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Art Wall Opening Reception - Talita G. Long |
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Art Wall Opening Reception - Vera Arutyunyan
Vera Arutyunyan’s paintings showcase her brilliant use of texture and color through her signature style—painting with her fingers in order to “feel the colors directly.” She guides the viewer along a journey of spirituality and self-fulfillment by presenting her concepts without communicating her emotions—these are left up to the viewer. It is this interaction between artist and art seeker that truly makes Arutyunyan’s art special to behold.
Recently, Arutyunyan began painting to express her feelings of acceptance and her wide range of spiritual and personal beliefs. As an artist, she has taken a journey through her own heart and mind; at UU Santa Monica’s Art Wall, we invite you to see yourself in her paintings. Come meet and greet with her after the second service on March 29th, she will be available to discuss her physical and spiritual journeys—her transitions, learning experiences and sense of belonging to the communities that are a part of her world.
Contact Nancy at assistant@uusm.org, 310-829-5436 ext. 102 for info or appointments. Contact Beverly at balison@aol.com, for info about the artist or about exhibiting at UU Santa Monica. |
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Art Wall Opening Reception - Yasman Moradi
Yasman Moradi received her B.A and A.A. degree in Graphic Design & Fine Art in Tehran, while attending Sureh University and Culture & Science University. She has frequently exhibited her works in Iran and the United States. In conjunction with her art, she works as children’s art teacher and visual merchandiser. Contact Nancy at assistant@uusm.org, 310-829-5436 ext. 102 for more information or appointments. Contact Beverly at balison@aol.com, for further information about the artist or about exhibiting on the Art Wall at UU Santa Monica. |
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Art Wall Opening Reception - Zimbabwe Artists
The Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica presents
Making Connections Through the Zimbabwe Artists Project - An Art Exhibit
Opening Reception: Sunday, November 3, 2013 from 12:00 - 1:30pm
Open every Sunday in November from 9:00am – 1:00pm
The Zimbabwe Artists Project (ZAP) aims to strengthen self-sufficiency and deepen cultural understanding by promoting women artists from rural Weya in Eastern Zimbabwe and selling their work to art lovers in the U.S. Based in Portland, Oregon, ZAP’s goal is that through this partnership the women will become economically self-sufficient.
Most of the artists are single mothers or widows providing for their families by farming and creating art. Typically, the men from that region, leave to seek work in nearby cities. Income from agriculture is very unpredictable and limited. The funds raised from art sales help the women buy food, clothing, medication, seeds and fertilizer.
In addition to providing financial support through the purchase artwork, ZAP provides health care and educational services to the families and children who have been orphaned.
The artwork addresses issues of gender, colonialism and globalization. Through learning the personal stories as told by the artists, the hope is that viewers discover a connection with these strong, talented and accomplished African women.
We thought you might enjoy reading some of the original stories connected to the art that will be on display throughout the month of November on the Forbes Hall Art Wall masterfully curated by the very dedicated, long-time UUCCSM member Beverly Alison.
 VILLAGE LIFE
By BEAUTY MUGADZA
Board painting B3651
Mrs. Charanga is coming from fetching firewood. Chenai is coming from fetching firewood. Mrs. Chenai is washing clothes. Mrs. Honda and Mrs. Marugu are pounding rapoko (millet). Mrs. Rwanda is playing with the baby. Mrs. Chirara is cooking sadza. Mr. Tawengwa is carving a stick for porridge, and a table. Mrs. Saruwa is sweeping the yard. Mrs. Zambara is weeding vegetables. Mrs. Maruta is serving rapoko. Tapiwa is playing with the ball. Mrs. Chigogo is grinding rapoko.
ARTIST BIO:
Beauty was born in 1969. She has three teenage children. She learned to paint in 1988. “I paint because it helps me with house costs: soap, school fees for children and other household expenses. I got married with a man who wasn’t formally trained (as a builder) and who isn’t regularly employed. I need to help the family.” “I want Americans to know that I am a woman who works hard. I would like to see what women in other countries do – are they hardworking like me? I am proud that my children go to school properly dressed and they have enough to eat because of my hard work.” Her favorite subjects include village life and weddings.
