MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Middletown Art Center has again been awarded a Local Impact Grant from the California Arts Council, this year for its project “Restore.”

Like Resilience, Restore provides the community ages 12 to 85-plus of all abilities and backgrounds, opportunities to engage in art making and creative writing to develop their creative and artistic voices.

Workshops this year in mixed media, sculpture, creative writing and printmaking begin July 7 and will focus on art in dialogue with nature.

The project will culminate in the reopening of the EcoArts Sculpture Walk at Trailside Park in the early summer of 2019, development of an art trail on Rabbit Hill, indoor exhibits, and a second chapbook of poetry and images.

“Building on the success of our Resilience Project, Restore is the next stage in our recovery,” said Lisa Kaplan, director at MAC. “With support from the California Arts Council, contributors to MAC and our partners, we will restore places our local community once enjoyed that were destroyed by the Valley Fire. The Local Impact grant for Restore provides us with the means to continue to offer low cost classes to people throughout Lake County, and to further the work we started with the Resilience Project. We are thrilled!”

Middletown Art Center’s Resilience project now has exhibits in five locations in Lakeport at City Hall, the County Courthouse and Main Street Gallery in Lakeport, at Fore Family Vineyards Tasting Room in Kelseyville.

Also currently on view is Resilience: Art In Dialogue with Nature exhibit at the art center, which is a hybrid of the EcoArts tradition and the resilience theme.

This impressive and earthy exhibit includes selections from the Resilience project. Exhibits in Clearlake will open in the coming weeks. Find out more about exhibit locations and hours at www.middletownartcenter.org .

Inspired by Nature’s resilience as a mirror for our community’s recovery after devastating wildfires, the Resilience project provided opportunities to reframe the fire experience, which impacted us all directly or indirectly, into creative expression and aesthetics.

Each exhibit is different, and highlights work by project participants. The Resilience Chapbook, a collection of powerful writings about or inspired by the fire experience, trauma and recovery is now available to preorder on MAC’s Web site or in the gallery.

“I attended the Resilience writing workshops for the last 6 months of Resilience,” explained Georgina Marie, a poet and Lakeport resident who returned to Lake County after the Clayton Fire destroyed her mother’s home. “Under the guidance of accomplished instructors and surrounded by other writers, I was inspired to dive deeply into subjects I may not have otherwise tapped into such as grief, trauma and pain. In doing so, I was able to strengthen my writing, embrace my own resilience and become part of an incredible artistic community. I also attended painting and printmaking workshops, which reconnected me to my painting practice after losing touch with it for many years. I am so grateful for the experience, support, creative outcomes and opportunities for exposure in exhibition and in the chapbook that the Resilience project provided me.”

MAC is grateful to the California Arts Council, and other local partners, agencies and businesses for supporting MAC in providing local, affordable, quality access to the arts and art-making.

The Middletown Art Center is located at 21456 Highway 175, at the junctions of Highway 29 in Middletown.

Visit www.middletownartcenter.org to learn more about the many arts, culture and community happenings at the Middletown Art Center.