Artists Southern California

Glendale officials are considering sponsoring an artists' competition to launch a cultural renaissance that would bring artworks, festivals and other events to the city. The competition--in which artists would be asked to submit ideas for a sculpture, painting or other art forms to be displayed in a public place and paid for at taxpayer expense--was among several ideas proposed Monday in the second of a two-part workshop on a proposed public arts program.

Planners of the 1990 Los Angeles Festival intend to present arts and artists from as far away as Australia, Korea and Colombia. The City of the Angels is to be represented too. But will any limelight shine on Orange County? Organizers of the festival hope so. Any Orange County artists and arts groups--practicing any media--may take part in the event's Open Festival, in which participants will pay their own production costs. The Los Angeles Festival, planned for Sept.

Upstairs at the California Museum of Photography, projected on the curving rear walls outside a little auditorium, computer-generated video imagery by artist Jennifer Steinkamp and recorded sound by composer James Johnson together transform the space into a weird and witty spectacle. Colorful images pulse, electronic sound seems to breathe and solid walls appear to dissolve, as if allowing a temporary, Superman-like glimpse inside their hidden innards.

At first, I wondered where the musical commonality was between Terri Lyne Carrington and Patsy Moore, who will perform together Sunday at La Ve Lee in Studio City. Carrington is the immensely talented jazz-rooted drummer who has worked with such greats as Wayne Shorter and James Moody. Moore is an acoustic folk-pop singer-songwriter in the Joni MitchellJoan Armatrading tradition.

Seduction comes easy these days. Elaborate mailings assure us that we are among the select few invited to subscribe to an upscale magazine, or to use a charge card named after a precious metal. For a fleeting moment we may even believe that we are being singled out as special. It's only human to preen. Artists are hardly immune. The tiniest sign that someone really is interested in their work is enough to send many a fledgling artist into orbit.

The hub of this city's gallery action has shifted westward over the past few years, but curator Valerie Brett believes that downtown Los Angeles still bristles with artistic activity. "Most of the galleries have moved out," Brett said, "but there is some very vital art being made downtown and more artists than you can imagine are still living and working there." Brett, cultural affairs coordinator for Security Pacific Corp., should know.

Tile artist Richard Thomas Keit was looking for a roomier place when he moved his home and studio from one part of Thousand Oaks to another a year and a half ago. Since quitting his job at a computer company in 1980, Keit has devoted full time to making ceramic tiles based on Art Deco and old Malibu designs. Keit's much-admired tile work has been installed at celebrities' residences and can be seen in public buildings at Glendale City College and on Santa Catalina Island.

First, the moral of the story: Never take a mask at face value. A procession of masks used to drive Isabel Camacho Diamond to hide from the annual Lent festivals in the Costa Rican village where she grew up. But now another crowd of masks has delivered Diamond and several of her recent works to the galleries of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "To me," Diamond said, "a mask is a way of transforming one's self. We use them every day. . . .