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Shaheen describes Long Beach as an unusual intersection between Los Angeles and Orange County. "It's just this weird port city that kinda pulls stuff from both places," he tells Studio A. Separate from both downtown Los Angeles and Orange County by a string of freeways, Long Beach blossomed into a musical hub in its own right. It's part of L.A. County, but unlike other neighboring cities, Long Beach has a bounty of clubs and events to support its local talent. Some of those locals -- The Shock, Hot Rod Todd, The Golddiggers, The Growlers and Grand Elegance among them-- influenced Tijuana Panthers and, later, became their friends. These bands may all be united by a garage-y rock sound, but that's not all that exists in the city by the Pacific Ocean. Wachtel is quick to point out the diversity among Long Beach musicians, from hip-hop to metal. Shaheen adds that, when Tijuana Panthers started, they were part of a "small niche." However, their beach-y, garage-meet-post-punk sound took off.
Tijuana Panthers' sound is hard to pinpoint. Like the city where they're based, the band mashes together a lot of different influences. "Chad's got that wicked Link Wray sound with his guitar," says Michicoff, adding that Wachtel can channel bands like The Misfits. They're fans of artists who found their footing in the aftermath of punk rock: Ian Dury, Orange Juice and Talking Heads are high on the list. Wachtel adds that he was influenced by an older sister who was big on 1980s icons like Echo and the Bunnymen and the Smiths. Plus, thanks to his dad, he discovered surf music at a young age.
Now on their third album, Tijuana Panthers has amassed a collection of stories, their own as well as ones related by friends, that influence every aspect of the band. The name itself comes from a tale spun by Shaheen's late neighbor, who traveled to Tijuana, bought a porcelain panther and got into a night fight.
The latest album, "Wayne Interest," comes from a saying that Shaheen claims is used by Germans. "It means just 'who care,'" he says. His bandmates, however, are skeptical.
"Sometimes, I think Phil made it up and it's not even real," says Wachtel. Michicoff agrees.
The album itself came together almost by chance. Michicoff met producer Richard Swift through a friend late one night while they were drinking. Swift invited the band to visit his place in Oregon and record on a 4-track. It took one-and-a-half days to get through 10 songs.
"We weren't intending to do the lo-fi thing for the sake of lo-fi," says Michicoff. Instead, the decision was made because Smith nailed the band's sound. Since the band is a three-piece, they kept it simple. Swift encouraged them to avoid recording parts that they wouldn't be able to play live, although there are a few bits that were added in post-production.
"Cherry Street," which appears on "Wayne Interest," is loosely inspired by an incident that Shaheen spotted on Long Beach's Cherry Avenue involving a group of police cars gathered in a small parking lot. "I just, you know, made this assumption in my head of maybe what happened," he says. Meanwhile, "NOBO" stems from and inside joke with their producer Swift and Cold War Kids' Matt Moss. Michicoff says, "I don't want to give too much away." What he explains is complicated, but largely based on seeing people without ambition-- "They're just trying to be angry at the world and drink a lot," he says, "And, I am wondering how they can afford the free time."
Time is limited for Tijuana Panthers. They work day jobs in addition to playing music. Wachtel helps out his his mother at her antiques and craft shop. He also does woodworking for a furniture designer. Shaheen is a teacher. The band isn't something that he likes to mention when he's at school, although he believes that the principal and teachers know about it. The double-life gets a little tricky as Tijuana Panthers becomes more popular, particularly when they played Coachella a few years ago. Shaheen says that "for years and years and years" nobody at the school knew that he had a band. Of course, when you make your mark in the music world, that all changes.]]>
When Sato was a baseball-playing teenager in Northern California, he drew. "It was just something I did when I was sitting on the bench," he says. "I would deface everything that could be defaced in the dugout." Sato's teammates would hand him their hats and gloves for a few doodles. Few balls escaped his pens. Years later, after he had relocated to Los Angeles, he came across some unmarked baseballs at his parents' house. Sato brought them to his studio and left them clean for a little bit before he returned to his high school ways. He drew bits of teenage flashbacks on the balls and The Lindhurst High School shooting is now part of a collection of memories sitting inside Martha Otero Gallery. "I hadn't thought about it in a long time," says Sato. He looked up the tragedy online after he finished the drawings and found out that it was the basis of a TV movie starring Rick Schroeder.
On another side of the ball, there is a depiction of an incident from his freshman year of high school, in suburban Sacramento, when Sato was beaten up in a park near some woods. He sketched out his friends. He drew the guy who beat him. The tiny visual cues tell a story in fragments, much in the same way that one would struggle to recall events that took place 20 years earlier.
One of Sato's early ambitions was to make maps "I really liked making maps as an idea," he says, before sighing, "but when you actually do it, it's such a pain." In his own way, though, Sato is engaging in map-making with his recent solo show, "Curses." "This is as close as I'm getting," he says, "memory maps."
Sato's work is filled with stories. Sometimes, they are based on history or literature. There is "Seance II: Jericho Rising" (2014), where the Battle of Jericho unfolds on a spiraling piece of paper. "That was one of the stories that was always so captivating to me because it's so nuts," he says. Sato gives the summary, surmising that, along with Sodom and Gomorrah, it's one of the Bibles' "craziest stories of mass murder." Sato's own take on, he says is, "kind of the spirit of joyful profanity."
Other times, the narrative reflects the process of making art. "The Battle of Book 52" is a Moleskin sketchbook with accordion-fold pages. He worked in it with pencil and ink, cutting the small illustrations into pop-up figures. "This is the struggle to get through a book," says Sato, whose collection of filled sketchbooks often included as part of his overall body of work.
In a way, it all goes back to memory, whether its the recollection of a Bible story learned as a child or a documentation of the artist's process. At the center of "Curses" is "Five Movements for Little Guys," a series of five watercolors on scrolls that are four-feet wide and ten-feet tall. In these works, Sato sets out to paint every person he can recall.
"Five Movements for Little Guys" first appeared at "SuperAwesome: Art and Giant Robot," a exhibition featuring works affiliated with the L.A.-based gallery (and former magazine) at Oakland Museum of California. The curators asked Sato what he wanted to do for the show. His response: "Give me 25 feet of wall and I'll fill it with something."
Initially, Sato intended to paint one wall piece that depicted everyone he remembered walking. Eventually, he broke it up into five parts. Sato isn't sure of the exact number of people in his paintings. He guesses that it's somewhere around 1,000 bodies.
As Sato continued painting, he noticed something interesting. People he knew in real life were getting mixed up with characters he recognized from pop culture. "There would be an amalgamation," he says, "things like people who remind me of characters from fiction, books, TV." Sometimes, two people would morph into one person in the painting.
"I mask out the figures," he explains, "so they're just a shape, maybe. Then I do these big washes over the top of it. Sometimes, it would just be the shape that reminds me of my wife or some kid in third grade who broke his arm."]]> Sato intentionally worked without referencing photos. Even with the TV and film characters, he went by the image in his head. "I wanted to try to remember them how my mind remembers them," he says. "Sometimes, I would look them up later and see how inaccurate or accurate they were."
The results vary. He says that some of his images didn't quite match the person. With others, he adds, the interpretations came quite close to people he hadn't seen in decades. As we talk more about the quirks of memory, he mentions "Rashomon", the Akira Kurasawa film where characters do not remember the same events the same way. Sato is working solo on his show, but he's still playing with the ideas of the accuracy of memory. It is, says Sato, a "super fun" exercise.
