 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Angela Scott, and I am the library assistant here at the Billy Jean King Main Library's Miller Special Collections Room. On behalf of our senior librarian of collection services, Jade Wheeler, our special collections librarian, Jeff Whalen, and all the staff here at the Long Beach Public Library, I'd like to welcome you to the first online event of the Miller Room's new artist workshop series. Today we are pleased to bring you a special art event with installation artist Olga La, moderated by artist Rebecca Giesking. This is one of a series of programs that will be featured periodically in the Miller Room throughout the year, in addition to a variety of lecture series on local history, architecture and historic preservation, the spoken word, as well as our poetry and fiction writing workshops, Miller Room Book Club and short story reading group, art programming, musical performance programs and much more. So please keep an eye on our LBPL calendar and website for upcoming events, and we hope you'll join us again for more of these special programs as they become available. Now, while we have you all here, we'd also like to mention some upcoming Miller Room programming for August. On Saturday, August 21, from 2.30 to 4.00 p.m., please join us for our next Miller Room Book Club meeting. We'll be discussing stories that color life and captivate the senses, specifically the 1957 classic novel, Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury, based on his original short story that appeared in a 1953 issue of Gourmet Magazine. This book is loosely comprised of a series of short stories and is a nostalgic, thought-provoking, semi-out-about, biographical novel of childhood, set in 1928 during the magical summer of a 12-year-old boy living in the fictional small-town American hamlet of Green Town, Illinois. Now, the Miller Room Book Club reads a rotating selection of fiction and nonfiction books as well as short stories that generally focus on the Miller Room study topics and special collections relating to the arts and performing arts, Asian cultural and heritage, local and California history, libraries and archives, and much more. The Book Club is currently meeting online via Zoom and pre-registration RSVPs are necessary, so keep an eye on our LBPL website at LBPL.org or our Facebook page for more information as the Book Club will be posted on our webpage next week for advanced sign-ups. You can also message me here in the live chat if you have questions or you can call the main library for further details. In addition, we're pleased to launch our next online spoken words spoken art series on Saturday, August 28th from 3 to 4.30 p.m. entitled, Celebrating Our International City, a Poetry Jam with Mike the Poet and Friends, moderated by Woodbury University Professor and Long Beach native Mike Songson, a.k.a. Mike the Poet. Many of you may have seen him before. From North Long Beach to Cambodia Town, the Wrigley to East Forth Street, Long Beach is a city of neighborhoods. This program will feature special guest poets from Long Beach, plus open mic opportunities for the public as well. So come to this Long Beach-centric poetry jam with poets from all corners of our international city. For more information, again, keep an eye on our website and our Facebook page for Zoom program info, which will be posted next week. And please stay tuned for other Miller Room programs that we'll be rolling out in the next few months. Finally, just a reminder that our summer reading program began on Saturday, June 19th and will run through Saturday, August 14th. If you'd like to learn more, go to our website, learn how to create a summer reading account for yourself and beanstack and start earning prizes. You can select an activity badge called a virtual library program and start earning points right away. And to receive the point for today's program, please enter the secret code word, lavender. Now, getting back to our program for today, it is our pleasure to once again welcome and introduce our featured guest this afternoon, Olga La and moderator Rebecca Giesking. Olga La is a second generation Korean American born and raised in the Los Angeles area. She currently resides in Long Beach, California. She received a double bachelor's degree in studio art and art history from the University of California at Riverside. She also received a master's degree in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. She's interested in creating site specific installations that point to ideas on existence, transcendence, and memory. She's exhibited extensively, including installations at the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach, California, the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles, and in the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions Displays at LAX, our Los Angeles International Airport. Her work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, the Korea Times, LA Weekly, OC Weekly, KCET Art Bound, and Los Angeles Magazine. Her awards include an artist fellowship with the Arts Council for Long Beach, the Korea Arts Foundation of America Biennial Award, and the Goldman Fellowship for Residency at the Jurassic Resident Artist Program. Olga, thank you for joining us today. We are also pleased to introduce Rebecca Giesking, our guest moderator for today's program. Rebecca is a Long Beach artist and the director of fun for arts supply warehouse in Stanton. She's exhibited in Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Orange County, and was commissioned to create an arts installation for Music Tastes Good in 2017, as well as commissioned for a temporary mural for the Allery in Bixby Knolls in 2015. As the director of fun at Art Supply Warehouse, she provides art education programming and plans exhibitions for catalysts, which is the Arts Supply Warehouse's classroom space, while she also collaborates with local organizations like ours to provide arts programming. Now in today's program, we'll learn more about Olga's work as an installation artist, and she'll lead us in an art activity that you can do at home, and then bring back to the library. After our program ends today, everyone will have until Saturday, August 14th at 5pm when we close to drop off and return your finished artwork, if you like, to the Billie Jean King Main Library circulation desk, so they can be delivered to Olga. Olga will then use your art creations in the development of a larger community art installation that will be displayed in an offsite exhibit location, and more info regarding that community exhibit will be announced soon. And at the end of today's program, we'll also have a Q&A session that will be moderated through our chat. So if you have any questions, please type them into the chat bar. You'll see the chat button at the bottom of your screen, and you can type and submit your questions there, and they will be answered as time permits. And by the way, for anyone who can't make the live program today or needs to watch it again to finish the art project, the archive video of today's program will be posted on our LBPL YouTube page soon, so we'll email you the link to the video as soon as it's posted, so stay tuned for that. Finally, if you're having any difficulty with your audio or video today during the program, please let us know in the chat, and we'll try to assist you remotely. So, thank you again, everyone, for joining us today. And without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, the Miller Room is very pleased to present our very special guests, Olga Law and Rebecca Giesking. Thank you, Angela. Thank you everybody for being here today. I'm so excited to lead you all through this workshop and to talk a little bit about my work. And what I'm going to do is jump right in to leading you in creating this piece that we're working on today. And then we're going to be doing some painting, and while the paint dries, I'm going to show a little slideshow and talk briefly about what I do and the kind of work that I make. After that ends, we'll go back into this art piece that we're making and we'll continue on. And throughout the time that we're here together, feel free to ask questions in the chat room. Rebecca will be moderating and calling out those questions to me, and I will be happy to answer anything that comes to mind. So I'm going to switch over to my demo camera here, and we will get started. Okay. So you all should have received an email explaining some of the things that you