Opening Reception: The Happiness You Deserve at Adams Square Park

Saturday, August 28th, 2021 from 2-4 pm. Hosted by Glendale’s Adams Hill Neighborhood Association and the City of Glendale Arts and Culture. Free and open to the public, this event celebrates the artist Renae Barnard and her new site-specific installation, the Happiness You Deserve. The reception will be held outdoors at Adams Square Mini Park, 1020 E Palmer Ave, Glendale, CA 91204.

Photos by Renae Barnard

Installation View: The Happiness You Deserve, inside Adams Square Park’s Historic Gas Station Building.

Detail of paper twisted around bamboo poles collected from the artist’s garden.

Artist Renae Barnard’s installation, The Happiness You Deserve, will be on display at the Adams Square Mini Park Gas Station from August 23 – October 1, 2021. “The Happiness You Deserve" is a temporary, fiber-based installation considering the unique location of this historic structure: a 1936 Streamline Moderne Gas Station that exists in a small and unexpectedly green, nature-abundant park within the city. Renae is known for her fiber-based work using upcycled and found materials to explore the network of interactions between environment, perception, and well-being. For this project, she is considering the ways in which the sculpture might engage with the space, contemplating illumination in the evening hours to draw continuous attention to the nature-rich site.

Detail View: From inside the gas station, viewing the artwork and the garden.

Through the process of creating the work, Renae will be working through ideas surrounding the connection of well-being and nature. The mission of the Glendale Arts and Culture Commission is to enrich the human experience, reinforce Glendale’s identity and civic pride through arts and culture, and to recognize the importance of arts to our quality of life and to the local economy. This is accomplished by consciously integrating arts and culture into the daily life of the people of Glendale through urban design, planning, economic development, and education.

Detail View: Salvaged bamboo poles, recycled newsprint, upcycled tracing paper and found packing paper are combined in the site specific sculpture, The Happiness You Deserve.

Detail View: Wire fasteners safely secure the sculpture to a simple structure inside the ceiling of the historic building.

Renae Barnard is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Los Angeles. Barnard received her Master of Fine Arts from Claremont Graduate University and her BA from California State University, Los Angeles. She has recently completed projects in cooperation with the National Immigration Law Center and the City of Santa Monica Department of Cultural Affairs. She is a recipient of the Sue Arlen Walker and Harvey M. Parker Memorial Fellowship, the Armory Center for the Arts Teaching Artist Fellowship, The Ahmanson Annual Fellowship, Lincoln Fellowship Award, and Christopher Street West Art and Culture Grant.

###

About Glendale Library, Arts & Culture Founded in 1907, the Glendale Library, Arts & Culture Department (GLAC) includes six neighborhood libraries as well as the Brand Library & Art Center, a regional visual arts and music library and performance venue housed in the historic 1904 mansion of Glendale pioneer Leslie C. Brand, and the Central Library, a 93,000 square foot center for individuals and groups to convene, collaborate and create. Now on the web at www.eGlendaleLAC.org, GLAC also serves as the chief liaison to the Glendale Arts and Culture Commission which works to continually transform Glendale into an ever-evolving arts and culture destination. For more information contact Library, Arts & Culture at 818-548-2021 or via email at LibraryInfo@glendaleca.gov.

###

About the City of Glendale & its Arts and Culture Commission Known as the “Jewel City,” Glendale is the fourth largest city of Los Angeles County. With a population of more than 200,000, Glendale is a thriving cosmopolitan city that is rich in history, culturally diverse, and offers nearly 50 public parks, and easy access to a municipal airport. It is home to a vibrant business community, with major companies in healthcare, entertainment, manufacturing, retail, and banking. Its Arts and Culture Commission administers a developer-funded program which is working to transform Glendale into an arts and culture destination for the Southern California region. The mission of the Glendale Arts and Culture Commission is to enrich the human experience, reinforce Glendale’s identity and civic pride through arts and culture, and to recognize the importance of arts to our quality of life and to the local economy. This is accomplished by consciously integrating arts and culture into the daily life of the people of Glendale through urban design, planning, economic development, and education. For more information about the Glendale Arts and Culture Commission see the website: https://www.glendaleartsandculture.org/ @myglendaleLAC #myglendaleLAC www.eGlendaleLAC.org

WTP Central Studio Tour: Renae Barnard

Studio Tour: Renae Barnard

The Studio Tour series offers an inside peek into the work environments of WTP artists, as well as insight into their creative process within these resonate spaces.