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Top Image: "Five Movements for Little Guys," Rob Sato | Photo: Liz Ohanesian]]>
Here Amarante worked with Devendra Banhart and then returned to write music with Fabrizio Moretti, drummer for The Strokes. The Amarante/Moretti collaboration endured. They started the group Little Joy with Binki Shapiro. Moretti also did a bit of work on Amarante's solo album, "Cavalo." After staying in Los Angeles for months at a time, Amarante started to see the city differently. "The culture here is not so much like in New York where you go to bars and you go out and you think that everything is happening," he says. "Here, everything is happening in people's backyards. So slowly, as I met people here, I realized one thing that was very interesting about this place is that it relates to the genesis of the West."
"California is the West of the West," he continues. "People come here to look for something very improbable some dream that would otherwise be ridiculous somewhere else, or to run away from ghosts that are present from somewhere else. They look for gold."
Eventually, Amarante warmed up to Los Angeles and decided to stay. "The city, from my point of view... groups all these people who are free and they mix with all different kinds of groups and are very open-minded.
In Brazil, Amarante is best known as part of the band Los Hermanos, which hit big in Brazil at the end of the 20th century. He has played in other bands too, like Orchestra Imperial, but admits that its Los Hermanos that has earned the most attention over the years. Los Angeles was a place where Amarante could do something new. He wasn't as well known here as he was in Rio de Janeiro. "It's a great feeling that you can go somewhere where no one knows you and write and see what the reaction is going to be," he says. Adding to the excitement of creating in a new place, Amarante got to do that in a different language. He couldn't pass up a chance like this one.]]>
"The good thing about traveling is that you are not surround by your environment, so you feel different," says Amarante. "You feel like you're looking at things differently." Amarante took advantage of that situation while working on "Cavalo," his first solo album.
"I wanted to be alone to write," says Amarante, "just to doubt identity, to talk about memory, to go back and realize how much of it is invented."
Since the musician hadn't worked on his own prior to the move to L.A., he knew the album would be a testament to his identity as a solo artist. However, that's not really something he wanted. Amarante is more concerned with the disconnect between how he saw himself and how others viewed him. "The idea that I have of myself is very different than the idea that you have of me," says Amarante, "and I think that's interesting."
While Amarante wrote plenty of songs prior to "Cavalo," this was the first time he wasn't writing for a band. Before, he would write knowing that he could go to his bandmates and bounce ideas off of them. On his own, he found another way to work. "I started to feel that there was a sort of double of me present in the room," he says, "maybe because I need an accomplice to that experience which I couldn't share with anyone else."
He expands on the idea of the two facets of his personality at work on the album. There's the side of Amarante that is "in love with the process" of making music and the side that just wants to get it done. All these things are at play in the album's title. There's more to "Cavalo" than just "horse."
"In Brazil and other countries where there is a mix between African religion and spiritualism and all that, we say the 'cavalo' is the person who receives the spirit, the person that serves as a vehicle for something external," he explains. "So, if you believe in spirits, it would be a spirit. If you don't, it would be some sort of shade of the psyche that manifests."
"Cavalo" is a multi-lingual album; there are songs in Portuguese, English and French on it. Amarante connects the use of multiple languages to the sense of space he creates with the music itself. "I'm trying to tell your story, not mine," he says. "I'm trying to leave enough space so that it will reflect something that you have in you."
Similarly, there are parts of language that are open to interpretation. "When you're a foreigner, in the beginning when you're learning a language, you find yourself not understanding half of what's being said," he says. "Either literally, you don't know the words, or you don't comprehend the meaning or you don't get the sense of humor, etc." However, he points out, sentiments are often conveyed by means other than verbal language. There is body language as well as the way people learn words through context and what he calls "the music of the words." Mixing languages on the album was a way for Amarante to address the ideas and concepts that he wanted to explore.
"I wanted to make a point about space and about our time too," says Amarante. "Each record has to be louder than the next, so dynamics disappeared from recordings. Because there's so much space, virtual space, there is a competition for space." Amarante made an album that forces the audience to pay close attention. He mentions the cover for "Cavalo." There is none. He uses a lyrics sheet to mark the release instead of flashy graphics. He notes the tiny font used as well. "To see what's in it, you have to stop and go in," he says.
He made some bold choices with "Cavalo," from the design to the album to the music itself. "Making a record that's half Portuguese is risky," says Amarante. But, these were also important choices that further the musician's vision. He says, "I wanted to reflect what was happening in my head."]]>
There are notebooks that Marschall likes to show the students who stop by to tour this immense collection. One dates back to Wilde's school days and is filled with hard to read squiggles on philosophy. She points to a doodle, a small drawing of pottery, in a margin. A few pages later, she explains why his notes are sometimes difficult to decipher. In this book, Wilde is going back and forth between English and Greek. The handwriting remains fluid, as though he didn't stop to process the difference between the languages. Marschall says that this probably wasn't out of the ordinary for a university student of that time, but it is interesting. Scholars appreciate going through these notes. And for the undergraduates, Marschall says, it is a chance to see that this exalted writer was once like them, adding tiny drawings to pages of notes.
More than a century ago, Wilde's words brought him a certain level of stardom. He was a hit playwright with enough charm and style to move through fashionable society. Scandal, in the form of a then-illegal affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, led to his demise. Wilde did time for the crime of loving another man.
Later, the writer headed to Paris, where he died in 1900 at 46. In recent times, Wilde has emerged as both a literary hero and icon of LGBT rights. His work has influenced subsequent generations of wordsmiths. One of his most famous fans is the British singer Morrissey, whose praise may have inspired teens of the 1980s and '90s to pick up a copy of "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Wilde's choice quotes come up on Internet memes so frequently that, sometimes, his name is simply added to words that could never have come from his pen. He has turned up as a character in the comic book version of "Doctor Who" and was made into an action figure. Perhaps Wilde is more famous now than he was in life, as known for his work as he is for the persona he developed. "Wilde is a guy who didn't like to show that he worked hard," says Marschall. However, these archives tell another story.
The keys to understanding Oscar Wilde are at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. Operated by UCLA, there are rows of archives here dedicated not just to Wilde, but to his "circle." Marschall explains that this is a term the library uses to encompass a fairly large group of people. Aubrey Beardsley, who provided illustrations for Wilde's play "Salomé," is in here. So is Max Beerbohm, the caricature artist and writer who depicted Wilde in his book "Rossetti and His Circle." William Butler Yeats, a contemporary who, like Wilde, hailed from Ireland, is represented. The collection is immense. Marschall says that it might not be the biggest archive of its kind in the world, but it could be. Seven-and-a-half rows of shelving are dedicated to various editions of Wilde's novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray." That's not including a script from the film adaptation or the manuscript of the book's third chapter. (As Marschall explains, "Dorian Gray" was originally serialized in a magazine, so chapters are spread far and wide.) There are editions that span decades and version that appear in a variety of languages. Not long ago, a student stopped by to research the various book covers for a thesis. These books are put to good use.
"It makes us a destination," Marschall says of the collection. It's an unexpected destination at that. While Wilde did travel through the United States, he didn't make it to Los Angeles. His connection to the city came years after the author's death, when a local philanthropist began collecting these works.
William Andrews Clark, Jr. was the son of a copper king and Senator. Originally from Montana, he moved to Los Angeles around a century ago and is best known as the founder of the L.A. Philharmonic. He was also a noted book collector. Clark was loaded, but, as Marschall stresses, he didn't have the bucks that fellow collector Henry Huntington had. To make his own collection stand out, Clark focused on specific authors. One was John Dryden, the English poet, and the other was Wilde.
