Behind the Scenes

Are we alone? No! A think tank of SETI and NASA scientists, together with artists, dancers and other experts, is gathering to expand our ability to communicate with non-humans here on earth and out in the cosmos, using art and science and language. After our think tank, we will open out our research to the public so people with all kinds of intelligence can understand and can in turn help us learn even more. “If you push novelty of language and metaphor far enough, you can end up with a new way of seeing. And a new way of seeing, can in…

​This coming Sunday, December 6, Oakland-based artist Monica Lundy will join companion Lucas Artist Fellows Kija Lucas and Fieldworks (Trena Noval and Ann Wettrich) for a conversation about their new nature themed work currently on view in Montalvo’s gallery exhibition, Botanica Poetica . This short video (click above to view), created by local filmmakers Alexis Costanza and Pierce Leggin, depicts Lundy in her studio at the Lucas Artists Program discussing her work and creative process. Image 1 . Image 2 . Lundy’s multimedia works often develop from her archival research into lesser known histories of marginalized communities. In 2009, she…

Next Tuesday, January 26, Lucas Artist Fellows Fieldworks Collaborative will lead a guided walk through Montalvo's gardens and wildlands, and invite visitors to engage with their new participatory outdoor intervention, Curiosity Fieldstation . Fieldworks Collaborative was founded in 2012 by Trena Noval and Ann Wettrich to invent new approaches to creative inquiry and collaborative systems that explore the world we live in. Informed by place, we are interested in stimulating curiosity by creating inclusive, interdisciplinary, and multidimensional experiences. Our working methods are inspired by arts-based research practices and relational actions that occupy the public realm, interrupt traditional education structures, and…

R to L: Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik, Jocelyn Jackson, and Saqib Keval of the People’s Kitchen Collective based in Oakland, California. February 5th, 2016. Photograph by Tina Case. Food is where we meet, where we build, where we struggle, and where we survive. ​Written in our family's recipes are the maps of our migrations and the stories of our resilience. We, as the People’s Kitchen Collective based in Oakland, California, believe that sharing food with each other is a powerful tool for organizing communities. We prepare food that celebrates centuries of shared struggle. Meals are seasoned with love and knowledge that…

Last month, emerging filmmaker Sam Gouldthorpe joined his father, Lucas Artists Program Fellow James Gouldthorpe, to document the creation of Particles: A Painting in Ten Chapters . This video portrait movingly brings father and son’s creative practices together in a shared exploration of artistic experimentation, familial ties, and the passing of time. Particles is on view in Montalvo’s Project Space Gallery through May 29.   ABOVE: James Gouldthorpe, Chapter Four: Seniors (detail)

ABOVE: The Powers That Be , The Broad Museum, April 2016. Photo credit: Cassils with Leon Mostovoy. Photo courtesy of the artist and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts. On April 2, 2016, LAP Visual Arts Fellow Cassils premiered their latest work, The Powers That Be , at The Broad in Los Angeles to a sell-out crowd. Read more about that performance here , and watch for clips posted by audience members—like this from Jonathan Velardi. Cassils arrived at Montalvo’s Lucas Artists Residency Program on one of those soft days in March after the big rains. Seven deer grazed just off the road as…

It’s spring again! As Montalvo Arts Center’s Culinary Artist, I have the pleasure of cooking meals for the other creative thinkers, dancers, composers, and visual artists who work and live alongside me here at the Lucas Artists Program. My inspiration comes from Montalvo’s grounds where I look for edible plants and mushrooms to use in our daily meals. Vibrant food is my muse, as are the creative folk I am surrounded by every day. ABOVE: Culinary Artist Andrea Blum. Photo by Kija Lucas. In addition to my individual practice as a culinary artist, I also often find myself collaborating with…

Above: We Players' Maria Leigh as Juliet and Mohammad Shehata as Romeo. Photo by Tina Case. For the month of May 2016, the Lucas Artists Residency Program (LAP) turned the eleven artist studios on our orchard site over to the We Players, a remarkable site-specific theater company, as they developed a new production of Romeo and Juliet that will be performed throughout the Montalvo grounds in October. Founded 16 years ago by Artistic Director Ava Roy, the We Players adapts classic pieces of theater for historic places and keeps audiences on their toes as their performances wend their way through these…

By Lori Wood, Lucas Artists Residency Manager   Artists Monica Sok, Danez Smith, Kalisolaite 'Uhila, David Benoit, Dario Robleto, Kio Griffith, and Yasuhiro Usui in Henry Threadgill's studio. After dinner this week, the LAP artists visited jazz great Henry Threadgill’s studio, where Threadgill spoke in his musical cadences about his creative process.     Holding a sheet of arcane notations of notes and intervals, Threadgill explained his exploration of five-part rhythm. Poets, visual artists, and other musicians leaned in. He demonstrated with dance steps: Two long steps, two short, one long, and invited poet Monica Sok to try it next.…

By Lori Wood, Lucas Artists Residency Manager Above: Entering the studio of LAP Fellow Yasuhiro Usui. When the Lucas Artists Fellows entered Yasuhiro Usui’s LAP composer’s studio, they were confronted by a massive white sail strung tightly across the large studio in a diagonal. ​Floor pillows welcomed the artists to settle in and explore sound. Poets Monica Sok and Danez Smith took up pillows to the left, forming the poetry zone. Tongan visual artist Kalisolaite 'Uhila stretched out prone to the right. Musicians David Benoit and Henry Threadgill took seats, Threadgill next to a small table with its top covered with…