L.A.Vate At Amiga

There was a really fun art opening/party at Amiga on Lincoln last Friday night, but life has been a bit nuts, so I'm only getting to tell you about it now. It was already a packed house by the time my friend and I strolled over to the great shop to see what was going down.

The Amigas (Sadie Gilliam and Nicole Reed) curated an excellent art show made up of other amigas y amigos that were all in the house on this fun night. Priscilla Witte, Pink Riches, Jason Adler, Monique Boileau, Erika Lane, Shannon Moss, Matt Branham, and the Netherworlds project all showed everyone what they got ... and it was good.

It's always fun to see the friends that you only mainly see on social media in real life, and I was extra happy to see my friends, Tara and Danny, in the flesh! They were there with their photography project "The Netherworlds", with a very cool underwater vibe that were my favorite works in the show. Dreamy.

There was live painting outside, there was live music (after I left - we still had to eat!), but above all, there were friends.

Having a great time in the neighborhood together ... AND it was also doing some good, as proceeds from the raffles went to It's On Us, a non-profit organization that works to help prevent sexual assault on school campuses. Which needs to happen, and we're happy to help.

I was just about to sneak out of our quest for food, when this piece by Shannon Moss caught my eye ... "The springtime is kind ... and brings you home."

That's kind of what I'd been feeling ... Spring is so beautiful and full of life, and it brings that feeling of home into your heart. Where you're from, but also where you have made your home ... and Venice is a pretty good one, especially with great people like this doing great things.

Thank you, Amigas!

Amiga - A Place For Friends

I'd been hearing great things about Amiga, the new lifestyle shop on Lincoln Boulevard, and finally got there myself the other day. Amiga is the vision of friends, Sadie Gilliam and Nicole Reed, who came together after their respective businesses (Freedumb Founded Jewelry by Gilliam, and the Lincoln & Rose blog by Reed) often found them at the same pop-ups. A friendship was born between the Venice native Gilliam and the San Pedro bred Reed, and they talked about looking for a space for an actual shop site. Gilliam's mother was shopping at the antique store, H. Bleu, on Lincoln, when its owner, Sue (fourth generation Venice), told her she was looking to sublet out the space, and that she wanted it to go to Venice people. That was just last December 10th, and Gilliam and Reed had Amiga open for business by the 15th! They pretty much just looked at each other, shrugged, and said, "Let's just do it!" I love that go for it spirit, and they did it!

That Reed had just found out she was pregnant with her first child only made it all the more impressive, but with help from both of their families (with honorable mention especially to Jeremy Reed, Nicole's husband, for helping to get it ready in time), and all of their relationships with vendors from their pop-ups ready to go, Amiga was up and running just in time for the holiday gift-giving season ... phew! It was all very charmed, and seemingly very meant to be. Women power!

It's been going like gangbusters ever since they opened their doors, as all of their vendors have their own following, and when people come in looking for say, art by Priscilla Witte, they might get turned on to a whole new designer they'd never heard of that becomes their new favorite. It's just that kind of a place.

"This is such a badass spot!", said one happy, new customer while I was there hanging out, and she was not wrong. In just the time I was sitting there chatting with the amigas, we all honestly made like three new friends, and that's when I realized what a perfect name the gals had chosen for their new venture. Amiga!

I got to meet the very cool Robin Wisdom, who sells her delicious "Peace, Love, and Wisdom" candles out of Amiga. She is the wife of artist Norton Wisdom (member of the Cali Locos!), whose drawings adorn her candles. Their daughter did the sketch for the Venice candle, and its wonderful graperfruit aroma make it a best-seller.  Mrs. Wisdom also does the tarot card readings when Amiga hosts their fun events ... aaaand I can't wait until the next one.

They recently hosted a make your own Valentine afternoon, and it was fueled by the Menotti's coffee truck that pulls up to their space on Sundays from 8 am - 2 pm. It's a really good hang, and this past Sunday they had free donuts and coffee, just for fun in the sun.

Amiga also carries Mrs. Lilly Apothecary items, clothing from Jasmine St. D'Aigneaux, chocolates from Rose Avenue Sweets, vegan jewelry made out of recycled bicycle inner tubes from Beatrice Holiday, greeting cards from The Good Twin, and plants from Amiga themselves.

