SANTA MONICA, CA.- Due to the COVID-19 virus, the
California Heritage Museum has been closed for more than 20 weeks. The museum’s staff has decided to alter its programming and will now be working with contemporary artists to design exhibitions online.
This activity represents a “brand new” way the museum is operating and it is designed to attract those who have enjoyed the programming at the museum to become a part of its ever expanding online presence.
Recognizing that life as we know it has changed dramatically, and as we have no idea when traditional exhibitions will be available to the public, museum staff has been transitioning to online activities as well as continuing with the production of exhibitions that will be presented as soon as Governor Newsom allows the reopening of museums on a limited basis.
ON-LINE PROGRAMMING HIGHLIGHTS FOR 2020/2021:
OCEAN PARK PORTRAITS/Photography by Marco Pallotti. (NOW AVAILABLE ON LINE)
The California Heritage Museum presents its first on-line exhibition by Santa Monica photographer Marco Pallotti. The exhibition displays more than 45 colorful portraits of Main Street and Ocean Park area Merchants within their working environment. The creation of this exhibition has taken more than three years to accomplish and the “in-house” museum show will soon be ready for installation.
D.J. HALL – Desert Views.
This exhibition by artist D.J. Hall represents intimate “plein aire” (4in. X 6in.) watercolors spanning more than three decades. These landscape paintings are unique in style as they are presented as part of a diary with handwritten comments and observations about what the artist is seeing and her feelings at that particular moment in time. The work is so detailed that you feel that you are with her seeing what she is seeing and enjoying the desert life which is barren, yet displays vibrant colors that we remember fondly from our last visit to Palm Springs or Joshua Tree National Park. We are working on an online exhibition with the artist, as well as a display of her work in the museum’s downstairs gallery.
ALICE BEASLEY- A One Woman Retrospective.
Representing a Black perspective, quilts in this exhibition span from 1994 to the present. Ms. Beasley presents many subjects in her work, among them she often completes artwork that displays a rare look into the world of politics and how it affects the Black community through the medium of quilt making. Her work has travelled throughout the United States including the American Folk Art Museum, The Smithsonian, Rutgers University Art Museum, National Afro-American Museum and the Textile Museum of Washington D.C.
This exhibition will be presented online as well as within the museum, as soon as it is safe to do so.
ART QUILTS 2: Not Your Grandmother’s Quilt Show.
This is a “juried” contemporary quilt exhibition by members of the renowned organization SAQA, “Studio Art Quilt Associates”. The exhibition was originally planned to open in January and continue through March 2021. Due to the COVID-19 virus, we don’t know how long the opening of this show will be delayed. The exquisitely made quilts will be juried in December of this year and it is our hope that a virtual exhibit will be produced by January 2021. The last exhibition by SAQA members included more than 70 quilts and was a favorite of those that attended the museum’s exhibits in 2018.
PORTRAITS BY: “YOUNG WOMEN IN THE ARTS”.
Our original intent was to present in conjunction with Ocean Park Portraits an exhibition in the museum’s downstairs gallery that would represent art work by students from seven Santa Monica and Los Angeles based High Schools. (Schools that are included are Santa Monica High School, Venice High School, Crossroads, Harvard Westlake, Marymount High School, Pacifica Christian High School and Archer School for Girls). This exhibition could easily be part of our digital presentations. We are dependent upon school programs reopening so that we can reintroduce ourselves to students and teachers who have drifted away during the COVID hiatus.
