Right Here, Right Now : Exhibit at six locations features current works by a cross-section of Southern California artists.

Southern California artists continue to make art despite the region’s vagaries.

They still have “an energy, need and desire to communicate with other people,” said Noel Korten, curator and program director of exhibi tions for the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.

The work of many artists, however, may not see the light of an exhibition space for many moons, even years.

To provide a forum for Southern California artists to exhibit their work, the Cultural Affairs Department has organized “The 1993 Los Angeles Juried Exhibition,” a citywide art show taking place at six city-run art centers. Show openings begin tonight.

Each center is presenting artists’ work in a particular medium. Among the galleries taking part in the event are two in the San Fernando Valley. Artspace in Woodland Hills will exhibit 39 sculptures beginning July 27, and McGroarty Arts Center in Tujunga opens its textiles and fiber show at 7 tonight.

More than 120 paintings are on display at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in Barnsdall Park. Next door, at the Junior Arts Center Gallery, are 75 works on paper. One can see 49 prints at the Watts Towers Arts Center and 59 mixed-media and assemblage pieces at the William Grant Still Arts Center in the Mid-City district.

Artists were allowed to enter one work that had been completed within the last two years. From 1,294 submissions, 364 were chosen by six jurors, each of whom had selected art of a specific medium.

“There is a mixture of work by experienced artists who have exhibited, and many that we haven’t heard of before,” Korten said.

“What’s exciting about this exhibition is it represents work being done in a specific time and place. You get a sense of the vibrancy and vitality of the artists, and a feeling of what everyone, not just artists, is thinking about.”

Brian Estwick, exhibition coordinator, emphasized the department’s desire to spotlight the various arts centers taking part in this event.

“We wanted to showcase the individual centers with specific mediums” and give attention to each center’s art education and children’s arts programs, he said. Working with the six centers during the past several months, he said he found that “the same energy and interest in community arts exists in vastly different communities.”

At McGroarty Arts Center, the 19 textile and fiber works on view were selected by Carol Shaw-Sutton, who chairs the textiles/fiber department at Cal State Long Beach. Materials range from handmade paper and cotton to rawhide and gut. John Lehnertz used gut to make the two halves of his whole “shirt” in “We Were Best Friends.”

Darlene Ely’s sinewy and graceful floor-based “Whirligig” seems almost to dance with delight. David Speck’s larger, more introspective “Chamber IV” of reed, waxed linen and Kozo fibers invites viewers in for a more meditative experience on the beauty and seduction of structure.

Genie Shenk’s paper, tape and mixed-media conceptual wall piece “Dreaming in San Diego, Dreaming in L. A.” seems to be a highly ordered daily record of random words, thoughts and ideas. Meredith Strauss created depth and geometric designs with cotton cord and metal mesh in her wall hanging “Nuances.” The patterns of Marilyn McKenzie Chaffee’s quilt form a “Mosaic Crossroads.”

Other artists represented in the McGroarty show are Cathleen Bartels, Steve Baugher, Asthik Dilanian, Isabelle Guenat, Soyoung Hong, Linda Lee Kerr, Ilie Marie-Laure, Chari Myers, Laura Reyes, Rachael Rosenberg, Cameron Taylor-Brown and Jill Sabel Valavanis.

Where and When What: “Textiles/Fiber.” Location: McGroarty Arts Center, 7570 McGroarty Terrace, Tujunga. Hours: Opening reception from 7 to 9 tonight. Regular hours: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays, by appointment only Tuesdays through Saturdays; through Aug. 22. Call: (818) 352-5285.