I learned a new word while visiting Amiga ... "Flintknapping". It's the method of making stone tools, and the very cool knives they carry look as if they were carved out of dragon glass. They would be a very cool V Day gift for your dude ... or anyone, for that matter.

Gilliam told me that there is finally a "Venice" ring in the works from her Freedumb Founded line, and I'm already in line in front of you, so you better get in there to get yours! She is also adding hats to her line in April, and if they're as cool as her jewelry ... I'm so excited.

"We just feel lucky to be here, and give local artists and makers a home," explained Gilliam. To that point, I witnessed no less than three people come in while I was there to see if Amiga might like to carry their wares. It's a true community store, by and for the members of our community. When I asked her what she liked most about Venice, she laughed and said, "The traffic on Lincoln. It makes people see our sign and stop in!" In addition to that traffic, she loves Hinano's for burgers, Animal House for clothes, Windward Farms for their ceviche (what?! I didn't even know.), and the view of the palm tree clusters at night.

Asked the same question, Reed digs that Venice is flat, and makes for great bike rides. She loves the old cars, the artist community, and the fact that we're all mashed up here. "Extreme wealth and extreme poverty are all right here, and we're forced to figure it all out together. We're exposed to so much in one place ... if I could pick anywhere to live, it would be here."

You never know who you'll meet next at Amiga, and connections happen all the time. I wasn't kidding that we all made three new friends while sitting there -  like exchanged info and hugged goodbye new friends - and it was easy to see why when they were brainstorming for their business name they insisted that it had to have something to do with "Friends". They knew that their motto would be "You - Me - Us", and that's exactly who Amiga is for. Stop in any day of the week, 10-6 (except Sundays when it's 8 am for that Menotti's coffee!) and experience this delightful new addition to the Venice family of friends. (Just in time for Valentine's Day!)

Amiga
2124 Lincoln Boulevard
Venice
www.amigalosangeles.com

An Art Benefit For Planned Parenthood In Venice - Women Power!

There was an art benefit at the WNDO/Budman Studio on Vernon (that still has a lease sign on the front after kicking all the artists out last year) held last night to raise funds for Planned Parenthood, and it could not have been timed any better. Venice artists came together to show their art and support the more important than ever Planned Parenthood organization. The whole world is abuzz with the "news" that Harvey Weinstein has been sexually harassing women for decades, which only sheds more light on how women continue to be mistreated. There is far more regulation over our bodies than for the guns that are used in mass shootings all the time, and we're fed up. We're taking matters into our own hands. From the wonderful Women's March in January in opposition of the awful current administration, to last night's focus on Planned Parenthood, this has been a year that has shown the endless power of Women united.

The news cycle is all about the filthy Jabba the Hutt resembling Weinstein's predatory ways, but every woman in the entertainment industry has a story. Many of us have several. I know I do. There was the film director in Minnesota I met at a local event who invited me back to a crew gathering in the lobby of their hotel. I was fresh out of college and trying to get a foot in the door of the film industry that I loved, and was eager to make connections that would lead me to work when I made the move to Los Angeles. I arrived at the hotel to find the lobby bar empty. A woman working at the front desk told me the party had been moved up to the director's room upstairs, and gave me the room number. I took the elevator up, and knocked on the door. The director answered and invited me in. There was no one else there, because "they were all tired and left, but would you like some wine?" I uncomfortably said sure, because I didn't want to offend this guy that could easily give me some work in the field that I loved. He went around the corner to presumably get wine, still talking the whole time, as I sat there, fully bundled up for the Minnesota winter, mittens and all.

He finally came back around the corner of the bathroom hallway, fully naked, with an erection and a wine bottle. I immediately stood up and said I had to go, with my mittens raised in the air, like "Whoa, dude." I walked to the door and sped down the hallway, with the director sticking his head out the door, telling me to call him. I couldn't believe it. But I could. He left several messages after that, and I returned none. I never got a job on that film. I saw him years later at a premiere in L.A., and avoided him completely, but I know he saw me. I still had the creeps years later.

I had a producer boss that took closed door "meetings" with young hopeful starlets all the time, even though he hadn't produced a film in years. I could often hear his porn playing through the door after he'd return to the office from lunch. He had exactly no shame.

