We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ale Wood a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ale, appreciate you joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

The conception of Foothill Arthouse starts one year ago in June 2024. I founded the organization with my dear friend Mercedes Del Castillo, who unfortunately passed away December 2024. Mercedes’ dream was to show the artwork of local artists in a restaurant called The Back Door Bakery and Cafe; we would exhibit the artwork for locals by locals. She really wanted to give lesser known, but still phenomenal, artists in and around Los Angeles a place to shine!

We founded it together as the Artist Coalition of the Foothills and had our first exhibition at BDB in June 2024. We displayed the work of 7 artists, including Mercedes and myself, for a 3 month long stay at the restaurant. We decided that we wanted to have 1 show every three months (one for every season, as it happens!), each time featuring the work of new artists who either have never exhibited their work before or haven’t exhibited specifically with us. Mercedes was able to put on two exhibitions before her sudden and unexpected passing in December 2024. I had taken a step back in September 2024, I was a full time teacher, to focus on my family and teaching.

As the news of her passing circulated throughout the community, one of the artists I had worked with in the Summer exhibition contacted me. She said that we needed someone to lead the charge to keep this incredible vision that Mercedes had alive, and asked if I’d be willing to step back into the role of Executive Director. So, in January of 2025, I stepped back into the role and have decided to dedicate myself full time to this incredible passion project.

The community that we had built with the Artist Coalition of the Foothills voted to change the name, which is when the name Foothill Arthouse was born.

We wanted to keep this incredible, engaging, community centered exhibition idea alive for Mercedes. Since stepping back into the role in January 2025, we have had 2 exhibitions and are planning our third as of today! The first exhibition was called “Rebirth, Regrowth, and Reclamation: a show dedicated to the late Mercedes Del Castillo.” The second, which is up now until August 31st, is called “Art in Full Bloom.” It features the work of several artists who have never shown their artwork before amongst the work of artists who have been professionals for decades.

The process for showing your work with us is unique, in that it is a really easy and straightforward. Something I want to stress is that the curation of the individual pieces is up to the artist. The only curation I do is picking the artists, it’s up to them to decide which work they’d like to exhibit (with the stipulation that it is family friendly, since it will be up in a family restaurant!). They send me the pictures and info for the pieces (2-6 pieces), I recreate our website, www.foothillarthouse.com, with the work for the next exhibition. All that’s left is for the artists to come in, hang their pieces, and then cover their artwork. The artists use craft paper to cover their work and write a cute message like “no peaking” “Just you wait!” “To be revealed Friday (date of opening reception)” which is always a hoot! We hang and cover on a Monday and the same Friday we have our opening reception and art reveal!

During an art reveal, I say my little spiel, and introduce each artist one by one. Each artist that is introduced gets to reveal their work for the audience. It’s the most fun part of each opening because everyone who is there is truly excited to see the work of each artist be unveiled before their very eyes! With that, the website goes live, and the artwork is up for viewing and purchase.

We also have incredibly generous commission splits between the artists and Foothill Arthouse. The artists get 75% commission and 25% is then split evenly between Foothill Arthouse and Back Door Bakery. As you can imagine, money isn’t what drives us to put on each exhibition– it’s the love of the community and support for the artists that keeps us going.

Our next opening reception and art reveal will be September 5th, 2025 at 7pm. The title of this next show is called “Fallen Embers” it features the work of 5 returning artists and 2 artists who will be showing with us for the first time.

Ale, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I grew up in the Los Angeles visual art world. I have an associates degree in Studio Art from Los Angeles City College (Go Cubs!), where I was 1 of 10 students given the Presidents Scholarship in 2014, as well as a bachelors degree Art Education from Cal State Northridge (Go Matadors!). After graduating, I decided to step into the world of teaching. My journey as a teacher has had it’s up and downs, but art was always a place of comfort and solace for me. Ironically, I’ve never been an art teacher! But I’d taught and tutored PreK-12th grade students for years in a variety of different, academic teaching roles.

As an artist, I make dresses our of found objects. The goal is for them to be wearable– it’s still a work in progress! But I would say my artwork either reflects current events or community-specific issues. I don’t make art for sale, usually, it’s meant to be art for arts sake. The vision is for each dress to be couture in nature, only ever being exhibited once, and usually made for the community that will be viewing it.

I learned to sew when I was 10 year old and have always loved creating clothing. Was I good at it? For a 10 year old, sure, but I had fun doing it, and that’s all I cared about. The idea for making dresses out of found objects was born from one of my community college sculpture classes. I can’t remember the exact prompt, but I remember bringing in a dress I made that was completely made out of newspaper. After that, I realized I had found my niche as an artist. You better believe I streamed THOSE episodes of Project Runway and studied them religiously. I got into the history of the architecture of dresses, their evolution, and the purpose each style of clothing served, From there, I would collect a surplus of something I had access to (cardboard boxes and bottle caps, for example), and design different dresses where the style and material I used would connect somehow.

The most recent piece I did was a dress reminiscent of past equestrian outfits or riding habits. The top was made from a horse care book that was donated to me by a Sunland-Tujunga artist and supporter, who also gave me a saddle blanket that I incorporated into the piece. The top of the dress was an equestrian jacket and the skirt was made of Amazon packages. The message was kind of on the nose, but essentially it was meant to bring awareness to how pollution, trash, and package is affecting the health and well being of our equine population.

How’d you meet your business partner?

I had known my incredible co-founder Mercedes since I was at least 7 years old. Her daughter and I were best friends in elementary school and we were practically attached at the hip. Sleepovers were frequent, play dates were plenty, and I just remember feeling safe in the home Mercedes had created.

We had stayed connected through Facebook for many years. But in June of 2022, I had a life altering health event that then led me to make the impossible decision of cutting contact with my parents. It was the single hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life, but I knew I had to do it for the sake of my health and life that I was building with my husband, Zane.

Mercedes was the first one to reach out to me and tell me that if I needed a maternal figure, she’d be happy to step into that role. From there, our friendship blossomed and I became the Chief Marketing Officer for her non-profit called Arts & Education Nation in early 2023. In 2024, she had the idea to show local artists artwork in a restaurant she frequented, and so the Artist Coalition of the Foothills (Foothill Arthouse) was born.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

Community is at the forefront of everything we do at Foothill Arthouse. We foster love and community connection through artwork, food, and the joy the artists bring. An open line of communication and transparency is key to maintaining our clientele. We don’t sell artwork, we sell stories, messages, and connection. Every single artist we exhibit has a story to tell and we always try to make it accessible for them to share their story.

As a result, we have built a wonderful community of Los Angeles artists that continues to expand every day. The process for exhibiting is simple, therefore accessible to more people. Through the art reveals, we create a sense of wonder and excitement that can only be fully felt by being at the opening reception.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.foothillarthouse.com
• Instagram: @foothillarthouse
• Facebook: Foothill Arthouse

Image Credits

Not Applicable