The Orange County Museum of Art has been a space for learning as much as it has been for art appreciation and relaxation since it opened the doors of its new $94 million building to the public last October.
Founded 60 years ago and one of the earliest contemporary art museums in California, OCMA moved several times before building its forever home at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa. The 53,000-square-foot building – the design of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne – has twice as much room for exhibitions as the previous Fashion Island location, and admission to the museum is completely free for the next 10 years, thanks to a gift from Newport Beach’s Lugano Diamonds.
Since its opening, thousands of people from nearby and around the world have visited each month, many participating in its community programs.
“We’ve had such a incredible response in the best possible way that we were overwhelmed and awed,” OCMA’s Director of Learning and Engagement Meagan Burger said.
And as the museum marks its one-year anniversary, it will be launching several new programs, as well as expanding existing ones.
Debuting this week, OCMA’s anniversary week, will be the museum’s first Spanish-friendly program, ¡ArteViva!, which celebrates contemporary Spanish art and culture. Materials and guides will also be translated into Spanish, and, in the future, a multitude of languages, said CEO Heidi Zuckerman.
“This is taking the idea that everyone is welcome to the next step and being able to offer materials and programming in languages other than just English,” she said.
People are at the center of what the museum embodies, Burger said, and first-year turnout has exceeded expectations.
From when the museum opened last year to August of this year, more than 300 museum-guided and self-guided programs have taken place, with 18,000 visitors participating in various public, family and youth programs. The museum also hosted close to 1,300 school and community tours.
“We’ve had programs that really allowed families to connect and bond through art making and art playing, really making the museum a space where you can express yourself,” Burger said.
One popular program has been the monthly Family Fun event where visitors go on a self-guided gallery tour and then do an art activity, such as painting, creating a collage or making chalk-pastel stencils. Each month has offered a different theme inspired by current exhibitions, Burger said.
Taking inspiration from the countless families that have stopped by, Burger said the museum created a physical, fold-out family guide with art-themed activities to help engage children in art, to be made available starting with the anniversary week.
“It explains what a museum is, includes prompts for talking about and creating art and includes images they can take home and color to remember their visit,” Burger said.
And on the third Friday of October, OCMA will launch Dear Art, the first in a series of programs designed for students ages 13 to 18.
“All the emotion and energy and excitement that you feel in high school, we wanted to create a space for people to come together and experience that,” Burger said.
Visitors will have the chance to create sand sculptures and abstract paintings, as well as listen to music by LA-based indie band The Treedome.
OCMA is also promoting wellness education by making permanent its Yoga: Free Flow, a 60-minute yoga session led by mediation and mindfulness instructors held on the museum’s large outdoor terrace. What was an occasional program is now a recurring monthly yoga session on the first Sunday of each month, Burger said. OCMA is hosting a special bonus session of yoga during this anniversary week.
Zuckerman said she feels like the museum is a “very tangible way of proving that art makes people’s lives better.”
“We’ve had over 260,000 people visit. In our old location, the attendance was never more than 20,000 in a year,” she said. “So to top more than 13 times the number of visitors is really exciting. My personal mission is to connect people to art and artists.”
She’s appreciative of the community that’s come out to museum and made its first year a success, she said.
“To be able to say this is your museum,” she said, “and for people to really understand that invitation was really gratifying for me.”
Celebrating its first year
OCMA opened to the public on Oct. 8, 2022, with a 24-hour party. To celebrate its first anniversary, it has a week of activities planned.
On Sunday, visitors to the museum received a special postcard highlighting the building’s design.
On Tuesday, Oct. 10, Zuckerman is leading a public tour of the museum’s new exhibition “Jennifer Guidi: And so it is.” at 3 p.m.
Other current exhibits are “Tony Lewis: CASUAL T,” “Alice Neel: Feels Like Home” and “Yu Ji: A Guest, A Ghost, A Host.”
On Wednesday, the museum hosts an Artist Films Screening at 11 a.m.
On Thursday, artist-in-residence DJ Dave Muller will be there from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; CASUAL CreativiT Drawings will be from 3 to 6 p.m. and Muller will talk about art and music in a 6 p.m. Artist Talk.
On Saturday, the museum will host its big anniversary party starting with a meditative sound bath at 11 a.m., music and dance performances and art activities during the afternoon, an evening happy hour, and a Big Night Out dance party from 7 to 9 p.m.
On Sunday, there will be Yoga: Free Flow at 11 a.m. and ¡ArteViva! from 1 to 5 p.m., featuring art activities, salsa dance lessons and more. For more information, go to ocma.art.
