Kelp Entanglement

LUCY TRABER - September 25th - October 19th

From early and continuing nurture in the natural world I was eventually drawn to creating forms from wild fibers, employing the ancient methods of deep history. It was 1970 in Berkeley. Years of experimentation with locally available plants from gardens, vacant lots, woods, and beaches led me into a love affair with kelp. Gathered from the shore where it has been tossed by the ocean then thoroughly dried by sun and wind, it soaks in my bathtub till pliant - long cool strands, patterned tubes like leather, rust, black, ocher, brown, white, lightly sea-fragrant. Kelp is docile and elastic when wet, extremely mischievous while drying, rigid and stable in completion. The creative process is a collaboration. My vision and the capricious spirit of the kelp play and wrestle together toward the final statement, which is always a little surprising. My aim is to celebrate the beauty of this life form in its variety of expression.

Join us at the Mendocino Art Center for the Mendocino Open Paint Out (MOPO), our annual plein air festival!

Sept 8th - Sept 14th.

Nestled along the stunning Mendocino Coast of northern California, our festival offers a picturesque canvas where the Pacific Ocean meets stunning landscapes. With its rugged coastal views, charming Victorian buildings and pastoral vineyards, Mendocino is not only a place with sublime natural beauty that inspires artists and nature lovers alike, but is also the ancestral lands of the Northern Pomo people.

Their future, along with Mendocino’s landscape, is once again placed in a precarious position. The gradual amplification of climate change and deregulation of environmental policies has brought to the fore the important role communities have to play in preserving the biodiversity and ecologies that still remain. MOPO offers an unique opportunity for artists, visitors and local residents to build community around a shared love for art and nature, and to contemplate the fragility of the remarkable coast that we call home. 

Whether you’re looking to gather with fellow artists, enhance your technique, collect new works or simply celebrate art in one of the most scenic settings on the West Coast, MOPO promises an enriching experience for all.

This year we are thrilled to have Cathy Xu, (2024’s top award winner), Maeve Croghan and Jennifer Wang as our 2025 MOPO Judges!

Guidelines, Rules and Calendar Schedule

For lodging and accommodations, click here.
Our lodging is limited and does tend to sell out around the event.

Register

Registrations are now open for our 2025 MOPO.

The inaugural cohort of Schools of Salmon Creek is pleased to present “The Sun at Mid-Day,” an exhibition at The Mendocino Art Center. The show collects work from the cohort imagined and produced over the course of their time on the land. The group presents artifacts and evidence of their ongoing creative exploration informed by, and in conversation with, the world of Salmon Creek Farm. The show will have a public opening on July 12th beginning at 5:00pm, with a performance at 6:30pm.

Participants:

Ruby Isabella Yon Jägel @rubyjagel
Rino Kodama bread.kiln
Sebastian Loo seblooloo
Alejandro Medina amedina.co
Princess Organ princess.organ
Allie Sullberg alliesullberg

Art Explorers is pleased to present A PROGRESSIVE ENSEMBLE, a group exhibition highlighting artwork from eight progressive art studios at the historic Mendocino Art Center.

Co-curated by the studio artists at Art Explorers, this exhibition is a celebration of the vibrant communities of artists participating in progressive art studios throughout the country and the contributions these individuals are making to the contemporary art world. It is a pleasure to share this world of creativity with Mendocino County on the 25th anniversary year of the Art Explorers studio art program.

This exhibition is made possible through a partnership with our friends at the Mendocino Art Center, and features artwork across mediums including painting, weaving, sculpture, and mixed media.

We invite you to join us to celebrate this amazing group of artists at the Mendocino Art Center. A PROGRESSIVE ENSEMBLE is an opportunity to come together in joy and broaden our community, and to stand united with progressive art studios across the country in the fight for social visibility, inclusion, and respect.

Participating studios include Alchemia (Petaluma, CA); Art Explorers (Fort Bragg, CA); Cedars Art Studios (Ross, CA); Center for Creative Works (Wynnewood, PA); Elbow Room (Portland, OR); Fresh Eye Arts (Twin Cities, MN); Make Studio (Baltimore, MD); Neighborhood Center of the Arts (Grass Valley, CA).

Featuring the work of over 20 local LGBTQ+ Artists!

An exhibit that reflects on our relationship with animals and nature, and speaks to the power of compassion humans hold to make a difference.

Opening reception Saturday June 14th 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM.
Runs through July 6th.

Adrian Clutario - Vincent Chong - Kim Ye

Kim Ye is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice encompasses performance, video, installation, text, object-making, and social engagement. Appropriating forms in circulation within popular culture to embed with content from personal archives, Ye interrogates the gendered constructs shaping perceptions of power, labor, and taboo. Her work negotiates the body as both a site of domination and a source of dominance and describes the entanglement between private desire and fantasy, and public discourse and ideology. Activating artist/viewer dynamics through shifting performance contexts, Ye reinterprets the forces that enforce and reproduce normativity. 

From 2023-2024, she was a Mellon Arts Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and a California Arts Council Creative Corps Fellow. Her work has been funded by the California Arts Council (USA), The National Endowment for the Arts (USA), Foundation for Contemporary Art (USA), Mellon Foundation (USA), and The Australia Council for the Arts (Australia). Her work has been featured nationally and internationally at institutions such as The Getty, MOCA, Guggenheim Gallery, Wattis Institute, Hammer Museum, Banff Center for Arts, Material Art Fair, and Frieze Film Seoul, among others. Ye received her MFA from UCLA in 2012, has worked professionally as a dominatrix since 2011, and has been on the board of Sex Workers Outreach Project Los Angeles (SWOPLA) since 2019. She is currently visiting faculty in the Photography & Media program at CalArts.

