Aerial Los Angeles, part 2

710 crossing the LA River in the Downey, South Gate & Bell Gardens area

Aerial Los Angeles, Part 1

 I believe that the Rasta Bus facility is the colorful building in the mid/right. The main street is South La Brea Ave. in Inglewood

The Brewery Artwalk - April 25-26 2015

Of all the artwalks I have gone to in LA, I've never made it to The Brewery in downtown LA, until today. The Brewery is a large property that consists of hundreds of artist's lofts that were created in an old, closed brewery in the 1980's. Twice a year they host an artwalk where you can go visit many of the artists' home/studio spaces (some of the spaces are clearly the artist's homes, while others seem more like group art spaces or just work spaces.)  We didn't really have any specific destinations in mind, so we just followed the halls and signs and looked for open doors. It made for somewhat of a fun surprise as you never knew exactly what you would find in each space since some you sometimes just turned a corner or went up a random staircase to see something else completely new, including some really nicely decorated living spaces! I was definitely envious of some of the spaces and would love to have that much space to work and display and still have room to have people over.

Although it looked like rain, I convinced myself to leave my umbrella in the car, and so of course it ended up raining - sometimes just a drizzle and sometimes somewhat intense, but in the end it was ok. I'm not sure how much the weather kept people away or just from visiting some of the artists, but there were some challenges as a result like unexpected rivers and overly crowed spaces. We spent over 4 hours wandering around and looking at all sorts of art.  I have no idea how many studios we visited, but I know we missed many of them, including some that closed early. You really could spend the entire day there and still probably not see everything. The art covered all sorts of mediums from paintings, photography, prints, digital art, sculpture, ceramics, fabric, dance, assemblage, paper, metal. I really enjoyed some of the art and while some of it also wasn't really my style, I also found it interesting to explore the space (and sometimes ended up lost/going in circles) and enjoy the buildings and experience itself.

The Brewery artwalk still goes on tomorrow, April 26 as well. I would definitely recommend visiting if you're ever around when one happens!

If I remember correctly, there was art from a few different artists here including Patrick Guerre

a really awesome kitchen in 212 (Dave Lefner)!

I learned a great deal about lino printing with multiple layers simply by looking at this artists' space!

Looking towards the still in use train tracks and some of the old train tracks that probably carried ever important beer supplies/bottled beer in and out of the space once upon a time.

I love these sorts of details in old repurposed buildings. FERMENTER STORAGE CELLAR M

 a small portion of the JESUS wall in one of the spaces. This whole living room was rather spacious with old decadent looking furniture decorating the space and a giant red wall.

"free window baby with purchase" 

I loved that there were so many of these kinds of nice, random outdoor spaces all over the place

I LOVE THESE KINDS OF WALLS! I love all the texture and layers and old random things left behind including....

doors to nowhere! They are so terrible and of course you never want to stumble into one, but I love doors to nowhere on old buildings.

...as soon as we walked into this space I thought "this seems like something that one might see at Burning Man.... and then I looked around a little more and realized that in fact, the people in this space, Sandman Creations, have taken such things to Burning Man.....

This space was a bit of a shock to walk into.... I guess this climbing area (Stronghold Climbing Gym) opened up relatively recently. It's huge and extends much further than what these photos shows and has different sorts of "land" features available...

Some of the other artists I enjoyed that I don't have any photos from include:
Roland Reiss (paintings)
Nicole Fournier (encaustic/photography)
James Payne (a photographic exhibit of ppl in their homes over the last 40 years)
Francine Lecoultre (textile based arts)

April 2015, 10 on 10 alternative

I had been doing the 10 on 10 project for a while, but considering I haven't done it in a year, well... I suppose I've lost some interest in the current form. Part of it is the "boring"ness of my daily work life (which maybe should be a hint to me about something), but some of it is also is just wanting to do something different. So yesterday I decided to do a video version, 10 10 second segments (except I did 11 since it flowed better that way.) I really like how it turned out and maybe I'll try this again/similar idea for other things!

Little Tokyo & downtown bits

This set is back from December of 2011... I got off on the Gold Line Little Tokyo stop and walked from there to the Red Line Pershing Square station and shot some photos along the way.

Elephants - San Diego Wild Animal Park

As it might become more obvious, I've been poking around in old photos that I've never posted. After posting photos of elephant seals, I decided it would be fitting to post some photos of elephants. These are from the San Diego Wild Animal park in March of 2007.