruined. (KPBS These Days)
• The view from here: Roundup of what’s on view now at several local museums and galleries. (U-T)
• Guitar nouveau: Exhibit at Carlsbad museum marries art and rock ’n’ roll (North County Times).
Please contact Kelly Bennett directly at kelly.bennett@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.325.0531 and follow her on Twitter: @kellyrbennett.