Art View
By Jim Christiansen
Graffiti Summer events are coming up this month. Our downtown and McHenry Murals reflect the theme. The newest one up by Sonic Drive In on McHenry reflect the car hop and cars culture. The mural initiative is pretty well representative on your downtown Cruise Route. And there are some more murals I’ve seen pop up in my neighborhood in past year. One on Sunrise Ave. at E. Fairmont graces one of the street block off walls, with an orchard, sunset sky scene. If you cruise down Kimble Ave. to the side of Foundation Tattoo, you’ll find the Lost Land, in the motif reminiscent of Jurassic Park, Dinosaur scale size. Just down McHenry, off Alice, in the parking lot and alley near the Tom Ney cruising mural, are some murals in a more recent style. These haven’t gotten much notice in the press, but I enjoyed coming across them. I hope you do, too.
Art Walk is Third Thursday in the midst of downtown Modesto. Be sure to find some cars and cruising at 13th and J St. And if you need to cruise out of town on a Wednesday, the Peer Recovery artists are doing their long summer nights through September in their Art Round-Up with the Oakdale Open Air Market.
The City of Modesto environmental calendar has a call out to local artists for water themes, to be considered for the finished calendar. You can usually find the finished product at the Mistlin Gallery during the holiday season. Mistlin’s member show continues until June 12th. Many large pieces are on display this month. I went counter to the trend with some of my smaller, affordable pieces. The next show is garden theme.
The Life Drawing sessions continue every other Saturday at the Chartreuse Muse. Jack is seeking people to draw for the sessions. Go get on his email list! It is from 10 am to 1 pm, $10. Jordi Camps continues to churn out more and more quality work on display at his Picasso’s Deli and Gallery. If you’re familiar with Jordi’s work, you’ll see they opened another spot over on Kansas Ave., with an exterior Jordi Camps décor.
I may still have some art up at Hinkley Optometric, and Papachino’s, and the Mistlin member’s show, but the news for me is Yvette LaForce’s opening of Gallery Red in Las Vegas. She’s invited me and one other local artist to show at Gallery Red, with a planned Grand Opening July 4th. Yvette’s art is pretty well-known around Modesto, her home for many years, and so with the new venture in her hometown, she’s bringing some of her Modesto friends into the Las Vegas Art Scene. Artists support other artists. I’m looking forward to it. I plan to make the Grand Opening, and while my art will stay, I won’t be staying in Vegas too long, as I have a July Art View to write next month.
