Big Brothers Big Sisters Print Making Workshop

The Big Brothers Big Sisters print making workshop on Saturday, September 29th was a great success. Using only simple styrofoam sheets, participants carved their designs and printed some great images!

Amy Biehl Interns

Amy Biehl interns are hard at work here at Off Center doing their senior service projects, featured in this photo are Val and Becca demonstrating their Photoshop skills.

Nutrition With Coach

Off Center artist Coach is brimming with nutritional and exercise knowledge, here he demonstrates a very rare cookie crumb eating method. As Coach would say; Its a carbo loading thing.......

We Art The People Folk Art Fair

Thanks to everyone that came out for this years Folk Art Fest, good times were had by all!

Friday in the Studio

Another busy Friday afternoon in the studio. Artists were hard at work, working on their own, in groups, and participating in weekly workshops.The ukulele workshop is really expanding and developing and the guitar workshop continues to be a well-attended hit. If you are interested in experiencing these, or our other free weekly workshops, please stop by the studio to get more information.

Wild Things at Reginald Chavez!

 The latest recycled activity at Reginald Chavez was the construction of squirrels. Making thee squirrels is extremely simply and requires minimal supplies. For this project we used paper cups, pieces of cardboard, newspaper, buttons for the noses, and an old Christmas wreath for the tail.

Albuquirky Little Houses Silent Auction -- A SUCCESS!

THANK YOU TO ALL OF THE ARTISTS who donated their precious, creative renditions of "Albuquirky Little Houses" for our annual fundraiser! Your creative energy and dedication allowed our fundraiser to be a success!

We had over 145 artists create 178 little houses which were put up for auction at Sumner & Dene during Frank McCullough's opening reception. 

(A huge thank you to Roy, Sumner & Dene & Frank!)

People were flurrying around from little house to little house to decide which ones to place bids on -- sometimes outbidding one another on a favorite artist/rendition. 

The end result is that all of Sumner & Dene's, OFFCenter's and other artists in the city helped to raise over $5500 for OFFCenter so that we can keep providing a safe studio space, art materials, workshops and outreach programming FREE of charge to the public!

 

Thanks also to the House Tour Committee volunteers, home owners and House Tour ticket purchasers which all helped to raise another $5000 for OFFCenter Community Arts Project.

We truly believe art making builds community and with this fundraiser, we see how the community cares to keep free art making opportunities for everyone available!

THANK YOU EVERYONE who attended, made or purchased little houses, went on the house tour, volunteered their homes or their time!

Reginald Chavez Mask Making

Things are winding down at Reginald Chavez Elementary as the last  of school are finishing up and summer days are fast approaching, last week students used recycled materials found around Off Center students set out constructing their own masks.

Rick Gutierrez Left-Handed Recital & Celebration

This is Rick's second iCreate recital. The guitar he earned for his first recital, July 30th 2010 was stolen. This event presented an adventurous challenge. He decided to embark on completing the iCreate program, but this time left handed.



Congratulations Rick and continue playing the sweet tunes that we all enjoy! Maybe put a GPS tracking device on this one? :)


( Rick playing "Only Blue Sky", right-handed)

Deanna Sauceda's Exhibit at OFFCenter

As many of you know, the "Away!" Mountains, Rivers & Canyons Exhibit which took place in January was a great success. What some of you may not have known is that one of our local news anchor, Deanna Sauceda, was a contributing artist. She attended the Drawing & Painting Workshops on Tuesdays and Thursdays and before she knew it, she had a lovely portfolio. In the above clip, Deanna Sauceda recaps on her experiences at OFFCenter and her artistic journey. Enjoy!

Birdhouses at Reginald Chavez Elementary

Thanks to a generous donation of several dozen gourds by Off Center employee Kelsi Sharp the latest project at Reginald Chavez Elementary was the construction of birdhouses made of gourds. Simply by drilling a small opening in the gourds, emptying the seeds from the inside, and attaching string to hang the gourds with to the top small bird houses were easily constructed. Students enjoyed painting their own designs on the outside of their gourds and were able to take them home to hang them up!

UNM Service Corp Outreach

On Friday April 6th Kelsi, Brandon, and Isaac, all UNM Service Corp members working here at Off Center, were asked to lead an art activity on self awareness at a UNM Service Corp meeting. In doing this they conducted an "exquisite corpse" activity splitting the UNM students into groups of three and having each student draw one section of the human body(head, torso, or legs) without their other members seeing what they were drawing. Students were supposed to illustrate what they saw in themselves onto the paper, in addition to drawing the bodies students wrote poems of self awareness in a similar fashion. After everyone was done groups presented the bodies they had drawn and read their groups poems aloud, the end results were very impressive and everyone had a great time!

OFFCenter Celebrates Women & Creativity Month

 

Portals: Transformations & Transitions is the latest art show at OFFCenter. The exhibit features the art of sixty-five women from the community. We are thrilled to have received so many submissions for the exhibit, including multiple generations of female artists. Portals will be on display until March 28th.

Pinwheel Post!

Another week of art at Reginald Chavez, the wind was still blowing and causing ideas to spin around the studio. When pinwheels were decided upon, needless to say the students were pretty excited about the project!


Equipped with their art supplies students set about customizing their own pinwheels, the excitement only increased as students discovered how their new pinwheels could spin with the slightest breeze or movement!

Reginald Chavez Arts Program

For the past nine years Off Center Arts has been doing weekly art lessons for the after school students at Reginald Chavez Elementary, this past Thursday one of Off Center's new employees Isaac Burleigh gave a simple kite construction lesson. Kids had a blast building their simple kites out of construction paper, shish-kabob sticks, and ribbon. Taking advantage of Albuquerque's windy weather the students enjoyed putting their kites to use outside!