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4th annual event showcases commissioned public art by Karla Diaz, Jake Freilich, Pearl C. Hsiung, Debra Scacco, and student artists from Borrego Springs High SchoolMarch 14, 2024 (Borrego Springs) -- The Candlewood Arts Festival returns to the Anza Borrego Desert on March 23 with commissioned public art works as well as a gallery exhibition of art by local youth. The Festival, sponsored by Under The Sun Foundation, will include a performance, workshops, an artists’ talk, and an opening party for visitors and residents to experience contemporary art together in the unique desert community of Borrego Springs. Events will take place from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The Candlewood Arts Festival, named for the fragrant ocotillo that dots the landscape around Borrego Springs, takes its cues from the generous spirit of the Sky Art sculptures in Galleta Meadows. The festival, meant for audiences of all ages, aims to inspire new ways of seeing and understanding the unique landscape and community of Borrego Springs, for locals and visitors alike. The artists, who all live and work in Southern California, were chosen for their ability to develop projects that thoughtfully and meaningfully connect with the people and environment of Borrego Springs. ⦁ KARLA DIAZ will invite visitors to join her in a celebration of often untold community stories and the meditative power of running, all in relationship to the history-filled landscape of Borrego Springs. The performance will celebrate the connections between mind and body, labor and land, and the stories that weave us together.
⦁ PEARL C. HSIUNG’s monumental sculpture Holocene Screen, exploring our understanding of the concepts natural, cultural, and artificial, will be shown in The Mall, a primary retail center for locals and visitors alike. The sculpture, created with contributions from youth at the Borrego Springs Boys and Girls Club, was shown 5 years ago in the first, one-weekend edition of the Candlewood Festival, in the desert landscape of Galleta Meadows; years later, it will gain new resonance in the bustling commercial center of town, offering a moment of reflection on consumer culture and its relationship to the environment. She will also hold a painting workshop at the Mall that incorporates the themes of her sculpture.
⦁ DEBRA SCACCO’s work lives at the intersection of ecology, history, policy, materializing the tension between these forces through a sensitive use of materials, often in public contexts. Water and its stories play a central role in her work, and in Galleta Meadows, she will create a structure that synthesizes her research about water in Borrego Springs into an abstract form, allowing viewers to reorient their relationship to elemental forces surrounded by the desert itself.
⦁ For the 3rd year in a row, JAKE FREILICH mentored students from Borrego Springs High School, helping them explore new directions in painting and guiding them to assemble a thematic exhibition of their work, entitled We You Me, as part of the Candlewood Arts Festival. Freilich developed partnerships with welding teacher Michael Kitten and his students, as well other BSHS faculty and students, whose work will be included in the exhibition. The exhibition will also include works by many artists who created work in past editions of the Festival, including Tanya Aguiñiga, Sherin Guirguis, Nery Gabriel Lemus, Star Montana, noé olivas, Fay Ray, Alison Saar, Devon Tsuno, and Allison Wiese, among others.
The Festival will also include a public painting workshop with artist Pearl C. Hsiung; a talk featuring the artists in conversation with each other about their work and their experiences working in Borrego Springs; and a public reception for the artists. The artwork will be on view until April 14, 2024. The full schedule, which will be updated with details as they develop, is available on the website at www.candlewoodartsfestival.org.
“The artists have produced incredibly thoughtful work for this year’s festival, responding to not only the extraordinary landscape of the Anza Borrego Desert but also the people that make this place so special,” said Curator and Artistic Director Kris Kuramitsu. “As we enter our fifth year of working with the community of Borrego Springs on this Festival, we are excited to cultivate ongoing relationships between the artists and residents of this community through work that speaks equally to visitors and the people who call this place home.”
ABOUT UNDER THE SUN FOUNDATIONUnder The Sun Foundation is a non-profit organization inspired by the work of Dennis Avery, the late landowner of Galleta Meadows in Borrego Springs, founded by three of his children -- Halina, Chris, and Theo Avery. Dennis Avery commissioned artist Ricardo Breceda to produce 130 large scale, free-standing, metal sculptures and referred to them as Sky Art. Spread over 1500+ acres of undeveloped desert land, these larger than life creations welcome the public to discover and enjoy art outdoors, surrounded by the rich and diverse desert environs of Borrego Springs. The Under the Sun Foundation seeks to breathe new life and meaning into the existing sculptures. Using Dennis Avery’s work and Borrego Springs as a point of inspiration, Under the Sun expects to add new geographies, artistic endeavors, and ways to engage with our environment and one another over the coming years. More information can be found on the Foundation's website at www.underthesunfoundation.org.
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