LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Friday, June 1, from 5:30 to 7 p.m., the public is invited to Lake County Art Council’s Main Street Gallery in Lakeport for the First Friday Fling and an opening reception of work created during the Resilience project.

The exhibit includes vibrant paintings from the Resilience project’s Soul Painting and Drawing the Inside Out classes, exhibited in half of the main gallery, as well as prints and photographs created during the project.

The Resilience chapbook of poetry and images will be available to peruse and pre-order. The exhibit will be on view until July 2.

The Main Street Gallery is located at 325 N. Main St. in Lakeport and is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Inspired by Nature’s resilience as a mirror for our county’s recovery after devastating wildfires, the MAC’s Resilience project has provided opportunities for adults and teens, to reframe the fire experience, which impacted us all directly or indirectly, into creative expression and aesthetics.

More than 220 individuals ranging in age from 12 to 85 have attended affordable classes in photography, creative writing, painting and printmaking once or many times since June 2017.

“In addition to the healing and enriching aspects of art-making, a key goal of our project is to weave art into daily life throughout Lake County,” said artist and Project Director Lisa Kaplan. “To this end, we are opening Resilience project exhibits in multiple locations throughout the County, and publishing our chapbook called Resilience, a community reframes disaster through art, which includes powerful writings and images that were created or reworked during the Resilience project. It’s a moving and beautiful collaborative effort by participants that honors our collective recovery.”

MAC continues to spread and share the healing power of art with this new exhibit at Main Street Gallery, the 4th of 7 exhibits opening countywide.

On June 9, the Fore Family Vineyards Tasting Room in Kelseyville will host and open another Resilience exhibit from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Additional exhibits of Resilience work will be on view at Clearlake City Hall and at the Adventist Health Hospital Mountain View Café in Clearlake in the weeks to come.

On May 26, MAC opened its Resilience: Art In Dialogue with Nature exhibit at the art center, which is a hybrid of the EcoArts tradition and the resilience theme. The impressive exhibit is on view Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Fridays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Sundays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Earlier this month Resilience exhibits were installed at Lakeport City Hall and at the Lake County Courthouse. Both are open to the public during their regular business hours. Each of these exhibits further MAC’s goal of embedding art in public spaces and connecting distant corners of Lake County through the arts.

MAC is grateful to the California Arts Council, Adventist Health, Lake County Arts Council and other local partners, agencies and businesses for their support of Resilience and their ongoing commitment to assisting MAC in providing local, affordable, quality access to the arts and art-making.

The Middletown Art Center is located at 21456 Highway 175, at the junctions of Hwy 29 in Middletown.

Join the folks at MAC this weekend and throughout the year for a variety of community and cultural events including First Friday Art Walks, classes, musical performances, film screenings, dances, farmers market and more.

Registration for MAC’s Adventures in Art and Storytelling summer camp, an extravaganza of visual and performing arts for children kindergarten through ninth grade has also begun.

Visit www.MiddletownArtCenter.org to learn more about what’s happening at MAC and to be part of a burgeoning arts and culture scene in Lake County.