Please join us for the opening of a special exhibit by artist JoAnn Damron-Rodriguez as she presents her debut show, Dreams, Sunday, December 7, Noon – 1:30pm. The show will run on our Art Wall through Sunday, December 28 and is open to the public Sundays 9am – 1pm and on weekdays by appointment.

Joann Damron-Rodriguez recently retired as a university professor, and has moved into the artistic world to help convey her feelings and experiences of the dream world. A self-taught artist, JoAnn communicates her feelings and expressions about dreams by combining pen, painting and textured acrylic mixtures with photographs, appropriated art, words, and objects.

JoAnn notes that the many different types of media, vivid color palettes, and subsequent layers allow her to more fully represent the depths, disjunctures, and fragments that shape many of our dreams. Through her art, she hopes to help convey an understanding of how the feelings expressed by dreams relate to conscious life.

JoAnn is at the beginning of her artistic career after retiring from an illustrious career in education. She was an Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare at UCLA, and received the 2006 Distinguished Teaching Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the California Council on Gerontology (CCGG). She has over twenty years of experience in health, mental health, and hospice care. She has serves on multiple editorial boards and scientific review committees and published extensively on geriatric education, diversity in aging, and elder care.

For information about exhibiting at UU Santa Monica or other questions about the Art Wall contact our Art Director Beverly Alison.

Artist Opening Reception: Sunday, November 9, 2014, 12 Noon to 1:30pm, Unitarian Universalist Church of Santa Monica, Forbes Hall. The show will run through Sunday, November 30 and is open to the public Sundays 9am – 1pm and on weekdays by appointment.

Please join us after the second service on Sunday, November 9, to meet and greet with renowned artist J Michael Walker as he presents “Angels Everywhere, Saints in Survivors.”

J Michael Walker was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas at a time, “when legalized segregation was in its clawing-in-the-dirt death throes, and…culture [was] standing on the wrong side of history.”  Having no formal artistic guidance, Walker explains, “creating art was my way to break free of the restrictions I experienced – social and class issues, cultural values, authoritarianism, a broken home – and as a consequence I never took, or took kindly to, structured or instructional art classes…so I remained largely self-taught.”

Walker experienced an artistic awakening upon visiting Mexico to spend two weeks in the northern region of Sierra Tarahumara, illustrating the first textbook in that region’s native dialect, “integrating myself into families and communities of mestizos and Tarahumaras provided perspective and understanding, and filled holes in my heart. And when I moved to Los Angeles to forge some kind of an art career, Mexico essentially ‘explained’ the city to me, its cultural roots churning beneath LA’s asphalt.”

J Michael Walker continues to use art as a way to express his feelings and observations – essentially a diary of how he sees the world. As Walker puts it, art helps him, “attempt to answer the questions that still plague me, and compensate for the wrongs I've witnessed; and…[offer] gratitude for the beauty and wonder I've been blessed to behold.”

Contact Nancy at assistant@uusm.org, 310-829-5436 ext. 102 for info or appointments.

Contact Beverly at balison@aol.com, for further info about the artist or about exhibiting on the Art Wall at UU Santa Monica.

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Please note that no audio recording is available for this sermon.