I had another female boss that I lived with in Hawai'i (bad decision) - until her live-in boyfriend hit on me, making a bad situation worse. I had to move out in the middle of the night (to crash with friends) when they were out of town, I had to leave the job and scramble for another one, and we never spoke again.

I helped host a party with a producer I was working for to honor Oliver Stone years ago. He arrived very late, and seemingly very coked out. I greatly admired his work up until then, and was honored to get to meet him. When I went to shake his hand, he grabbed my hair and pulled my head back with it, saying, "I love this hair!" As a hello. Because he was Oliver Stone, and he felt he could do anything he wanted, appropriate or not.

I've had too many meetings to count where you could feel the eyes roaming over you, as you just hoped they would talk about the merits of your script and not hit on you. One meeting stands out in my mind, where as I was going into the good part of my pitch, the guy interrupted me and asked me to come behind his desk and look at how good the view of Hollywood was from his office. I was like, "Yeah, I can see it from here. It's nice. Thanks. Bye." That was our last meeting about a script he'd been very enthusiastic about, and it has still not been made. *Female producers, we should talk! I could keep going, but I think the point has been made, and I'm getting nauseous and mad thinking back on this junk. I'm glad that I was born pretty strong-willed, and unafraid to say no. Many were not.

It's been an epidemic since film was invented, and as I said, every woman has at least one story. But when even the current President of the United States is a known and proven misogynist, the Boys Club thinks it's all acceptable. It is not. Nor is any man telling any woman what to do with their own body. I have a friend who was given a free abortion from Planned Parenthood, for all intents and purposes, saving her life. Women need Planned Parenthood. Women need support from good men (and I know there are some - some that were raised by good women). Women need to stick up for each other. To speak up when something is even remotely sketchy. To stand up to the b.s. men have been getting away with for years. To celebrate the absolute wonder that being a woman is!

It feels like a big sigh of relief to be experiencing the flood of women sharing their stories, like nothing has to be hidden anymore, and no one is alone. And no one will be putting up with it anymore. Thank you to the organizers of last night's event for Women - and to all the women who are now putting their collective feet down and saying enough. We're all better than that.

Resist. Empower. Celebrate Women!

Learn Ceramics At The Temple Of Mediclaytion

As I've set out to tell stories about awesome classes you can take in Venice, I realized that it's more than  all of us learning new things ... it's also about keeping these teachers and artists in Venice by paying them for classes as they face ridiculous rising rents and the threat of a homogenized Venice. Then it creates even MORE artists and people that know how to do cool things, and Venice remains cool. Everybody wins. So today let's talk about ceramics and how you can learn to throw down at the Temple Of Mediclaytion with your teacher, Patrick Johnston. 

Johnston grew up in Newport Beach, and at the age of 6 in Kindergarten, he had a lightning flash after asking for all the scraps from the old clay hand project that kids do. At recess that day, he realize that ceramics was going to be his thing. He would beg, borrow, and steal to be able to keep working with clay, fighting to do it because his parents didn't see a big future in it for him. When you have to fight to do something, you tend to do it as much as you can, and Johnston would bury himself in a clay studio for 18 hours a day if he could, especially once he was exposed to the wheel at the age of 11.

College took Johnston 14 years to complete, with the first 11 bouncing around to different schools, skipping classes to be in the studio and surf (he definitely comes off more as more of a burly surfer than sensitive clay Zen master, which makes it all the more a testimonial to the calming effect the art has on someone). Once he realized that he should be majoring in ceramics, he got into the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, and it was all straight A's, graduating top of his class from there.

After a stint teaching and running the clay studio at Santa Barbara City College (where he could also surf), Johnston came to Venice kind of by accident. He came down to take care of his ailing father, and a friend offered him studio space in Venice, where he built up an entire community of avid clay artists before settling into the current space for the Temple Of Mediclaytion on 4th Street in the Art Block District in February of last year.

"It's therapeutic to throw clay," explains Johnston. "You're touching a grounding material of Earth ... you have to be in the moment, or it will break. There are four stages, with so much that can go wrong, and disaster around every corner, so you learn to be unattached. When you look at the throw lines, you can see where exactly someone's thoughts dropped off. You have to be super focused and present, or it will come back to haunt you ... You have to train your thoughts to not bring in your own b.s. with you, and leave it at the door." Hence - The Temple Of Mediclaytion. Complete with its own altar, featuring both Zen totems and Dirty Harry.

