Preview: Calavera Gallery Part of Evolving Urban Landscape
Northeast Los Angeles has new gallery: Calavera Gallery on a strip of Cypress Ave that also houses the new bar from punk rock filmmaker Dave Travis who took over the Tops Club, keeping the interior intact adn renaming it Cafe NELA, at 1906 Cypress, conveniently located next to a taco joint–a dollar a taco! Perfect…
Art at Atwater’s Alias Books East
Alias Books East is one of the many treasures that lay just over from Silver Lake and Echo Park. The bookstore, which is crammed with books on art, history, popular culture as well as poetry, fiction and literature, is a bibliophile’s haven and potential harem. All…those…books….And art! There’s art at Alias, a wall of it…
Another New Downtown Art’s District Mural Heralds Zinc Cafe’s Arrival
The Downtown Los Angeles Arts District has another new mural on its newest restaurant-to-be, Zinc Cafe at 580 Mateo, across the street from Handsome Coffee. Scheduled to open in January 2014, Zinc Cafe features lacto-ova and vegan food–think California/Mediterranean cuisine with salads, grains, vegetables, paninis and small pizzas, plus pastries and desserts. The menu is…
Pasadena Museum of California Art
Pasadena is soooo SoCal, so it makes sense that this city would be the home to a museum focused solely on California art. And with Southern California being so shaped and influenced by cars, what could be more natural than to have a garage with artwork designed by California-grown street artist Kenny Scharf! Opened in…
Pasadena: Norton Simon Museum of Art
With a collection comprising more than 11,000 objects focusing on European art from the 14th to 19th Century, Asian art, and Modern Art, Pasadena’s Norton Simon Museum of Art showcases the vision and wealth of its namesake, American industrialist and native Californian, Norton Simon. Simon, an avid collector who died in 1993, had entered into…
BB Bastidas at Kayo
The skate store Kayo was all a blue-glow at the opening for new paintings from artist and muralist BB Bastidas. The show, titled “Fuck BB,” drew in wide-eyed skater fans and others to enjoy the magical world of big-bootied, voluptuous, multi-dimensional goddesses, surrounded by swirling inter-galactic color and speckled with BB’s personal hieroglyphics. BB’s eye…
Challenging Mural Through the Eyes of Lydia Emily’s Assistant
I have had the pleasure of becoming Lydia Emily’s assistant, or “art monkey” as she dubs it. Lydia Emily is an extremely talented artist who has been oil and mural painting for many years. Her work is political; always with a greater message. She founded The Karma Underground, a non-profit that raises awareness for the plight of…
Pasadena: Flower Pepper Gallery
Specializing in Low Brow and PoMo Pop Art art, Flower Pepper Gallery exhibits local and international emerging artists in the gallery/shop located in the heart of Old Town Pasadena. The art stands in bold contrast to what you’d find at Pasadena’s legendary art repositories, the Huntington or Norton Simon: Think group shows based around the internalization…
Shepard Fairey Adds Mural to 118 Winston’s Indian Alley
The brick walls along the alley behind 118 Winston in Downtown Los Angeles’s Historic Core provide a canvas for some of Los Angeles best known muralists. Over Labor Day weekend, Shepard Fairey left his mark with a second mural on what is known as Indian Alley–much of the art work on the bricks represents images…
Art Walk: Pilates & Arts Echo Park
Located close to downtown LA, Echo Park has experienced a hipster and pseudo-hipster influx over the past few years, along with a new development of townhouses on Echo Park Blvd., but it still retains its funky vibe. Echo Park Blvd., the main street of this enclave, is lined with small shops, cafes, and service businesses…
B.B. Bastidas: That New Blue Magic in DTLA Murals
B.B. Bastidas—whose deep blue artworks striped with infinite dashes recall the night sky, seen through a shaman’s eyes, the kisses of the stars raining hard upon his body–has been busy painting murals in the Downtown Los Angeles Arts District on Garey Street at 3rd, as thes photos. He’s also finishing art work for his opening…