I recently collaborated with Danielle Sommer on an interactive art project.

What I love most about this piece is the experience of spending time with a new friend. Through art-making I was able to hear and learn more about Danielle’s life and perspective. We met almost every day, in the hot hot heat, and painted or carved or glued or assembled or wrote and recorded our stories- and it was just so lovely.

It’s amazing how the portrait changes, the longer we sit with someone.

So many casual yet profound parts of lives were shared in the midst of manual labor or while having a beer after all the labor is sorta done. This is the best way to get to know one another. Whether it’s in the art or around the art.

I’m happy that our work will be up in this group show– with a slew of amazing people– and I’m thankful we are now better buds. Details below.

Intermittent Dialogues

Rebecca Bennett Duke, Michael Lewis Dodge, Roberta Gentry, Melissa Huddleston, Chris Miller, Stacy Elaine Dacheux and Danielle Sommer, and Tyler Waxman

Opening reception: Sunday March 15^th  4-7 pm.
The exhibition runs until April 5^th.

Monte Vista Projects is pleased to present Intermittent Dialogues. This group exhibition featuring the work of current Monte Vista members (and their collaborators).Since 2007, over 20 members have contributed their blood, sweat, and tears to make Monte Vista Projects what it is: soliciting proposals, organizing shows, throwing our infamous annual holiday raffle, participating in group exhibitions, or just having dinner. Part of working collaboratively to program a space means discovering common interests, which in the past have included mysticism, outer space, games, sense of community, and more. Intermittent Dialogues showcases the commonalities and differences between Monte Vista’s newest group of members.

Upon our first group meeting, we decided that we should get to know each other by sharing our work. We quickly realized that there are similar themes between us, mostly in groups of two or three. Rebecca Bennett Duke, Melissa Huddleston, and Danielle Sommer all involve some form of interactivity in their work. Melissa and Danielle (with collaborator Stacy Elaine Dacheux) create intriguing books as part of their art practice while Rebecca creates push button light boxes. Michael Dodge’s textural grid paintings and Roberta Gentry’s crystal-like forms look toward design and geometry. Lastly, Chris Miller and Tyler Waxman manifest interest in mark making, obsessively covering the surfaces of their works with small marks that accumulate to make a larger matrix of forms.

It is an unspoken truth that once you are a Monte Vista member, you are always a Monte Vista member. Like a prestigious graduate program, we find ways to include past and present members in the activities that Monte Vista Projects hosts. This exhibition welcomes our newest set of members and reveals the threads between them.

Monte Vista Projects is locate at 5442 Monte Vista St. Los Angeles, CA  90042
Gallery hours are Sat and Sun 12-5 p.m or by appointment.