Adrian Clutario (they/them) is a multidisciplinary artist and designer based in Oakland, CA since 2014. Their practice involves a variety of techniques — sculpture, installation, furniture, performance, and fashion. Clutario’s queer Filipinx-American identity informs their work, imagining and creating different possibilities of our heteronormative and colonized surroundings. Deeply utilizing drag and craft sensibilities, Clutario exaggerates and blurs the lines of design, space, and familial lineage - striving to heal around diasporic generational trauma. Adrian Clutario’s work has been exhibited nationally, and has received their BFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2012.

Vincent Chong (莊志明) is a Queer mixed-race Chinese-American artist working in Chinese calligraphy, seal carving, painting, drawing, and performance. They will receive their MFA in Art Practice from Stanford University in 2026, and they hold a BFA in Fine Art and a BA in Mathematics from Cornell University. They are a student of Taipei-based calligrapher Wu Wensheng. After studying with Teacher Wu in Taipei from 2015-2017, Chong moved to New York city, where they developed their work alongside Bushwick’s Queer and drag nightlife performers in addition to New York’s dance community. They have shown work at Seizan NYC, Co-Prosperity, Armature Projects, Lehman College, La MaMa, SoMad, Skånes Konstförening, Center for Book arts, The Museum of Chinese in America, Site Brooklyn, and PAAM. Performances include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 100 Hinsdale, Hole Pics NYC, Columbus Park, Center for Performance Research, QNA, Inter Arts Center, Skånes Konstförening, MoMA PS1, Abrons Art Center, Movement Research at Judson Church, and Center for Book Arts, and Abrons Art Center. Residencies include ISCP, Gallim, the WOW Project Storefront Residency, Center for Book Arts Book Artist Residency, and Fire Island Artist Residency. Awards include Stanford Graduate East Asian Summer Grant, Brooklyn Arts Council Creative Equations Fund, BAC Su-Casa, NYFA/NYSCA fellowship, City Artist Corp Grant, and Huayu Enrichment Scholarship. Chong will spend the summer studying at National Taiwan University’s prestigious International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) to deepen the Chinese literary research that underlines their practice. They currently reside in the Bay Area in California. 

Master craftsman and instructor, Joe Cooper discovered his love of woodworking as a very young boy. He escaped to his parents’ garage where he found a hammer, nails, a saw and a vivid imagination. Joe’s formal education includes an AA in Cabinet and Mill Work from LA Trade Technical College, a BA in industrial Arts with a major in Wood Technology from Cal State University LA, a teaching credential from UCLA and numerous art classes at Otis College. In the 1970’s Joe designed his own line of furniture which sold at a number of stores in the Los Angeles area and beyond. Joe started teaching in 1979 and taught 28 years for the LA Unified School District. He also taught at Otis College for a number of years. He helped start Trade Tech’s Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) program as well as educating teachers in the field of CNC for Paton Group, a cutting-edge company in Industrial Arts education. As a teacher, articles about Joe appear in Pacific Woodworker and Woodworker West. Joe’s fabrications and name have appeared in Architectural Digest, Dwell, Interior Design and Faith and Form magazines. His business supplied signage and support furniture for exhibits in most of the major museums in Los Angeles, including the Black History Museum, the Getty, LACMA, and the Gene Autry Museum. In 2016 Joe closed his shop in Los Angeles and moved to Fort Bragg with his wife Ginny. He has set his dream shop in a beautiful barn that he designed and built. He has donated his time and work to Gloriana’s production sets, Noyo Marine Center’s dome, as well as numerous other projects here in Fort Bragg. 

Mendocino Art Center’s Member’s Exhibition 2025

THE BEAUTY OF OUR COAST

What calls us to the Mendocino Coast? Is it the stunning sunsets, the mystical whales or the fluttering and fleeting hummingbirds? Is it the abundant botanicals like Fuchsias, Nasturtium or Matilija poppies? Is it the mushrooms, the banana slugs, the foxes or the mountain lions? There is so much unique beauty on the Coast to appreciate. What beauty inspires you?

We welcome our members to bring one piece of artwork to exhibit. We will be accepting work on a first-come, first-serve basis and will do our best to include all members into the exhibit. We will be awarding recognition of excellence through a community vote.

Sat/Sun March 1 & 2 (11:00-4:00) Art Take In
Saturday March 8 (11:00-4:00) Exhibition Opening
Saturday, April 5 (11:00-4:00) Exhibition Closing
Sunday, April 6 (11:00-4:00) Art Pick Up

ELIGIBILITY / FEES / SALES
This Exhibition is open to all current MAC members. One piece of original artwork in any medium may be submitted. Please submit artwork which has NOT previously been shown at the MAC. Your Submission must not exceed 50lbs or 40 inches in either direction. Work must be received ready to install with proper hanging devices attached. Please label artwork with artist name, phone number, email address, title of work, medium, and retail price of work.

A non-refundable fee of $20 will be charged for your artwork entry. We prefer that the artwork would be offered for sale. Artist will receive 60% of the sale price. MAC retains a 40% commission on the sales for the purpose of sustaining the non-profit.

Please note that artwork will be accepted and displayed on a first-come, first-serve basis until our walls have been fully filled. A large number of larger canvases will limit haw many artworks can be displayed.

PICKING UP ARTWORK

In the event that your artwork does not sell, please plan to pick up your artwork on Saturday or Sunday, September 7th & 8th, 11:00 am - 4:00 pm. Mendocino Art Center does not have storage facilities and your artwork is insured only for the duration of the exhibit. If you are unable to pick up your work, please provide prior written authorization for another person to do so on your behalf. For more information, please email gallery@mendocinoartcenter.org.