Making Art Communal

18th Street Arts Center aptly describes itself as ‘where art happens.’ And how. The complex in Santa Monica, now celebrating its 15th anniversary, has a dizzying array of exhibitions, performances and events, all anchored by the 18 artists and seven arts organizations that call it home. Each year, 500 artists participate in happenings there that attract close to 75,000 visitors to the complex at Olympic and 18th. 18th Street Arts Center offers an extraordinary point of convergence for artists and other like-minded souls. It’s a gathering place especially needed in Los Angeles, a city famous for being decentralized. About half of the artists both live and work there. ‘It’s a jewel,’ says one resident artist. ‘The only thing missing is a coffee/book shop,’ she jokes. ‘Then it would be perfect.’ ‘The artists pay rent that is well below market value,’ says Palisadian Clayton Campbell, the center’s co-executive director. ‘It’s essentially like being given a grant.’ The natural clustering of artists that once occurred on the Westside’most notably in Venice and Santa Monica’rarely happens now because of exorbitant rents. This complex, five converted industrial buildings located on an acre of land, stands at the forefront of residential art centers, revered among the 300 such centers now in the U.S., and viewed as a model by the international art world. On average, about two studio spaces become available each year, with applications for the highly coveted slots reviewed by committee. Once accepted, artists stay in the community for three to five years, sometimes longer, and for those coming from other countries, the stay is only three to six months. While artists come and go, a constant is having a diverse, multicultural community. ‘It’s really an experiment, a lot like L.A. is,’ Campbell notes. ‘The question is how can a city with so many ethnicities function as a coherent whole?’ Artists brought into 18th Street usually are emerging or midlevel in their careers. Residency promotes meaningful connections with fellow artists as well as provides training in how to successfully enter the marketplace. Instruction ranges from grant-writing and financial management to legal seminars sponsored by California Lawyers for the Arts, one of the resident organizations. ‘This place is sort of a proving ground,’ Campbell says, adding that many artists, especially people who have performed at Highways’a well-known venue for alternative performing arts that has been at the center since its inception’have gone on to prominence. ‘We encourage artists to bring experiments here,’ Campbell says, adding. ‘You can try things here you can’t try in a gallery.’ All artistic disciplines are embraced by the center, from poetry and drama to visual and performance art. The multitasking artist’one who crosses over from one art form to another ‘is now the norm according to Campbell, who is himself both a photographer and painter, in addition to arts administrator. The support of artists and their art extends well beyond the boundaries of the center, with arts education in area schools being a major component of 18th Street’s mission. Arts instruction is not solely art for art’s sake, rather it follows an integrated path, with storytellers being paired with science teachers, painters with math teachers. ‘We wish to be accessible to the community as much as possible,’ says Campbell, who points to foundation and grant support as critical to the functioning of 18th Street. The center now owns rather than leases its facility, paving the way for eventual renovation and expansion. ‘The Leopard’s Spots: Between Art, Performance and Club Culture,’ a group show of visual and performance artists active in the L.A. club scene in the ’90s, opens at the center on Saturday, August 7 with a reception from 7 to 9 p.m. A closing party and open house happens at 18th Street Arts Center on Saturday October 16 from 7 to midnight. Contact: 453-3711 or www.18thstreet.org. Christine Morla Christine Morla celebrates her one-year anniversary at 18th Street Art Center in August. The dramatic new studio space has allowed her work to grow in scale and become more expressive in material. A first generation Filipino-American, Morla grew up in a extended family household of 15, watching her parents and grandparents work magic with their hands by weaving beautiful mats, bags and hats. ‘Their color sensibility was fantastic,’ says Morla, whose contemporary wall installations are derivative of this traditional weaving of the Philippines. Morla’s uses an electric, unusual color scheme in composing her own intricately patterned weavings made from Coloraid paper. They are arranged like a ‘constellation of stars’ on her studio wall. The weavings also make their way into her mixed media works on paper, compositions that combine geometric forms with more fluid, curvilinear flower shapes. Ultimately, Morla, who will teach at Oxnard College in the fall, hopes her work radiates with the same celebratory atmosphere she grew up in. ‘There was always a lot of food, color and people,’ she says. ‘I want to recreate that vibrant feeling.’ Clayton Campbell Campbell, co-executive director of 18th Street Arts Center for the past eight years, knows firsthand how tough it is to hook into L.A.’s art scene. Before coming to 18th Street, he spent five years feeling isolated in a studio in Hollywood. When his studio was burglarized, he knew it was time to move on. ‘They stole everything but the art,’ he recalls with a laugh. On behalf of 18th Street, he travels internationally four or five times a year, often negotiating contracts with ministries of culture in other countries. Bringing artists from virtually every continent to come live and work at the center is Campbell’s strength as executive director. When he takes off his administrator’s hat, he assumes the role of photographer and painter in his own 18th Street studio. One of his most recent works, ‘Words My Son Has Learned Since 9-11,’ a photographic installation, was exhibited in Paris this summer. In the series, his son Nick, now 13, holds signs with words and phrases that have come to be associated with that horrific day, from ‘anthrax’ and ‘yellow alert’ to ‘freedom fry’ and ‘duct tape.’ Last year, Campbell became a Knight, or Chevalier, of the French Order of Arts and Letters. He and his wife, Leslie Glatter, a television director, moved with Nick to the Palisades eight years ago. Lita Albuquerque With an international reputation as a visual, installation and environmental artist, Lita Albuquerque doesn’t fit the standard profile of artist residents at 18th Street. Nonetheless, she reaps the benefits of close interaction with fellow artists just the same as those just beginning their careers. Born in Santa Monica and raised in Tunisia, North Africa and Paris, she arrived on the California art scene in the mid-1970s as part of the Light and Space movement. Collaborating with architect Robert Kramer, Albuquerque created ‘Celestial Disc,’ the white marble fountain in the entrance courtyard of ‘Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral’ that is inscribed with Jesus’ words from the scripture ‘I am the living water’ in 37 different languages. Albuquerque set up shop at 18th Street in 1995 and considers it the perfect place to have a studio. ‘It permits me to hone in on the work, but at the same time it’s transparent’the studio is open to the community and other artists.’ She describes her recent work as following in the long tradition of painting. Her paintings juxtapose large circles comprised of powdered pigment encased in glass against a background of gold leaf, compositions she hopes will evoke the vibrational quality of light with pure color. ‘This is really what painting is about, but done in a contemporary form,’ says the artist.