National Endowment for the Arts Funds “My Pasadena” Art Projects

Art lovers are encouraged to visit the Pasadena Civic Center area to view nine new temporary public artworks now through September 2016 that will enliven the area as part of the “My Pasadena” project funded by a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant. The City’s Cultural Affairs Division of the Planning Department is implementing the project with its partner, Side Street Projects, under the NEA’s Our Town grant program.

My Pasadena includes a total of 12 public art projects displayed around the Civic Center on Garfield Avenue, from Walnut Street to Green Street, and on Holly Street, from City Hall to Raymond Avenue. Go to www.cityofpasadena.net/arts or www.sidestreet.org/my-pasadena for project details and dates.

On Saturday, April 9, two projects will be available for public enjoyment and interaction, including:

• Everyday Monuments, by Hataya Tubtim and Michelle Glass, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., City Hall.

Since December, the artists have collaborated with people at the Pasadena Senior Center, Lake Avenue Community Center, Pasadena Mother’s Club and Pasadena High School to create small fiber art that re-imagines Pasadena’s existing monuments and honors significant people, places and events. The collaborative installation is available for one day only.

• PopUp Museum by Betsy Medvedovsky and Steve Campos, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., City Hall.

Where do you come from and where are you going? How have your origins influenced where you are now? Join the artists for an interactive art installation at City Hall. Bring an object or a story to share; make art, chat and discuss. This will repeat on May 14 and June 11.

The goal is to create a series of events and changing artworks to make the Civic Center district more walkable, enjoyable and culturally fulfilling as a creative, vibrant public arts forum that expands community awareness and involvement in the contemporary role of government in civic life.

The projects are innovative and varied in inspiration to reflect the diversity of civic engagement themes. Produced in a variety of media, the projects include live performances, walking tours and visual art installations as well as dance, theater, animated projection, oral history and audio sounds.

“Just imagine walking down Garfield Avenue on a beautiful evening, encountering 10-foot-tall projections of bright and colorful animated characters,” said Lisa Mann, one of the featured artists, who described her project. “The figures are clearly ‘real’ people: they are moving and talking, yet they are yellow and green, striped and polka-dotted, charcoal smears, and pastel smudges, psychedelic swirls, and geometric patterns, flickering, playful projections, little snatches of My Pasadena!”

Side Street Projects is creating a mobile outpost to gather community input, work with the artists to market and publicize projects, and create an archive of images and stories on the program. Other organizations involved include Pasadena Heritage, the City’s Northwest Programs Office, the Pasadena Unified School District, the Pasadena Public Library and Armory Center for the Arts.

My Pasadena began last fall with an enchanting multimedia display of projected images and sounds of lions at City Hall and a temporary “parade float” made of recycled yarn exhibited at Paseo Colorado.

NEA Our Town My Pasadena Public Art Projects include:
(Artist Name, Project Title and Description)

1. Mann, Lisa, Roto Pasadena, animated projections of Northwest community members
2. Medvedovsky, Betsy & Steve Campos, PopUp Museum, exploring themes of origins, time, conflict & family
3. Parson’s Nose , Staged reading of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town with professional actors and high school students
4. Marin, Betty, TellMeNovella, an outdoor projection of telenovelas at City Hall and Villa-Parke, followed by audience engagement activities
5. Willcocks, Angela, Blotnbyte, audio tours and vinyl portrait drawings telling stories of Northwest residents
6. Forsyte, Joey, video mapping on Pasadena Civic Auditorium focusing on the young artists of the Northwest community as they explore the concept of civic engagement
7. Glass, Michelle & Hataya Tubtim, Everyday Monuments, a collaborative, City Hall installation and tour using embroidery and fiber arts to build a shared tableau.
8. Lineage Dance, Our Pasadena, narrative dance performance telling the stories of the people of Pasadena performed at City Hall followed by discussion
9. Martin, Arnold & Crystle, Now and Then: Connecting the Visual Past with the Present, Binocular-like viewers showing historic images of Pasadena located in Civic Center

Archived (Past) Projects include:
10. Phillips, Cat Chiu, Plarn Float, temporary parade float created by Pasadena youth with recycled plastic yarn
11. Freewaves, Lions, Tigers and …, a multi-media performance exploring the site of local power, imagery and history through an exploration of the lion symbols on City Hall
12. Armory Center for the Arts, Parlor at the Armory: The World that Begins Where Our Skin Ends, artist residencies and programs with Women’s Center for Creative Work

The NEA is an independent federal agency that funds, promotes and strengthens the creative capacity of our communities by providing all Americans with diverse opportunities for arts participation. The NEA received 275 applications for its Our Town grant program during this funding cycle. Recommended grant amounts ranged from $25,000 to $200,000. For a complete list of projects recommended for Our Town grants, including project descriptions, grants by state and by project type, visit www.arts.gov.

Don’t forget to be social when visiting the My Pasadena projects or any of the NEA Our Town projects in the USA. Send a Tweet with a picture of the artwork and use the hashtag #NEAOurTown14.

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