Announcements

Thanks to IEHP, we are connecting artists, who are beautifying free food pantries for communities in Riverside. Thanks to all of the artists who have helped with this project so far: Belen and Jose Ledezma, Alaina Murillo, Mariana Gomez and Nadia Solis.

On April 25th, 2021, we broke ground at the future community garden, literally. We rented a trencher and were able to cut the lines to install a water pipe. An amazing group of volunteers helped lay down cardboard and mulch. We thank you so very much! Stay tuned as this space develops. Please reach out if you are able to help with this project.

On May 15th, we are partnering up once again with Huerta del Valle to create a second mural. If you are interested in helping out. Please send us a message through Instagram or email. Thank you. Visit Huerta del Valle on Instagram for more on this garden location, 1455 E. 3rd Street, San Bernardino, CA 92410

New backflow, tailpipe and water meter officially installed. Big thanks to Raymond Devine for helping us out. We will have a community meeting on April 5th, 2021 at 5:30pm. If you are interested to join us, please send a message through our Instagram or email us at sanbvca@gmail.com.

Over Spring equinox weekend, we were also at the “Garden of Health”, on the eastern end of San Bernardino. During the pandemic, we have been learning and helping at this garden, collaborating with Huerta del Valle and Loma Linda University School of Health.

We have helped organize artists, whose creative work has been bringing additional color and vibrancy to this green space in San Bernardino. Over the past year, murals have been designed by Ana Cervantes and brought to life alongside a group of other amazing artists: Sarah Rain Devine, Alcira Mendoza, Cynthia Morales, Edgar Perez Peña, James Ojeda. Most recently, Duan Kellum of Skool Boiz has also installed a painted wooden rendering of his design “Touching the Sun”.

If you would like to get involved with the painting of a second mural, please get in touch with us. Visit Huerta del Valle’s Instagram for more on this garden location, 1455 E. 3rd Street, San Bernardino, CA 92410.

Special Congratulations to Lucy Sunga, Ceramics Instructor at The Garcia Center for the Arts, and the newest commissioner to the City of San Bernardino’s Arts & Historical Preservation Commission. Lucy was sworn in on Thursday March 25th. We are excited for Lucy and all the great things we know she will contribute to the commission.

Follow Lucy’s work on Instagram.

We have been slowly working and researching on the best way to start a community garden at the empty lot just north of The Garcia Center. We have started to request wood chips and mulch from local arborists, as well as started to install a backflow necessary for irrigation. The lot has been vacant for decades now, on what was formerly a location for McMahan’s furniture store. If you would like to help, please contact us. Stay tuned for more.

We are happy to collaborate with San Bernardino’s Mexican Consulate @consulmexsanbe and Roxanna Cervantes of @ideasandplus to bring creative workshops inspired by Mexican cultural traditions and values. Workshops will start in February 2021 and will be held primarily in Spanish. Stay updated and register by going to bit.ly/raizyalas.

Nos complace colaborar con el Consulado Mexicano de San Bernardino y Roxanna Cervantes de Ideas & Plus para traer talleres creativos inspirados en las tradiciones y valores culturales mexicanos. Los talleres se llevarán a cabo principalmente en español y comenzarán este mes de febrero. Manténgase al tanto y regístrese en bit.ly/raizyalas.

Beginning in February 2021, Future First film productions will be creating a podcast from The Garcia Center for the Arts. They are looking to feature artists’ work as part of the set: paintings, photos, ceramic pieces, books or even jewelry. If interested, please send a short message that you would like to share along with your art piece. Contact Future First through Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/future.1st/ or email, futurefirstentertainment@gmail.com.

New books have been added to our art and comic book libraries at The Garcia Center. These amazing books highlight local illustrators, creators and writers. Please consider reading these books for yourself.

Featured Books

• MOSAIC, a collection edited by The Little Gallery of San Bernardino

• LOUD: Politics of Art & Art of Politics edited by Duan Kellum of Skool Boiz & Creative Grounds

• TORN, a modern mythological comic written and illustrated by Andrea Bonales

• POST COVID, 8 page color mini comic about Daniel Whitfield’s thoughts while working the postal service in the time of covid-19

We were pleasantly surprised at the beginning of December by our local Home Depot store on 21st Street. Their $1,000 donation will go towards supporting the continued beautification of The Garcia Center. Now, more than ever, we are looking at our outdoor space to hold activities and programs for the community. There is already so much growing at the Garcia Center: bananas, oranges, grapefruit, to name a few.

If you missed it, make sure to watch the Garden Talks interview featuring The Garcia Center’s Executive Director, Jorge Osvaldo Heredia, speaking on his gardening and community involvement, and how it is an art form that requires a sense of creativity.

October 2020. We now have four working ceramics wheels at The Garcia Center. Soon we’ll be holding classes with the wheels.

December 2020. We love seeing our community create so we will continue to offer art classes! We will have ceramics, but now with pottery throwing wheels! We also are working on introducing glassblowing, printmaking, and painting instructors to the center. We will be offering more classes online as well, to accommodate and serve more people during the length of the pandemic.

The San Bernardino Neighborhood Association Council and the San Bernardino Art Association have been meeting at The Garcia Center for the Arts. We are glad to host them as we work to strengthen and revitalize the city of San Bernardino.

A few Board members took a tour with founder Maria Alonso of Huerta Del Valle, a community garden in Ontario. We were asking questions and collecting more ideas of what we can do for our own potential community garden at the Garcia Center.

