Cliff Notes
Each week, our regional Cliff Notes columnists Fox Whitney, Alitzah Oros, Melika Sebihi, and Kaya Noteboom pick the most exciting events and exhibitions on the West Coast.
Care + the Los Angeles Fires
I grew up in California’s Central Valley, but spent most weekends of my childhood and adolescence traversing the Grapevine to spend time with friends and family in the South Bay. The only weekends we didn’t go to LA were during fire season when flames regularly engulfed areas like Gorman and the Santa Clarita Valley. Making our way down in the weeks following the fires, I looked out at the blackened earth with sad curiosity.
In Fall 2019, my friend Sadqa and I ditched our morning French class at California State University Channel Islands to get beers at Institution Ale Co. in Camarillo. Driving up Lewis Rd., we watched as flames broke out on the mountain. I called the fire department, and they said trucks were already on their way. After our second beer, we received an evacuation notice. Sadqa lived in KTown, but I had to gather belongings from my apartment in Ventura. Later that afternoon, a dark and dense cloud of smoke blanketed the sky as I tried to drive home to San Pedro through emblazoned hillsides on the 101 North.
It’s January 2025 and there is no fire season now. We’ve hardly had any rain in the past year. We’ve hardly had a “winter.” Yet despite the seemingly insurmountable doom, there is so much care in the ether. I’m sharing a few links below—please consider donating or helping out in whatever ways you can.
Support Essential Workers Impacted by Los Angeles Fires
Food Assistance for Farm Workers
Latinx Families GoFund Me Directory
Displaced Black Families GoFund Me Directory
Restore Altadena: Seeds for Healing
Reflection: How can we work towards maintaining this sense of connection, care, and protection all the time? Not just during disasters.
Waves #3 & Waves #4 Medium
Archival Prints on Bamboo paper,
monofilament wire, fire, wood
17’’x22’’x72’’
2024
20th Annual GLAMFA Exhibition
California State University–Long Beach Arts Complex
January 18th through January 29th, 2025
The 20th Annual Greater Los Angeles MFA (GLAMFA) exhibition opens at California State University, Long Beach this weekend, marking two decades of championing emerging artistic voices across Southern California. Organized by graduate students, GLAMFA has carved out a vital space in the region’s art scene—a convergence point for new ideas, experimentation, and dialogue.
This year, GLAMFA reflects on its history while looking toward what’s next, embracing a theme of inclusivity, generosity, and exchange. As always, inside the galleries, I expect to find an eclectic array of work—installations that challenge your sense of space, perhaps some experimental video art, and maybe objects that hum with the personal. Each piece represents the expansive practices of MFA students across the region’s State, the UC system, and private institutions. I love GLAMFA. More than an exhibition, it’s an invitation. To witness the present and the future of contemporary art. To engage with the minds shaping its trajectory. To feel, think, and connect. The exhibition opens January 18, 2025, at CSULB.
Reflection: What does the wide range of styles and mediums presented at GLAMFA tell us about the evolving nature of contemporary art? What do these works say about the artistic concerns driving MFA students today?