March In The Art Galleries At The Orinda Library And Wilder
Benjamin Cardoza was a senior at Miramonte High School when he made the 2D piece, The Kings Blues, to capture the emotions of B.B. King while playing the blues.
Art Gallery at the Orinda Library:
19th High School Visual Arts Competition Lights up the Town
The 19th Annual High School Visual Arts Competition (HSVAC) is both live in the Art Gallery at the Orinda Library this month and virtual on the Lamorinda Arts Council (Council) website from April, 2022 to April, 2023.
Join students at their awards ceremony on Thursday, March 10 from 7 – 8:30 p.m. Event Co-Chair Pat Jensen said, “HSVAC ignites and rewards artistic expression for local high school students in a variety of categories. The competition provides students with an opportunity to exhibit their work and see what other students are doing.”
The exhibit showcases original art in four categories: 2D, 3D, Photography and the Lamorinda Arts Alliance Digital Art category. All work is by high school students who live in or attend public or private schools in Orinda, Lafayette, or Moraga, including all schools in the Acalanes Union High School District. This includes Acalanes, Campolindo, Las Lomas and Bentley High Schools plus the Acalanes Center for Independent Study. The competition features cash awards, merit citations and an in-person art exhibit in the gallery as well as an online public exhibit of entries on the Council website.
“We thank the many volunteers who are helping us honor the young artists in our community and celebrate their talents,” said Event Co-Chair Olga Larner.
Professionals with experience in practicing, teaching or representing the categories judge the competition. Their criteria are creativity, originality, content and degree of expertise in the chosen medium. Cash awards, totaling $3,000, will be awarded for best in show, first to third place and up to three honorable mentions in each of the four award categories.
For details concerning this exciting event, visit www.lamorindaarts.org/vac/. These student artists spent time during COVID-19 expressing themselves through a variety of amazing art forms. The Council invites you to stop by and take a look.
To learn more about the Council, visit www.lamorindaarts.org. This exhibit runs March 1 through 31 in the Art Gallery at the Orinda Library at 26 Orinda Way. Hours are Monday – Thursday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday – Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., closed Sunday.
The library and gallery are closed Wednesday, March 30. For more library information, call 925.254.2184 or visit www.ccclib.org. Email the curators with questions at gallery@lamorindaarts.org or call the Lamorinda Arts Council at 925.359.9940.
Artist John Barry demonstrating trAction painting at the Lafayette Art and Wine Festival. Defined as a combination of performance and process art, Barry dips his rollerblades in paint, then adds lines and marks on the canvas. View him on YouTube at http://www.youtu.be/Dn0hloFNWDM.
Art Gallery at Wilder: Bill Carmel’s Veil Tapestry and Festival Wheelies
The Lamorinda Arts Council (Council) invites you to join Bill Carmel at an artist reception in his honor at the Wilder Art Gallery Sunday, March 6 from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m.
The San Ramon resident is the featured artist for the month of March. He is showing three large abstract paintings composed as public art projects and recent work of three large prints on vinyl. For the remainder of March, unless the City of Orinda changes its COVID-19 precautions, you can view his exhibit at the Council’s virtual gallery at www.lamorindaarts.org/online-galleries. Private viewings can be arranged by contacting Curator Aniston Breslin at wildergallery@lamorindaarts.org.
Carmel’s public art projects are part of an ongoing relationship with other artists and community partners engaged in making collaborative artwork. The piece entitled Veil Tapestry is a work that asks members of our community to paint sacred words on a large traveling canvas.
The pieces he titled Festival Wheelies were done with Danville artist John Barry, creator of the trAction painting process. The work was painted during the 2019 Art and Wine Festival in Lafayette.
In trAction painting, paint is dribbled onto wheels of vehicles driven by the artists and laid down as colorful tracks. Plus, it’s fun. For the festival, wheels of toy cars were dipped in acrylic paint and driven over the canvas, building up colorful layers and patterns over time.
Carmel created a mural entitled The Ballad of Rocky the Squirrel and Andy the Hummer for Maggie Boscoe’s Artify Orinda project in 2020. You can see it on the side of the Mash Gas station building the next time you are in the neighborhood. He is also part of the curation team for the Art Gallery in the Orinda Library.
An art educator, Carmel said he is creating a workbook that uses art to teach other academic subjects.
“It is inspired by Common Core Standards and uses art lessons to bring creativity and critical thinking into the study of other academic subjects,” said Carmel. “Not only does Common Core curriculum emphasize critical thinking skills and creative strategies, but it promotes social emotional learning.”
The Wilder Art and Garden Center is located at 20 Orinda Fields Way. The exhibit runs March 1 through 31 and is in-person on the reception date, but virtual the rest of the month.
Viewings by appointment with Curator Aniston Breslin can be arranged by request at wildergallery@lamorindaarts.org. For more information call the Lamorinda Arts Council at 925.359.9940.
Elana O’Loskey can be reached at business.orinda@gmail.com.
