The Downey Master Chorale proudly presents it’s 3rd annual Christmas Concert, “Timeless Christmas,” on Sunday December 6th at 2PM. Hosted by the Cornerstone Christian Worship Center, located at 9001 Paramount Blvd in Downey, next to the 5 freeway.
Spanning 450 years of music, the group has planned something for everybody in its Advent/Christmas afternoon presentation. Cornerstone has generously provided a home for the all-city chorus to rehearse and perform this season. They will also provide childcare for concert-goers, kids can enjoy fun activities during the first half of the concert, then join their families for the second half.
Admission is $15 or $12.50 for students and seniors. Reception to follow, stay afterward to meet the singers and music director Margaret Zeleny.
For more information email mailto:info@downeymasterchorale.org or call (310) 941-3042 or (562) 927-1436. For singers interested in joining the group, auditions and interviews are ongoing.
Ballet Folklorico Mixteco Presents: 7o Festival Folklorico Sin Fronteras Groupo Folklorico Chinquina Palafox, directly from Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, and 22 Performing groups. Tickets are $20.
Showtimes: Saturday, Nov 21 – 1 pm, 7 pm
Sunday, Nov 22 – 1 pm, 6 pm
For the fourth year in a row, Poetry Matters invites the public to Downey to celebrate Lummox’s annual anthology of the best in contemporary poetry. The editor and poet known as Raindog and his crew of poets will be reading at Stay Gallery on Thursday, Nov. 19. Featuring an attractive artwork cover, the 200 plus page Lummox #4 showcases poems, articles and interviews from across the country and around the world.
If you have favorite poets from the small presses, chances are they’re in this book. Open microphone for local poets starts at 7:30 pm, after which Lummox #4 poets, many of them from Downey, will read their poems.
Collectible Lummox-related merchandise will be available for sale.
The event marks the beginning of the fifth year of poetry evenings in Downey for Poetry Matters, curated by Lorine Parks.
We are very excited to be hosting a new huge group art show in the lobby of the Downey Theatre, about Dance and Movement. Steve Clay is the featured artist, with 25 others on display curated by DAC’s Liz Moran. The Downey Symphony concert begins at 8PM Saturday October 24th at the Downey Theatre, 8435 Firestone Blvd, but the doors open for the art show at 6:30PM.
The other exciting part of the show is the huge artwork on-stage created by abstract painter Roy Anthony Shabla. Shabla, a Downey native, created this 36-foot wide work of art Water Music in two pieces, which will be displayed on the side-stages during the concert. The Downey Symphony will perform “Swan Lake” with ballet dancers from the Luminario Ballet of Los Angeles.
Roy Anthony Shabla in front of one half of his new work “Water Music”
The Downey Patriot published a great article summarizing the artists involved, so follow the link below to read more about this event:
Stay Gallery has invited the local artist (and DAC board member) Don Lamkin to display his collection of works in celebration of their 3rd anniversary. The opening reception will be held on Friday, October 23rd at 7PM, and will include live music, food and drink. Stay Gallery is located at 11140 Downey Ave, north of Firestone Blvd.
Don Lamkin was one of the earliest arts advocates to jump into Downey’s recent resurgence of arts and culture. In 2010, both Downey Art Vibe and the Downey Arts Coalition began ramping up efforts to bring new events and activities for artists and art lovers in the city. As a founding board member of the Downey Arts Coalition, Don Lamkin spear-headed the creation of the monthly art show “Art on the Vine” that ran for 18th months at the now-shuttered Mari’s Wine Bar on Firestone Blvd. It was this experiment that would lead Lamkin on an unexpected journey as an accidental artist in the town he grew up in.
Lamkin’s work at the first Art on the Vine
DAC’s “Art on the Vine” began in 2011, and was the only regularly scheduled rotating art exhibit in the city, since the Downey Museum of Art closed its doors. On it’s debut opening, Lamkin and co-curators Carolina Del Toro, Jorge Del Toro and Claudia Hernandez displayed their own works of art to kick off the series. The team of curators, which included Pat Gil as well, encouraged Lamkin to pull out some paintings that he had done years before. Lamkin more closely identified with the 70’s Downey music scene made popular by his friends Phil and Dave Alvin. He had mostly forgotten about the paintings that he did when he was younger, which featured illustrated portraits of blues musicians painted on found wooden objects. At the opening, the pieces were an immediate hit, though not offered for sale.
Lamkin collects raffle tickets at the 2012 Street Faire
At the Downey Street Faire the next spring, Lamkin came up with a plan to raise money to help the Downey Museum of Art reorganize itself. He created an image he called “Downey Doodle-icious,” a montage of current and historical landmarks and unique things about Downey, drawn in a cartoon style. He had specially printed 10 first-run originals for sale, and raffled off one of them to a lucky winner at the Street Faire. The other prints sold out immediately, causing Lamkin to run a 2nd-run of prints for sale to the public. The image hit social networking sites, and quickly became a must-have for both current residents, as well as former residents of Downey now scattered throughout the world. Prints of the piece showed up on the wall of businesses across the city.
Lamkin at a Stay Gallery field trip
Lamkin was also an advisor and early advocate for the organization behind Stay Gallery, a project put together by Valentin Flores, Gabriel Enamorado and Joe Manacmul. Along with helping them get their space set up, his “Downey Doodle-icious” piece was prominently featured in many student programs put together by the gallery. They used the image as inspiration for students to tell their own story about Downey and explore their artistic side. Lamkin was a frequent contributor to these visits from various Downey schools. To read more about that side of his story, visit the Stay Gallery journal.
One of the 10 original owners, then Downey Mayor Mario Guerra, hatched a plan to bring “Downey Doodle-icious” to downtown Downey in the form of a large mural, welcoming visitors to the flavors that make our city special.