 BIRDS OF AFRICA
By VERONICA CHITSIKE
Fabric painting S 3392
One saddle-billed stork is drinking water while the other one is standing in the water. They are found in Africa. (S 3392)
ARTSIT BIO:
Veronica was born in 1959. She came to Weya in 1982 as the second wife of her husband. She has three children, ages 9 to 19. She learned how to create art in 1988. She felt it was a thing she could do as a woman, and she needed money. “I am a full-time housewife who looks after children, fetches firewood, does plowing, herds cattle and takes them to the dipping tank. I have quite a lot of work.” She has time for her artwork during the rainy season only on weekends, with more time available during the dry season. Her favorite topics are wild animals (“baboons who live here in this place”) and village life.
 EVERYDAY LIFE
By SARUDZAI SHONGE
Applique A 3118
Waual, here is the exact fruit tree which I was looking for, the muzhange (Uapaca kirkiana) tree,” said Mrs.
Mungure. “Are we going to pick-up some mushrooms first or fetch some firewood,” asked Mrs. Jowa sitting on a stone. “I think we will fetch the firewood first and the mushrooms later,” replied Mrs. Shonge. “My children are
about to come back from school so let me prepare lunch for them,” said Mrs. Chakwenya. Mrs. Paradza is carrying her bundle of firewood on her head and is going home. (A 3118)
ARTIST BIO:
Sarudzai was born in 1972, the youngest of eight children. She attended school through the equivalent of 10th grade after which family financial constraints kept her from going further. She was married four years after leaving school and has three children. She lives with her husband and children in Gokwe in central Zimbabwe. Sarudzai learned to do appliqué from her sister, Orpah Mungure, in 1990. She makes art to help with family expenses. Her favorite topics include lovers, village life and “at the market.”
Exhibit Information:
Admission is free
Open to the Public:
Sundays in November from 9AM - 1 PM
Opening Reception: Sunday, November 3, 2013 at 12:00 - 1:30
Meet the Executive Director of the Zimbabwe Artists Project. Light refreshments.
Closing Reception: Sunday, November 27, 2013 at 12:00 - 1:30
Open by appointment:
Monday through Thursday: 10am-5pm
Fridays: 10am-1pm.
Contact: Nancy assistant@uusm.org, 310-829-5436, ext. 102
Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica
1260 18th St, Santa Monica 90404 (corner of 18th and Arizona)
Sunday parking in structure on 16th Street south of Arizona Ave.
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Art Wall Opening Reception - Zimbabwe Artists' Project This December, we are very pleased to welcome the Zimbabwe Artists Project, (ZAP), as they present the exhibition “Working Women of Zimbabwe.” The Zimbabwe Artists Project is a nonprofit organization
partnering with women in Zimbabwe, buying artwork and supporting self-enterprise. ZAP buys artwork
directly, and finds a market for it in the US, providing a stable and consistent income for the artists.
We look forward to seeing you at the Opening Reception on Sunday, December 6 from 12:00 noon – 1:30pm.
Each colorful, unique piece of artwork shares a personal story from the artist in her own words - a folktale, local words/themes of wisdom and more. Embroideries, fabric paintings, and paintings on wooden boards offer a connection to a woman a world away. The artists featured in ZAP are subsistence farmers, mothers, and householders as well as artists. Most women live on their own, providing for families. Some are widowed, others are single heads of households. Women’s income from agriculture is unpredictable and limited. Sales of art help women afford food, clothing, school fees, medicines, transport, seeds and fertilizer.
 Come out and support this important organization! The Zimbabwe Artists Project purchases more art locally than any other buyer, delivering cash at the time of purchase. ZAP also provides health care assistance to the artists, covering the immediate costs of urgent health care needs, and maintains an educational assistance program providing school fees for children in the area who are orphaned. ZAP celebrates the artistry and accomplishments of these talented women, and supports their efforts to become economically self-sufficient.
Contact Nancy for more info or weekday appointments at assistant@uusm.org or 310-829-5436.
Contact Beverly Alison, for further info about the artist or about exhibiting on the Art Wall at UU Santa Monica.
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Art Wall Opening Reception, March 1 at 11:00 am at UU Santa Monica
The Opening Reception for Chuka Susan Chesney’s Bright Soul exhibit will be on Sunday, March 1st from 11:00 am until 1:00 pm at UU Santa Monica. Chesney is an emerging L.A. artist focusing on water color, collage, and mixed media art (and poetry). The exhibit will be open for the first four Sundays in March from 9:00 am until 12:30 pm and on weekdays by appointment. The exhibit will run through Sunday, March 22nd. There will be a closing reception on March 22 from 11:00 am until 1:00 pm. The artist will attend both receptions and extra items will be available for your consideration. Light refreshments will be served. The receptions and exhibit are free and open to the public.