"We don't know really why he picked the authors that he picked," says Marschall. She adds that, while Clark was married (and widowed) twice, he dated men later in life. In fact, the face of a man painted inside the library's entryway is based on that of his boyfriend. Marschall can't say for certain if Clark's own same-sex relationship was the inspiration for his collecting interests. What is known is that Clark was meticulous in his collecting habits. Some of the pieces came from John B. Stetson, Jr., son of the inventor of the cowboy hat. Others were acquired at a large sale in 1928. While the books were pricy, they weren't quite as expensive as they are now. Part of that, Marschall says, is just due to the passage of time, much as how prices rise for artists. Still, she notes, attitudes towards Wilde were different in the 1920s. "At that time, there were people collecting Wilde," she says, "but there was still this taint of scandal around him."
Things have changed over the decades. "I think that any scandal surrounding Wilde is not really something that we think of as scandalous or shameful anymore," says Marschall. Plus, she adds, gay rights and academic disciplines that focus on LGBT lives and history may have helped introduce Wilde to new generations of readers.
Clark was born in 1877 so, while he was quite a bit younger than Wilde, their lives chronologically overlap. Moreover, some of Wilde's peers were still around when Clark was collecting. This includes Lord Alfred Douglas, himself a poet. Clark corresponded with Douglas, so some of the collection may have come directly from Wilde's former lover.
Marschall indicates that Clark wasn't just a rich guy buying for no other reason than the thrill of the purchase. "He was really knowledgable about what they were and went out to acquire things on purpose," she says. Clark even published a multi-volume bibliography based on his acquisitions.
Clark's grand gift to UCLA is situated closer to the university's cross-town rival. His old mansion off Adams Blvds is long gone -- it's a parking lot now -- but the library on those grounds remains. UCLA continues to beef up the collection. Some of the pieces here have only been in their possession for a short period of time. That notebook from Wilde's days at Oxford was acquired in 2004. They started out with a great collection, but it has only grown more comprehensive since then. One of the points of interest is the breadth of forgeries they have on hand. There are multiple copies of "For Love of the King," a play that was published under Wilde's name long after his death. Wilde didn't write it and the controversy over authorship ultimately led to a libel suit. The Clark has a dossier including information on the subsequent court case as well. There is also a fake draft of "The Importance of Being Earnest" as well as other forged papers. Marschall points out how similar the handwriting is to Wilde's own markings. The telltale signs are often watermarks showing that works were written on paper made after Wilde died. Another clue is the ink. A lot of these papers are written in purple ink. The problem is that Wilde himself never used that color.
Inside his own legitimate notebooks and on typed manuscripts edited in his own writing, we see an Oscar Wilde working diligently to create the stories, and, ultimately, the personal image that has persisted through to the present day. Maybe that's why Wilde is so popular, his brand -- to use the popular word of today -- was carefully executed. Marschall thinks that, for this reason, Wilde might have been at home in the 21st century. "He would be the King of Twitter," she says. "He would probably be really into social media in general because you can curate this version of yourself and that's really what he was into."
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Top Image: Inside the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library | Courtesy: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library]]>
For a time, LP found another calling. She started writing songs for other artists. Backstreet Boys were an early credit for her. LP also contributed heavily to reality show star Heidi Montag's debut album. Then there was "Cheers (Drink to That)," which became a hit for Rihanna.
"I'm blown away sometimes when I read pop lyrics on a page," says LP. "With certain songs, you can listen to them several times before a line will sink in, which is amazing to me, and it's one of my favorite things, knowing a song for so long."]]>
Writing pop songs for radio stars is a different experience. "When you get a publishing deal, you just start writing songs with all different kinds of people," says LP, "all different kinds of writers and all different kinds of producers." The songs are pieced together and pitched to artists, often the major label ones, sometimes indie folks. Other times, it may be for film. "I was kind of liberated by that," she says. "I had all these years as an artist, but I didn't get to put my record out. It was a little bit liberating to have songs go to other people and them take them somewhere."
As a child, LP was a little reserved about her vocal talents. Then her mom, who studied opera, noticed young LP singing in the back of the car. "So, then I started singing out a little more and then just kept going." With her singing career on hold, though, LP picked up another instrument -- the ukulele. She was drawn to the tiny music-maker because of the spontaneity that it could foster. She could easily bring a ukulele to sessions. "It was just simple and authentically sweet," she says. It helped her creatively. "As far as me as an artist, I was so scared," she confesses, adding that the ukulele helped lure her away from the fear. It prompted her to whistle those beautiful calls that ring through songs like "Into the Wild."
LP also hooked up with a new management team that nudged her back into the performing realm. "I was a little reluctant," she says, mentioning how things didn't work out on her previous attempt. Her managers, though, pushed a little more. LP, who had recently relocated to Los Angeles, decided to give her performing career another go. It wasn't without creative struggle. She had spent so much time writing songs for others that she had difficulty writing for herself again. "It's almost like I have to fight to get to the center of myself to write for me more," she says, "and I can hang out in the wings a little bit more and be more observational." She likens it to being able to give a friend advice when you can't fix your own problems.
Her work got personal. "Tokyo Sunrise" and "Your Town" deal with relations. Of the former, she says, "It was how I felt in my soul when I moved away from a relationship that was very deep for me." Regarding the latter: "I was in her town. I saw a bunch of things. It made me really sad."
Then there's "Into the Wild," which is inspired by technology and the unknown consequences of it. "We're just kind of on it and in it," she says. "You don't know if you're gonna have-- forgive me-- a tumor the size of your foot growing out of your head in 20 years or not, or, if you're going to lose your soul and the soul of your kids. We don't really know. It's a very frightening, but exciting, place and that's more what that is about."
LP's writing process varies from song to song. "Melodically, I'm very immediate- - it doesn't mean it's great, but I can spit out melodies all day," she says. "Lyrically, it's 50/50. Sometimes a lyric just comes out and then sometimes I have to really work at it. "The results, though, are striking, intimate numbers carried by a voice with an emotional range that is expansive and captivating.
With "Forever for Now" already making a splash, LP is has her mind on what's next. She still writes songs for other artists. Plus, she's getting ideas for her own follow-up record. "It's not a stagnant thing," she says of creative work. "I do have periods of absorbing and then output, but it's definitely touring, writing new songs, growing and moving on. These things happen to you every day and I enjoy that cycle and keep moving."
"I never had a role model," says Inagaki, who grew up in Camarillo and lives in Los Angeles. She adds that there's nothing wrong with that; She was reared to rely on herself. "Now, in my adult life, it's nice to have these strong women in my life that are supportive and they're creative and they're very driven," she says. "It's a great, positive environment to be around."
These new charcoal drawings debuted at Century Guild alongside works from David Mack and Bill Sienkiewicz on September 20. Inagaki considers her inclusion in the show a "huge honor." She is friends with both of the artists, who are best known for their contributions to the comic book world, and an admirer of their work. The show also marks a transition for Inagaki. Usually, she draws herself.
Inagaki's body of illustrative works is filled with self-portraits. Earlier this year, in her Century Guild solo show "Metamorphosis," the artist depicted herself in situations inspired by Japanese mythology and folklore. With charcoal, watercolor and washi paper, she does more than draw portraits, she creates worlds. Inagaki's drawings are filled with symbolism, like the extremely long hair that sometimes takes on a life of its own in the scenes. They are, the kind of drawings that would take hours just to begin comprehending the layers of meaning.
Sometimes, people approach Inagaki at art openings, asking, "What exactly does this piece mean?" This is difficult to answer -- "Do you want the long, honest answer, or do you want the watered down, art talk version?" she says -- but she does regularly write artist statements, succinct descriptions of the concepts behind the projects. In the statement for "Pillars," Inagaki writes, "It is a celebration of the feminine divine portrayed through our own mythologies. I represent myself as a pillar because I am a pillar for myself as well."
