MIDDLETOWN >> The Middletown Art Center (MAC) was again awarded a Local Impact Grant from the California Arts Council this year for its project “RESTORE.”
Like Resilience, RESTORE provides the community ages 12-85 and up, of all abilities and backgrounds, opportunities to engage in art-making and creative writing to develop their creative and artistic voices. Workshops this year in mixed media, sculpture, creative writing and printmaking begin July 7 and will focus on art in dialogue with nature. The project will culminate in the reopening of the EcoArts Sculpture Walk at Trailside Park in the early summer of 2019, development of an art trail on Rabbit Hill, indoor exhibits, and a second chapbook of poetry and images.
“Building on the success of our Resilience Project, RESTORE is the next stage in our recovery,” said Lisa Kaplan, Director at MAC. “With support from the California Arts Council, contributors to MAC and our partners, we will restore places our local community once enjoyed that were destroyed by the Valley Fire. The Local Impact grant for RESTORE provides us with the means to continue to offer low-cost classes to people throughout Lake County and to further the work we started with the Resilience Project. We are thrilled!”
Middletown Art Center’s Resilience project now has exhibited in five locations in Lakeport at City Hall, the County Courthouse and Main Street Gallery in Lakeport, at Fore Family Vineyards Tasting Room in Kelseyville. Also currently on view is Resilience: Art In Dialogue with Nature exhibit at the art center, which is a hybrid of the EcoArts tradition and the resilience theme. This earthy exhibit includes selections from the Resilience project. Exhibits in Clearlake will open in the coming weeks. Find out more about exhibit locations and hours at www.middletownartcenter.org.
Inspired by Nature’s resilience as a mirror for the community’s recovery after devastating wildfires, the Resilience project provided opportunities to reframe the fire experience, which impacted many directly or indirectly, into creative expression and aesthetics. Each exhibit is different and highlights work by project participants. The Resilience Chapbook, a collection of powerful writings about or inspired by the fire experience, trauma and recovery is now available to preorder on MAC’s website or in the gallery.
“I attended the Resilience writing workshops for the last six months of Resilience,” explained Georgina Marie, a poet and Lakeport resident who returned to Lake County after the Clayton Fire destroyed her mother’s home. “Under the guidance of accomplished instructors and surrounded by other writers, I was inspired to dive deeply into subjects I may not have otherwise tapped into such as grief, trauma, and pain. In doing so, I was able to strengthen my writing, embrace my own resilience and become part of an incredible artistic community. I also attended painting and printmaking workshops, which reconnected me to my painting practice after losing touch with it for many years. I am so grateful for the experience, support, creative outcomes and opportunities for exposure in exhibition and in the chapbook that the Resilience project provided me.”
MAC spokespeople have said they are grateful to the California Arts Council, and other local partners, agencies, and businesses for supporting MAC in providing local, affordable, quality access to the arts and art-making. Besides art exhibitions and a wide range of workshops, MAC offers a summer camp, dubbed Adventures in Art and Storytelling, for children.
The camp, for K-9 grades, starts Monday, June 18 and runs through June 29, Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. -12:30 p.m.
“Join us on our flying carpets where we’ll journey to imaginary lands where legends, heroes, and myths are born,” said Lauren Schneider one of two credentialed teachers leading the camp. “We’ll be creating stories and building our village community through a variety of artistic expressions including painting, sculpture, bookmaking, mask making, music making, dancing and more!”
The teachers are artist Lauren Schneider who has taught multiple age groups extensively in the Konocti School District and Cobb Elementary and African dance teacher Jessie Beck.
The cost is $250 for two weeks or $125 per week and includes materials, supplies and healthy snacks.
Visit www.middletownartcenter.org/classes or call 707-809-8118 to register and learn more. Sibling discounts are available as are partial work-trade options and partial subsidies for those in need of assistance.
The Middletown Art Center is located at 21456 Highway 175, at the junctions of Hwy 29 in Middletown.
