Looking Forward and Back with MASA as It Wraps Its 10th Anniversary Year
- Kristina M. Garcia
- Jul 24
- 10 min read
Media Arts Santa Ana, a digital media arts organization, focuses on providing a creative space, programs and events for individuals of all ages.
Presenting more than 1,100 artists and screening more than 650 films in the last decade, Media Arts Santa Ana, founded by Creative Capital Award-winning artists Victor Payan and Sandra “Pocha” Peña Sarmiento, recently completed its 10th anniversary year. MASA is a community-based digital arts organization that focuses on the growth and development of digital media arts for all ages, welcoming diverse communities across Santa Ana and Orange County.
The organization offers free screenings, workshops, presentations, community meetings, gallery exhibits, artist talks, digital media classes, fashion shows, craft fairs, festivals and anything under the umbrella of the arts.
While MASA has enjoyed 10 successful years, Payan and Pocha’s work with the community stretches long before MASA opened its doors. MASA stemmed from wanting to enrich the community about digital media arts and creating an accessible space for local artists and curious community members to grow their skills and excel in media arts and beyond.
Similar to the Latin corn dough masa, which can be used to create tortillas, sopes, tamales, pupusas, champurrado and a multitude of other dishes, MASA shares the same versatility in terms of digital media arts, Pocha said.
“Many different items you can make out of masa, and it's just like media. You can really adapt and use media for a multitude of different ways; you can use it culturally, informationally, you can use it in a way that educates, use it to entertain,” Pocha said.
She added, “There's so many different adaptations for media today, even in social justice. We see that a lot, like crimes would not even be prosecuted or believed if we didn't have the videotape evidence.”
MASA’s programs are based out of the Tele Visions Giga Bytes (TVGB) Digital Maker Space and the MASARTE Gallery, which are located at the Santa Ana Arts Collective building, an affordable housing complex, on 17th and Main streets in Santa Ana.
“When we got the space, the owners of the building said, ‘You know, not all the people in the building are artists,’ and I said, ‘But when they go through our programs, they will be,’ and we've seen that time and again,” Payan said.
PHOTO 1: Joseph and Mimi Mar filming at MASA as a part of the MILPA (Millennial Producers Academy). PHOTO 2: A volunteer setting up for MASA's resident art show at the Santa Ana Arts Collective building. PHOTO 3: Sandra “Pocha” Peña Sarmiento, MASA co-founder, at an information booth for the SMART (South Main Art, Retail & Technology) Walk Resource Fair. PHOTO 4: Students from SAMMI (Santa Ana MultiMedia Institute) learn and practice using the teleprompter. Photos courtesy of MASA
With MASA acquiring its home in 2022, the founders have been committed to allowing the space to be used for free by other artists such as video game developers, musicians, videographers, screenwriters and any other artists who may need the space to work. It’s also allowed MASA to increase its programming with more free regular and year-round programs including, but not limited to:
SMART Walk (South Main Art, Retail & Technology) Resource Fair: A community event that brings together technology-based art, businesses, career opportunities and training programs to the Santa Ana community through booths, entertainment and demonstrations. The fair also highlights sites on South Main Street that house iconic creative history such as the birthplace of the Righteous Brothers.
SAMMI (Santa Ana MultiMedia Institute): An eight-week digital media production class for ages 16 and up, where they hear from guest presenters and also learn about storytelling, recording interviews, using production apps and crafting their filming skills. A new session will be launching in late August.
Curator Incubator Project: Using the MASARTE Gallery, the project focuses on inviting guest curators and instructors to provide curatorial training and exhibition opportunities for the community.
Cafe MASA: A networking event offering free coffee, hot chocolate or tea that’s been running every Thursday night since 2022 to help artists gather together and get connected. The event started during a time when people were feeling most isolated and lonely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
MILPA (Millennial Producers Academy): A program geared toward young adults between the ages of 18-28, teaching participants digital media arts skills in the creative and technical facets of digital media production through workshops. Participants are also paired with a local nonprofit and provide video documentation services for their selected organization.
“The idea of Media Art Santa Ana has really broadened since we started and is more of a hub of a community of all these people who are in different industries coming together and forming this larger artistic community,” Payan said.