Inagaki likens the process of producing one self-portrait after the next to ongoing art therapy sessions. "Art is definitely a way for me to process, synthesize -- emotionally and mentally -- pretty severe events that's I've been through," says Inagaki. Right before Inagaki entered college, her brother died from leukemia. Shortly after she finished graduate school, her fiancé died. Even in times of grief, Inagaki's art flourished.
She studied sculpture -- undergrad at Boston University, grad at San Francisco Art Institute -- but it's been a while since Inagaki has worked in that realm. That's partially a logistical issue. She doesn't have access to the space needed to build the large installations in her head. That's the same reason why she shrunk down her drawings down from the life-sized pieces that she used to make. As a sculptor, she once cast 1000 vertebrae over the course of six months. One hundred of those were patinaed. The small pieces were suspended from 26 feet high and fell into an hourglass form at near the ground. "Depending on your perception, you can see it as ascending or descending, this pile of bones," she says. At noon, light would filter through a window, giving the piece a glowing effect.
Shortly before that, Inagaki made a series of sculpted neck pieces called "Exquisite Restraint." When discussing these pieces, she recalls an incident when her brother had a spinal tap. Inside a crowded children's hospital, he was given anesthesia, but the wait was so long that it started to wear off by the time of the procedure. Inagaki couldn't forget that and the incident went on to inspire her references to bones and the spine.
"Milton talks about how the earth is so fragile and it's hanging from this golden thread between heaven and hell," says Inagaki. "I kind of envisioned the human spine that way too because it's something that holds us up, but if you break it, you would just completely shatter and fall apart."
Inagaki's background in sculpture still shows when she works on her jewelry line, Miyu Decay. She shows one of her pieces during the interview, a fruit bat skull and bones made of brass. "It's not as conceptually heavy as the fine art," she says.
The concept is key for Inagaki, which is why she has done self-portraits so frequently. "Conceptually, it took me a while to figure out how to integrate other people into my work," she says. With "Pillars," she has been able to find her footing. "It's a lot easier for me to connect emotionally to my female friends because I'm female too," she says. That connection to the subject is what makes her images so powerful.
"I don't just draw images just because," she says. "I'm always compelled because of a concept that I have."
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Top Image: "Futakuchi Doppelganger, "31" x 66", Charcoal, Acrylic, Washi and Nepalese Paper, and Archival Print on Rives BFK, 2013]]>
In early August, Alice Bag made her gallery debut at "Heads Will Roll," an all-female group show inside Chinatown spot Coagula Curatorial. Her contribution included six portraits -- one of herself, five of her friends and former bandmates-- that hung as though they were one piece, a glimpse into the history of a band called Castration Squad.
At the dawn of the 1980s, Bag was, she says, a "temporary member" of the group, but one who filled in on keyboard and bass frequently. Castration Squad itself is a little obscure. There is a post about the band on Bag's website and a few random TV and radio performances floating around the Internet. Many of its members are better known for other projects. Mary Bat-Thing became Dinah Cancer, who spearheaded L.A.'s deathrock scene with 45 Grave. Drummer Elissa Bello was a member of the Go-Gos in that band's early days. As for Alice Bag, she fronted The Bags, one of the handful of groups that formed the city's nascent punk scene in the late 1970s and the source of the stage name that she uses for her myriad music, writing and art projects.
It's impossible to discuss Bag's visual art without discussing her music. She paints portraits of friends, family members and herself. They become snapshots of a life that is deeply embedded in L.A.'s music scene. Decades earlier, Bag cut her teeth playing at the long-gone Hong Kong Cafe, across Hill Street from the gallery where her art appears. There's even a photo of her playing with The Bags inside the boutique that took over the old venue's space. In the years that followed, she played with performers like Vaginal Davis and El Vez. More recently, she performed with former Bratmobile vocalist Allison Wolfe as part of the group Sex Stains at Echo Park Rising. Save for the handful of years she spent living in Arizona, Bag has always been in a band.
"I thought I was going to leave my music behind and have a respectable career, and it always followed me," she says. Until a few years ago, Bag was a teacher. Still, she played music. Even when she was teaching the Pre-Kindergarten students, she wrote songs with the kids. Bag's visual art is reflective of her musical career, portraits that are full of the rock 'n' roll energy that often points to a secret history of L.A. punk.
The Castration Squad portraits were based on old photographs of the band members and painted on recycled canvases. In some spots the canvases are left untouched to reveal artwork that is otherwise buried under primer and paint. She used house paint and oil paint for the brightly-colored paints splotches that mark the background. The goal was to create something that was reflective of the moments in which they made music together. "It was a really crazy and chaotic, but colorful, time," says Bag. She painted the bandmates in oil using a minimal palette, heavy on blue. She wanted a cool color to reflect the members' attitudes and blue played on the "deathly aesthetic" that the band adopted, a sort of early goth look that fit with songs like "No Mercy for the Dead" and "Bat Thing." Bag learned to make frames during the process as well. "I had to build them and sand them -- I don't know-- five times," she says.
Bag equates art to punk rock; It's less about technique and more about the ideas that are expressed. "If you have something that you want to share, you have to be brave and do it," she says. She hasn't been painting for long. Bag picked it up as a hobby after moving to Arizona with her family in the mid-2000s. "When I got there, I was hoping to be in the middle of town near the university, I thought that's where fun stuff is going to happen," she says. "I was outvoted by my daughter and my husband, who really wanted to live on the outskirts in the desert."
In the northeastern corner of Phoenix, surrounded by desert and hours away from her friends back home, Bag took on two new tasks. She wrote her memoir, Violence Girl, which chronicles the East L.A.-born musician's life through the punk years. (Bag is working on a follow-up, which will begin when she was a Cal State L.A. student working in Nicaragua and follows her life to the present day.) She also took art courses at a local community college. A class in oil painting led to another one on how to paint from photographs. Her first piece was a portrait of her former neighbor, Maribel, a friend that Bag considered to be like "a daughter." She went on to paint her daughters, and continued with more friends from Los Angeles.
"I started painting when I was in Arizona because I didn't have any friends," says Bag. Painting wasn't just a reminder of people in Los Angeles, it was something she could share with the friends who lived one state over from her. She posted photos of the paintings online and got encouragement from her pals, including artist Kelly Thompson, who curated "Heads Will Roll." After Bag moved back to L.A., Thompson asked her to be part of the show.
With the Castration Squad pieces, Bag is doing more than simply capturing a moment in the lives of her inner circle. She's bringing to light parts of L.A. punk history that have long been ignored. This is a major part of Bag's work that extends beyond the paintings. She has interviewed a number of women from the L.A. punk underground-- including Jane Wiedlin (The Go-Go's), Philomena Bessy (Slash Magazine) and filmmaker Allison Anders-- for a series that appears on her websites. She has also been gathering the stories of Latino participants in the early punk scene. She says that a lot of the interviews overlap with discussing LGBT representation in the community. "I was finding that there was this whole other narrative to make it sound like it was, the early L.A. scene, was a white male scene," says Bag. That's not necessarily the world that she saw take shape inside L.A. nightclubs. She's providing first-hand accounts because it needs to be done. Says Bag, "We can't expect other people to tell our story for us."