Chesney grew up in a family focused on art, design, and words. Her father owned a commercial printing company and brought home stacks of paper for creating paintings and stories. In 1982 she earned her BFA from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.
Chesney loves to paint with watercolor and she loves to make collages. Her work often becomes mixed media as she may add pen and ink, brush and ink, pastels, Prismacolors, or embroidery thread to her paintings and collages. She often creates a system of dots, dashes, curly lines to form colorful patterns to convey depth, rhythm, and atmosphere. She sets her pieces aside for a time so she can look at them with a fresh eye, which sometimes inspire her to add more effects and other times inspire her to cut them up and use the pieces to create new painting or collages. As a piece evolves, she listens to it to hear and see what it wants. She loves to experiment with her art; she loves to not know exactly what it will become. Her studio is her lab.
Chesney has won many awards in shows across the country. Her art has been published in New England Review and Compose Literary Journal. Her poetry and art have been published in Peacock Journal, Lummox, and Altadena Poetry Review. Her poetry anthology Book of Sighs will be published by Little Red Tree in 2020. She is currently working on a poetry and art anthology for the 100 Vibrant Artists of Los Angeles.
Contact our Art Director, Beverly Alison, balison@aol.com, for further info about this show.
For weekday appointments or info about the church, contact the church office:
Cyndee at assistant@uusm.org or 310-829-5436 x102
On Sundays, follow the signs to UU Church Parking, which is in the hospital parking structure on 16th. Handicap parking is available behind the church.
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Art Wall Opening Reception: Chris Orfescu Small things are a big deal this October when UU Santa Monica presents The NanoArt Exhibition, by Nano Aritist Chris Orfescu. We look forward to seeing you at the Opening Reception on Sunday, October 9 from 12:00 noon – 1:30pm. The exhibit will run through the end of the month.
Scientist by day and artist by night, Chris Orfescu is on a mission to bring the small world of nano technology into the larger public eye. With the width of a single hair measuring 80,000 nanometers wide, the world of nano objects is not likely to be well known to most people, at least at first glance, but as Orfescu mentions, “…with more than 70 percent of the people in the U.S. using products incorporating nanotechnology, I want people to know about it and I hope my art stirs their curiosity to find out more.”
 Cris Orfescu, born in Bucharest, Romania, is a degreed scientist and self-taught artist. For more than 30 years he has experimented with an emerging art form, NanoArt, which reflects the transition from Science to Art through Technology. Orfescu has shown his works all over the world including Italy, France, Finland, Korea, Ireland, Spain, Germany, Colombia, Greece, Romania, Israel, in numerous solo and group exhibitions. His art is also commissioned for public and private collectors.
Of the process of his art, Orfrescu explains, “My art is a reflection of the technological movement. I bring the "invisible" world in front of my audience by visualizing with a scanning electron microscope the…nanosculptures I create by chemical and physical processing. The depth and three dimensions achieved in NanoArt sets this process of electron imaging apart from Photography where images are created by photons, (particles of light) rather than by electrons, (electrically charged particles). The electrons penetrate deeper inside the structure creating images with more depth and a more natural 3D-look than the photographic images.”
 Contact Nancy for more info or weekday appointments at assistant@uusm.org or 310-829-5436 ext 102.
Contact Our Art Director, Beverly Alison for further info about this show or about exhibiting on our Art Wall.
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Art Wall Opening Reception: Larry Barber - Signs of Life: Images of Our World Photographer Larry Barber has spent the last eight years traveling the world and taking photographs of some of the most beautiful and poignant natural wonders on earth. Come and witness the renewing power of gazing at the beauty of nature as Barber displays 20+ of his best works.
Barber graduated from the University of Tennessee School of Journalism in 1961 and began his career as a reporter and cameraman. He learned to focus on the essential elements of telling a story. After graduating from film school at UCLA, Barber decided to change direction and focus on issues of the spirit, which eventually led him to a ministerial degree from United Church of Religious Science. From 1979 to 2008, Barber served as senior minister in La Crescenta; as associate editor of “Science of Mind” magazine; and as associate minister of Founder’s Center for Spiritual Living in Los Angeles.
