Bringing Art to the Marketplace : Project: Irvine Co. donates space at a shopping center for artist-in-residency program that will also offer educational programs for the public.

On March 6, the Irvine Fine Arts Center will open an artist-in-residency program at retail space 195 in the Marketplace shopping center. Orange County artists selected by the Fine Arts Center curatorial staff will spend anywhere from 2 1/2 to four months working at the 1,200-square-foot site, where they will also offer informal educational programs for the public.

The space, which normally rents for about $2,400 a month, was donated by the Irvine Co., owner of the shopping center. The company will also provide a monthly artist stipend of about $500.

Henry Korn, cultural affairs manager for the city of Irvine, said, “The emphasis will be on artists from the county who are eager to communicate with the general public.”

“The idea is to get art into the community where people can see it and understand it and react to it,” said Russell Lowe, vice president of operations for Irvine Retail Properties Co., which handles leasing arrangements for the Marketplace.

The Marketplace “really lends itself to (the project) because of the way it’s laid out and its proximity to the university,” Lowe said. “The perfect thing would be that the community really reacts to the art and . . . comes to our center and shops at our center.”

The first resident artist at the Storefront Studio will be Nancy Mooslin of Newport Beach, former director of the art gallery at the Art Institute of Southern California. She will exhibit large sculptures she conceives as visual interpretations of musical scores, and will work on a new, 300-foot-long piece based on Steven Stuckey’s “Concerto for Orchestra.” Stuckey is composer-in-residence at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His concerto, commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra, was nominated in 1989 for the Pulitzer Prize in music.

A recording of the concerto will accompany Mooslin as she works on her piece. To those who drop in, she will explain how she views the interconnection of music and art. The public will also be invited to inspect her work, which has an interactive component.

Public hours at the Storefront Studio during Mooslin’s residency will be noon to 3 p.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays; 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesdays; 6 to 9 p.m. one Friday per month (March 13, April 10 and May 8), and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. one Saturday per month (March 7, April 4 and May 2).

Allied Spring events at the Marketplace, for which dates have not yet been set, will include workshops and demonstrations for UCI Music and Studio Art students. If funding permits, there will also be an outdoor dance performance choreographed by Sylvia Turner, chairwoman of the dance department at Rancho Santiago College, to Stuckey’s music, using Mooslin’s sculptures as sets and props.

Concurrently (Feb. 29 through April 22), the Irvine Fine Arts Center will offer an exhibition on a parallel theme, “Instruments of Sound,” a show of musical instruments that resemble sculpture and art that incorporates musical elements. Some of these works can be played by the viewer.

Korn said the Irvine Co. has not asked for specific restrictions on the content of the art at the Storefront Studio. But, he said, “we’re going to be sensitive to the kinds of recommendations (of art) we make and not be inflammatory.”

The only catch is that the Storefront Studio must be prepared to move into another space if No. 195 is leased to a commercial tenant.