Art: Drinks, treats, crafts at Palo Alto Art Center
The Palo Alto Art Center is celebrating the opening of a new exhibit with cocktails, ice cream, live music and hands-on art activities for the family.
On Friday, June 13, the the Art Center will remain open after hours, as Redwood City artist Dana Harel kicks off her solo show, “Between Dreams and Nightmares,” which consists of mixed media drawings of humans and animals, and, according to an Art Center press release employs a “hybrid methodology that includes sculpture, drawing, photography, and printmaking,” to “reflect the messiness of war and its effects on survivors.”
When she was younger, Harel served as a soldier in the Israeli army. In the press release, the artist says that her experiences as a soldier, a mother, a wife and a daughter have allowed her glimpses of “men in their most intimate and tender moments, sometimes in the most unexpected of places.” These experiences inform her work.
Those who attend the Friday event will get a chance to participate in a variety of activities, including making ceramic cups and learning a bit about Harel’s process and try their hand at a technique known as “image transfer,” which she frequently employs.
There will also be a cash bar, a photo booth, and a live band, Deep Alto, featuring adult members from the local School of Rock program.
Harel’s exhibit runs through September 7. Visitors to the art center in the coming weeks will be able to see her work, as well as observe the makeshift studio of the Art Center’s current artist in residence, Ehren Tool, who is working on his “Containers of Community” project. Tool, a former Marine from the East Bay, will continue to work through June 29, taking objects donated to the Art Center from military veterans and their families — such as medals, badges and scanned photographs — and incorporate them into small ceramic cups.
The celebration runs from 6-9 p.m. on June 13 at the Palo Alto Art Center, located at 1313 Newell Road. Admission is free. For more information call 650-329-2366, or go to Art Center’s website.
Art: Redwood City kicks off summer with art, music
Redwood City’s Courthouse Square will be filled with music and art this evening, June 13, as Journey cover band, Journey Revisited, plays the power pop band’s classics and local artists display their creations at the twin events of Music on the Square and Art on the Square.
Beth Mostov, founder and producer of Art on the Square says she is looking forward to the event. She always does.
Mostov has been working in tandem with the promoters of Music on the Square since the concert series was started eight years ago, she says. And every year she has seen both events swell in attendance as well as in the number of artists interested in participating.
“It’s great,” she says. “The event has grown. The whole downtown has grown. People are out on a Friday night. It’s a really good time.”
The artists — 22 in all — will be displaying and selling visual art, such as painting, woodwork, photography and glass, as well as jewelry and other wearable items, like scarves and hats. The artists’ booths will be set up along Hamilton Street, adjacent to the square.
Music on the Square runs most Fridays during the summer, but Art on the Square only joins in the festivities periodically. The next art event will be July 11, Mostov says, and will feature jewelry exclusively. They’re calling it “Jewelry on the Square.”
Art on the Square begins at 5:30 p.m. on June 13, before the music kicks off around 6 p.m., so if you’re interested in seeing local artists and creators, Mostov says you should get there early. For more information, visit redwoodcity.org/events.