It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference. (Tom Brokaw).

The Art of
Business: A Tribute to Artists with Day Jobs honors those who do both. The 2nd City Council Art Gallery + Performance Space (2cc), located at
435 Alamitos Avenue in Long Beach, is pleased to announce its newest juried exhibition. The exhibition runs from June 24, August 3, 2006. A free public artists™ reception, with live music and light refreshment, will take place on Saturday, July 1, 2006 from 7 – 9 p.m. The exhibition features the work of 25 artists, from throughout the State of California, who work in bronze, fiber, furniture making, oil, charcoal, watercolor, photography, collage, mixed media, terra cotta, pastel, linoleum cut print, acrylic and sculpture.

The juror, Judith Luther Wilder, is highly credentialed in both the arts and in business. She is president of the Center for Cultural Innovation
(CCI) in Culver City, CA, the only small business development center in the country designed specifically to serve the business needs of artists.
She is also the founder/owner of ALW &
Associates, a media relations / project management firm whose clients have included The Center Theatre Group, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The United Cambodian Community, Inc., Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, California Institute of the Arts and The James Irvine Foundation. She has previously served as a Los Angeles County Arts Commissioner, the Cultural Services Superintendent for the City of Long Beach and the President of the Long Beach Museum of Art Foundation. She is the author of six books, including “Breaking Through the Clutter”, a business guide for artists and entrepreneurs.

The subject matter of the art in the exhibition ranges from depictions or commentaries on the “day job,” the issues artists struggle with and art for art sake made possible by the day job. The exhibition includes such artists as Camilo Cruz who was born in East L.A. to parents heavily involved in the Chicano/Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s and 1970’s. His early and constant exposure to radical ideology, cultural pride and dinnertime debates destined him to select job that promoted social justice. His art depicts his day job. Come find out what it is.

Brad Reyes™ work is a metaphor that speaks to the life choices and struggles of artists. Everyday he passed by a group of four steel posts at a construction site. The posts all initially had individual characteristics. The individualism within the group eventually was lost to perfect alignment and uniformity for the sake of progress.

Neal Breton labels himself “the common man™s artist and believes that introspective times standing on a curb waiting for the walk signal, reading over a menu, waiting for a bus, the pause of listening to the ring of a phone call are all moments which are barely noticed and deserve artistic immortalization.

Larry Richardson feels that Black American art is approached as though it is a form of expression separate from the majority culture. He feels the crucial issue is the quality of the work and its relevance to the society in which it is created. His work often forms a link between the past and the future and in giving a new approach to Afro- American figurative work. He is inspired to present the black image not only in the context of the pain and suffering inflicted on Africans in the days of slavery, but to bring forward those cultural contributions and legacies that Africans left behind in Spain, France, Italy and the present society.

Sam Hunters piece was created in response to the pressures of (and inflated by) the executives at her job. She is convinced that the “New American Business Model is to flog us all to early stress- related deaths, thereby reducing costs on pensions, benefits, and social security.

For more information please contact the gallery at 2ndcitycouncil@earthlink.net or (562) 901-0997.