might need. So a paper plate to put some paint down, a rag to wash your hands with or to dry up the sponge brush that you have, and a cup of water for painting. And then in your kit, you should have got this aluminum mesh, anyone of these colors here, and then also a tube of white. Most importantly, you need an area to paint. So I have my table here covered in plastic. You might have yours covered in paper or whatever else that you have lying around. And just a warning before we get started, this mesh, the edges are pretty sharp. And so if there are any little kids out there, you want your adult help today. All right. So let's get started. If you need to grab anything, go ahead and do that. We're just going to start painting, but it's going to take a little while. So you'll have time to catch up. All right. So with the mesh, you're going to straighten it out a bit. Mine's pretty wrinkled, so it's already flat. But if you need to unroll your mesh and kind of fold it a little or mold in a shape it so that it's laying flat, go ahead and do that. And if you haven't already done so, squeeze out some paint on your paper plate or whatever you have to hold your paint. A little bit of white and then probably the whole tube, you should have two tubes. So go ahead and squeeze out the whole of one tube onto your plate here. And then we're going to grab our sponge brush. And then you're just going to go ahead and paint this much. Before I continue on doing that, go ahead and just keep on painting your mesh. I'm going to show you a little bit of an example that I have here. So this is an example I made earlier of our mesh. This is what we're going to end up with. So we're looking for all around color on your mesh. And then after the paint dries, we're going to mold this mesh into kind of a spherical shape. So keep painting. It can be as even as you like it or as uneven as you like it right now. My paint is pretty uneven because of all the wrinkles that I have in my mesh. I like my color pretty saturated like you see here. And so I'm just picking up paint with my sponge brush and laying it down. Directly onto the mesh. But if you're looking for more of a diluted color, then go ahead and dip your brush just a little bit into the water. And then continue to lay down the paint. What I recommend is starting from the middle and then out into the edges because the edges here may kind of rip into your sponge brush here. So working into the middle and then out towards the edges. Hi Olga, I had a question. Your mesh as it's kind of wrinkled, do you want people to kind of wrinkle it before they paint as well? Or is it okay if it's kind of laid out flat? It's okay if it's laid out flat. If you would like, you can go ahead and wrinkle it. I was kind of fiddling around with my mesh. So that's why mine is pretty wrinkled. If you want to fiddle around with it, you can just go ahead and pick up your mesh and just scrunch it around if you want. And then lay it back down flat and then lay down the paint. I actually like that mine has more concentrated areas of color and then little gaps here. It's totally your preference. So in my work, I do large scale installation, so I often have a lot of help and a lot of hands in the work. And I very much welcome people's creative input into how they manipulate the materials. So in this case, you're painting on this mesh wrinkling it maybe beforehand. And I completely invite your own creative expression into this piece. And I love incorporating those things into the final installation. I'm just continuing to paint here. So earlier in my work, I started out as an artist about 10 years ago. And I would use a lot of commonplace materials like books and sponges and fan cellices. And I would just simply use those materials and put them together, build them into the space. These days, I've been taking, again, still commonplace materials but manipulating them and a lot of times painting them. So that's why I have this idea where I wanted to take this mesh, which I've been working with lately, and then applying paint. In this case, we're doing all different colors. And that's because we're looking to create an installation that's colorful and bright, vibrant to bring some activation and whatever site that it's going to end up in. All right. So I pretty much have a two place I like it on one side of the mesh, you can continue painting if you want. I am going to turn mine over and then you're going to apply paint on the other side. So you, you're going to see these splotches of paint here, and you can leave it as it is, or if you want more of an even color on the mesh, then you can go ahead and take your sponge brush and paint it out if you'd like. You can add some of that water if you want to. So a lot of times I'm using color in my work again to bring vibrancy. And most importantly, to usually change up the context of the environment, so I'm really interested in interrupting space and one of the ways I do that is by using color. A lot of times I like installing things outside or in public spaces or in places where people wouldn't expect to have art. So when these pieces come to the library, we are going to find a site to hang up these pieces and you all will have a chance to come and look at the final work. If there are any other further questions or any other ways I can clarify, just let me know. And if you start running out of paint, go ahead and squeeze out your other two. Art supply warehouse has generously donated all these materials. I love this art store and go there a lot. So check it out if you haven't been there before. They have an array of different art materials there. I should also mention that Amsterdam also donated the paint for us as well. Thank you Amsterdam. So we're working with acrylic paint, which is great for metal. This will sit well on top of the metal and last longer. There's a possibility this might sit outside and so this probably won't do well long term, but it'll do well temporarily outside. It does end up being an outside installation. A lot of people ask me what installation art is. And so for just many people out there who are curious or who aren't really familiar with installation art, it's taking materials and building in a site or a site. So usually the work gets dismantled at the end. If there's an opportunity to have it built somewhere else, then it will be reconstructed somewhere else and it usually will have a relationship in whatever site it's in. And so it's constantly changing. It's very immediate. So really of the moment, it's never the same, which I appreciate. This speaks to the relationship to you in the environment. I'm really interested in the viewer's experience in relation to the work. About it to a point where I like it on the other side. I'm going to add some paint probably later on the edges here because I have some blank. I might do that at the end after we mold and shape this. I am going to move on to the next step, but feel free to listen and then go ahead to that second step. And then in the meanwhile, keep painting if you want to. We are going to move on to use this white paint here now. I'm going to wash my brush. What we're going to do with the white paint is kind of splatter some dots and splatterings across the mesh. A little bit like this example here. So this is a piece, part of a piece, an example piece that was for a recent exhibition that I did called Constellation. This is also mesh. This is not as rigid as the material that we're working on today. And then I've splattered what actually is popcorn ceiling paint across the mesh with a spray gun. And I really like this effect. I really like adding this layer of kind of abstraction on top of a mesh. Adding a layer of visual interest. So how we're going to do that with our sponge brush is after you've cleaned off your brush, you might want to dry a little bit on your rag. It doesn't have to be completely dry, but dry ish. And then you're going to take the corner of your sponge brush here and then just dip it into your white paint. And then simply apply it like this to the mesh. And again, this is kind of up to your creative input. The dots can be large. They can be small. They can be a little bit more rubbed in or painted into the mesh. What I like to do is create concentrations of these dots or splatterings in some area and then have some negative space and then continue on in a different area and then apply more white paint. If you'd like, you can also feel free to take the white paint and then blend it in in some areas. If you could keep the whole