Up Next for MASA
One of the workshops MASA offers is grant writing assistance, with some participants working toward the Santa Ana Investing in the Artist Grant. Out of the nine recipients of the grant, five of the artists selected were people and projects who received assistance from MASA, including the co-founders.
Three of the grant winners will continue working on their projects through MASA:
Herbert Sigüenza, co-founder of the comedy performance group Culture Clash, will be working on his project “¡Viva Santa Ana!,” a free comedy video course taught by Sigüenza, which will be his first time doing a program in Santa Ana. The Culture Clash co-founder has been a part of the OC Film Fiesta and has been doing MASA events for several years, but this will be his first time originating a program.
Pocha’s “Modesta Avila: The Queen of Capistrano” is about Orange County’s first convicted felon and feminist icon who challenged the government and railroad system over land that was rightfully hers. Pocha will be using the grant to finalize a feature screenplay she’s been working on with Luis Reyes, an independent film historian and lecturer. The screenplay has been 10 years in the making, and the grant will go toward a staged table read with professional actors, alongside a Californio-inspired dinner menu, as well as an 1880s dance party.
Payan’s “The Street of Dreams Santa Ana Historic Main Street Project” focuses on doing a cultural survey of Main Street from the I-5 to the SR-55 freeways and writing a proposal to identify that sector as a cultural district to the city. While the art institutions such as the Bowers Museum are already well known, he also wants to highlight the other artistic activity in the community, such as the quinceañera shops, the restaurants, mom and pop shops, and the Rickenbacker guitar manufacturer that is famous for providing instruments for bands such as The Beatles, Rush, Creedence Clearwater Revival and many more.
PHOTO 1: Before TVGB, MASA's digital maker space, in-person screenings for the OC Film Fiesta were held at Santa Ana's Artist Village. PHOTO 2: The comedy "White Knight" starring Tom Sizemore, Hector Jimenez, Stacy Keach, Kevin Farley and Olga Segura, premiered at and closed out the 2011 OC Film Fiesta. PHOTO 3: MASA launched the "Votos Locos" video game in July 2024 to encourage the community to vote. The video game website has received more than 800,000 hits and can be played for free in English, Spanish and Vietnamese. PHOTO 4: The OC Indies Game Developers Group meet on the last Wednesday of every month at 7:30 p.m. Photos courtesy of MASA
Media Arts Santa Ana in the Making
Pocha and Payan were invested in the arts all their lives and had many mutual friends, but never met until they were both called to direct the oldest Chicano film festival in Texas, the CineFestival.
The duo (who married in 2007) took their partnership back to Orange County, where they started the OC Film Fiesta in 2010, eventually leading to the creation of MASA in 2015.
Pocha and Payan referred to their roots and what was going on in their communities to cultivate the idea of MASA.
As a Santa Ana native, Pocha was in the middle of art and creativity. Pocha’s father was one of the original artisans for Disneyland, where he was a finishing carpenter, often doing woodwork on most of the original rides, as well as the alpine carvings in Fantasyland. He also worked on other projects at the amusement park and worked closely with Disney’s Imagineers.
Growing up, Pocha’s brother was head of security at the Bowers Museum, so Pocha frequented the museum and spent a lot of time in and around the Bowers as she attended its educational programs.
In her teens, Pocha would volunteer just down the street from the Bowers Museum alongside other youth at the Cage Chameleon Art Gallery. As a volunteer, the group was encouraged to create art of its own, learned how to curate shows, and also met with local artists at the gallery.
While Pocha spent her life in Santa Ana, Payan grew up in the San Diego-Tijuana region, noting that the Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo, Chicano Park and the Centro Cultural de la Raza were important landmarks to his development.
Payan came from a working-class, first-generation family that didn’t have formal training in the arts.
“I think our base in the community cultural center tradition kind of sets us apart from other organizations that are primarily discipline-specific or performance-specific. This is about how we use these mediums to help our culture or advance social justice,” Payan said.
He added, “That's also central to what we do: understanding that our artists, who (like me) may not be told by society that they're artists, have a skill and are part of a tradition and a talent that needs to be celebrated.”
