A fixture on the Coachella Valley art scene, Adam Enrique Rodriguez is known for his street art — he created murals at Desert Trip, Rhythm Wine and Brews, and Joshua Tree Music Festival — and his followers on social media know he’s equally adept at painting landscapes as well as scathing political caricatures. When COVID-19 […]
Watercolor Painting Earns Adam Enrique Rodriguez Grant to ‘Keep Art Alive’ Read More »
A year ago, Jeff Frost was the toast of the desert. His time-lapse film California on Fire had screened at Palm Springs Art Museum, and he was lining up additional dates at other museums in Southern Californian and beyond. A trained firefighter, the artist spent five years documenting 70 fires, amassing 350,000 photographs and some […]
Jeff Frost’s ‘Ghosts of the Future’ Wins CDAC Grant to ‘Keep Art Alive’ Read More »
In March, artist Deanna Fainelli relocated her studio from downtown Indio to a makeshift space in the gardening shed at her home in Palm Desert. “With limited supplies, I was forced to rethink my creative process,” she says. “Under normal circumstances, my work focused on urban scenes handprinted over abstract mixed-media surfaces. I decided this […]
Deanna Fainelli’s ‘Instagood’ Wins Grant to ‘Keep Art Alive’ Read More »
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, couples are seeing a lot more of each other, singles are video dating, seniors are learning to communicate on Facetime and Zoom … and the Desert Ensemble Theatre Company (DETC) is turning it all into “Sheltering Stories,” an hourlong, web-based show of monologues, dialogues, and song. Written by company members and […]
DETC’s ‘Sheltering Stories’ Wins Grant to ‘Keep Art Alive’ Read More »
Some folks think of watercolor as a sketching medium, a pursuit to lay down plans for something bigger and, presumably, better. But nothing competes with its intimacy and, to the artist, its immediacy. Watercolor, in fact, is a medium for masters. It allows no time to hesitate; the artist must anticipate and execute every stroke, […]
COVID Watercolor Wins Artist and Educator Mindy McEachran a Grant to ‘Keep Art Alive’ Read More »
The things 5-year-old Everest will say, and sing, while sheltered in place — missing school, where he should be rehearsing songs for his kindergarten graduation — never fail make his mother, writer Maggie Downs, think, laugh, cry, or wonder if this is really happening. Any of it. Like when, in the middle of a pandemic, […]
Writer Maggie Downs Wins CDAC Grant to ‘Keep Art Alive’ Read More »
Drawing on his love for Japanese culture, La Quinta-based artist Anthony Tran went to work on a new watercolor, Keep Fighting, an 11-by-14-inch painting on paperboard depicting, in a kaleidoscope of colors, a samurai — masked as a sign of the COVID-19 times — with his sword held high, ready to come down on anything […]
Anthony Tran Paints, Sings, Wins Grant to ‘Keep Art Alive’ Read More »
How does self-quarantine look for New York Times bestselling author Tod Goldberg? His new essay “The Outside In,” which won a $500 grant from the California Desert Arts Council (CDAC) to “keep art alive,” brings you into his stir craziness. “’The Outside In’ [below] is a piece of narrative nonfiction which examines this strange new […]
Tod Goldberg’s Essay on Sheltering in Place Wins CDAC Grant Read More »
“We see a lot of photographs and video clips, and hear lots of talk about curves and graphs,” artist Tone Rubio says of news reports about the COVID-19 pandemic. “My main focus is to show the emotion that is hidden behind masks, goggles, and face shields. There is lots of talk about heroes, and rightfully […]
Tone Rubio’s ‘Frontline’ Drawings Win CDAC Grant to ‘Keep Art Alive’ Read More »
For most of his life to express his thoughts and feelings, Emmy Award-winning journalist-turned-artist and gallerist Ricardo Vela picked up a camera. But when those emotions deepened, he needed something more physical: the expressive gesture of a paintbrush on canvas. On this surface, he was free to apply bold colors to represent his raw emotions. […]
Ricardo Vela’s Expressionist Paintings Win Grant to ‘Keep Art Alive’ Read More »