mesh, whatever color that you have it in, or if you decide to lighten the color by mixing in the white, then you can go ahead and do that. I'm going to be really curious to see what you come up with. But for me today, I'm going to apply this paint in these splatterings across the mesh. So the example that I just showed you, the yellow piece was for an installation called Constellation. And I think kind of this white paint, this splattering across the mesh kind of alludes to that whole idea of Constellation. And they experience the ideas that are conjured up with that word. So it can be as little or as much as you'd like. I'm going to leave it like that on one side. I'm going to turn my mesh over and apply some white paint on the other side. And then in a little bit, we're going to let this dry or you can continue painting if you need more time. I'm going to move into a slideshow of my work and talk about what I do and answering questions that you might have. I think I will kind of lighten this area up a little bit because to me that looks nice. A lot of times my work, I use a lot of intuition when I'm creating. So it really is kind of a free form kind of filling out what might look best. I usually have a general idea of the vision that I'm going after. And then I kind of leave a lot up to chance when I'm actually working on the piece. So go ahead and keep painting. I am going to switch my camera over to my slideshow here. And you can look with me at the images or you can just listen to my description as you're painting. Hi, everybody. I hope everybody's having fun so far. So I just want to thank Rebecca for having me here and organizing all of this. I am thrilled to lead you on this workshop but also just to have an opportunity to talk about what I do. I've been in Long Beach for a total of about 14 years and I really enjoy being in this community here as an artist. So I'm really just glad to be with you here all today. So this first slide is called translation and this is one of the first pieces that I had done. Again, I started about 10 years ago and I was really interested in taking commonplace materials and repeating them in space and kind of understanding the effect of these materials across an environment. This is about kind of the metaphor of life and the memories that we carry and how the memories that we choose to hold on to kind of inform a reality. This has had many iterations so this is the latest iteration of this piece. It has 2010 on here so that was the first time this was made but it has changed and grown. This was here at Art Center and then right before this it was at LAX. And again, feel free to put any questions in the chat room. Next question, somebody is asking if those are all books. Yes, these are all books. They were all on Craigslist. That's awesome. Yeah. A lot of romance novels. Yeah, I had to create this specific piece where it's just this large. I had a lot of students from Pal State Long Beach come to help me build this. Are they mostly paperback books? Yes, they're all paperback. They all happen to be of the same size. And a lot of them are from a certain year so like 80s so they have a certain coloring on the edges. Okay. Somebody is asking did you change the colors or did you just keep them the way they were? So initially it didn't have any of this white paint that's applied on the piece that was added later and it was another layer that I was adding to this piece to emphasize this metaphor of a narrative of life. And so the white for me represents the future. Whereas the books kind of represent the story of our lives and our past, the white is sort of pointing towards this unknown future and what we're headed towards. So the paper, all of the books are actually sprayed with fire retardant. And so that has sped up this discoloration that has happened. So that's why it seems a little bit darker in some areas. And I totally welcome that. I love how they're these strange spotted colors that are appearing on the books and how it's becoming dark brown in certain areas. Yeah, it really helps age some of it. I wouldn't have thought how important it would be to spray it with the fire retardant. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, initially that wasn't my plan but it happened to be at this one location where the fire marshal we required us to spray it down with fire retardant. Okay, well they're just books, so let's do that. That's how that happened. Alright, let me go on to the next slide. This is a ray and this is made up of thousands of sponges. This also has had many different iterations to it. In this photo, you see the piece up against the wall. And this also too is about bringing color, vibrancy to the environment. Just something fun and to create this sensory experience through material and color. I have to ask you, I mean this is one of my favorites, just the use of the material. It's material that I feel like I just look at all the time and I would never imagine making something like this out of it. What made you want to use this material? It really came from seeing another artist actually working with sponges but she was making sculptures out of them. And she was using all different kinds of cleaning materials like mops and brooms and fuzzy sponges. And there was an opportunity that came to install something in a storage pod and so I just thought sponges, let me do sponges and let me not do a sculpture but let me do an installation with just sponges and one type of sponge in different colors. And so if you want to see an image of that, that was like the first iteration of this piece that's on my website where you stepped into the storage pod and you were just surrounded by waves of sponges. These sponges are on a wire fencing so it's easy to cut them down, to reshape them and to kind of create any form that you want. So yeah, it's just had many different lives. So that's how that came about. There's another question. Do you keep your materials after the installation comes down to be reused again? In the past, yes. I would keep almost everything and then use them for different installations. And then recently I had little storage rooms so I started not keeping things and recycling them or giving them away or trying to sell them. I recently moved into a larger studio space. I'm able to keep more of those materials, which I would like, which is ideal for me. And so I think I'll start hoarding back again in my space. I'm actually in my studio right now so after this slideshow I'll do a little twirl around and you can see kind of all of the stuff that's sitting around here. There's another question. How do you attach the books together and the sponges together? Oh yeah. So the bolts are applied the same way the sponges are. They're on this wire fencing. And I was using that a lot when I started out as an artist because it's just so easy to use. You can just plop things onto this fencing material and then cut it down, reshape it because the fencing is very malleable. So the books are attached with a different technique though. It's a little bit of a complicated process but they are stable to zip ties and those zip ties go around the fencing. So you can imagine it was a lot of hand work and a lot of attaching of each individual book. I also learned to strip down the books. The first time that I did this I used the whole book and applied it to the fencing and the piece would fall down. It was just way too heavy for this metal fencing. So over time I learned that I needed to strip down the books into pieces and then apply it onto the fencing and that's worked out much better. That makes sense. Another question is the fencing. Was that chicken wire or like chain link fencing? It is. You know what? I'm going to do a little troll around here actually because you can see it here. There's a pile of it. I don't know if you can all see that but it's that rectangular fencing. It's not quite chicken wire. It's stronger than that but it's less wrong than chain link fencing. Okay, kind of in between. Yeah. And then there was a question if one of these pieces were at the LA Book Festival. Yeah, it was at the LA Times Book Festival at USC a few years ago. Oh, no, I'm sorry. That was the sponges. The sponges were at the LA Times Book Festival. The books, they've been in a lot of places. I've been at Biola University, LAX I mentioned, Fuller Seminary. They've been and actually currently part of it is hanging at Utopia Restaurant in downtown Long Beach. So if you want to go and see that, that's there. That's their long-term