Segerstrom Center for the Arts will launch its first Off Center Festival on Jan. 13 (Image courtesy of SCFTA)

The Segerstrom Center for the Arts on Jan. 13 will kick off its first-ever Off Center Festival, an eclectic nine-day program showcasing cutting-edge theater, music and dance, hip-hop, mash poetry and performance art.

Aimed at drawing audiences that reflect Orange County’s cultural and generational diversity, as well as offering the public wide access to a new wave of creativity in performing arts through moderately-priced tickets, the festival will run through Jan. 21.

The extensive lineup will comprise eight different acts rarely seen by audiences in O.C.: Chautauqua, Reggie Watts, The Car Plays, “ReEntry,” “The Word Begins,” “Ten Tiny Dances,” and indie bands Lord Huron and Mexican Institute of Sound.

“What’s exciting to me is not just individual pieces, but the amazing, eclectic range of experiences,” center President Terry Dwyer said in an interview. “Truly, we are asking our audience to expect the unexpected and take some chances on an adventurous ride.”

… Continue reading Hip festival coming to Orange

Carolyn Russo’s photograph of a McDonnell F-4S is part of the “In Plane View” exhibit at JWA (Photo: Courtesy of John Wayne Airport)

JOHN WAYNE AIRPORT — The “Flight of Ideas” art installation noiselessly crowds the airspace above the baggage carousels at the new Terminal C here.

This is where the old Terminal B garage stood before construction crews razed it to clear the way for Terminal C — the main piece of John Wayne Airport’s $543-million improvement and renovation program — which opened in mid-November.

In assorted sizes, shapes and colors, the sculpture’s 21 individual pieces together resemble a flock of flying mechanical birds. They seem to float in the air as they dangle from a 100-foot truss suspended from the terminal’s barrel vault ceiling. Their bodies are made of aluminum, and their colorful wings and tail fins are plexiglass cutouts imprinted with sections of actual FAA aeronautical charts.

The sculpture in Terminal C (one of three contiguous terminals housed in the Thomas F. Riley Terminal building) is a milestone for JWA. It is the county-run airport’s first acquisition of a work of art.

… Continue reading JWA art program soars to new heights

Photographer Gina Genis created a giant American flag made up of individual portraits she took of people who told her about life in this economy. (Photo courtesy of Gina Genis)

Elyssa Houchen smiled faintly as she faced the camera.

“I’m 17,” she wrote in her response to the photographer’s question. “My dad couldn’t make enough money to keep my mother married to him. She left. I now live with my dad, older sister and 3 room mates.

“I’ve had a second job for the past 6 months and have been finishing my senior year of high school. I’m still coping.”

Houchen, a Huntington Beach resident, was one of 245 people who posed individually for Gina Genis’ lens after walking into the Huntington Beach Art Center back in March and April.

… Continue Reading ‘Economy Portraits’ artist to sign copies of book at HB Art Center

Scott Valenzuela in front of his "Metamorphosis" exhibit at the OMC Gallery for Contemporary Art in Huntington Beach (Independent photo by Kevin Chang)

The artist and gallery owner met at a coffee shop two and a half years ago.

In 2009, Rolf Goellnitz, co-proprietor of the OMC Contemporary Art Gallery in Huntington Beach, was stopping by the Peet’s Coffee & Tea at the Bella Terra shopping center near his gallery when he spotted Scott Valenzuela at work.

Valenzuela wasn’t working at Peet’s as a barista. The Westminster-based painter was busy with his art. He regularly works at that coffee shop on his paintings and drawings.

Yet Valenzuela’s art didn’t immediately impress Goellnitz, a plain-speaking German immigrant and advertising artistic director who co-founded the gallery in Düsseldorf in 1999 with his American wife, RoxAnn Madera.

“I said, ‘If you prove that you are an artist, then you get a show in my gallery,’” Goellnitz recalled.

… Continue Reading On the path to his own style

From left, John K. Wilson (as Joe), Bob May (as Reggie) and Michael Richardson (as Louis).

In Gourmet Detective’s “Get Cartier,” a faux murder mystery takes places at the Balboa Inn in Newport Beach. The performers are the prime suspects, but it’s the audience that serves up the dish of true entertainment.

“Get Cartier,” which plays year-round, combines scripted comedy, musical performances, authentic costuming, and live piano underscoring, all within the setting of a full-service restaurant and interactive audience. Better yet, it’s the audience member’s job to solve the mystery.

Upon entering the dining room, audience members travel back in time.

The year is 1962.

Four former comrades-in-arms and their loved ones gather to celebrate a birthday at the Hotel San Souci, on the French Riviera.

The guests, however, are unaware the party is a façade. Beneath the merry reunion of old friends lies a wicked scheme involving a priceless set of missing jewels, blackmail, unexpected romance, and — you guessed it — someone turns up dead.

… Continue Reading Serving up a mysterious dish

Austin Fickman reviews his diversity themed video “Embrace Diversity” that was chosen for the 2012 Newport Beach Film Festival. Fickman is an eighth grader at Thurston Middle School in Laguna Beach. (Coastline Pilot photo by Don Leach)

For kids, animated films have a way of jumping out of the screen and manifesting in their lives through games, toys and the way they speak.

Austin Fickman, an eighth-grader at Thurston Middle School, took a more literal approach with his love of movies.

After seeing stop-motion animation films in third grade — such as “Wallace and Gromit” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas” — he wanted to bring the fantastic stories to his living room, making his first stop-motion film with stuffed animals. He’s been making films ever since.

Austin recently was recognized for his stop-motion film “Embrace Diversity” by PTA Reflections, winning in the film category for his age division. It will be submitted to the county competition, and if it wins, it could go on to compete at the state and national levels.

… Continue Reading A star with stop-motion

Laguna College of Art and Design student Heather Patton works on a project in her studio at the school. Patton will showcase her work at Kevin Shoaf’s Bluebird Gallery as part of 14 LCAD students who will display their artwork in local galleries for upcoming Dec 1st Artwalk. (Coastline Pilot photo by Don Leach)

The December installment of the First Thursdays Art Walk will mark a milestone for Robin Fuld, a professor at the Laguna College of Art & Design and its career services director.

Thursday’s Art Walk will be the 10th anniversary of a mentorship that she fostered between LCAD and Laguna Beach art galleries.

… Continue Reading Showing their stuff

Photo by Joe Woolhead (Courtesy of National September 11 Memorial & Museum)

All I could hear was the sound of perpetually falling water.