Events

Join guest artist and Armory alumnus Patrick Martinez for a hands-on assemblage workshop exploring how everyday materials can tell stories about community, identity, and resilience. Designed and organized by the Armory's 2026 Getty Marrow Undergraduate Interns, Lorna Cariaga and Jackson Brathwaite, this free workshop invites participants to transform ordinary objects into meaningful works of art.

Guests are invited to bring an object from home that they associate with community, identity, or resilience. Working alongside Martinez and Armory teaching staff, they will transform their object into either an assemblage sculpture or collage using traditional materials and found objects from the Armory's famous “Recycle Room.”

This workshop is free, open to all ages, and will be capped at 25 participants. RSVPs are required.

About this Workshop
This workshop draws inspiration from Rasquachismo, a Chicano cultural aesthetic rooted in resourcefulness, resilience, and creative adaptation. Born out of material necessity, Rasquachismo involves making the most out of limited means by repurposing, customizing, and elevating discarded or inexpensive everyday items into functional or artistic creations. This spirit of making from what is available has long served as a powerful form of cultural expression and resilience.

Presented in recognition of the anniversaries of the 19th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act, the workshop celebrates the individuals and communities who have fought to expand our rights and strengthen our communities. Like many movements for social change, Rasquachismo reminds us that creativity, adaptation, and collective action can become powerful tools for imagining and building more equitable futures.

About the Guest Artist
Patrick Martinez (b. 1980, Pasadena, CA) is known for his mixed media landscape paintings, neon sign pieces, cake paintings, and series of appropriative works on "Pee Chee" folders.

Martinez's landscape paintings are abstractions composed of Los Angeles surface content, including distressed stucco, spray paint, window security bars, vinyl signage, ceramic tile, neon sign elements, and other recognizable materials. His landscape paintings evoke place and socio-economic position and further unearth sites of personal, civic, and cultural loss.

Patrick’s neon sign works are fabricated to mirror street-level commercial signage, but are remixed to present words and phrases drawn from literary and oratorical sources. His acrylic-on-panel Cake paintings memorialize leaders, activists, and thinkers, and the Pee Chee series documents the threats posed to black and brown youth by law enforcement.

Martinez fondly recalls how the Armory was his first introduction to fine art classes and contemporary art exhibitions: "When I was 7 or 8 years old, I was bussed to Armory Center for the Arts to take a ceramics class. It felt really amazing to work on projects in a studio setting and to see kilns at such an early age."

Martinez holds a BFA from Art Center College of Design, where he graduated with honors in 2005. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles, and is represented by Charlie James Gallery.

About the Organizers
This event is the capstone project organized by the Armory's 2026 Getty Marrow Undergraduate Interns by Lorna Cariaga (Exhibitions Intern) and Jackson Brathwaite (Communications Intern).

Lorna Cariaga is a recent graduate of California State University, Fullerton, where she earned a B.A. in Art History with a minor in Chicanx Studies. She is interested in curatorial work, learning about exhibition design, and the process of creating exhibitions.

Jackson Brathwaite is a photographer and videographer who is interested in learning more about the business and administrative side of creative organizations. Jackson is currently an undergraduate at USC's Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy. As a child, Jackson took several classes at the Armory, including his first photography class.

Since 1993, the Getty's Marrow Undergraduate Internship program (formerly the Getty Multicultural Undergraduate Internship) has exposed promising undergraduate students from underrepresented backgrounds in the arts to careers in museums and visual arts organizations. The program offers full-time, 10-week paid internships in core areas of museum work such as curatorship, conservation, education, publications, and public programming. Notable past interns include Cameron Shaw, Executive Director of the California African American Museum, and Leslie A. Ito, the Armory's Executive Director.