temporary. Cool. All right, so then this slide is a piece called Complin. And I was aiming to create a dreamscape on the beach. Complin is from the tradition of praying the hours and Complin is the last hour before sleep. And it's just a time to get ready for dreaming and provisions. And so I wanted to take that idea and apply it to an outside landscape. And so this is kind of what I come up with. This is one image. If you go on my website, it's kind of this photo narrative of different images on the beach. This next one is called Release. And this was specifically for symposium. Sometimes my installations are inspired by materials or space or an idea. In this case, I was asked to create something for this symposium that was on trauma and healing. And so my thinking and my thoughts on healing are that it's not a final event or an experience. It's kind of this reoccurring thing that happens where you are finding healing throughout your life for whatever pain or sorrow that you're experiencing. And so I kind of wanted to create this effect of this sweeping material that's going off the ground. This is called Tang Barrage. And these are marking flags. So I have one right here, actually. So just some of these things. And these marking flags are usually found in the construction sites and building zones. And I had a chance to do something outside for an outdoor exhibition. And I was really drawn to this cage above the tunnel. And yeah, so I took these marking flags and just overwhelmed this cage with them. And yeah, just trying to create some visual interest on an urban street. This is a mass and swell which was put up at the Orange County Museum of Art a few years ago. This building no longer is owned by the museum since ACMA is now building their new museum somewhere in Orange County. This was in their foyer area. And it was really interesting creating kind of this overwhelming experience. Their work is monumental. It's very large scale. And I think that just comes from wanting to really have the viewer feel their own physicality as you're walking around the work. So this was kind of experimentation with lots of different foam materials. So packaging foam, acoustic foam, the kind of foam that you'll find in foam pits. And so this was a creation that you were meant to really step into an experience. That's awesome. I have a couple questions for the artwork release. Was that made with cloth? That was made with this polyester fabric that I found from a place called, it used to be called Trash for Teaching. It's now under two-bit Circus Foundation. And they have a warehouse in Gardena and what they do is collect trash or overruns or discards from different companies. And I often go there and just look around because they have lots of random materials in barrels and they sell it for like a dollar a pound. And at the time they had these rules and rules of polyester white fabric. It's really ambiguous as to what it was used for or what it was manufactured for. But I just found the material really like coloring. So I ended up using it for this installation. And I kind of manipulated it by pulling at the edges, had a lot of help doing that. So it had this kind of roughly effect. Do you mind going back to that slide again real quick just to reshow it? And then there is another question. Are there any artists that you have been inspired by? They're saying that they kind of reminds them of Christo's art installations in public spaces. Yeah, I love Jean-Claude and Christo's work. I love their monumentality and I love how they try to take over large sections of land that go on for miles and miles. And this whole idea of covering with materials. Yeah, so super inspired by them. And I think one artist that comes up to mind is a Korean artist. His name is Che Jung Hwa and C-H-O-I is his last name. And he uses also just very everyday materials that are super colorful and joyful. So I think I was looking at him a lot when I was first starting out. That's awesome. And then somebody was asking, do you have a book of your artwork? I don't. There are a lot of catalogs out there from other exhibitions with my work included. But no, I have to get there one day. Right? Just to make a book of my work. Yeah, that would be great to see. Especially seeing all the different iterations of the installations and the different locations and how it has changed and morphed. Yeah, that's a really great point. Yeah, just to see all the different ways in which the materials were used and how it interacted with all the different places that it's been in. Yeah, I would love that. All right. I'm going to go back to the undoing. This is at least at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. They have their main gallery up in front and they have a project gallery in the back. And this hallway connects those two spaces. And the whole idea of this exhibition was myself and another artist Jason Triffin Bach. And the theme of the exhibition was Art Provera, which is a movement where artists use early trash to create their artworks. And so I was really into working with foam at the time. This is kind of near the time I was working at Akma. And so I contacted my local recycling center. So they donated or gave me their trash. They gave me these packaging foam sheets. And I used it to transform this hallway, which is normally a very dark hallway. It's painted this like navy blue. And I wanted to lighten up with this material and just create a completely different effect than what normally is encountered in this place. This is Lucent Shifts. And this material, too, was also from trash. I like calling it trash for teaching, but it's 2-bit circus foundation. And I came across this material. So this is what it looked like. This is how I found it. Again, I'm not really sure what this was used for or what this is exactly. They kind of look like very large sequins and they had it small, medium, large, extra large size. But I just got a bulk of this material. And then a chance came up to install at the Ice House in Long Beach. And so this is what I came up with. So I took away these edges here, cut them, and then built these sections that kind of came together and that were hung from the ceiling. And this piece really was just about transcendence. Angela read my bio and talked about how my work is about transcendence and memory and existence. And so this whole idea of kind of creating this moment of wonder so that people ultimately can ask themselves, you know, how am I having this experience? Why is this experience happening? And taking whatever that is outside to their everyday lives so that they can kind of see their surroundings in a new way. So thankfully this piece has had a lot of different lives. And most recently was LAX and I think that's my last slide and I'll show you that. I'll show you that. Excuse me. Quick question. What are your favorite materials and textures to work with? Are there certain colors or color families that you like to use specifically? I like it all. I really love color. But if you go on my website, you'll see a lot of pieces that are just white. Right now I'm very much interested in using this mesh. So you see it behind me. We're working on it today. I really love the translucency of it. I love the malleability of it. The shapes that it can hold and all the different potential it has. You can leave it as is or you can paint it. Yeah, so I feel like I will be working with this mesh for a little while longer. Do you get inspired primarily by material first or the space first? It can be either. Yeah, I think because of where I am now in my career, I am fortunate enough to receive a lot of invitations to come and install in places. And so I'll look at a space and then kind of come up with the ideas from there. So in those cases, I'm really inspired by the space. But initially when I was first working out as an artist, it really was just me kind of experimenting with whatever I could come up with. So that involved going to the warehouse in Gardena or going to thrift stores and just walking around, going to the 99th store. And then just getting attracted to whatever seemed really fun or interesting. Yeah, but that still can happen. And it really is just all of the above. It just depends on the situation. Yeah. Are there specific colors and textures that are kind of like based off of when you're creating that's kind of like affected by your mood or what's going on in your life? I would say I usually come up with color concepts based on sort of the idea I have for the work. And that's purely