Monday, August 30, 2010

End of Summer Art & Music Showcase ~ this Saturday Night for Artwalk!



Saturday, September 4th, 2010
7 - 10 pm


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This showcase will go on during the First Saturdays Art Walk, and will feature the photography of Tracy Vega, as well as live musical performances by Santa Ana locals: Dj Michelle and Street Spirit !!

Tracy Vega is a Southern California photographer with over 10 years of experience first shooting with instant cameras for personal projects, and later photographing at music and activist events. She is very much into music and admir...es the approach of local bands that care about their fans and who are into D.I.Y. (Doing It Yourself!): designing their own band logos, CD art, t-shirts and more. She would like to shoot photos of what has been labeled “underground or sub-cultural”, Tracy characterizes this as the "non-average and the non-corporate".

For this series she was inspired by the experiences she had growing up as a Mexican-American in the "melting pot" or "salad bowl" that is Southern California. Due to her unique facial features, people often wondered and tried to figure out where she was from, guessing Chinese, Middle Eastern, or a mix of Mexican and another ethnic group.

The idea of this project was to create a self-portrait series mimicking the many ethnicities that people have associated her with. It is an interpretation of what the artist imagines each ethnicity to dress like or look like. The costumes and backdrops also reflect her attempt at bringing out the beauty of each culture, while working with a limited budget. Also due to the limited equipment on hand, instead of photographing herself, she chose to photograph a model who could represent her vision for this project.

-Claudia Lavini

Sugar Skull Workshops ~ Every Friday in September!