Artist Charlie Ciali Mentors the Future
by Morgan Craft
January 14, 2010Palm Springs artist Charlie Ciali wasn’t expecting the call he got from Palm Springs High School counselor Rich Kravitz in 2008. “Are you the same Charlie Ciali who has a piece hanging at the Palm Springs Art Museum?” He was. “I have a student here who picked your work out of everything in the museum and wants you to be their mentor in our arts program. Are you interested?”
A well-known local artisan who occasionally teaches printmaking, Ciali had never considered mentoring young artists for free. A little research showed that Kravitz had spearheaded the Arts Institute at the school, and that it is a model arts education program unlike anything else in the state. Founded in 2005 with just 25 students, the fully-accredited program now has over 300 arts-focused students participating in its curriculum.
Ciali’s work as an art print-maker has become well-known in the desert, where he has exhibited widely and won a number of competitions. The artist’s home studio boasts the largest art print press in the valley, where he composes his multi-layered monotype prints utilizing paint, text, drawing, patterns, stencils, and pieces ripped from vintage magazines.
“Mono prints are all about a multi-layered story. They’re totally unique, and only one print is ever made – they’re not editions,” Ciali said in his studio.
At Kravitz’ urging, the artist agreed to meet with some of the students to talk about his art and see if there was a fit with any of them. During that presentation, Ciali, in an effort to communicate with the aspiring artists on their level, discussed his view that art is a story, in layers, much like the billboards they saw everyday that show layers of stories on top of other layers. He also voiced his opinion that the graffiti that occasionally finds its way to old billboards was itself a part of the evolving story.
The billboard and graffiti references gave Kravitz an idea. He went down the hall and pulled a student in the program out of his class and brought him to the presentation. Kravitz had seen Josiah Ihem’s sketchbook and thought he sensed something, trying to match the young artist with a suitable mentor. Josiah immediately related to Ciali’s views on art, and upon seeing the student’s sketches, Ciali realized he had found the artist for him to mentor. Josiah joined the program, and was soon a fixture in the artist’s Palm Springs studio.
“I’ve been drawing as long as I can remember,” said Josiah. “But with printmaking I’ve discovered a whole new world.”
Josiah had been drawing in manga and anime (Japanese comic book and cartoon) style, and experimented with graffiti. By the age of sixteen, he’d built up quite a large portfolio, but his dad threw them all away.
“He didn’t like me drawing, said it wasn’t going to get me anywhere, a dead end. He thought I should be running instead, since I’m really fast, but I didn’t want to run. It didn’t excite me.” He was also an award-winning break dancer. But art as a vocation had never occurred to him until he became exposed to Ciali’s mentorship.
“With Charlie, I began to learn how to look at color and composition and new kinds of mediums. I learned to look at relationships within my pictures. It helped me out a lot. I realized I could bring my drawing skills into printmaking and got really excited about that.”
As an exercise in mentoring, Ciali had Josiah enter last year’s Annual Palm Springs Art Show, sponsored by the City of Palm Springs Public Arts Commission, where he had once served as a commissioner. He took third place, and Josiah received second place in the mixed media category – the event’s youngest winner ever. Then Josiah received a commission for a large graffiti mural at PartyLab in Palm Springs. The artistic collaboration was bearing fruit.
The experience had such an impact on the seasoned artist that Charlie Ciali now sits on the Friends of the Art Institute’s board, and has been active in fundraising and recruiting other mentors for the nonprofit program.
According to Ciali, “Mentoring has been very much about watching students discover, and sharing in that excitement. I begin to see more about my work when I am mentoring. If you have a really talented student, you should be getting as much from them as they are getting from you - it keeps your perspective fresh”.
Josiah’s benefit from the relationship is evident, and by developing his skills under the mentorship of Charlie Ciali, was accepted to the Art Institute in San Bernardino and is in his first year.
In Charlie Ciali’s studio, Josiah is busy making a new series of prints as he reflects on his journey and what the future holds.
“I’m doing many of the same things I was doing on my own with manga and graffiti, but now I’m doing it legitimately and people can actually see it,” he says.
The ongoing relationship has culminated in an upcoming two-man show featuring the two artists at the Red Dot Gallery in Palm Springs, which runs from Jan. 23 – Feb. 17th. A reception for the opening is scheduled on Jan. 30, from 6–8 pm. Not surprisingly, the announcement for the exhibition shows a piece of Ciali’s work juxtaposed onto a billboard.
The future looks bright for Josiah Ihem, and he too sees a role for himself in the Art Institute’s program. “I can see myself mentoring someone else down the road. It’d be really cool to give back.”
The look of pride on Charlie Ciali’s face in his studio as he hears this is unmistakable.
The Red Dot Gallery is located at 2608 Cherokee Way, in the Palm Springs Backstreet Art District. Their number is (760)328-8634, and on the web at reddotps.com
To find out more information on the Arts Institute at Palm Springs High School, or to contribute to Friends of the Art Institute, call Rich Kravitz at (760)778-0425, or connect with them on Facebook to keep up with news and upcoming events.