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Top Image: Portrait of Tiffany Kennedy by Alice Bag. | Image courtesy of Alice Bag]]>
Decades later, Aragones is one of the icons of cartoon art. He has been a part of MAD Magazine since the 1960s, garnering fans for items like "marginals," small cartoons added in the margins of the pages. He created the long-running comic book series Groo and managed to maintain the rights for it in an era when that was rare. He is still incredibly prolific, turning out new works month to month. Right now, Groo vs. Conan, his collaboration with writer Mark Evanier and artist Thomas Yeates, is hitting comic book shops. The miniseries pits Aragones' famed character against the hero of Robert E. Howard's classic stories. It was one of the more difficult projects that he encountered. "Conan is a Barbarian that never loses, so is Groo," says Aragones. "One is humorous and one is serious." It took almost a year to figure out how these two instantly recognizable characters could exist in the same series. Aragones found the answer in the Akira Kurosawa film Rashomon, where the story is told through the points of view of different characters.
Aragones has spent the past 30-some-odd years living in Ojai, where he writes and draws every day. When he tires of one task, he moves onto another. He works by the pool at home during the day. At night, he'll continue writing and drawing with a television set playing in the background. "Television becomes your companion because you don't have to talk back," he says. He'll let old movies, ones that he already knows well, run into the wee hours of the morning. Favorites include The Thin Man series and musicals from the 1930s. For monthly comics, Aragones has to complete a page a day. There are also lots of other projects to balance and ideas hit him in unusual moments. He spent ages trying to think of a way that he could comment on television in Groo, a comic set long before the advent of modern conveniences. After seeing Muppets on television, he arrived at the perfect TV substitute for Groo-- marionettes.
Outside of MAD, Aragones is perhaps best known for Groo the Wanderer. It's about the misadventures of a warrior, like Conan the Barbarian with more laughs than heroics. Back in the 1960s, Aragones had grown frustrated with the lack of humor comics in the U.S. market. While traveling in Europe, he noticed that a lot of the comics released on the continent were funny. He also learned that the comic book creators overseas actually owned their stories. That wasn't the case in the United States, where the copyrights were frequently retained by publishers, while artists and writers frequently lost control of the characters they created. Aragones wanted his own comic and he wanted to hang on to the rights. It took more than a decade for him to get that. In the early 1980s, he landed a deal with Pacific Comics. After the company's demise, Groo moved to various publishers. To date, Groo is still running and it stands out as one of the early examples of creator-owned comics.
We met at San Diego Comic-Con recently, behind a small table where Aragones spent days signing and doodling for a steady line of fans. There are children holding copies of MAD Magazine and comic book industry bigwigs waiting for a minute of Aragones' time. He signs and chats with everybody, sometimes in English, sometimes in Spanish. They aren't all strangers. Plenty are people that Aragones has met at conventions in other parts of the country, even the world. He travels to comic book conventions frequently. "It's a chance to meet old friends," he says. It's also a chance to find out who is reading his work. "If you see the face of readers, it's great." He signs another book, telling the fan that he'll enjoy the comic, called Funnies. The issue features a personal story that dates back to his college days in Mexico.
Young artists approach Aragones often. "They have a lifetime in front of them and they want to know everything," he says. He tries to answer them with encouragement. At various points throughout the weekend, he disappears to sit on panels, where he discusses his work and answers questions from the crowd. Aragones says there are two kinds of people in the audience. There are the fans who have been following his work for years. They ask questions about upcoming releases. Then there are the folks who don't know his work all that well yet. They ask questions that Aragones does not feel he can answer. "Where do you get your ideas?" is one. "I don't know where I get my ideas," he says. "The same place where you get yours." They might ask a very general question, like "What's humor?" Aragones chuckles when he mentions this. "That's a philosophical question," he says. "I could spend 10 hours on the subject alone."
He signs fast and draws faster. With a couple blinks, you might miss that Aragones just doodled a character next to his name on the cover of your new comic. "The style is loose, a lot of movement," he says, "so speed helps it." He draws for comedic effect, not for realism. His characters have exaggerated figures-- think large bellies and skinny legs-- with pronounced noses and silly grins. They are constantly in motion, even when they are static images in a panel. "It doesn't really make a difference if the mouth doesn't close, or is larger," he says. "It's part of the style." Aragones says he spends more time researching and plotting out the images than he does actually drawing them.
While he's signing, Aragones explains how he made a poster that has become quite popular with fans. It's a massive piece featuring dozens of tiny scenes inside one giant view of the Groo universe. It started as a composition on paper. Gradually, he added more and more details. He worked on the perspective, ensuring the distance and depths within the image made sense. "It's a lot of construction," he says.
Aragones stops for a second. He notices an error in the print, a very tiny piece of a dense drawing was left uncolored. He starts to laugh and shows it off to those of us around him. Everyone gets a kick out of it. "It becomes completely unimportant," says Aragones of the mistake. In his world of funny comics, goofs are good for a laugh too.
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Top Image: Sergio Aragones signing a comic at San Diego Comic-Con | Photo: Liz Ohanesian]]>
"Womanthology" counters any wrong-headed belief that comics is a game for the boys. Inside the anthology, there are stories of heroism and fantastic adventures, but those ideas are conveyed in many different ways. "We have all these things, but we're telling it from our point of view. We're showing it in a way that we like," says Kang. Since the book's release, Kang has moved on to other projects, both in comics and animation, but she remains immensely proud of her work. "Womanthology" is something special.
In 2011, "Womanthology: Heroic" turned up on Kickstarter with a goal of $25,000 to cover production costs for a massive comic book that would, ultimately, earn proceeds for charities. They earned the support of industry stars, like Steve Niles and Neil Gaiman, who donated rewards to the campaign, and raised over $100,000. Some of the best known women in comics, like Gail Simone ("Birds of Prey") and Fiona Staples ("Saga"), committed to working on the book. Since then, the artists and writers behind "Womanthology" have made the rounds on the comic book convention circuit. They have spoke on panels and set up tables to sell and sign their work. They also released a follow-up, "Womanthology: Space." In late 2013, they announced that sales have raised $50,000 to benefit various global charities.
Recently, at at Comic-Con, Brianne Drouhard, who contributed a pin-up illustration to "Womanthology: Space," was at the table. She too is based in Los Angeles and, like Kang, works in animation. Drouhard doesn't consider herself a professional comic book artist. However, she did create her own comic, "Harpy Gee" -- a play on RPG, short for role-playing game -- about the adventures of a young, female elf. The comic is based on an old pitch for a cartoon series and normally runs on the website Dumm, but she had hard copies for sale at the booth. Also at the booth is her fan art depicting various DC characters who are princesses. "I don't sell fan art online and I don't sell a lot of fan art at conventions," she says. However, Drouhard mentions, she brought it to a convention in Seattle, where it was an in-demand item. "I had so many parents and girls coming by just to buy that because the DC booth didn't have any."
It's a telling statement about women, girls and comics. Female characters exist, just like female comic book creators exist, and they've been a part of comics for a long time. So often, though, the contributions of women are ignored. Walk through the artist alley of any convention and you'll see a lot of women selling their works at tables. At some events -- like that cater to fans of Japanese cartoons and comics, known as anime and manga -- the artist alley is overwhelmingly female. Some self-publish in print. Others work online. Some have deals with independent publishers. You'll even see artists who have worked for the biggest companies in the game. However, when you get to the more mainstream comics, you might notice fewer women. Frequently, this is also where you'll see the least amount of diversity of characters. Kang mentions "the big two," which are DC and Marvel. "It is a male fantasy that we see in major comics that are now being turned into movies and TV shows," says Kang. "When people think of comics, they think of big, buff superheroes, scantily clad ladies, aliens, monsters and things like that."
