Gloria Plascencia is the catalyst for a photography show that opens in Hermosa Beach
“It’s been a little hobby of mine for years.”
But now it’s more than just a hobby.
“It is. Now it is my career; it is my life.”
Gloria Plascencia didn’t become a photographer and a curator overnight, but this Friday the show she’s brought together – featuring ten photographers – opens with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. at Posters Ltd Gallery in Hermosa Beach.
“I’ve been in corporate America for a long time,” Plascencia says. “I worked in real estate, then in the banking industry – worked my way up. Then I left the banking industry because the small banks were eaten by the bigger banks, and I started working for the Nielsen Ratings, which is a marketing company. I’d been doing that for ten years, until I had a back injury three years ago; and it made me stop and realize I had to go in a different direction.”
She began taking courses in photography, and then it was no longer just a hobby.
Dear to her heart
“Photography Fusion 2011,” Plascencia explains, is so titled “because it’s a fusion of ideas and styles. Everyone has a different vision, and so it’s a marriage of all that.” The “2011” is part of the title “because next year we’re going to do ‘2012.’ It’ll be like a reunion of sorts every year.”
The same photographers, she says, with new ones added.
Plascencia met her photographers at El Camino College where all of them were students together. Some of them were exhibited there, some are still attending classes, and a couple of them have now graduated.
How did you choose people for the show?
“Actually they chose me,” Plascencia replies. “One of the artists has had a longing for an exhibition and she knew that I was taking classes in gallery management and that I had been curating a couple of exhibitions. She approached me and said she had a group of people that she would like to exhibit with. From there we added a couple of people that I preferred to add, and that’s how it happened.”
Would you rather have had a more concise theme?
“Not for this exhibition; maybe for some of the other ones. This exhibition was sort of an open call; it was their choice of photographs, and I told them that I wanted to see the photographs that represented them.”
So they showed you pictures and you made a selection?
“Yes, I did,” Plascencia says. “And also I knew their work because I’d studied with them.”
What kind of imagery do you specialize in?
“Manhattan Beach has been my inspiration for a long time, where I have a lot of images of the pier, because that’s where I go often times and reflect, and try to find out where I am with my life and where it’s taking me.” And so she mentions her interest in landscapes. “But I also like portraits, I love people; I’ve been working with people all my life.
“I also have a love for social documentary,” Plascencia continues, and in particular there’s her concern for the plight of the homeless. When pressed to elaborate, she says:
“The homeless project came about because I was used to going to Alondra Park (near El Camino College in Torrance) and seeing a lot of homeless, and sometimes I would help them, offer them food or offer money, whatever they needed. One day I went back, and they weren’t there anymore. Instead, there were police with horses patrolling the park. I said, What happened to the people who were living here, who needed to be here? – and they said, Well, we took care of them; they were placed in shelters.
“I was happy with their response. And then I started seeing the same people wandering the streets, around my neighborhood, your neighborhood, everywhere; and it made me really sad. It made me also remember my brother, who died in similar circumstances a few years ago.”
For her photographic project on the homeless, Plascencia says, “I could go and shoot an image of anybody, but I didn’t want to do that…. It could be me, it could be you, it could be anybody we know. So I’m putting myself in their place.”
In other words, it seems, these images – of which Plascencia hopes there can be at least 25, for exhibition perhaps next spring – will be self-portraits, ostensibly to suggest that someone we know, even ourselves, could one day land on the streets, without a place to call home.
“The public is going to participate in it,” she adds. “You’re going to have the opportunity to wear my coat, to wear my outfit and take an image of yourself, to be in their place.” A brief pause follows. “It’s dear to my heart.”
A low profile
Apart from Plascencia herself, the exhibition includes Andrew Kang, Dave Munson, Geena Ramirez, Iwao Brown, Matt Finley, Sean Reyes, Sunshine Bainbridge, William DeLeon, and Zhaskia Kruyff. The venue’s reputation isn’t for displaying new work, but as a place to have one’s art framed. It’s run by three siblings, Juan, Claudia, and Diego Trejo. Although they’ve been in business for several years, it may be through the enthusiasm and efforts of people like Gloria Plascencia that we find we have somewhere new, and nearby, where we can go to see work by local artists.
Photography Fusion 2011 opens with a reception tomorrow (Friday) from 6 to 9 p.m. at Posters Ltd Gallery, 950 Aviation Blvd., Unit D, Hermosa Beach. Hours, Monday to Friday, 11 to 7; Saturday, 10 to 6; Sunday, 10 to 4. The show is up through July 29 (closing reception on last day, also from 6 to 9 p.m.). Call (310) 374-6900 or go to PostersLtd.com. ER
