Long Beach’s beloved donation-based printing studio, workshop space and multicultural ecocenter is adding another function to the Wrigley neighborhood building, and the proof is on the walls.
Those who enter PLACE Long Beach — likely to make some independent art — will now be greeted by the new Breezeway Gallery. What was once an empty hallway entrance will become a rotating exhibit space, leading into PLACE’s work spaces and complimenting the already existing art.
The hallway sits in between the two halves of PLACE, and was originally an outdoor breezeway separating two smaller buildings. The gallery is the latest addition to PLACE’s mission of making artistic expression accessible to all. While the studio itself has been focused on affordable print for the community since its opening in 2022, Long Beach Community Media Arts (LBCMA) has been facilitating accessible art since 2019.
The nonprofit used to be based in Los Angeles, but came to Long Beach to build community, bringing with it the notion that “art is a communal experience” and “most powerful when it becomes ubiquitous.” PLACE Long Beach co-founders Ashley Aguirre and Sarah Bennett reached out to LBCMA shortly after they arrived in the city, and the two have been collaborating since then.
PLACE has filled every inch of its space with creative tools for the community to use, from printing presses and a zine library to a small darkroom. LBCMA co-founder Beaux Mingus figured, why not let people use the walls too?
“Curating galleries is a hard thing to get into. Not only do you need the space, but there is a lot of gatekeeping that happens within the art world,” Mingus said. “The whole idea is to make art accessible to as many people as possible because if there’s only one voice of people who can afford to go to prestigious art schools in these places, it’s boring, it’s watered down.”
Larger than the micro galleries seen throughout Long Beach, but smaller than a studio or museum, the Breezeway Gallery is the perfect option for anyone interested in curation or simply wanting to put on a show.
Mingus curated the first exhibit himself, featuring LBCMA co-founder Gina Napolitan. The exhibit, “Already Homesick” is made of paintings, mixed media collages and animations. The show opened to the public on April 26 and will be up through the month of May. Future exhibits however, will be curated and filled by anyone with an idea they want to execute.
April marked the first time in a decade Napolitan had shown her painting to others, although she’s been painting since childhood. As an animation professor at Cal State Long Beach, she grew accustomed to focusing on her animated craft, while keeping her paintings at home.
“It’s kind of like this weird little secret practice because I don’t really share them, but Beaux was encouraging me to share them,” Napolitan said. “It was kind of reassuring because I don’t show this stuff very often, so much of my work is shown in film, so to have that reassurance like, ‘Oh I’m a valid painter as well as a valid filmmaker’ was a nice sense of validation.”
Like any well-rounded artist, Napolitan’s multiple mediums inform one another. As she’s working on a painting, she’ll often end up using the pieces in her short films, and once she’s finished with a film, she reuses the material in her collage work. As a result, viewers can see similar images used in different ways, and will notice a thread of familiarity and coziness in “Already Homesick.”
Items one can stumble upon at an antique shop such as old UPS delivery slips, paper dolls, and pages from children’s books are cut out, painted on, glued and sewed together. The vibrant mid-century images and bold graphics are what drew Napolitan to them, and she takes full advantage of the nostalgia-inducing materials.
One item she kept coming back to over the last decade was paper dolls, which can be seen atop bingo cards and sheets of green stamps, in makeshift homes or painted over to give a ghost-like feeling.
“I think they’re such a strong visual metaphor for the way we construct our identities, especially the way women construct their identities and feel like they are forced to kind of code switch in different situations,” she said.
Coming down the hallway, viewers will be greeted by a banner of sorts with Napolitan’s printmaking ushering visitors into the rest of the gallery and PLACE. The snail, home and various animals were inspired by the spirit of hopeful, political printmaking messages, particularly the work done by the Bread + Puppet Theatre in Vermont. The banners are reminiscent of political fliers prompting resistance, but instead have messages of home, hope and a life slowly lived.
It’s a fitting entrance to the other half of “Already Homesick,” featuring small puppets with plastered on photos, cut out images of paper dolls, children’s toy wrappers, floral linen and on a small television, several of her animations played on a loop. Viewers will notice many of the same images and materials from the breezeway gallery paintings, creating a gallery in conversation with itself and its audience.
A striking element of the exhibit is the sense of nostalgia it brings up. Even if one didn’t grow up using paper dolls or green stamps, there’s an intimate domesticity attached to the gallery.
“That’s one of the reasons I love using found objects and found materials because there’s such a strong cultural memory attached to them,” Napolitan said. “Every person who views them brings their own memories to the objects.”
Among the lived-in clutter of PLACE’s many zines, printing presses and handmade artwork by the community from various workshops, the sentimental exhibit seems right at home.
“Already Homesick” will be open to the public until Saturday, May 31. Open hours at PLACE in May are from noon to 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Mondays, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesdays, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Wednesdays. For up to date hours, check @place.lb on Instagram.
The next Breezeway Gallery exhibit is currently accepting submissions for the theme of “love letters.”