There's a feminist movement emerging in the comic book world and its importance cannot be understated. "Womanthology" is part of that. The books' popularity stems from more than just the big names who contributed it. In 2011, and even today, the comic book world needed a voluminous space for female creators. It's not just about women in the industry, as those who I interviewed frequently noted. Readers and creators alike are calling out for more diverse characters across the spectrum of the medium-- more LGBT representation, more people of color. "What would it mean if this art form suddenly started to clean up its act and cater to everyone? What stories could be told? Who might we affect? What changes might be wrought?" says Tess Fowler, creator of the webcomic "The Rascals." "This isn't just funny books anymore. This is revolution."
This revolution goes far beyond what appears on the pages of comic books. Recently, the harassment, including sexual harassment, of women in the comic book scene has become a hot topic. After talking to a handful of insiders, the general consensus is that there may not necessarily be more instances of harassment so much as there are more women willing to talk about their experiences publicly. MariNaomi, who wrote and illustrated the autobiographical comic "Kiss & Tell: A Romantic Resume, Ages 0 to 22," was on a convention panel when a fellow comics creator made inappropriate comments about her. She documented the incident for XOJane. "And then of course, talking about it got me harassed even more," she says in an email. (For the record, the accused, who was given an alias in MariNaomi's article, did come forward and apologize.)
Online personal stories can bring out armies of trolls. Undoubtedly, this is a problem that reaches far wider than the comic book world. Yet, it is ironic that such misogyny would occur so frequently within a community that prides itself on being outside of mainstream culture. There is a call for those with the biggest platforms to stand up and address the situation.]]> "People in positions of visibility and power need to set the tone for the community, both online and in real life," responds Casey Gilly, a staff writer for Comic Book Resources. "Don't accept harassing language on message boards. If someone is harassing people in a community you moderate, show zero tolerance. When you see harassment online, report it. Report it again. Report it until it stops. Advocate for people who are being harassed. Listen to them, respect them and ask them what they need -- be part of the solution. "
Are there solutions for increasing diversity in the comics world? Certainly, "Womanthology" is part of that. Independent and alternative-minded comic book publishers have long featured stories with diverse casts made by both female and male creators. Gilly points to Image Comics as a supplier of "incredible titles with authentic diversity." Manga and anime feature a wealth of stories involving well-rounded female character. Many titles -- "Sailor Moon," "Ranma 1/2" and "Revolutionary Girl Utena" amongst them -- have become highly influential amongst audiences in the U.S.
Shing Yin Khor, whose credits include the historical fiction comic "Marie and Jeanne" and the sci-fi series "Center for Otherworld Science," points to the social network Tumblr as a center of activity for emerging comics artists. "There is this insanely talented group of young people that were raised on the internet, exposed to more progressive thought, whose major cultural touchstones are manga and anime and fanfiction," she says in an email. "It's kind of wonderful to see these people develop their storytelling chops - telling woman friendly stories for them is so natural and simple and so baked into their blood, rather than coming from that point of desperation that I felt when I first started writing - like I had to tell my stories, because no one else would."
Further Reading on Comics and Comic-Con:
Art Becomes Pop Culture at Comic-Con
Art inhabits an unusual space at regional Comic-Cons. Certain genres of art -- from fantasy to pop surrealism to designer toys -- have long had a home at the convention.
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Top Image: MariNaomi]]>
Luke Chueh has developed a following for his darkly humorous, and oftentimes emotional, paintings featuring anthropomorphic creatures. The most famous of these is a bear who has been depicted holding a broken record ("The Soundrack (To My Life)," 2004) and playing its own head like a drum ("Drum Head," 2011). Over the past decade and change, Chueh's bear has essentially become a part of pop culture. At the very least, it's part of a sect of the cultural landscape that reblogs and retweets while offering likes to Facebook pages and Instagram posts. At the same time, the Los Angeles-based artist's work is also reflective of pop culture. For the past two years, he has been releasing installments of a series called "Headspace," which explores Chueh's own influences. In it, he bear takes off his head to reveal another identity, one that may be rooted in TV or film or art. To date, Chueh has taken on G.I. Joe, as well as Banksy and Mark Ryden. At San Diego-Comic-Con, he unveiled "Headspace Series-- Darth Vader" and "Headspace Series-- Boba Fett," two prints based on famed characters from "Star Wars." The prints were originally available through West L.A. boutique/gallery Giant Robot at the convention and sold out quickly.
"'Star Wars was a massive influence on me," says Luke Chueh as we stand on a San Diego sidewalk, outside of a Comic-Con party. For one thing, Chueh shares a first name with the protagonist of the original trilogy, Luke Skywalker. Moreover, he was born in 1973, the perfect age to latch onto the blockbuster film franchise of the late 1970s and early 1980s. "I do my best to try and celebrate its importance to myself in my artwork when the time seems right," he says.
At Comic-Con, the time is always right for references to "Star Wars." The same can be said for any reference to major film, comics and television franchises that have seeped into the consciousness of late-20th and early 21st century audiences. At Huckleberry's booth, a limited edition Shag silkscreen print drew upon the world "Batman" that hit TV screens in the 1960s. There were only 150 prints available and each was priced at $500. They sold out at the convention.
Art inhabits an unusual space at San Diego Comic-Con. In many ways, the convention is entirely about art, as comic books, TV and film couldn't exist without visual artists. Additionally, certain genres of art -- from fantasy to pop surrealism to designer toys -- have long had a home here. Several Los Angeles galleries built temporary homes on the show floor. Gallery 1988, the Melrose Avenue outpost for art heavily influenced by pop culture, used the convention as the final stop for its touring exhibition celebrating the 30th anniversary of the film "Ghostbusters." Culver City's Century Guild is a regular at San Diego Comic-Con. The gallery's artist roster includes horror master Clive Barker. They also boast works from Doc Hammer, an oil painter who is better known as writer for the animated series The Venture Bros, and Dave McKean, whose comic book credits include "Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth and covers for "The Sandman."
J*Ryu, a Los Angeles-based sculptor whose work is often whimsically macabre, has been coming to Comic-Con for seven years. This time around, he was able to get booth space, which he shares with his girlfriend and occasional collaborator, cosplayer Vampy Bit Me. They have a bit of an advantage over first-time Comic-Con vendors. Vampy is one of the best-known cosplayers (people who dress in costumes based on comics, films, etc.) in the country with a major following on social media. J*Ryu, admittedly, doesn't focus too heavily on social networking, but he has garnered a fan base in designer toy circles, a group of collectors that often shop at Comic-Con. Despite that, vending as an artist is no easy task. You have to somehow get the attention of people who aren't so much walking as they are riding the wave of people that travels from one side of the hall to the other. It's packed and artists here, J*Ryu notes, are competing for attention with household names like Marvel comic book characters.
For years, J*Ryu had avoided obvious pop culture references in his work. "I think conveying an original idea is a lot harder," he says. This year, though, he's been dipping his toes into a pool of his own personal interests. Amongst his offerings at SDCC this year was a limited edition sculpted mirror inspired by the anime "Sailor Moon." It's a colorway version of a work that appeared at an exhibition in Los Angeles earlier this year. He and Vampy also collaborated on large pendants modeled after the hatchling character in the "Metroid" series of video games. It's, essentially, a tiny version of a prop they made for one of Vampy's costumes.
"Even though I don't do pop culture too often, I'm still a fan of it," says J*Ryu. "In my personal work, I try to stay away from it because it's hard enough to get jobs and opportunities. I don't want my career to be predicated on something that is not mine."