personal and kind of a creative response. In this case, the slide that we're looking at right now, this was a collaborative project for residency. And pink here is kind of the dominant color with hints of like yellow and this neon orange and pink. And I knew that I wanted it to be a bit celebratory and loud and vivacious. And to me, for this work, it seemed like these colors were going to support that vision. And so this was also a collaboration. So this is just one angle of this, but there are a lot of mixed media drawings in this piece because the artist, this was at EC of Art Center in San Pedro and EC of Art Center support artists with developmental disabilities. But a lot of these guys are amazing artists and amazing drawers. So there's a lot of mixed media in here. But then there's so much of also my input here, which is like all this shredded paper and tissue paper and cellophane. So yeah, that's how usually color comes about for me. It's a very intuitive process. Makes sense. Do you have a preference between installing in like a gallery or like a private space versus like a public space? Yeah, I like venues where it's available to anybody. Private events or functions are great because you get a paycheck. It's studio practice. And I'm, you know, more than happy to do those things because it's an opportunity to create, it's an opportunity to collaborate with whoever's putting on the event and to come up with a vision. But public spaces are nice because it's available to anybody and it's a chance encounter usually for the public, unless it's at a gallery or in a museum. So I do prefer those places. It's great when you can find those public sites that also have a budget to support the artwork. So yeah, that's usually my ideal situation. Let's see here. Angela says I love that word that Olga used vivacious words and adjectives like vivacious ever inspire your artwork before you create or give you a concept to work around. Yeah, sometimes when I like one of the first things I do before trying to come up with a concept is just kind of sit in my studio or my office and and reflect a lot on the ideas and I'm trying to bring forward or that I want to do a little bit of research on. And sometimes one or two words will stick out put on a post it and I will come back to that word. I'm trying to think of an example but. Yeah, I will come up with the word and kind of center around and make sure that I'm kind of staying true to this idea that I feel like it's going to be the most successful from the viewer and the space. And it's also I was thinking I was staring at the title of this piece. It's also fun to come up with titles sometimes you know moiety is a word that I had never seen before but it means to have coming together. And I thought that perfectly described this this project because it was a collaboration with these other artists. Yeah, it's a great word. Good work. I just want to open it up if somebody if anybody had questions go you know while we're looking through the slideshow go ahead and type it in and I can ask Olga. This is called the Constance of glory this was for an event like what I was describing actually a public event that had the budget to support the artworks that were involved. This was just, I think, yeah a one day event. And I decided that I wanted to work with this parking structure that it was a great opportunity to throw lots of material off from the fourth floor of this parking structure. So you can't quite get the complete picture of this piece but this is like 40 feet each of these strands are coming out from these openings on this parking structure. And I just kind of love the in Congress relationship between you know this very like mundane parking structure and this you know flashy celebratory material. So this is gold foil their individual curtains that were six by six feet and then you know ordered a ton of it and then work on connecting all these pieces together and then applying that blue ombre color that you see on the bottom. Yeah, and so this is just kind of a fun project that happened. A few years ago. Um, a lot of your pieces, they seem really like detail oriented I was kind of curious how long it you work on a installation just purely the making part of it. Yeah, for in this case for this piece this took probably, maybe two three weeks of just painting, and then actually connecting all of those pieces. That was another like two three weeks. So it's yeah it just depends on on the work sometimes it takes a few weeks, a few months. Sometimes there's a lot of lead time before an exhibition so then the work happens like intermittently. But I find that I usually don't have a lot of time. So, as much as there was all this planning that had gone into this particular piece the constants of glory. You know, there's so much that happens before even getting into the student constructing because you need to come up with the concept you need to have the meetings you need to do the site visit. You need to come up with the renderings get that approved have more discussions about that. And then once all of that is done then the creating can happen and then you know there's not that much time left by that point. So I did feel a little rush when I made this. So it's funny that you say detail. I can just tell there's a lot of work that goes into it. Yeah, yeah I had a heritage assistant, and she was a huge help and she came and painted and alongside with me so yeah. So then this is loose and shifts. And this is kind of the last way that it was installed this is from LAX, and this just came down. It went up right before the pandemic happened and then you know had a few viewers at the airport, and then yeah just came down last week. So, you know, it was great to see it going from this art festival Long Beach to, you know, places standing at LAX and having, you know, a large swath of the public see it so. And I think, yeah, that was my last slide and then this is my website information. If you want to follow me on Instagram I have more photos there this image right next to that information is a rendering of a project. That was supposed to go up last year but got canceled because of COVID. But you'll see a lot of just yeah additional images like that on my Instagram, whereas on my website you'll see formal portfolio images. That's awesome. I have a few questions. How do you generally decide on your titles for your work is it kind of self generated, or do you kind of collaborate with other artists or people to come up with a name. Yeah, that's a great question. In a lot of different ways. The last piece behind me this is part of that work called constellation. I actually didn't come up with that title. It really was kind of a collaboration so the curator and I worked on this piece it was specifically for this gallery at the Irvine Finite Center and she ran by some title words with me. And then we kind of landed on constellation. And so it can happen that way where it is a collaboration with you know the people involved in the show, or sometimes it's just coming up with words like moiety, like looking up, you know, into the stories like what are some words interesting words out there. And sometimes like, you know, for the Constance of Glory, that was really inspired by like the thought behind that work, which was really wanting to invite the sense of, again, transcendence and of like wonder, and how that's kind of available every day. So yeah, it really varies. And then do you have a favorite piece that you've made or like view top favorites. Well, that's hard. I don't think I have a favorite. I again really love this mesh. I put it up for that show in Irvine. And, you know, because of COVID restrictions I actually didn't install it myself the preparator put it up. And so I'm really looking forward to working on this and seeing what comes out of it. So if I have to say a favorite right now, like today would be this, this piece, and this piece that we're working on today because it involves a smash and I just want to see the, all the potential that'll come out of it. But yeah, I'll have favorites in the moment, maybe like the fan trellises I'll show that to you all in a minute. And then, you know, right now I feel a little like I think I want to reimagine this material in some other way. So yeah. So a couple of comments. Someone said that they saw your website and your work is absolutely beautiful. And I agree. And then also, so the image that you have shown right now that was a potential installation at Alamedo speech do you know if that's going