ELAC President's Corner Fall 2008 - East Los Angeles College

East Los Angeles College
Performing and Fine Arts Complex
Construction Is Under Way
President Ernest H. Moreno, left, and former art department chair June Smith, dance instructor Rick Crawford, Director
of Theater, Kelley Hogan, art department chair Jim Uyekawa, Vincent Price Art Museum director Karen Rapp and music
instructor Albert Dawson break ground on the new Performing and Fine Arts Complex.
ounds of dirt and huge earth moving machines are
“M sculpting the corner of Avenida Cesar Chavez and
Collegian Avenue preparing the area for the construction of
the Performing and Fine Arts Complex that will serve the
community as well as East Los Angeles College students.
The new complex will house the college’s famous Vincent
Price Art Museum with a collection of more than
2,000 pieces valued in excess of $5 million. “East Los Angeles
College has the most impressive collection of artwork
of any community college in the world,” College President
Ernest H. Moreno said during the June 27 groundbreaking
ceremony. “With this new building, we finally have a home
worthy of our outstanding collection.”
The gallery was dedicated in 1957 when Vincent and
Mary Grant Price donated a significant portion of their personal
art collection to the college with the goal of providing
students and the surrounding community with an art gallery.
They continued to increase the collection by encouraging
artists and fellow collectors to contribute pieces to the
collection, which was first housed in a campus bungalow.
“We will now have a world-class art museum with ample
storage for artwork that can function as a teaching collection;
three floors of exhibition space; an art history lecture
hall and the ability to involve the campus and community
in many activities, film screenings and lectures that make
a good museum great,” said Karen Rapp, Vincent Price Art
Museum director.
The museum will be located at the center of the complex
surrounded by two other buildings. The dance, music and
visual arts building will house studios and classrooms for
painting, sculpture, print making, and a ceramics laboratory.
The two-story, 77,000 square-foot facility will also have
a recital hall and classrooms for dance, music, choir and
music libraries, music computer labs and rehearsal space.
“Students will be given the opportunity to enhance their
training in the arts within a professional setting that will be
equipped to create an atmosphere they have only dreamed of
and are completely thrilled about,” said Kristina Karmiryan,
a student and president of ELAC’s Let’s Dance Company.
“Having this center for the various arts will make students
feel appreciated and significant, thus giving them the
opportunity to inspire one another, value our unique qualities,
and ultimately represent East Los Angeles College with
dignity and pure talent.”
A third 42,110 square-foot companion building has been
custom-designed for the college’s Theater Arts Department.
The facility will include a 167 fixed-seat theater, a “black
box” theater that will accommodate more than 110 persons
as well as a costume shop, make-up room and rehearsal
classrooms. “Someone once said – and I believe it was a
theater guy – that ‘all the world’s a stage . . .’ said Kelley Hogan,
Director of Theater. “Well, here at East that was very
true (because) every sidewalk, converted classroom, World
War I bungalow, and grassy knoll was a stage for our students
and they created magic in those spaces. I can hardly
wait to see the even more marvelous and magical shows
that they will create in our new facility.”
“[ELAC] has such a wonderful legacy,” said Marshall
E. Drummond, chancellor of the Los Angeles Community
College District. “The building will give faculty and staff
members the platform to create a new legacy that will make
this center go far beyond East Los Angeles.”
The new project is scheduled to be completed in spring
2010. For more information on this and other bond construction
projects at East Los Angeles College, visit www.
LACCDBuildsGreen.org/elac.php n