San Diego Comic-Con attracts some of the highest caliber artists in their respective disciplines. The ones who succeed are those maintain their own voice, whether or not they have tapped into some cultural touchstone. Shag can take on the 1966 "Batman" series because the reference absolutely makes sense in the context of his retro-cool aesthetic. Luke Chueh can handle one of the biggest movies ever made because, when mixed with his own characters, it creates a piece that is as autobiographical as it is culturally relevant. J*Ryu can lend a gothic edge to "Sailor Moon" and turn the reference into something that works with the supernatural characters that appear in his other figures. Comic-Con is for a special kind of artist, one who can embrace pop culture as well as penetrate it.
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Top Image: Headspace Series, "Darth Vader" by Luke Chueh]]>
Flood has spent two years working on her "graphic tectonic," a 2D/3D hybrid piece that was constructed using both architectural and graphic design techniques. "In order to tackle that, I looked outside the discipline of architecture for intelligence on how that could happen," she says.
An architectural designer who teaches at Southern California Institute of Architecture, Flood found answers in textile design. Specifically, she looked at tartan, the woven patterns that can be used to identify a person's lineage or affiliations in Scotland. Flood set out to create a similar pattern with aluminum. To do so, she added perforated pieces of aluminum that rotate throughout the structure. When the aluminum overlaps, a moiré effect is created where new colors, like gray, appear in a manner that's similar to woven fabric, creating an optical illusion.
At various vantage points, those sheets would appear to have a checked or plaid pattern. The aluminum pieces are uniform in size, but you wouldn't think that at first glance, though. Everything you see in "Punk'd" depends on where you're standing. Flood points out that the tartan-like checks are more apparent when you observe from inside the structure.
Flood's experiments resulted in her installation now on display at SCI-Arc's downtown Los Angeles gallery. Flood's students, who earned course credit for assisting in the project, helped her build the steel frame -- a partial cube shape turned to point towards the ceiling -- in the school parking lot. For the work, she used strips of aluminum that are roughly 9'6" long with a depth of 2'6". The aluminum was laser cut off site, but Flood and her students attached the pieces together at the gallery. This opportunity for instructors to work with students is one of the things that Flood, who has been with the school for nine years, appreciates about SCI-Arc. "Instead of us criticizing them, all my students can walk through here and have their opinions of my work," she says. "I think that turning the tables is a great thing as well."
While working on the piece, Flood tried to design a structure that was shaped like a mohawk hairstyle. That's didn't work with the materials she was using, so she went for spikes instead. The visual references of the the punk spikes and the tartan patterns are there for a reason. "The potential for this fabric to denote pedigree is also the thing that makes it very useful for people who are trying to subvert conventions of hierarchy, specifically in the punk movement," she says. "Tartan was a fabric that was often misused, torn, stapled together, safety-pinned together, etc. as a way of taking this kind of pedigree material and converting it into something that was distasteful."
To capture the class struggle that's inherent to punk's development, Flood referenced the Balmoral tartan. This is the design created by Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria, in the mid-1800s. It remains the royal family's official tartan. One can only don the Balmoral tartan with the expressed permission of the Queen herself. This prominent symbol of pedigree was a perfect source of inspiration for "Punk'd." The installation, infused with punk elements, essentially becomes a visual representation of The Sex Pistol's classic, "God Save the Queen."]]> "There was this political overlay that informed a lot of the design choices," says Flood. "Punk'd" isn't a practical piece; it falls into the "experimental" architecture camp. These kind of works appeal to Flood, who has done plenty of everyday projects with her design studio F-Lab. With a gallery piece, she can let loose on the design elements without having to worry about things like plumbing. It's a chance to figure out what can be done with certain materials. In the case of "Punk'd," her experiments concerned what kind of "visual effects" she could create with something as common as aluminum. The choice of material is important because of its potential use outside of the gallery setting. "The great thing about aluminum is that it's cheap and durable," says Flood. "It's a great material for exterior or interior uses. It's incredibly pragmatic, actually."
After making "Punk'd," Flood already has ideas about applying these techniques in the outside world. "I want to wrap a parking garage with it," says Flood of the aluminum design she developed. "Wouldn't you rather park in something that looks like this if it cost the same amount of money?" she asks. "It would be a little more fun, maybe."
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Top Image: Punk'd by Heather Flood | Image courtesy of SCI-Arc.]]>
It's an important distinction to make. Wiese has contributed to a lot of musical projects, he has even released records and toured on his own, but his focus isn't on creating songs or being part of a band or any of the other stuff that goes along with the turf. "I just make the sounds," says Wiese. "Physically, I'm not really a performer, per se. I just sort of do the actions it takes to do the sounds."
It all goes back to a record that Wiese acquired during his early childhood in Boston. One side of the vinyl blasted short blips of sound effects reminiscent of what you might here in a sci-fi movie. The flip side told a story through the sound effects. Wiese retells the tale in a string of vague memories, something about contact with aliens that doesn't go quite so well for the space explorers. "There's no dialogue," he says, "no dramatic music, no music of any kind, and it's just these sort of textural, practical, Foley kind of sound effects." A few years later, when Wiese was attending grade school in Chicago, he would use boomboxes to edit together bits of tapes and audio from the television set. "It was all very crude of course, but it was this sort of natural inclination to wanting to cut and montage sound," he says.
Wiese's work with sound coincides with his recent video pieces, a few of which will be screened at Cinefamily on July 2. In this medium, Wiese splices together footage from live performances, recording sessions and road travels to create artful documentaries that are devoid of dialogue and, in some case, completely silent. "I'm trying to use video as a means to express sound," he says. Narratives appear in a mix of straightforward and abstract visuals that reference sound. The audience gains the vantage point of staring at a stage through a crowd or watching miles pass by car or plane. You have to create noises -- the distorted sound of a band playing in a small venue, the ambient hum of the airplane -- in your head. It is not a passive experience.
For Wiese, visual pursuits are as much a part of his history as the aural ones. His first job was licensing the typefaces that he designed. Photography was a major interest for the young artist as well. Through those pursuits, he headed down the graphic design path and graduated with a degree in the subject from California Institute of the Arts. Wiese still does a lot of design work, including the striking flyers that he has made for upcoming events. Video, though, is a relatively recent passion, one that harks back to his old love for photography. He recently completed a month-long L.A. Air residency at Echo Park Film Center.
"I was never really interested in doing something that was like a music video type of thing," says Wiese. He opens up his laptop and pulls up one of his earlier pieces. Simply called "Sissy Spacek," the video dates back to 2011 and follows his band on tour up the West Coast. When Wiese first edited the footage together, he did it without audio. Quickly, he realized that the way to present the 18-minute video was in silence. "I noticed that this is visually the exact same thing as the early records," he says. "It's footage of us playing, but it's all cut up and collaged. It cuts to these abstract things. Then it cuts to footage of us traveling and then it cuts to something of us recording. It's really the same sort of thing in a different medium."
There are cues that will help you understand the sound without actually hearing it. The band plays instruments at a rapid pace. Wiese did not speed up the footage; that's how Sissy Spacek plays. He made it with "cheap digital cameras." The results look as though they came from a Super 8, although they did not. Red and blue lighting bleeds across the screen. The image brightens when camera flashes go off in the crowd.
Recently, Wiese made a companion piece for "Sissy Spacek." His new work, "A Specific Point in a Continuous Whole" documents a recent solo tour. There are clips of the performers who played alongside Wiese during the trek. There's a sequence of Martin Schmidt from Matmos playing piano in his Baltimore home. Again, there is no audio. "Even in silence," Wiese says, "I think all of these images have a strong sonic impression."
Some of the videos do use sound. "The Tenses with John Wiese" is a twelve-minute documentary about a recording session with The Tenses, an offshoot of the long-running experimental music group Smegma, that took place in Portland. It is void of dialogue. Instead, sounds, some taken from the recording sessions, accompany the rituals of recording. The Tenses prepare a room for the session. They smoke out (Wiese does not). They play. Wiese joins in the music-making. He doesn't appear on camera. Instead he is using his left hand to manipulate sounds while recording the scene with his right hand.
