NOMAD LAB at the Riverside Art Museum!

We did it! NOMAD LAB's first museum show is opening tomorrow at the Riverside Art Museum! The work looks great and I feel so proud of the work we have accomplished. 

Our work is part of an exhibition about alternative practices in art entitled "You Are Breathing In It!" curated by Karla Diaz. 

Come out and support the Valle del Oro community and NOMAD tomorrow from 7 to 10pm in Riverside. Here is the link to info about the exhibition and the museum. 

http://www.riversideartmuseum.org/

Cheers!

Evelyn

PS: Here is a video we put together for the show. I'll try to make a better copy of it and will switch it out soon. XO, E

NOMAD Highlight: Architecture Workshop!

Yes, we did it again. We had another successful semester of our ever so popular Architecture Lab. The lab is taught by professional architect and long-time NOMAD LAB volunteer  Javier Barajas. This semester the youth learned about structural design, and looked at the work of many world-famous architects for inspiration. 

They learned about the basics of bridge design, and tested the strength of different structural approaches in bridge design. Here is a sneak peek of the Architecture Lab's experiments and over the top creativity. 

NOMAD Highlight: Karla Rubio and Dance Workshop

Karla Rocks! Literally. Karla is our new dance teacher and a Valle del Oro resident. Her daughters Marleny and Samantha are NOMAD LAB participants and, of course, they are great dancers in their own right. Karla's passion for dance and choreography are infectious. She has been working with the youth on several pieces, three of which were performed by the youth at our last community festival back in May 5th. Karla is well versed in many different dance styles including hip hop, danza folclorica, belly dance, merengue, and the list goes on... But the best thing about Karla is her commitment to working with youth. She wants the dancers to shine, even if it takes rehearsing a 20 second section of the dance 20 times. "We need to get it right, girls!"

And the girls delivered. They were absolutely amazing at their festival performance. I will be posting photos of the festival in upcoming posts, but here are some with the dancers. 

Funny thing is, after the festival was over they told Karla they did not want to stop. They convinced Karla to continue teaching them over the summer, even though the rest of the NOMAD classes will resume only in September. So I gave Karla the key to the space, and they have been going to rehearsals every Saturday. We are truly blessed by Karla's leadership and talent. 

NOMAD LAB at CalArts

Wow! We've had  quite a Spring semester!
One of the highlights was our first art exhibition and reading at CalArts, organized by NOMAD LAB teaching artist Ebony Williams. Ebony taught the Creative Writing and Puppet Workshop and had a group of 8 eager and really talented young participants. They worked on fictional stories and characters, and designed and created puppets (ragdolls) that represented alter egos of the artists. The process of making the puppets was quite laborious and very thoughtful: from selecting the color of their character's skin, to writing words onto their character's body's, and designing their puppets attributes... every step was an exercise on self knowledge, a game of "identity-making"...

But it gets better. The youth's published stories and finished puppets were on exhibit at the CalArts Library for all to enjoy. We also had a special reading for a CalArts audience and the kids got a guided tour of the school (favorite spots, hands down, were the CalArts sublevel and the tabla concert by Hands On'semble... CalArts is an amazing place).

This work will be on exhibit at the Riverside Art Museum as well! Show is opening tomorrow at 7pm. Come by and support the work of these remarkable artists.