![\"IMG](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/IMG_2296.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Photo: Collage by Bouigie Ass Brookiki, a featured artist for “Works in Progress.” Courtesy of Heather Coates.<\/em><\/p>\n Last month at Music Tastes Good headquarters in downtown Long Beach, breast milk watercolors and a 3D figurine of a pregnant woman were among the talking points for a group of artists. The theme was \u201cBeginnings” \u2014aptly so.<\/p>\n Co-presented by Music Tastes Good, Art Exchange and Culture Connection, the evening marked the inaugural event for \u201cWorks in Progress,\u201d a new gathering for artists across various disciplines in Long Beach threaded together by a different theme every month.<\/p>\n The idea stemmed from Long Beach native Heather Coates, an interdisciplinary artist who felt a need to create a low-pressure environment for creatives such as herself. She hosted a similar gathering in her apartment in Chicago, where she went to school for community art and became involved in various garage theater projects and art collectives. Upon returning home last February, she said she met people in all walks of life who shared a desire to form a low-key creative community that met consistently.<\/p>\n \u201cMy life source is being around like-minded creative people, so I tend to try to orient my life around creating those environments for myself and other people,\u201d Coates said.<\/p>\n She explained she wanted to test out this idea on a bigger community level here in her hometown and found ardent support in MTG, Art Exchange and Culture Connection, she said. The group landed on the title \u201cWorks in Progress\u201d as a placeholder name, but it stuck.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just made sense to the whole mindset of simplicity for the project,\u201d Coates explained. \u201cThat\u2019s what this is meant to be\u2014a space for works in progress. Not an exhibition, not a \u2018show\u2019 necessarily, but something you can just bring your vulnerable work to.”<\/p>\n This month\u2019s theme surrounds the concept of \u201cDreams\u201d\u2014what is a dream? Does one need to be asleep in order to dream? Are we living in a collective dream?<\/p>\n This upcoming event\u2014on Wednesday, Feb. 24\u2014will have a more salon-like approach, with the lineup so far including spoken word, music and reading from a novel. It will be hosted by Art Exchange\u2019s Niko Galvez in her personal courtyard, complete with a bonfire and lights.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ultimate hope for it is that it will be a place for genuine and consistent monthly art sharing, collaboration and community,\u201d Coates explained. \u201cThere are lots of places where musicians can go to open mics, or even comedians, but there are rare spaces where poets, puppeteers, playwrights, comedians, painters, sculptors and trapeze artists can all be in the same space and inform each other in an active and collaborative way.”<\/p>\n “The secret scheme-y hope is that the lines of \u2018what is art\u2019 is blurred all together and the good people of Long Beach, whether they consider themselves artists, are tricked into making all types of goodness on a regular basis,” she concluded.\u00a0<\/p>\n The next “Works in Progress” takes place 7:30PM Wednesday, February 24, at 539 East Third Street Long Beach. Anyone interested in presenting a piece of work is encouraged to contact Heather at coates.m.heather@gmail.com.<\/a> For more information, visit https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/events\/1549290802064909\/<\/a>.<\/a><\/p>\n This story was updated on 02\/22\/16 AT 1:31PM with additional information from Coates.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last month at Music Tastes Good headquarters in downtown Long Beach, breast milk watercolors and a 3D figurine of a pregnant woman were among the talking points for a group of artists. Co-presented by Music Tastes Good, Art Exchange and Culture Connection, the evening marked the inaugural event for \u201cWorks in Progress,\u201d a new gathering for artists across various disciplines in Long Beach threaded together by a different theme every month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":67417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[938],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","tag-on-the-beat","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/163"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2047"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=2047"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}