to be installed in the future, possibly in the way that it is now I'm not sure I am, I will share that this piece behind me was came out of the process of working on this project for Alamedo speech because it involves the same material but here in the rendering it's you know these different colors like pink and red and orange colors. This was for actually powwow international their festival here in Long Beach. They are going to do it this year and so I am doing a project with them that will be shown in September but it's not going to be. So they've decided to come back on on just I think the plans that they had just because of the changing situation that we're in and they're trying to do something more manageable so I'll actually be creating a piece that will go on top of those parts that you see people riding around on the bikes those bicycles where four or five people can ride them. So yeah if you follow me on Instagram or on my website there'll be more information about that that'll come up in September. That's awesome. And then someone asked if people are interested in trying to create their own installation art. How would you recommend they get started. I think this is something that requires art training or a degree or can anyone do it. Well I have to say I don't think I have any formal training in installation art. I studied art as an undergrad but I mainly concentrated in drawing and a little bit of painting and didn't come to installation art until 10 years after I graduated. And I that really came out of looking at a lot of art so it's safe anybody wanted to get started in installation art I would first look at a lot of installation art go to in person if you can I know right now it's a little difficult but yeah just to see a lot of great works at museums or at galleries or in public spaces or and then you know supplementing that with looking at you know books and and images on the Internet and things of that nature. And reading a lot so I think I did a lot of reading on installation artists just to kind of see where these artists were coming from and the ideas that supported it and and the context of art history you know how did we come to this movement where installation art is something that is done now because it wasn't in the past. So yeah I think those are like the main starting points. And then after that just experimenting and and constantly just trying trying trying that's what it is. And then one last question. Do you have any future installations that are going to be going up anywhere anywhere right now that people can go see. So I mentioned the project for powwow and if you go to powwow international if you Google that powwow Long Beach their website will pop up with information about their upcoming events September. It'll be myself and I believe two other artists are creating pieces for these story cards that people will be able to rent out I'm not sure if it's for free or not free. And you'll be able to write around that on the beach or to view other murals around the city if you're not familiar with powwow powwow creates different murals and urban cities around the world. And so they're trying to create this other visual art element that will go alongside the mural festival. So that's coming up in September. Again I'll have more information up on that on my website or updates on Instagram. And then a lot of announced because we're still sort of in this fluid situation with COVID. I do have projects that are promised but not concrete because we're still waiting to see what will happen so I'm just going to hold back on saying anything about those things just in just get postponed further or canceled. Do we have time to do a little spin around the studio. Yeah I think so right now we're just it's at four o'clock right now. So what I'll do is kind of share my space a little bit and then we'll go back into the mesh. So the last part of creating this piece shouldn't take that long so yeah. So I'm just spin my computer around so you can see I'm kind of in the center of my sorry before you do that do you mind stopping the screen share and then we might be able to see your. Okay, am I coming through clearly. Yeah. So this is the back end of my studio right now I just moved into this place a few months ago so I'm still trying to get things organized you see kind of a pile right here that's part of constellations the back door. And if I spin this a little bit further. See some more boxes the sponges the span trellises that I mentioned earlier, still have the sponges. And these are the boxes that I just came back from LAX that have loose and shifts in them. I'm going to spin this over here. I'm really fortunate to be in this space where it has really tall ceilings and it's a very long warehouse. As you can imagine a lot of materials that I've accumulated this this is the other end of my studio so. I'm shelving there with a lot of tools and other materials that I use and just more future potential material we're talking about what I get inspired by so I picked up this rule of mylar and this other kind of clear role. And I hope I get to do something with that one of these days. You see these kind of these are discarded wood blinds. I don't have an installation but I'd like to use that again at some point for something else so. So a lot of things lying around here that I hope have a life somewhere eventually. I like that I like that you save the materials if you can you know to reuse somebody was asking how do you incorporate sustainability in your work. Rather than creating new materials I'm really interested in just using things that already exist out into the world so you know going to the warehouse and Gardena is kind of part of that. Things that would have normally have ended up in the landfill. I love just kind of taking those and and using them. What's great about those materials too is that they're really ambiguous you're not really sure what you're looking at. So when they kind of come together for installation it's it's great when people are just questioning what this is and what is this used for. I say that but I also want to stress that I think the vision for the work for me is the most important and so I'm I'm not always 100% driven by using sustainable practices or sustainable materials. I do as much as I can and that is my goal. But people often ask me you know this question and so I just wanted to put that out there because sometimes there are you will see artworks that were bought online or. Yeah, that were bought in a store so if anybody was wondering. Hey is that recyclable. Yeah. And then another question do you ever put out calls to the community to gather materials or do you mainly look for it just on your own or is it a mix of both. In the past it was a mix of both and lately it's been more that I will go hunt for those materials and purchase them especially if there is a budget that supports that. Just because hunting for materials or putting a call out usually takes a lot more time and there's a lot of variables to that and the. There are a lot of inconsistencies what with what can be found and so again that just adds more time to the process so. But I, I would love to do that if I did have a lot of time available. Thank you. I don't know if I have any more questions right now, maybe if you want to go ahead and kind of work on the shaping part and then if anybody has questions as we go along just go ahead and. type them in the chat and I can ask out loud. Okay. All right, so I'm going to switch to my table camera here and then. See all right, so our mesh should be somewhat dry by now it's not going to be completely dry so just get ready to get your hands dirty. We're trying to go for this sphere spherical shape again. And there's no right or wrong way to do this. I kind of just keep my hand in the middle and then lift the edges and bring it to the middle. And it really is just kind of wrangling this mesh in some ways you want to just also again watch out for the edges here. So I kind of quickly brought this into the center here. And then you want to just for the next few minutes fiddle with it. Mine is a little too flat on the bottom for me so I'm going to try to shape that. And now that we if you have kind of your journal shape here I'm going to actually switch to the face camera so you can see me do this. I'm going to put it into this shape now. And again it's a little too flat for me on the bottom so then it's a matter of maybe unfolding it and then kind of pushing it out into the center. And you're really just going for