Community Creates! Re-Opens the Palo Alto Art Center

The inaugural exhibition of the newly transformed Palo Alto Art Center will be Community
Creates!, which partners eight contemporary artists with community members to create
installation projects in the new gallery space. This exhibition presents compelling
contemporary installations in a wide variety of media that includes community participation. Paz de la Calzada

Paz de la Calzada. Vertical Garden. Fabric, wire, glue and charcoal.

Paz de la Calzada. Vertical Garden. Detail of the installation.

The work I created for this exhibition is titled "Vertical Garden". It consists in hand made fern leaves that seem to grow in the walls of the Palo Alto Art Center. I worked with members of Palo Alto community to create the fern leaves with scraps of fabrics and clothes donated by the public.
The exhibition, that opened last October 6th, will be open until April 2013.

Paz de la Calzada. Creating fern leaves with the community the day of the Opening

Where Art Originates
Panel Discussion Series
in Conjunction with COMMUNITY CREATES!

Palo Alto Art Center and Djerassi resident Artist Program

MUTUAL GIFTS: SAYING YES TO TRUST
Wednesday November 14th, 7pm

IS THE MEDIUM THE MESSAGE?
Wednesday January 16th, 7pm
 
REPRESENTING COMMUNITY
Friday April 12, 7pm

Palo Alto Art Center
1313 Newell Road
Palo Alto, CA 94303

Taxes Pay For What? - An Urban Action

Another successful day for our Daily Slots. Sunday April 8th 11 am in the morning. I go to the laundromat across the street from my house to change a 10 dollars bill in quarters. When I get to City Hall plaza Eliza is already there, by one of the newspaper stands. She is organizing the letters by words so that it will be easier for us to place them in the newspaper stands. We've done this many times but there is always excitement. It's Farmer's Market day so a lot of people walk around with their veggies. We start opening the stands and placing our letters inside. Some people stop to watch us, a few of them take photos of the action. They can read TAXES PAY FOR WHAT?

Daily Slots. Corner of Van Ness and Mcallister, San Francisco

Daily Slots is an ongoing collaboration project between Paz de la Calzada and Eliza Barrios. It started in 2010 when after observing the obsolete newspaper stands around the city we decided to reuse them by sending bi-weekly messages.

Taxes  Pay for What?- An urban Intervention by San Francisco City Hall

From Djerassi to Market or Vice-versa

I am enjoying another residency at Djerassi Resident Artist Program in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I am so grateful and happy to be back to what it was my first home in California. However this year my stay feels more like an spiritual retirement, since the last two years have been very busy working in dialogue with the City of San Francisco, around Mid Market and the Tenderloin, and interacting with its people.  This feels like a nice break to put things together.

Two years ago I collaborated with artist and friend Eliza Barrios (www.elizabarrios.com) in a project called Daily Slots. During a month we used the Newspaper's stands from the Clearchannel company to deliver messages, raise questions and engage with the people. Very early in the morning we would replace the front newspaper with printed letters that would form words and sentences. "Convenience is the enemy", "Credito de hoy, hambre de manana", "Capitalism is over if you want it!" where some of the titles that San Franciscans would find instead of the usual newspaper cover.

Convenience is The Enemy. DAILY SLOTS. July 2010

Central Market Street and the Tenderloin were also the source of inspiration for another project called Tenderloin Dreamscapes.  It started with a few animations using charcoal to playfully change the urban landscape.

This Tenderloin Dreamscapes series took me to Mid market where I worked for a few weeks in a large charcoal drawing intervention covering partially the facade of the old Strand Theater.

An now back to my studio in the woods in the Santa Cruz Mountains I continue working in a project that address the way we perceive the urban landscape.

The city is a territory full of stories that inspire my art practice. When I walk or bike in the city I notice a very complex web of connections, including my own connection with the urban landscape and its inhabitants. All these chaotic relationships influence the way I look at the world, at our city, the way I hear its stories and how I notice its people.

Urban Decoration Project. Tenderloin District

Here in the woods I am working on how to integrate certain natural organic forms into the urban furniture, walls, floors or any other architectural elements. San Francisco inspire me to act as a decorator, as a co-creator of a story that takes place in between what I see and what I envision.

Urban Decoration Project. Market and 7th