SMC’s Emeritus Art Gallery to Host Online Virtual Launch Event for The Ongoing Moment Dec. 1

SMC’s Emeritus Art Gallery to Host Online Virtual Launch Event for The Ongoing Moment Dec. 1

Author Readings Celebrate Collaborative Art and Writing Exhibit

SANTA MONICA, CA — SMC’s Emeritus Art Gallery is pleased to present the 2022 edition of "The Ongoing Moment: Literature and Art from SMC Emeritus," a collaborative journal/exhibition of original writing and art created by Emeritus students in the memoir writing class led by author Monona Wali and the watercolor studio class taught by artist Catherine Tirr. The popular literature and art journal returns this fall with a new printed volume and accompanying exhibition that will be shown online at smc.edu/emeritusgallery.

A free, live Zoom Virtual Launch Event featuring readings by Emeritus authors — and hosted by Tirr and Wali with Dean of Noncredit and External Programs Dr. Scott Silverman and Emeritus Gallery Curator Jesse Benson — will be held online from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, December 1. A link at smc.edu/emeritusgallery takes guests directly to the online event, where author readings will start at 5 p.m.

To see the artwork online at any time after 5 p.m. on December 1, viewers may go to smc.edu/emeritusgallery and click The Ongoing Moment 2022 Exhibition link, available 24 hours a day. The link takes viewers directly to the exhibition album on a Facebook page that is open to public viewing (Facebook account not necessary).

Copies of "The Ongoing Moment" will be available for purchase — while supplies last — through The Ongoing Moment 2022 Journal link at smc.edu/emeritusgallery. The cost is $10 per copy.

In an excerpt from the introduction to this year’s edition, Wali and Tirr write:

This year in the writing classes we worked with the theme of museums for our syllabus. This quote from Pulitzer Prize–winning art critic Jerry Saltz was the basis of one of the writing prompts: “Don’t go to a museum with a destination. Museums are wormholes to other worlds. They are ecstasy machines. Follow your eyes to wherever they lead you…and the world should begin to change for you.” The writing prompt generated by the quote was: “Let yourself think about your life without destination. Follow the wormhole. Enter a hidden room of your museum. What experience pops out of nowhere that surprises you?”

Like museums, memories are wormholes to other worlds. The best stories are ones that are discovered and not planned. Hordes of people go to the Musée du Louvre in Paris and head straight to the Mona Lisa. They might snap a selfie in front of it and cross it off their bucket list. Been there, done that. Story writing is most alive when, on the way to the Mona Lisa, you might catch sight of a painting by JMW Turner, a landscape of the sea with a small ship caught in a turbulent storm. You’re drawn into the drama of the moment, a moment perhaps the painter could only have painted if he had some deep experience of upheaval and turmoil. You travel into a moment in time when you, too, felt like a ship lost at sea. Another story emerges for you, an experience you might have forgotten, or buried. The narrative that emerges allows you to enter the experience anew, and this time, in the writing of it, draw meaning from it. That, in a nutshell, is the art of memoir writing.

The stories collected here, in this the eighth volume of 'The Ongoing Moment,' are those unexpected moments, those wormholes of memory that take the writer deep into a transformative moment.

In the art class, we considered how our actual physical collections of objects and artifacts shape who we are and trigger memories of events. This was a jumping off point for us to explore collage while considering our private and personal connections to material collections. Using the collage as a still life, we developed a new collection, a series of paintings.

It’s always such a pleasure to present a new edition of 'The Ongoing Moment.' We give thanks to Santa Monica College and Dr. Scott Silverman, Dean of Noncredit and External Programs, for their continuing support of our work. Most of all, we thank our students for generously sharing their writing and art which takes us on beautiful journeys into the museums of their memories and minds.

“This exhibition launch will be a chance for you to hear several selected student readings from this year’s issue, and then to see the wonderful art our students have produced,” said SMC Dean of Noncredit and External Programs Dr. Scott C. Silverman. “'The Ongoing Moment' give us a tremendous opportunity to benefit from the loved experiences of our Emeritus students. Lifelong learning is vital to mental stimulation, and it is powerful for all of us to engage in the art of storytelling and active listening (and reading).”

This year’s edition of "The Ongoing Moment" features written works by Peter Bergquist, Gayle Byock, Gordon Blitz, Lois Bostwick, Kathleen Carey, Perri Chasin, Dorothy Chin, Terry Dicks, Wendy Fairbanks, Tina Feiger, Frances Feinman, Linda Fenster, Cathy Fickes, Darlene Gaston, Rob Gilmer, Nancy Gimbrone, Dinah Hatton, Linda J. Hernandez  , Barry Herzog, Feiga Herzog, Tracy Katz, Marie Kennedy, Esther Lainer, Jeanne Lee, Tamar F. Levin, Natalie Levine, Nancy McKeever, Rhoda Newman, Janice Nishida, Martin Pearlman, Merry Greene Rose, Alice Roy, Veena Sadana, Joe Samuels, Frima Telerant, Rozelle Teplitsky, Sharon Valente, Nancy Vinicor, Allan Wax, Shifra Myerow Wylder, Sung Chon Yoo, and Lisa Zarowin.

Artwork in this year’s edition was created by Darshini Aithal, Marilyn Alquizola, Janise Aruta, Jill Benham, January Garabedian, Caroline Gray, Kathleen Higgins, Lawrence Hodes, Kate Kausch, Sun Lau, Cheryl Lee, Francine Lucey, Janice Nishida, Bea Pomasanoff, Jeanne Shamji, Leslie Stormon, Gloria Vitto, Judith Weiner, and Gail Weller.

SMC’s widely praised Emeritus program, founded by Santa Monica College in 1975 to serve the lifelong learning interests of older adults, offers more than 120 noncredit adult education classes and special programs that serve more than 3,000 students each year.

More information is available by visiting smc.edu/emeritusgallery or calling 310-434-4306.

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