AprilOsorno

October marks Long Beach Arts Month, and the Long Beach Post has partnered with the Arts Council for Long Beach to celebrate the image makers, the painters, the dancers, the designers, the musicians, and the countless other artists who make our city vibrant and cultured. Our homepage will feature an artist’s own unique interpretation of Long Beach daily, so make sure to check back every weekday to discover or rediscover a local talent.

Between pouring drinks for cash and cramming for midterms, Cal State Long Beach studio art student April Osorno finds the time to create art that, at least for her, acts as a form of therapy. In fact, the young artist wants to eventually attend graduate school with a focus in art therapy so that “people can discover and experience this outlet like I did.”

When she moved to Long Beach, like many, she discovered a place that was warm both metaphorically and physically. She had, in her words, found “her people… artsy, progressive, laid back and culturally eclectic.”

Her interpretation of Long Beach—using a Slapsie-like retro font filled with local icons, from the almost-destroyed-by-Dunkin’-Donuts donut sculpture to the painting found behind the Masons building on Pine in Downtown—is one in which she wanted people to instantly recognize. Instead of searching for a meaning, there is immediate comfort in the known.

“I wanted to do a project that incorporated imagery that people from here would recognize,” Osorno said. “I tried staying away from touristy locations and instead wanted to capture little moments of the city I now call home.”