Couriers of Hope

Port City Creative Guild Launches New Exhibition Couriers of Hope Engaging over 80 Artists and Hundreds of Long Beach Students

Long Beach, CA (January 11, 2021) — Couriers of Hope, an art exhibition that brings together ten local museums and galleries in Long Beach for the first time ever, opens January 19th, 2021 with over 80 artists contributed over 160 pieces of art.

The exhibit is presented by Port City Creative Guild, an initiative of Creative Class Collective, the non-profit arm of the multicultural agency Intertrend, with the support of the JAG Molina Family Foundation Fund. Port City Creative Guild’s mission is to nurture art appreciation, raise awareness of art organizations, and connect artists to communities. Couriers of Hope is the second Port City Creative Guild exhibit and the first to be open physically and virtually at the same time.

In pursuit of their mission, Port City Creative Guild has made this show a huge collaborative effort, bringing together ten Long Beach museums, galleries, and arts organizations as curators — a historical first for the local community. Long Beach Museum of Art, Creative Arts Coalition to Transform Urban Space, Flatline, Inspired LBC, The Icehouse x Ink and Drink Long Beach, Arts Council Long Beach, Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum (CSULB), Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum, Compound LBC, and the Creative Class Collective have each selected outstanding local artists to create original works on new or used envelopes that explore the idea of hope. Participating artists include Yoskay Yamamoto, Aaron De La Cruz, Rosanne Kang Jovanovski, Christina Catherine Martinez, and Kristofferson San Pablo, among many others.

Art being made on new or found mailing envelopes channels the mail art movement of the 1960s and, at the same time, references the current importance of finding ways to form physical connections with each other in a time when physical interaction is rare and so much of our relationships now happen through screens. Mail art is also an egalitarian way of making and distributing art — the canvas is readily available and the small-scale size is a constraint intended to prompt greater creativity. The democratic nature of mail art relates to another important aspect of this show: an artwork trading program with Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) students.

With Couriers of Hope, Port City Creative Guild is focusing in particular on fostering art appreciation and art collection in young people, so all works in the show are only available for acquisition through trading with LBUSD students. Students who wish to acquire a piece of work will create their own artistic response to the same prompt as the artists and offer that for trading. Port City Creative Guild is working in collaboration with high school teachers by surveying their classroom needs and providing enough art kits for all participating students, so that access to resources isn’t a barrier to involvement. In this way, many new conversations between young people and artists will be started over what they have made.

The prompt given to both the artists and LBUSD students revolves around hope. Hope is a universal human experience, but where each individual’s hope comes from is deeply personal. After a year full of reasons to feel hopeless and fearful, we want to recognize that hope is still there keeping us going. Artists have creatively responded to these questions and students will to: What brings you hope? What are you hoping for? How do you picture hope?

The exhibition will be on view virtually 24/7 online at Port City Creative Guild and in-person at the Psychic Temple of the Holy Kiss, the second longest standing building in downtown Long Beach and home to Intertrend. The physical exhibition is designed to be viewed from the sidewalk through the windows of the 1st floor space and will adhere to COVID-19 requirements. Available for viewing from 9am-6pm, seven days a week starting January 19th and open through February 28th, 2021.

Port City Creative Guild was established with hopes to bring the Long Beach art community together. “We wanted to stress the importance of supporting artists and their crafts by focusing on art appreciation and education,” says Julia Huang, CEO of Intertrend. “We are beyond thrilled that so many artists came together and cannot wait to see how the students interact with them through the Couriers of Hope exhibition.”

couriers of hope
Viewing Hours:
January 19, 2021 – February 28, 2021
9am – 6pm | 7 days a week
Psychic Temple of the Holy Kiss / Intertrend 228 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90802

For more info on Port City Creative Guild, please visit www.portcitycreativeguild.org
For further information on Intertrend, please visit www.intertrend.com

Media Contact:
Doug Roche
press@portcitycreativeguild.org
310-658-6940

About Port City Creative Guild
The mission of PCCG is to provide local artists with a platform to showcase their art and their artistry, allowing them to become creative entrepreneurs and give the greater community the benefits of the healing power of creativity.

About the JAG Molina Family Foundation Fund
The JAG Molina Family Foundation Fund, a donor-advised fund held at the Long Beach Community Foundation, has donated over $5 million to date. Recipients have included CSULB, USC School of Law, and the Smithsonian Institute.

About Intertrend
Intertrend is a multicultural creative agency that understands the intersection of cultures, emerging trends, and the interaction between brands and consumers. Interpreters and interrupters, interdisciplinary and international, Intertrend is where culture and content meet.