SOUTH PASADENA — A live concert performance by GOH (guitarist Goh Kurosawa) and an art exhibit by Pete Morris will be showcased in the Library Community Room on Saturday, July 21, as part of the South Pasadena Summer Arts Crawl.
The popular thrice-yearly Arts Crawl is a fun “Night on the Town,” not only for local residents, but also for art and music lovers from all around the surrounding region. The Arts Crawl presents a wide variety of live music performances, art galleries, and other arts events in multiple venues, all within short walking distance of each other.
The free library event will open at 6 p.m. when more than 50 of Morris’ stunning artworks of L.A. people and scenes will be on display. Also starting in the Library Community Room at 6 p.m. will be a special fundraising art book sale by the Friends of the South Pasadena Public Library. Special thanks to 210eastsound, Kurtis Nakagawa and Mike Voisin.
Many beautiful, rare books will be offered for sale for the first time at the Friends Art Book Sale. They were donated by the Chouinard Foundation, which continues to enhance the shining arts legacy of Nelbert Chouinard (1879-1979), the South Pasadena artist and educator. Mrs. Chouinard founded her Chouinard Art School in Downtown L.A. in 1921. Throughout the 20th century, Chouinard-trained artists gained international acclaim.
Many of the books offered at the sale are from the personal collection of celebrated artist Connor Everts (1926-2016), a highly accomplished student and educator at Chouinard Art School. Retrospectives of Connor Everts’ artwork have been featured in the L.A. County Museum of Art, the Pasadena Museum of California Art, and the Norton Simon Museum.
Morris is a local watercolorist who draws and paints almost every day. He teaches art at Creative Arts Group in Sierra Madre, Arlington Gardens in Pasadena , Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden in Pasadena, and for the City of Monterey Park. Two of his books, “Riding the Metro: Sketches of My Commute” and “Curbside L.A.: Street Level Watercolor Sketches of Los Angeles Neighborhoods,” are available to be checked out from the library collection.
Kurosawa and Morris recently returned from a tour of Japan, where they performed onstage together. They say they are looking forward to sharing the spotlight again. Morris was last seen on the South Pasadena Library stage during the 2017 Eclectic Music Festival when he painted Calvin Joe and the Orange Grove Rangers while they performed live. During GOH’s Arts Crawl performance, Morris will create a live painting of Kurosawa’s virtuoso musical performance right before the audience.
In Los Angeles, Kurosawa produces “Brilliant Strings,” a long-running live music and watercolor show. He also regularly conducts workshops and seminars at universities and schools and frequently travels throughout the Pacific Northwest doing shows, particularly in the Seattle and Portland areas.. Having performed in a wide range of festival settings since 2005, he has also performed in Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, France, Canada, Myanmar, and Mexico. Later this year, he is going to perform in Havana, Cuba for an event supported by the Japanese Embassy.
The Library Community Room exhibit and concert venue at 1115 El Centro St. will be open on July 21 from 6 to 8:30 p.m. for the Arts Crawl event. The free event is sponsored by South Pasadena Public Library and the Friends of the South Pasadena Public Library. Refreshments will be served and autographed CDs and books will be available for purchase. For more information, call the library at (626) 403-7350.
Free parking is available in the South Pasadena Unified School District lot at 1020 El Centro St. (entrance from Fairview Avenue between El Centro and Mission) and after noon at the Mission Meridian Parking Garage located at 805 Meridian Ave. adjacent to the Metro Gold Line Station, only one block from the library.