Johnston's girlfriend, Sam Savoia, runs the business side of things, and got the classes going, with Johnston gratefully acknowledging, "If it was up to me, I'd just buy all surfboards. If she dumped me, the walls of this place would fall in." (It's always refreshing when a man gives the props to his woman that she deserves, which Savoia clearly does, because classes are super popular and the kilns are being kept lit, whatever else might be going on around Venice.)

Classes are offered Monday through Thursday evenings, with your group meeting once a week for six weeks. You'll sit and make something pretty, created with your own hands (after wheel/making something, drying, firing, glazing, decorating, and cooling), sure, but you'll also experience a welcoming community of loving and fun people on your same page.

You'll sit and work surrounded by all the works in progress, and walls adorned by fellow Venice students/artists like Priscilla Witte, Diana Garcia, and Isabelle Alfred Lago.

One of Johnston's students/"Family members", Kat Carter, was there working on a project while we were talking, and she chimed in, "It attracts good vibes here."

I asked my friend, Saori Wall, what she liked about clay class, and she got back to me with this lovely testimonial:

"Temple of Mediclaytion feels like a second home for me & that is because of the love that Patrick, Sam and the rest of the team pour into the space. My first class was with Andy and she completely blew me away with her grace on the wheel. Clay is enigmatic to me, it can take a punch and is the most delicate thing at the same time. It's a meditation on patience for me & I've taken away more gratifying insight about myself from a lopsided bowl or a wonky mug in my hands than any self help or creative endeavor. It's inspiring to see what other students are working on, see their work progress on the shelves. A friend of mine there, way more advanced than I, once took a piece I discarded out of the trash and said, "Don't throw this away..." "It's got a lot of imperfections", I said. His response was, "that's exactly why it's a beautiful piece. You should glaze it and put it in the kiln." I looked at it again with a different set of eyes & am taking this lesson with me outside of those beloved walls."

Everyone can use more good vibes, right? Throw a new skill in for good measure, and you're way ahead of the game. Johnston told me that the symbol for the Temple Of Mediclaytion is an hourglass with no sand in it, because when you're here, you're not really aware of time - like it is whenever you're having the best time.

Johnston loves Venice, changes and all. He has created the dishes for places like Gjelina and The (new) Rose Café, and is kept busy with commissions and gallery shows.

This is all in response to the moment that ceramics is having now, but also, as he put it, "Creatives in Venice need to hustle now to stay in Venice. It's fun, there are a lot of movers and shakers - because they have to be." Johnston had a drawing teacher named Ted Villa that was fond of saying, "Good, better, best, never let it rest, 'til the good gets better, and the better best." Good advice, and good inspiration, as we all go about learning new things, getting better at them, and preserving the artistic integrity of this wonderful, creative vortex we call home.

Take a clay class!
Templeofmediclaytion.com

*Class photos courtesy Saori Wall.

Pantone and Priscilla - An Arty Day In Venice

Yesterday began and ended with art. The day began with a morning walk, and the discovery on the graffiti wall that Pantone's colors of the year for 2016 are "Serenity" and "Rose Quartz", announced with a mural by Man One Art. The hues are BEAUTIFUL, and the skies reflected them exactly when the sun set. Gorgeous.

This display was followed by the art opening for Priscilla Witte, our wonderful Venice illustrator whose work can be seen all over town at places like Superba and the new Rose café. It was held at the fancy shmancy (and, as a chain, doesn't really belong in Venice) Alexis Bittar jewelry store on Abbot Kinney. I LOVE when openings and things are right around my corner!

The crowd spilled outside on to the steps, with Venetians cramming in to look at Witte's great pieces. I love everything she does, but this one might be my favorite ... flower love!

I checked out all the art while sipping on some champagne, and was once again so happy that with all that's going on in the world, people can still get excited about art.

Witte was beaming with all the praise being heaped on her, and it's so nice to see one of our own get their proper accolades.

And sales, as I saw quite a few green Sold stickers. Hooray for working artists! Witte certainly is one, with collaborations for Keds and all sorts of cool things.

Oh, hang on ... this one is tied for my favorite.

You get it. It's just all good ... as is any day that is bookended with art. Especially in Venice.

 *Pantone photo courtesy of Pantone.