One of our favorite art venues in the greater South Bay is the Angels Gate Cultural Center. But it’s more than just a place to see great exhibitions of work by local and visiting artists. Situated on a hill overlooking San Pedro and the Port of Los Angeles, the center provides studio space for more than 50 artists, and provides extended support for many more. And its classes and programs serve a wide swath of residents, both children and adult.

The Aesthetic recently exchanged e-mails with Angels Gate Executive Director Robin Hinchliffe, which gave us a chance to ask her a few questions about what’s currently going on at the center, and what we can expect in the near future:

The Aesthetic: Angels Gate is nearing its 20th birthday. Do you have any kind of celebration planned?
Hinchliffe: Not specifically — maybe the focus of the Annual Gathering of Angels exhibit at the end of 2002.

What do you think have been the major accomplishments of the Angels Gate Cultural Center?
1) Raise the visibility of San Pedro as a serious artists’ community. There are 52 artists who have studios here at Angels Gate and at least that many live or have studios in town.
2) The Artists in Classrooms program provides weekly arts instruction by artists working collaboratively with teachers in 16 local schools, making children aware of the arts and of their own creativity.

How does the center’s mission to explore and celebrate diverse cultures affect the art, and vice versa?
The exhibits Immigrant Eyes, Skin/Veneer, Two Peninsulas and On and of Paper relate specifically to other cultures. Other exhibits pointedly do so because all seek to show a diversity of approaches to ideas in Greater Los Angeles.

In the Apron Strings exhibit of last year, you led a South Bay-wide exhibit that involved both everyday people and artists at sites all over the area. Do you see Angels Gate as leading the South Bay arts community?
That’s a presumptuous idea.

Do you think you’ll ever do anything like that again? If so, what do you have in mind?
Responding to an idea by Susanna Meiers at El Camino College, we are participating in a four-location exhibit called “From the Neck Up.” El Camino will do “About Face” with masks, Manhattan Beach will do “Heads Up” with head portraits, the Palos Verdes Art Center will do “Hats Off” with hats (opening with a Mad Hatter tea party) and we will do “Between the Ears,” a conceptual art show. We will be looking for support from local head doctors, dentists, psychologists, ENTs, etc...

Are there any artists affiliated with Angels Gate that you’re particularly excited about right now?
All of them!

What’s coming up at Angels Gate that people should know about?
We are making plans to develop the former West and LaSalle hotels on Seventh Street in San Pedro as artists’ lofts, galleries and stores to create a major attraction for the revitalization of downtown San Pedro. It will probably take a couple years, but should be wonderful for the downtown economy.

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