Park Studio
Of the many education programs offered at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, Park Studio brings interdisciplinary art education outside the museum’s walls and into the community. This free, two-week program is held annually during the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District’s spring break period. Contemporary artists lead workshops, art history lesson, and field trips to cultural sites. Park Studio is open to middle and high-school students who reside or attend school in the museum’s immediate neighboring community.

Each year Park Studio examines a different theme that resonates with youth and connects them to important ideas and issues in contemporary art. Past projects have incorporated graffiti, hip-hop, Shakespeare, music composition, murals, animation, and website design. Acclaimed artists teaching Park Studio workshops have included Tim Rollins, Solomón Huerta, Lezley Saar, Frank Romero, and Gajin Fujita. All work created in Park Studio is exhibited at the museum during the summer of the program and online.

 

Park Studio 2005: Figuring
Park Studio offers a unique opportunity for young people work with important Los Angeles artists and to collaborate with a museum that nurtures their creative impulses. Four acclaimed Latino artists—Alex Donis, Gronk, Ruby Osorio, and Artemio Rodriguez—lead this year’s Studio. By meeting four Latino artists whose work differs in style, technique, and sensibility the participants were exposed to diverse modes of expression, individual personality, and a variety of projects that defy racial stereotype. In addition to four workshops, Park Studio took the group to Self-Help Graphics and Tropico de Nopal Gallery to meet directors Tomas Benitez and Reyes Rodriguez and Ozomatli, a prominent Los Angeles rock band. Figuring—the title of the exhibition, reflects a focus on the figure as subject, as well as the process of examining and understanding the world through art.

In a workshop with Alex Donis, each student made a mixed-media mandala of paper, watercolor, and pencil, to reflect their own personal experience, perspectives, and opinions. Gronk asked the participants to think of a word that had special significance to them. With that word in mind, they used such materials as recycled cardboard, charcoal, and paint to create an artwork and the packaging for it. Ruby Osorio’s project invented alter ego characters personifying each person’s opposite, their fantasies, or a combination of both. The characters, drawn with acrylic ink and pencil, were made into decals, which became part of the larger installation created in collaboration with Osorio. Artemio Rodriguez created a limited edition book of linoblock prints that represent visions giants. The results are whimsical, menacing, and fantastic.

Park Studio is generously funded, in part, by the City of Santa Monica Latino Community Arts Grants Program and The Annenberg Foundation. In-kind sponsorship was provided by Wild Oats Natural Markets, Izze Sparkling Juice, Self-Help Graphics, Tropico de Nopal Gallery, and Barnes and Noble booksellers. Thanks to A-List Limousine, the Fairview Branch Library, and the Thelma Terry Center at Virginia Avenue Park in Santa Monica. Special thanks to Sylvia Anderle, Katie Bachler, Tomás Benitez, Amy Bouse, Silvia Capistrán, Alex Donis, Gronk, Betty Macias, Keith Neal, Ruby Osorio, Ozomatli, Adrian Rivas, Artemio Rodriguez, Reyes Rodriguez, parents of Park Studio participants, John Shatzel, SMMoA Board of Trustees, SMMoA staff, and SMMoA members. Park Studio website design by Janice Ledgerwood.