by Sofia Williams
The South Bay Young Artist Society (YAS) will host Moon Jam on Saturday, July 29 at Resin Art Gallery in Hermosa Beach to showcase local young artists and musicians.
Moon Jam is a nine-hour-long music and art festival featuring bands from throughout the South Bay. According to YAS co-founder Gwyn Dowdee, the inspiration for the event came from a series of popular art shows, and a subsequent desire to incorporate more music into YAS events. The first Sun Jam was in June of 2022.
“We decided to do a day-long festival with way more bands and we called it Sun Jam,” said Dowdee. “We thought that Sun Jam was so fun, and everyone seemed to love it, so we wanted to do it again. Thankfully, the owner of the space, Rafael McMaster, was cool with us doing another event soon after, and that’s how Moon Jam got started.”
According to Dowdee, the difference between Sun Jam and Moon Jam lies mainly in the tone of the music and the ambiance of the event; while Sun Jam features summer-y, upbeat music, Moon Jam may be “a little louder,” says Dowdee.
Dowdee says that YAS was born of a perceived need for a “fun and inclusive space for young artists in the South Bay.” Keeping this goal in mind, Dowdee co-founded YAS with Audrey Whitehead and Sasha Lerman in June of 2021. The three founders are members of the “Over 400 Club,” meaning that they have contributed over 400 hours of service to Resin Art Gallery.
“We started [YAS] in mid-June of 2021 to create a community for artists our age because we didn’t really see anything bringing young artists together, specifically in our generation,” said Dowdee. “We saw a lot of adult artist collectives that were very exclusive and hard to get into — you often had to pay and go to art school beforehand.”
YAS frequently partners with McMaster, the owner of Resin Art Gallery in Hermosa, to host events. According to McMaster, Dowdee, Lerman, and Whitehead approached him in 2021, wanting music to be the forefront of a new event they were planning at Resin.
“We have had an overwhelming response from young musicians at the shows put on by the Young Artist Society,” said McMaster. “The talent and hours of work that have been put into the performances we see at YAS events shows refinement that only lots of time and energy can create.”
The YAS’s next festival event, Moon Jam, will take place on July 29 at Resin Art Gallery in Hermosa Beach. More information is available on the South Bay Young Artist Society’s Instagram page, @sbyoungartistsociety. ER
