“It” was the Los Angeles City Artwalk at the Brewery downtown. From 11-6 on Saturday and Sunday you had a chance to step into different realms of some of LA’s greatest creative minds. Or something like that. Studio spaces which mostly doubled as living rooms were filled with many ordinary pedestrians like myself and a few others. Having an inkling of an idea I was going to do a short article on this event, I made sure to bring a camera. Batteries not included, so all of the pictures you see in this article has been borrowed off the net. Still, I don’t think it would make much of a difference. The true experience of the artwork, is the living breathing community that resides around it.

For much of my time in Los Angeles, I have felt like an amoeba. A single-celled organism floating inside of a bubble. The sense of a neighborhood, being apart of something has escaped me. So imagine how refreshing it was to walk among artists, through lofts and past fellow amoeba’s and smile and nod.

The massive compound is home to all different types of artists, and opens its doors only twice a year to share with the city and its residents, the fruits of the occupant’s labor. From everything to traditional photography to the much sensational ‘Art of church,’ which features a one man band tucked in the back of a room with a set of horns and instruments and a live painter at his side. It was exhilarating to be in the midst of creation.

I felt at first like I was invading their privacy, but was greeted only with warm smiles and an interest in answering any of my questions. It was sad for me that this wasn’t my LA. This short time I had within the Brewery was fleeting and I would have to go back to the drub of traffic and slumlords and shitty jobs. I admire the vision to unite such a collective of artists and humans. Now I wish to see it take shape and hold on a greater level. So every one can enjoy this level of creativity within the walls of the Brewery and beyond.

A quick sidenote, there’s another Artwalk in the fall and the best thing to do I found, is to get drunk and stumble through the maze of rooms, it allows for the truly great art to find you. And if you want to avoid those $4 or $5 beers, there’s a room inside one of the bigger buildings with stencil art and they hand out fortune cookies and sell beers from a vending machine for only .70 cents. What a Treasure! If you want I can draw all of you reading this a treasure map.

images courtesy of svanes via:flickr

Related Post

• No Related Post