Barber’s initial interest in the power of the natural world occurred in February 1973, when he appeared at a Santa Monica City Council Meeting to defend the Santa Monica Pier, which was slated for destruction. Barber argued that the primary value of the pier was as a venue where human beings could refresh their inner selves by regular contact with sunlight, sky, and ocean. A photo from this famous meeting, which took Barber along a path that led him to photography, will be displayed at the show.
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Art Wall Opening Reception: South African Mogalakwena Craft Art Development Foundation This November UU Santa Monica welcomes an array of different artwork, created by the women of the South African Mogalakwena Craft Art Development Foundation. We look forward to seeing you at the Opening Reception on Sunday, November 6 from 12:00 noon – 1:30pm. The exhibit will run through the end of the month.
Mogalakwena, which means ‘angry crocodile’ in the language spoken by the Pedi people of South Africa, is based in the remote north-western part of Limpopo Province. The Mogalakwena Craft Art Development Foundation was established at the end of 1994 by Dr. Elbe Coetsee, whose family has lived on property in the Limpopo Province for three generations. Dr. Coetsee has long had a passion for craft art and her hope when establishing the Mogalakwena Center was to help support the economic and social uplift of the local Pedi community, where she has since helped to create meaningful work in Limpopo where there are millions of unemployed people.
 The Mogalakwena foundation has been instrumental in supporting and enabling the local Pedi community to rediscover and develop craft skills such as beading, embroidery and weaving. Mogalakwena currently employs over thirty women at the project and is also implementing language, literacy, childcare and other skills development programs. Practical first aid courses, AIDS awareness and care training, children’s art workshops and basic principles of cultural tourism, are also taught at the foundation.
Artists featured by the center include Regina Setata, (widow, supporting three children and two grandchildren); and Liesbet Nkoadi, (supporting five children). These women plus other produce a wide variety of dazzling goods, from embroidery to basket weaving and Mtwane dolls. Through their craft work, the Mogalakwena Craft Art Center encourages self-respect, self-sufficiency, cultural pride and dignity for many members of these communities.
Contact Nancy for more info or weekday appointments at assistant@uusm.org or 310-829-5436 ext 102.
Contact Our Art Director, Beverly Alison, at balison@aol.com for further info about this show or about exhibiting on our Art Wall.
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Art Wall Reception |
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Art Wall Reception - Bonnie Lambert |
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Art Wall Reception - Closing |
UU Santa Monica is proud to give a warm welcome to our April artist Vera Arutyunyan, whose show, A New Way of Thinking, will grace our art wall with her highly personal Abstract Expressionist paintings. Artist Opening Reception: Sunday, March 29th, 2015, 12 Noon to 1:30pm, Forbes Hall. The show will run from Sunday March 29th through Sunday, April 26th and is open to the public on Sundays from 9am – 1pm and on weekdays by appointment.
Vera Arutyunyan immigrated to the United States from Armenia with $27 and a dream to become successful. Her early career led her to express her challenges and emotions as a new immigrant, “…to be understood, obtain identity and significance, to become securely existent." The results are deeply personal and moving abstract images.
My Inner Roumi is an exhibit featuring a series of paintings dedicated to the 13th century Sufi mystic poet Moulana Jalaledin Roumi by acclaimed artist Yasman Moradi. Please help us welcome Moradi to the Artist Opening Reception on Sunday, October 4, 2015 from 12pm to 1:30pm in Angelina Forbes Hall. The show will run through Sunday, October 25th. The show is free and open to the public every Sunday from 9am to 1pm and on weekdays by appointment.
Moradi exhibits her work here in Los Angles at the Shrif and Yas Art Studio, which she co-owns. Her art features bold color combinations, and soul-searching ideas and metaphors. The exhibit on display at UU Santa Monica will showcase her interpretation of her experiences with the poet Moulana Jalaledin Roumi. (This is the Persian spelling of the poet often referred to as ‘Rumi.’)
Of the Roumi series Moradi mentions, “While illustrating a self-portrait on a whim my Friend called me and asked me to create a piece for one of the great quotes from the greatest poet ‘Moulana Jalaledin Roumi.’ And so began this six months body of work called ‘Roumi’… I illustrated myself in different positions in every frame, it was like my inner ‘Roumi’ … In the end this series became a unique translation from ‘Roumi’ to my own language… and rebirth of the woman inside me.”