John Salley and Tom Everhart - Game On!

John Salley, best known as a former Los Angeles Laker, now has a talk show on the Reelz network called Game On! He stopped by the studio of Venice artist (and main homie), Tom Everhart, last week to check out the new art works and have a good sit down chat. I stopped by to check it all out, and though I've known and listened to Tom speak about his work for years and years, I still heard new things, and was as fascinated as Mr. Salley hearing it for the first time.


The t.v. people set up all their equipment, and we basically all just laughed and learned all afternoon. To begin with, Salley said, "This is my favorite space in all of Venice {me too} ... All white, beautiful women ... some of them white ... I'm getting the love in Venice! Thank you for letting me in!" He's hilarious, and started the interview portion of the deal by saying, "So I call you Snoopy Dude ...", which Tom explained that he often hears, sometimes as derogatory, and sometimes as a compliment. His art does feature Peanuts characters, yes, but after hearing him explain the whole story about how he met Charles Schulz, how he came to see the world through those eyes, and how a good artist sees something no one else sees ... it all becomes clear just what Everhart is up to with his vast canvases of bright color and wonder.


I want to leave some of it for you to watch on Game On! but to sit and listen (and try not to laugh out loud so the mics could hear - hard) to these two talk was very insightful and inspiring, for sure. Everhart explained that he was never into comics(though did add that "South Park is some of the best contemporary art today", but loved coloring books, but always wanted to create new things within the lines. His prior work was very realist skeleton pieces, but when he met Mr. Schulz, he did as encourage, which was to "Always see things in a new way". (That's very Venice). Tom almost died of colon cancer 23 years ago, and that experience gave him a whole new awareness of life, and those skeletons gave way to the happiness and color now seen in his work about the same time.


When Everhart met Schulz, they spent an entire day just drawing lines, the love of which bonded them together for the remainder of Schulz's life. Schulz's lines became Everhart's new art language. Schulz passed down his knowledge like a Father to a Son, and allowed him the use of his characters for the term of Tom's own life. While Tom was explaining this to Salley, he was nodding and smiling, and then said, "Yeah, at first I was like, 'What's up with the dirty water and the dots?" At the time, Tom replied that it was him seeing the birds at the beach. Salley now lit up, got it and said, "Now I started seeing things YOUR way!" Just as now when I see an Everhart Snoopy doing a back flip off a Tahitian cliff, I know that that's really Tom's wife, Jennifer expressing her love for life through Tom's eyes. That's how he sees it.


Tom doesn't really talk about the who's who collectors of his art, but Salley said, "Well, I know one very sexy guy named John Salley who has one of your pieces ..." which he sure enough does.


We all had a (basket)ball talking and celebrating art, and when Salley said, "See, when I played basketball, I had to share my championships, but now I get to interview champions!" I couldn't agree more.


Check your local listings for Game On! With John Salley - The Tom Everhart Interview. Coming soon!




*Photos by Jennifer Everhart, Alan Shaffer, and Me.

Venice Art Walking

This past weekend was the big annual Venice Art Walk, (to benefit the Venice Family Clinic) where we remember that Art is what made Venice so special to us in the first place. As the popular T-shirt goes, "Venice: Where Art Meets Crime". Crime was somewhat in effect, with a rumored mugging in broad daylight near the French Market, but it otherwise may have gone unnoticed, as super dang windy as it was. WHOOOOOOSH!

But that didn't stop hordes of art lovers from coming out to take it all in.


I always like to start at Westminster School, where the silent auction takes place. It's cool because you can see around 400 pieces in one spot, see what you like, and then head out to the studios of many of the auction's featured artists to see where they create their works. I always thought the school part was free to walk through, but I guess it's not. They might want to open just that School part up (for people to look at, and if they want to bid, then pay?), to make some of it accessible to all Venice residents, not just ones who can cough up the steep admittance fee. It is the biggest fundraiser for the essential Venice Family Clinic, so I get it, but if our community is about art, art can also be about the community sometimes. You never know how your next big collector will start out. The school yard is open to all, and has food tents, live music, and mingling about, but if it's art you're into, you have to go inside.


It can be a bit hard to tell what the pieces will look like in a home vs. hanging on a rather blah elementary school wall, but you do your best.


Some of the works had no bids at all next to them (for good reason) and some of them were clearly going to require hand to hand combat to obtain. Beach and Venice-centric pieces are very popular, as are pop culture ones, like Shepard Fairey's skateboarder and Jaws surf spot ones.


That's a cool thing about the Silent Auction part ... one piece will be by your quiet neighbor that you didn't even know was an artist, and the next will be by Ed Ruscha. No zoning.


It's a big job to amass it all and get it hung and sorted, and the whole thing is by and for the Venice Family Clinic, probably the most important cause we can give to in this town, especially in times like these when health insurance is a luxury many can't afford.


Once you do the laps of up and downstairs at the school, it's off to the artist studios you've starred in your guide. It's very cool to be invited into these hallowed spaces where people create their expressions in so many different mediums and vibes. There's the real messy ones, with paint everywhere. The real anal pristine ones where you wonder how anything ever gets done. There's the ones that artists live and work in, and the ones that are strictly showrooms. It's kind of telling as to the art and the artist themselves, if you think about it (and I do).


Highlights for me were the studio (and stories) of rock photographer Guy Webster - Wow. The vivid photography of Gjelina's own Robert Schwan. The colorful maze of the "Milwood Mansions" (Scott Mayers residence).


The Venice beachiness of Jay Mark Johnson's trippy "Spacetime" photography. The live painted naked lady drawing quite a crowd in front of the window of the 99 High Art Collective. The very realistic and cool tree sculpture by Pontus Willfors. All of it is interesting, some of it is just more to my taste ... as it goes with any kind of art.


I really missed "The Eclectic Collector" this year, the craziest house in the world, that I brag about the rest of the year. Where were you, E.C.?! Instead, a really great treat this year was the Neighborhood Numbnuts exhibition put on by local raconteur Alan Shaffer, who has been part of the legendary Venice gang of Bell, Conal, Dill, Edge, and Moses since time began, pretty much. His fantastic photos documenting his years of running around with this bunch were all over the walls of Capri restaurant, along with a piece by each guy photographed. Alan was there to tell stories about each, and there are so many that we're just going to do his own story here very soon.


Of all the art I saw, the ones I most want to organize a heist around are the gorgeous wood stain paintings of music icons by local artist, Justin Herber, on display at The Other Room. Bob Dylan is the one I most covet (Happy Birthday, Bob! 69!), but each one is just jaw- droppingly great. Jimi. Billie. Louis. Willie. Mick. Each of them are all the way up my alley, and you should check them out immediately. Love.


You could really use a solid week to get around and not just see it all, but hear about it all, as every piece of art has a story, and I'm all about the story. It's a great day to be out and about and bump into your local characters and neighbors, so many that you end up chatting and not getting to see it all before it shuts down for the year. And that's all part of the fun. I look forward to this weekend each year, where Venice once again becomes all about the Art - and celebrates that in its every nook and cranny.