{"id":5683,"date":"2009-11-06T11:39:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-06T11:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/live-painting-at-bixby-knolls-first-fridays\/"},"modified":"2009-11-06T11:39:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-06T11:39:00","slug":"live-painting-at-bixby-knolls-first-fridays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/live-painting-at-bixby-knolls-first-fridays","title":{"rendered":"Live Painting At Bixby Knolls’ First Fridays"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Local artist John C Culqui<\/a> has been busy creating public art in a number of Long Beach neighborhoods, and he’s doing some live painting during tonight’s Bixby Knolls’ First Fridays<\/a> event, at The Factory<\/a>. He took a few moments to talk about creating public art, and ‘performance’ painting. <\/p>\n

Sander<\/strong>: I understand that you’ve been busy in the Bixby Knolls area. You completed some signal boxes, I believe. Can you tell me how that came about, and what the process was like? <\/em><\/p>\n

John<\/strong>: A little over a year ago I was approached by the Long Beach Redevelopment Agency<\/a> to present a proposal for one box on the west side PCH and Harbor. I was asked to also to submit design work [from] which they, in turn, picked a surf design. They also liked a design featuring an oil rig robot that I titled Oil Dino, so the one turned into two. With these two in place I was approched by Neighborhood Services to design somthing for a box up in Bixby Knolls. I knew Blair had some ideas so he sent me photos of Welch’s and I went from there, adding my own style. Since then, the RDA ask me to design four more along the Atlanitic corridor, and I submitted designs for Carson which were completed two weeks ago. Burlinghall will be next, and it will feature the Rancho Los Cerritos. <\/p>\n

Sander<\/strong>: In the process of developing designs, and painting the boxes, did you have a chance to speak with nearby residents and business owners? Was the community involved at all? <\/em><\/p>\n

John<\/strong>: No, but I don’t think was a problem. The RDA reviews the design concepts to make sure that I’m not crossing any lines. These boxes, to me and I’m sure to the other artist working on them, isn’t a place for political or religious views. For me, it’s about bringing art to the community that people will enjoy and perhaps be inspired to visit a gallery, or a museum. The RDA has been great to me. They have given me an awesome opportunity and, with all due respect to getting the community involved, often times it slows things down. You start to get too many opinions and not only does the art suffer, but the original concept of the City giving somthing to the people is lost. <\/p>\n

Sander<\/strong>: So, when all is said and done, do you think people feel good about what you’ve done?
<\/em>
John<\/strong>: I would like to think so. Everytime I have been out painting on the West side, and in Bixby Knolls, I get visitors showing thier support and intrest. I’ll get the honk with “looks awesome” or “great work” so, all in all, I think people feel good about it. The ideas, the colors, and the style are very organic and I think people like that about my art. <\/p>\n

Sander<\/strong>: Also, this Friday, you’re participating in an art event. Can you tell me about that?
<\/em>
John<\/strong>: When I was painting the box on Atlantic and Carson I met Natalie, one of the owners of The Factory. She saw the art going on and was liking it. The following week she phoned me and said that the saw the completed box and was digging it and wanted to know if I would do a live painting event for the next First Fridays up in Bixby Knolls. I told her that I would, and that it would be really cool if the piece that I worked on that evening was raffled off. So I believe that is the plan. This past summer I did a live painting event at DDR Projects<\/a> Contemporary Art Gallery on Broadway and, a few weeks ago, I was part of the Long Beach Museum of Art<\/a>‘s “After Dark” event where I did some live drawing. That piece was raffled off, so i am very excited about friday. <\/p>\n

Sander<\/strong>: For most people who don’t paint, it seems like a solitary process without much of a ‘performance’ aspect to it. Why has live painting become so popular?
<\/em>
John<\/strong>: I think people viewing the live painting event get a chance to not only witness the process of the artist, but also to get a glimpse of someone’s soul. I think it gives them a sense of understanding. If you have ever been in a gallery or art museum, you look at the art and, unless you have studied it, you really know nothing about what it means, or the process. I think we want to know that, and live painting allows for some of those questions to be answered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John C Culqui, fresh from completing several public art projects around town, is doing live painting at The Factory as part of Bixby Knolls’ monthly First Fridays event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":70219,"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":[6],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hi-lo","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5683","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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5683"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5683"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}