a shape that is interesting to you. And I really like this expression of the lines that are created up here, and then also into the folds into the piece. Another reason why I like this mesh so much is because it has such great cultural qualities, you know you can turn it around. At each angle, it's just kind of a very interesting and you know really evocative kind of lines and shapes and folds. So I think I'm going to just push this here. And then if you get it to a shape that you like, you can grab your paintbrush and then either add some more paint to it. Like I can see that I would probably want to add more paint to the top here of my edges. Or if you want to grab some white paint dip your brush in the white paint and do some more dots or splatterings or kind of create lighter areas. And then what's going to happen with these is you're going to bring them to the Billie Jean King Library within the next three weeks and then I can't wait to see what you all came up with. And they're either going to hang or be applied to the wall. That's another great thing about this material is that there are a lot of different ways that this can be installed somewhere. Yeah, does anybody have any questions about this? Yeah, there are a couple questions. How early do you start planning your projects and then do you have multiple going on at the same time or projects that are kind of in different stages at the same time? Yes, yeah. So for example, right now I'm working on a residency project with five other five or six other artists that are across the country. So we zoom monthly. This has been ongoing since March and we'll finish in December. And we're each working currently on our own community projects and then there will be an exhibition in New York at the end of the year. And then that show will travel next year. So I'll be working on that at the same time as I'm working on the story card project for Pow Wow. And then whatever all sets coming up, you know, for an artist, there's just so many other elements that are going on. You have to manage your website and emails and your budget and marketing and other things. So there's always that going on in the background. For me, there's always something to be to be done right now. So I actually don't spend a lot of time in this space too much. You might have cut a glimpse of some doors on this side of my studio and I spent around but I have offices on that side and so I do spend a lot of time in my offices just thinking and communicating with people and working on ideas and doing the Zoom meetings for the residency. Yeah, as far as how far in advance I work on something, it just depends on how much lead time I have for a project. For Pow Wow, I worked on it immediately because it was something that was coming up in September. So that's like an ongoing project that I'm working on. Somebody had a question. Does installation art have a shelf life? And what happens after an exhibition? Yeah, that's a great question. Not generally. So that's why it's so hard for installation artists who strictly do installation ours to be represented by galleries because it's not sellable. It's possible. It's just not a painting or sculpture that can be picked up and delivered to some place. So that's why photographs and videos are super important in my work. I am actually part of the reason why I'm drawn to installation is because of the temporality of the nature of the work. It is like of the moment in the moment. It's never the same. And for me, that's okay. I think for me, the effect that the work has in that moment has reverberating effects. That's how this whole idea of memory comes into my work. And that's how it's important for me. As far as like concrete evidence of the work that will exist on in photographs and videos and maybe written reviews or interviews. And yeah, so then in some ways that those photographs become the thing that, you know, if something's purchased or handed down, those are the things that will go down. I mean, like I was saying though that installation work is there is the possibility of it living somewhere for a very long time. It's just that. Yeah, it just becomes like a fixed a fixed work rather than an installation piece that continues to change and and respond to whatever situation of rhyme that it's in. See here, I did have somebody asking that there were a couple of them on the East Coast watching and they were wondering if they could find a way to be involved in this project. So I would say if you don't mind emailing Angela, Scott and reaching out to her and I will talk to her and see if that's something that we could figure out for you. And then another question. Do you ever work on your art at home, or do you only work on it in your studio and then does your art feel like it's work with quotation marks. You want to keep like your work in your home life separate or does it kind of all wind up blending together. I used to actually work in my garage. All these years I had been in my garage actually in the different, the two homes that I've lived in in the last all these, all these years. It's not until just recently that I've moved into the standalone studio space that I've had a separate area where I've been working on my on my piece. So home and studio have always been together for me. And there are pros and cons to that I like having this standalone large space now, but it's not as convenient where I can just walk into, you know, the garage now and create something at, at, you know, whatever when that comes to mind. And then what's the second question. If, if your work in home life kind of blend together wind up blending together. Oh, yes. I didn't show you the corner where my daughter is here in the studio or peppa pig table. Being a parent and an artist. That way, like, blends together yet. Yeah, it definitely comes together. She'll use my materials to play with and to create tunnels and, and obstacle courses. So, yeah, because my daughter is so young she's six and a half it definitely I'm in this place right now where it's, it's both I'm working here, and then she'll be playing or I'll be taking her somewhere for a class or camp and then I'll be working in my sketchbook, you know, as I'm waiting for her so yeah it's definitely a blend. And then there's another question is installation artwork always geared towards public experience. Yeah, go ahead. Um, I think generally visual art is activated by a public engage engagement experience I think, you know, art can be something that's in your home and studio that will exist as a as an object. But once the public comes to see it and that experience is initiated then it then for me it really does become an art piece that is observed and contemplated on and reflected on. So it's not just that installation art has to be has to have this public component it's just that all are really is made for expression and it needs to have that interaction from other viewers that add to the conversation that it's creating. Definitely about communication. In a different way. Yeah. Let's see, and then that person was also saying that they are skeptic they were skeptical. Sorry, you're skeptical in the beginning of the project over never having never done this kind of art, but the mesh looks really cool now and it's been an experience just making it so that's awesome that's great to hear. Thank you. I was just asking when we return the artwork to the library can they put their name on it. And will we be able to come and view all the art pieces. So, yes, we're looking for a location to install all the pieces together and as soon as we have confirmed that, you know, we'll let you all know where you can go view it. So putting your name on it. I think that's a question for Angela. Hi, may I think that was the question from may and I'm just thinking that I mean it's kind of up to Olga but I would think maybe if you put like a color in a corner of the artwork or something I don't know what you guys think about that but maybe a color in a certain place that would be visible to you or identifiable by you you would know that that's your piece. But I honestly have no idea how old is going to be putting all this together so it may or may not be visible. So I guess just to know that you contributed to this amazing art creation installation that she'll be coming up with later maybe that's that may be the only thing that we can do I don't know Olga, I'll leave it up to you. Yeah, I think that's a really good suggestion just coming up with some kind of marker to your piece words identifiable to