Exhibits Beyond the Refrigerator Gallery

“We’re trying to give children and their parents the sense that art making is not divorced from looking at art,” says Sue Ann Robinson, education coordinator at the Long Beach Museum of Art. “If kids think that all that happens to the art they make is that it’s something to hang on the refrigerator, then they don’t think there’s any connection with what they see in museums.”

This weekend, the museum inaugurated a new educational exhibition space to help to make those connections. The opening show, “Toys of the Imagination” (through April 5), features toys made by area schoolchildren during museum workshops alongside fanciful toys created by professional artists including Cindy Evans and George Hoschel.

The program will present about four exhibitions a year, all of which will include art created both by children and professionals. A variety of museum educational programs, community centers, artist-in-residence programs and other art-making activities for kids will be featured.

In addition to art making, Robinson hopes to encourage the children to think about critical judgment and to learn how curators work, why certain works are chosen for exhibition, and how artworks are grouped together and presented.

Upcoming exhibitions at the 450-square-foot Carriage House Education Gallery include video art and “Day of the Dead” shows, a collaboration with the Long Beach Symphony featuring artworks related to music, works by high school kids enrolled in artist-in-residence programs and photo-based work by toddlers and kindergartners working in collaboration with professional artist J. Michael Walker.

EVENTS: Speakers, storytelling by Willie Sims and music by the Kenny Burrell Trio will be featured at the UCLA Wight Art Gallery today during a 2-4 p.m. “Community Day” held in honor of noted African-American artist Romare Bearden. Information: (310) 825-1461.

La Brea Avenue’s Couturier Gallery is holding a benefit for Project Angel Food on Thursday in conjunction with the opening of its show of Tom Bianchi drawings. Tickets to the 7-10 p.m. event are $10. Information: (213) 933-5557.

The Alta Loma home and studio of renowned wood craftsman Sam Maloof will be open to the public during a Jan. 25 tour organized by the Craft and Folk Art Museum. Tickets for the noon-5 p.m. tour are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. Information: (213) 937-5544.

GRANTS: The first of five application workshops for the 1992 LACE Artists Projects Grants will be held Saturday at the California Museum of Photography in Riverside. Future workshops are scheduled for Jan. 25 in San Diego, Feb. 1 in Bakersfield, Feb. 29 in Santa Barbara and March 7 in Los Angeles. The program will award six to eight grants totaling $32,000 to individual artists or collaborating groups whose work challenges existing artistic disciplines or cultural traditions. Artists from Southern California and Hawaii are eligible, and the application deadline is April 1. Information:(213) 624-5650.

Upcoming grant deadlines for California Arts Council programs include: State-Local Partnership, Jan. 24; Organizational Support, Feb. 3; Artists in Schools, Feb. 7; Artists Serving Special Constituents and Artists in Communities, Feb. 21; Interagency, Feb. 25; California Challenge, March 16, and Traditional Folk Arts, May 1. Information: (916) 739-3186.