Executive Director, Jorge Oswald Heredia, would like to say thank you to Regina and Edgar Beltran of Superabilitee, Inc., who donated and planted succulents around the patio fountain.

Superabilitee, Inc. on Instagram

The six entries are now available to view on SB Arts Collab. The winners were announced on August 29th, 2020 by Valley College’s Institute of Media Arts:

Best Use of Prompts – Fabian Torres for “Zomboi”
Best Direction – Laarni Jocson for “Be the Girl of Your Dreams”
Best Screenplay – Tachiana Elise Mitchel for “The Ring”
Best Editing – David Moongeeuh for “Officer Iggy”
Best Cinematography – Marlen Del Rio for “The Shrink”
Best Actor – Anthony Magana for “Officer Iggy”
Best Actress – Danae Pera for “The Shrink”

Starting September 1st, 2020, we will be having an artist in residence at The Garcia Center for the Arts, Erok the Lion. Erok is a multi-talented artist from San Bernardino, who has created many murals in a number of cities throughout California. Erok’s paintings focus on the abstract and figurative, with elements of bright colors, pop art and graffiti all in one. Erok uses an assortment of materials and media: acrylic, oil, pastels, spray paint, magazines.

We are excited to be able to provide a studio space for Erok to continue his work. We are looking forward to experiencing the art that is produced here at the Garcia Center.

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/erokthelion_art/

Links to Work:
https://erokthelion.bigcartel.com/
https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/erok-thelion

Meet Erok the Lion
Video Clip by Sofia the Warrior @sofiathewarrior

Ernie Garcia has spent a lifetime promoting and supporting the arts in San Bernardino. One of his many projects, has been leading the vision of renovating a historic building, The Garcia Center for the Arts, for the past 5 years. In his role as Director, he has inspired many arts groups to set up home at the center, hosted many cultural events and established a variety of arts classes: printmaking, ceramics, painting, dance, writing.

Beginning this month, Ernie will be transitioning from his role as Director for the Garcia Center for the Arts. He will be handing over those responsibilities to Jorge Osvaldo Heredia, who currently serves as president of the board that oversees the center.

Ernie will continue to be a presence at the Garcia Center, volunteering and sharing valuable input where needed, alongside his wife, Dotti Garcia, and son, Tim Garcia, whose efforts have also greatly contributed to bringing the Garcia Center to life.

Thank you Ernie for your leadership and talents, making the Garcia Center for the Arts a reality.

Encuesta de Opinión Pública: El propósito es determinar el interés y el apoyo para un nuevo jardín comunitario en la ciudad de San Bernardino. Sus respuestas se usarán para decidir cuál es la mejor manera de iniciar el jardín en el García Center de las Artes.

Oprima aquí: https://bit.ly/jardinsb

Public Input Survey: The purpose is to determine community interest and support in a new garden project. Your answers will be used to decide how best to approach a community garden at The Garcia Center for the Arts.

Click here: https://bit.ly/gardensb

By Dr. Margaret Worsley, Board Secretary

Your SBVCA/Garcia Center Board had a lot to discuss at the most recent session. With the global pandemic of COVID-19, the Garcia Center for the Arts and the San Bernardino community has experienced significant loss—from missed creative opportunities of cancelled art classes, to loss of revenue from events and performances.

The Board is committed to finding ways we can get crafty (pun intended!) and still be of service to our Inland Empire community. One proposed idea is to host a “virtual” art show. The Garcia Center is used to providing a platform for artists to exhibit their work, so why should things change simply because we are limited to an online reality? There are many collaborative possibilities with this idea, including extending partnerships with Arts Connection, San Bernardino Valley College and KVCR.

Another venture posed by President Jorge Heredia is to possibly host remote concerts. In lieu of our newest Chamber Music series being postponed, Jorge knows that the Garcia Center is still a beautiful location to possibly film remote concerts. With the help of film students of Lucas Cuny at San Bernardino Valley College, summer program participants will be working side-by-side with multi-media specialists, and could very well bring this idea to fruition.

We hope you are all saying healthy, safe and creative!

The San Bernardino Valley Concert Board has met often during the past two months. During these unprecedented times, we have had to discuss how best to shift our programming and also adhere to all the public health precautions.

The doors of the Garcia Center will have to remain closed to the gathered public for now, but we still want to serve the community. As a board, we have decided to focus on moving our events and programs online. On our website, we have created a Virtual Art Exhibit of Marilou Santiago’s artwork entitled “Impressions From East to West”, which document Marilou’s travels around the world. We are hoping to create more of these Virtual Art Shows over the coming weeks and months. You can visit the current online exhibit by going to our website here.

Following State and County COVID19 guidelines, we are also looking into using the outdoor grounds of the Garcia Center to film short videos highlighting local artists. The idea is to then share the content on our website and social media platforms. We hope to work with students from San Bernardino Valley College over the summer to do this. There will be more information about this project once we define the best way to do it safely.

Lastly, we are also exploring the possibility of a community garden to be on an empty lot just north of the Garcia Center. Fay Aldridge, a Master Gardener and a leader of the Neighborhood Association Council of San Bernardino, is serving as a mentor on how best to get this project started. The garden effort has already received donations from Loma Linda University’s Phi Alpha Honor Society, who purchased a wheelbarrow, rakes, shovels and other gardening tools. We are encouraging and asking for community input on the garden project. Please take time to fill out our input survey here: https://bit.ly/gardensb

Jorge Osvaldo Heredia, SBVCA Board President (909)277-4394