By Jennifer Nelson, WTP Feature Writer

Renae Barnard is recognized by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) as a Leadership in Energy Accredited Professional (LEED AP) and by the International Institute for Bau-biologie® & Ecology as a Building Biologie Practitioner. She has recently completed projects in cooperation with the National Immigration Law Center and the City of Santa Monica Department of Cultural Affairs. She is a recipient of the Sue Arlen Walker and Harvey M. Parker Memorial Fellowship, the Armory Center for the Arts Teaching Artist Fellowship, The Ahmanson Annual Fellowship, Lincoln Fellowship Award, and Christopher Street West Art and Culture Grant.

For Renae Barnard, her studio is on the go. She weaves in her lap; bowls of salt mixture are evaporating on her front porch; she may rent out temporary spaces around Los Angeles as her projects require. For her most recent public work, at Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, California, she shared space with other artists in a large commercial building in Boyle Heights. “Sharing space with other artists on a short-term basis allows me the access to equipment I may need,” she says, “like a spray room, wood shop, or kiln without the financial burden of permanent overhead.”

Nevertheless, she faces challenges when sharing space, the main one in Los Angeles, not having a parking space. This meant that Barnard had to haul sculpture materials down a sidewalk to a metered parking space. “It’s not always the most convenient, but it’s manageable,” she says.

For two years, her studio was a tiny white box in Claremont, a city thirty miles east of Los Angeles, where she kept weaving and sewing materials, as well as tripods for her photography. Many of the materials were incorporated into works such as “Displaced Tinder,” a sculpture of twisted medical exam paper wound around school chairs.

With time, she has realized form through repetitive movements like weaving, sewing, and twisting motions. Now she is experimenting with other modes of accumulating form, including a series of fiber sculptures of cotton batting, upholstery foam, and polyester fiberfill scraps discarded by furniture manufacturers. These materials are supplemented with water-based paints by Dunn Edwards, salt, water-based glues, and vinegar. “I’m interested in the ways in which basic chemistry might create form beyond those achievable with my hands,” says Barnard.

To work, Barnard requires silence and solitude. She doesn’t want music, visitors, or lingering clutter. Her process is generally exploratory, allowing room for discovery along the path and at the finish. There’s an undercurrent of chaos that she’s always wrestling with. The outcome is not a literal display of the problem, nor is it offering a solution. It is a record of the thought process and the struggle: “I’m interested in examining our situations and hopefully moving beyond the place where we stand now.”

See Renae Barnard’s work in 

Vol. VI #4

. 

Copyright 2018 Woven Tale Press LLC. All Rights Reserved.

"Paper is Part of the Picture" at The Anderson Gallery

Paper is Part of the Picture

Posted on January 25, 2018

 by theandersongallery

Join us on Friday, Feb. 2, from 5-7pm for the public reception for 

Paper is Part of the Picture: Contemporary Paper and Book Arts.

Curated by Drake University’s Sarah McCoy, Paper is Part of the Picture explores the different substrates, approaches, materiality and meanings revealed through artists’ interactions on and with paper.

This exhibit features artwork made of or on paper by artists from across the US.  Join us at the public reception Friday, Feb. 2, 5-7pm or visit the gallery during regular hours!  Tues – Sunday, noon-4pm.

Participating artists include:

Joanna Anos (Chicago, IL)

Penelope Anstruther (Oakland, CA)

Renae Barnard (Los Angeles, CA)

Jessica Barness (Kent, OH)

Melanie Bohrer (Chicago, IL)

Ben Calvert (Villa Park, IL)

John Chang (Pasadena, CA)

Sage Dawson (St. Louis, MO)

Cristina deAlmeida (Bellingham, WA)

Andrew DeCaen (Denton, TX)

Sue Carrie Drummond (Jackson, MS)

Erin Elizabeth (Chicago, IL)

Maureen Fritchen (Racine, WI)

Tatiana Ginsberg (Brooklyn, NY)

Reni Gower (Mechanicsville, VA)

Jessie Horning (Columbus, OH)

Andrew Huot (Montrose, GA)

Peggy Johnston (Des Moines, IA)

DongKyu Kim (Fort Lee, NJ)

Lenka Konopasek (Salt Lake City, UT)

Karen Kunc (Lincoln, NE)

Jihae Kwon (Laie, HI)

Laurie LeBreton (Chicago, IL)

Amy Leners (Chicago, IL)

Erin Mickelson (Santa Fe, NM)

Lisa Miles (Cleveland, OH)

Zeinab Saab (DeKalb, IL)

Michael Scheef (Papillion, NE)

Tess Mosko Scherer (Peoria, AZ)

Christian Schmit (Lakeside Park, KY)

Maria Welch (Brandon, MS)

See more photos from the exhibition here:

Paper is Part of the Picture

All Together Now