you. You probably don't want to take a sharpie and write your name on it. I know that might be tempting career for people to want to just know like where your pieces. But yeah, if you want to make it kind of identifiable by a certain color marker or just kind of like a shaping your mission a certain way then there is that but this really is kind of a community project where we're coming together as a whole to create something that we all did together so. So yeah, thank you for your question. Awesome. I do want to remind people to if you're local here to Long Beach and you need to still pick up a kit or need another kit to please reach out to Angela she did put her email in the chat. And we can set up an arrangement so you can come pick it up. For people out of state, unfortunately we cannot mail it to you we don't have a budget for that. But if you want to get the materials at a local store and make the art project and then mail it to us. We'll be happy to include it in the art installation. Yeah, definitely we can just reach out to us and add you into it. And then there's just a couple of thank yous. And that thank you Olga and you're very talented and that they're honored to get to be a part of this. Thank you so much to Long Beach Public Library for hosting this event and to Rebecca for coordinating and organizing. Also just a shout out to Art Supply again. And also to Long Beach Arts Council that supported this event, really grateful to them they are a great organization that supports artists and arts organizations in the Long Beach area so if you get a chance to check them out please do so. Thank you so much for everyone who participated. I am really happy that you all joined me today and for just listening to me sharing about my me and my work. Thanks Olga. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you to both Olga and Rebecca. It's been such a fun program and so interesting. I know it's really gotten my creative juices flowing and ideas. It's so exciting and I also want to just comment. I just really love how expansive your vocabulary is maybe that's part of your art history training as well. But how you use words not only to convey your feelings your emotions your observations about the art in the world around you but also how those words can inspire your work as well with different ideas. So that was just something that I took away. It's just been really, really impressed by and I just want to mention that if anybody has any remaining questions or comments that you want to include in the chat that you'd like to have answered we do still have a few more minutes or program does officially end up for 30 so we can hang around for a few more minutes if anybody does have anything remaining to discuss. Or if you can't stay any longer you're welcome to type up your question leave your email address and we can get that to you later a response. And then also I'd like to mention that if anyone has any more questions or interests about installation art and artists or are just in the LA greater LA area around around Southern California we do have a lot of resources in our library collection. So please make sure to check out our online catalog on our website for more information there we will be happy to hook you up with different resources that you may want. Yeah so we'll still have a few more minutes and I just again thank you Olga and Rebecca for sharing your time and your expertise to provide this wonderful program in support of the educational enrichment of our Long Beach Public Library community. And again I want to extend the library's personal appreciation to the Arts Council for Long Beach as well as Arts supply warehouse Rebecca is representing today and Amsterdam acrylics for your very generous in kind gifts and grant support of today's event. And also of course always a thanks to our library administration and staff our friends will library our LBPL foundation and many other local contacts who have helped to promote our event today. And you know finally last but not least we just really want to thank all of you our wonderful guests for joining us today for this artists workshop series. We couldn't do without you and we do it for you so again our sincerest gratitude and appreciation to all of you. So just wanted to check if anybody has any final comments. Okay. Somebody was asking sorry I'm going to jump in. Somebody was asking about the paint so it's Amsterdam acrylic and they're asking the shade of blue. I actually don't have the paint on me. Olga can you let them have the shade. Brilliant blue. That's what it says on here. Perfect. And then I see may parks was asking do we return our pieces at the circulation desk, or the Miller room, please just return them to the circulation desk. The Miller room is only open for limited hours right now. So, every day so please just return it to the circulation desk and our circulation desk staff will be able to take those from you and will be able to set them aside for Rebecca and all that's a collect later. Oh, hello Trisha from Chesapeake, Virginia. Yes, we are interested. I'm going to hand send you a list of the materials. And that would be great if you can mail it and I love Chesapeake I lived in Williamsburg for a long time so how do you all have my Virginia friends. Okay. Let's see if we have any other. There is one question. Any advice for anyone interested in installation art but they do not have access to traditional resources like art schools or mentors. Um, I would definitely check out your local library I mean. Yeah. If you have a just a great local library that has some books on installation art that would probably be one of my first places I would go to I'd also go online. To first maybe some of the artists that you like and Google them and a lot of these artists will have resumes and where they've shown at and then that'll kind of lead you down this path of looking up those galleries where they've shown at. And some of the information they'll have on that on that website. And you, you end up going down this rabbit hole journey through all this information that's provided as you go along. And also if you want to email me I can probably send you some ideas and resources as well. I'm trying to think what else. And, you know, in my experience reaching out to artists or to certain organizations are always more than happy to start a conversation with you or to answer questions. And that, to me has always provided a wealth of information a lot of information that I haven't been able to read in books or to find online. And to hear their own personal stories of like how artists has gotten started or works in the studio, and then certain organizations, not all are I mean a lot of these organizations are busy but some are welcoming to just leading you down the right direction so So just a few suggestions that come to mind. Thank you. And in the chat that there are also you know community art programs through like local parks and rec organizations in your local cities that may have, you know rather inexpensive programs and classes that you can take local libraries like Olga mentioned and they have art programs that you never know what you may find at your local library or resources and artists that they can hook you up with through their connections so that's always something to try local university art programs you know may have artists or instructors or public programs that they offer that may be sources of information to you as well. I'm just trying to think of other options but yeah I've heard a bunch already and Olga would really know Olga and Rebecca both really know a lot and your local art stores like, you know arts play warehouse and other places would also know people that they might be able to refer you to our programs in the community if they aren't running programs themselves so all sorts of options. All right, so if you have any remaining questions you'd like to submit for email response later we're just coming up to the end of our program now. But again, I just want to say thank you our sincerest thanks and appreciation to all of you for attending today and to Olga and Rebecca for being part of this wonderful program for us and launching our new artists workshop series. This is really exciting we hope to have more coming in the future periodically so thanks again have a wonderful evening everyone stay safe and healthy and we look forward to seeing you again soon for more upcoming programs with the Miller room and Long Beach Public Library. Thanks again and have a great night everyone. Bye.