Mario Guerra adds his piece to the mural
The mural was begun at the end of 2014 and dedicated in February, 2015. That mural then spawned plans for a second mural in neighboring city South Gate, where Lamkin was commissioned to create a similar work celebrating the Hollydale area. That mural is scheduled to be painted later this year.
Downey Arts Coalition is proud and thankful for Don’s contributions to our work, and the impact he’s had on this community. The exhibit runs October 23 to October 31st.
Frank Kearns was raised in New England. He has been transformed into a Southern Californian by time in Venice, years at the Bethlehem Steel mill in Vernon, and a long career in the aerospace industry. “Circling Venice,” his first poetry collection, was published by Tebot Bach in 2013. He lives and writes with his wife Carol in Downey, California.
POETRY MATTERS is a Poetry reading series presented by the Downey Arts Coalition in conjunction with the Downey Art Vibe. It is held on the third Thursday of every month.
Stay Gallery, located at 11140 Downey Ave in Downey.
Downey Arts Coalition is proud to present a free community event, with the opening of our new group art show at the Downey Civic Theater, themed “Dance and Movement,” as well as a screening of the upcoming documentary film “Landfill Harmonic.” The theater opens at 2PM, with the screening beginning at 3PM.
To support the event DAC applied and was accepted into the City of Downey’s financial aid program for use of the Downey Civic Theater, which reduces rental fees to make it more affordable for non-profit groups to hold events there.
We are excited to bring, for free, a presentation of the new documentary film Landfill-harmonic, a co-presentation with the GlennFest Film Festival, which is running right now in downtown Downey. The film is described at its website as follows:
Landfill harmonic follows the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura, a paraguayan musical youth group of kids that live next to one of South America’s largest landfills. This unlikely orchestra plays music from instruments made entirely out of garbage. When their story goes viral, the orchestra is catapulted into the global spotlight. With the guidance of their music director, they must navigate this new world of arenas and sold out concerts. However, when a natural disaster devastates their community, the orchestra provides a source of hope for the town. The film is a testament to the transformative power of music and the resilience of the human spirit.
GlennFest Film Festival will return to Downey once again in late September. The special interest films range from a labor documentary to award-winning Japanese anime.
The first screening, on Sept. 26, will be a special morning screening for kids and young adults with special needs. Opening night is Sept. 30 with Glassland, and the festival closes Oct. 8 with Butterflies of Bill Baker. The Krikorian Theatre, The Epic Lounge, and the Downey Civic Theatre will all host screenings. To reserve a seat for a screening, please visit the GlennFest RSVP page.
Glenn Stephens, the founder, decided to bring hard-to-access independent films to Downey. He recognized that residents in the area should have access to this type of cinema, and the growing Downey Arts movement proved the interest would be met. This year marks the fourth year of GlennFest.
A full schedule with films, locations, and dates/times can be found in the above image. For additional information, please visit the GlennFest website, GlennFest Facbeook, or GlennFest Twitter.
This edition of POETRY MATTERS – Thursday September 17th at STAY GALLERY – will welcome the return of poet Judith Pacht. Judith first featured at Poetry Matters four years ago when the event was held in its original location at Mari’s Wine Bar.
Lyrical and public, personal and political, Judith’s poetry moves from daily reflections to incisive examinations of herself and the people around here. A piece of gym equipment “touches your hard-to-reach center / subdues the imbalance that rises / from your belly some days.” Her sketches of life can be chilling. “We assemble lives, listen to the high wind scrub the sky, / hear low rumblers circle black around / Dead calm. The center swollen. Knuckles on a rag.”
Her 2010 collection Summer Hunger (Tebot Bach) won the 2011 PEN Southwest Book Award for poetry. Earlier poetry collections include User’s Guide (Finishing Line Press), St. Louis Suite (Finishing Line Press), and Falcon (Conflux Press). A two-time Pushcart nominee, her work includes poems published in Cider Press Review, Phoebe, Ploughshares and Runes as well as in numerous anthologies. She lives in Los Angeles
Poetry Matters is held at Stay Gallery, located at 11140 Downey Ave in Downey. The doors will open at 7 p.m., with the open mike beginning at 7:30 p.m.
One of Downey’s long-time artists and teachers, Elsa Van Leuven, will demonstrate for the Paramount Traditional Artists Guild on September 12th. The public is welcome. The demonstration begins at 2PM at Progress Park Plaza in Paramount, at 15530 Downey Ave.
Elsa Van Leuven
Born in Oklahoma, moving to California in her mid-teens. Her artistic talents first developed along the musical line, majoring in Music at Los Angeles City College, singing with the Hollywood Bowl Chorus and appearing as soloist with the Los Angeles Opera and Downey Symphony Orchestra. She became intensely interested in oil paintings and began her studies with Nona Taylor plus taking workshops under such well-known artists as Joyce Pike, Don Foster, Gilee Barton, Sandy Bergeron, Tom Anderson and Hal Reed. Her paintings hang throughout the U.S., Canada, and England and more locally have hung in Flavia Gallery, Huntington Beach, Virginia’s Gift Shop at Knott’s Berry Farm, Old Town Gallery, Seal Beach and in Solvang and Palm Springs. Also at Lindsey Gallery, S.R. Brennan, Moreton Gallery, Haggenmaker Gallery, Lu Martin Gallery, Anenberg Gallery in various locations here in California. More recently she has enjoyed working in an impressionistic style of the Romantic period. These works convey a sense of tranquility and beauty of times past.
The Downey Arts Coalition is proud to have presented her work as part of our art shows at the Downey Civic Theater.