Before MASA, Payan and Pocha created a program with OC Tech called “Social Justice Through Technology.” The program was a once-a-week technology instruction course that focused on how technology connects and the level of empowerment that it brings.
The program was taught at five different schools in Santa Ana for about an hour to an hour and a half, spanning from middle schools to high schools. The duo taught high-achieving students like advanced placement students at Santa Ana High, a girls’ technology club at Carr Intermediate School, and at-risk youth at a community day school on Pullman Street.
“I remember when we got in our first day, the principal took us aside and said, ‘Hey, don't try to save these kids; they’re bad kids and they're lucky to have you. Just come and do your time, don't stay overtime,’” Pocha said.
She added, “I thought that was a horrible orientation for a very at-risk population of youth, and that was like they had already disinvested in them.”
As the course went by, Pocha and Payan noticed how genuinely interested the students were and how much they were excelling in the program.
But once they broke for the holidays, the duo returned to only one student remaining in their class.
Pocha thought, “Oh my God, did everybody drop my class?”
“The principal took us in again and said, ‘I don't know what you did, but normally the rematriculation rate is in the low 20s, like 23% go back into general population with schools. But your kids got all of their grades up in all of their subjects, and so your rematriculation rate’s like 98% — almost everybody got back in,’” Pocha said.
Individuals finding their voice and confidence through the arts is a recurring story from artists spanning all sorts of disciplines, Pocha said, and after witnessing several success stories time and time again, the duo was ready to dive headfirst into MASA.
“I think they just love what they're doing, and you can see that because it's not really focused on them; it's what they can bring to a community, and it sounds rather altruistic, but they are. They've done what most people only dream of. They have the passion and the love,” said Lisa Warmuth, resident and artist at the Santa Ana Arts Collective building.
The most recent accomplishment is the saving of the Cypress Fire Station from being sold to a private developer. Pocha, alongside art leaders and other passionate community members, rallied to save the historic establishment that served as one of Santa Ana’s first fire stations in the late ‘20s.
On June 29, Pocha attended a meeting with Santa Ana Councilmember Benjamin Vazquez where she shared a packet featuring community input dating back to 2015 about community-identified uses for the renovated Cypress Fire Station.
The top uses the community calls for include a community technology center, digital library, social justice library, meeting space and a multipurpose space serving people of all ages.
The city of Santa Ana is reaching out to the state for library renovation funding to cover furnishing and programming the space. The Cypress Street Fire Station renovation will be completed between December 2026 and January 2027. The expected opening for the center is spring 2027.
Looking forward to the next decade, Payan said there is a lot in store as their new home has presented even more growth and opportunities for the organization. MASA will be working with their current Santa Ana Investing in the Artist grant winners to launch their programming, as well as focusing on projects that are more expansive, community-driven and multidisciplinary, noting “there’s something for everyone at MASA.”
Media Arts Santa Ana
Where: 1666 N. Main St., Santa Ana
Hours: Check social media, MASA website or join the mailing list for information about upcoming programs and events
Regularly scheduled programs and upcoming events:
Cafe MASA: Every Thursday from 7:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Santa Ana Sound Circle: Last Monday of every month at 7:30 p.m.
OC Indies Game Developers Group: Last Wednesday of every month at 7:30 p.m.
AniMeet (a meetup with animators who want to animate): Regular programming will return Aug. 25. Following its return, it takes place the last Tuesday of every month at 7:30 p.m.
Zoom conversation with Chicano Theater/film legend Luis Valdez and director David Alvarado: July 25 at 11 a.m., registration link can be found on the MASA website.
“American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez” documentary, co-presented by MASA, at AMC Orange 30 from July 24-28. A Q&A with director David Alvarado, moderated by Payan, will follow the screening on July 28 at 7 p.m.
Summer Print Sale: Aug. 1 in the MASARTE Gallery
OC Film Fiesta: Returns Oct. 8-18
Annual Holiday Art & Craft Sale: Returns Dec. 12-14
Cost: Free
Contact: (888) 906-0340, victor@masamedia.org, www.masamedia.org