In one of his newest videos, "Four Channel Sound Installation at the Getty," Wiese records his recent performance in the garden of the Getty Center. "Most of my own work is more poetic than didactic," says Wiese, "but I also have this background in making things that are sort of a practical communication." With his videos, Wiese is bringing together these two worlds. They are art, but they are also documentaries. He admits that some of the practical, graphic designer mindset shows through in the way he approaches the pieces: "Make it your own thing and make it interesting but, at the same time, make sure that it communicates something to the viewer and they get an understanding of what you're doing."
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Top Image: John Wiese, "A Specific Point in a Continuous Whole"]]>
The inspiration for the project is kept under glass in the center of the gallery. Called "Liber Amicorum," it was a keepsake for a Nuremberg merchant named Johann Heinrich Gruber. It's comparable in size to the autograph books that children once had friends sign on the last day of school. Created between 1602 and 1612, it's filled with drawings and watercolors from high-powered friends, including a few pieces made on marbled paper from Turkey. The names of the artists represented in here are not famous. They were, oftentimes, hired by various aristocrats to leave a nice piece in their friend's book. David Brafman, Associate Curator of Rare Books for GRI, says it was a bit of a trend back in the 16th and 17th centuries. "It was like Facebook," he says by phone. "What you had were very splashy visuals mementos of your network of influential friends. The artist generally didn't get named, it was the aristocrat or academic or intellectual."
When art collector Ed Sweeney approached GRI about creating a book of street artists' work, Brafman showed him this, in addition to rare toms on calligraphy, art, visual symbolism and other related topics. Liber Amicorum, or "Book of Friends," resembled the black books that graffiti artists carry. Artists might leave their tags in friends' books, the same way that aristocrats hit the Book of Friends' pages with a coat of arms. A previous Artbound story details the effort, L.A. Liber Amicorum, which features 143 works of art by an eclectic mix of folks who have brought their stunning pieces to the streets of Los Angeles. The book itself is on display inside ESMoA. It's under glass, but, like the other rare items here, guests can use iPads to flip through the pages.
For "Scratch," though, the books are just one part of the experience. Every bit of the gallery walls, as well as most of the floor, is covered with paint. Six artists were selected as co-curators for the experience. Each of the artists put together crews to help transform this small space into a massive mural-making project. Overall, 57 artists spent two weeks in and out of the venue as they worked on eight giant pieces.
Holly Crawford, an Education Specialist at ESMoA, is my guide for the tour. "For some of the artists, it was the first time that they were working together," she says. "They're people that know each other. They know their styles. To come together and create these murals, it's a very unique event."
Crawford calls this a "cathedral to graffiti." A mix of styles butt up against each other as mural meets mural. Pieces extend onto the floor. At ESMoA, decorating the floor is part of creating an experience. For this show, they were just going to keep it covered, but the team liked the work so much that the artists spent the last 48 hours of prep time taking their work to the ground. A crew led by Axis made their section actually look like a sidewalk, with cigarette butts and even a dollar bill fixed to the floor. There's a small reading section in the gallery as well, with books on street art piled up on a small table. The table and two chairs are all tagged now. There's a "tag wall" as well, where the artist were able to leave their names. It's sort of like a large page of credits.
The diversity of the works is stunning. Fishe led a team to create colorful layers of designs and tags that appear like peeling paper. Alex "Defer" Kizu's crew mixed cultural references. A bold image of a samurai appears in one corner, a palm tree engulfed in flames turns up in another. Defer's own contribution, exquisite gold and silver curves, peeks out from a top corner. "It kind of looks like an extension of the samurai sword, almost," says Crawford. Eyeone and friends paid tribute to Tempt, the artist who was paralyzed from ALS and whose story is the subject of the documentary "Get Up: The Tempt One Story." They painted the artist in his youth. The tag that appears is the last one Tempt left in Eyeone's black book.]]> Elsewhere artists merge religious iconography, tattoo art and references to the history of graffiti in bold fashion. One of the highlights is a piece helmed by Eric "Cre8" Walker and a massive crew that unites the ancient histories of Africa and the Americas. Crawford points out how the artists' names are hidden within the piece.
Chelsea Hogan, another education specialist at ESMoA, points to the connection between scripts found in the rare books and on the walls, how they aren't always easy to read or comprehend. "When you don't quite understand or connect with letters, you can still maybe see the artistic quality," she says. That's the kind of environment that ESMoA has fostered here, where the letters are as intrinsic to the visuals as the paintings.
"All of this language means something to these people who wrote on the wall and wrote on the floor," she says. Like the letters and images in the 17th century Book of Friends, it's a testament to a moment in time and memories of interactions that are all too fleeting.
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Top Image: "Scratch" opening event at ESMoA | Image courtesy of ESMoA/GRI.]]>
Later that night, they connected at an after party. The two agreed that Kasai would help Mr. Bonzai with Japanese if he helped her with English. Mr. Bonzai read "The Old Man and the Sea" to Kasai and explained the book to her. "I thought it would be the simplest book to explain," he says. "It isn't. One word can have a lot of meetings."
Kasai, who is from Japan, had only been in town for a month. She was sculpting and teaching at an art college in Tokyo, but realized that she would have to move elsewhere to further her career. Los Angeles was bustling, thanks in part to the 1984 Olympics, and she wanted to try out the city. At the time of their meeting, she was making sculptures with paper. Kasai was still waiting for her supplies to arrive from Japan. "Mr. Bonzai is the first of my American friends and first art collector," she says.
Thirty years later, the couple is preparing for their first joint show. Salomon Huerta Studio Gallery will present the one day event on June 15. Kasai will exhibit "Shadow Tremors," a new series of works made with synthetic fabric and sumi ink. Mr. Bonzai will show "100 Views of Keiko-san," a collection of art depicting Kasai over thirty years.
Inside their Beachwood Canyon home, the two have been preparing for the exhibition. Kasai reveals some of her newer pieces. She refers to them as "smoke sculptures." Kasai works mesh into billowy shapes that sometimes stand on their own and sometimes pop out of ink pieces.
Mr. Bonzai is going through thirty years of drawings of Kasai. He has never shown these works in public. It is also the first time that Mr. Bonzai has organized the images. There are a lot to peruse. "I'm glad I've kept it up because I learned a lot about myself and I learned a lot about Keiko from seeing them together," says Mr. Bonzai. He plans on including two wire sculptures and a painting in the collection.
Kasai studied painting in art school. By the end of her studies, she gravitated towards sculpting wood and stone. For years, granite has been her material of choice. She carves and polishes them into slick, curvaceous "liquid shapes." Kasai has a lot of love for the medium, but there are drawbacks to working with the stone. "The result is so beautiful, but carving, making granite sculpture, it's just surface," says Kasai. She works with the top layers granite, but never has the chance to manipulate the whole stone.
Her new pieces come out of a desire to use more than the surface of the materials. She was inspired in part by her husband. After seeing Mr. Bonzai's latest endeavor -- wire sculptures of faces -- she was struck by the power in the lines. "Just one single line contains that volume just like the Edo Period in Japan," says Kasai.
Mr. Bonzai works as a writer and photographer. He has interviewed and photographed a slew of noteworthy musicians, from Graham Nash to the Crystal Method. He has also authored several books, including "Faces of Music and Hal Blaine" and "the Wrecking Crew: The Story of the World's Most Recorded Musician." In his downtime, Mr. Bonzai draws. Where he shares his writing and photography publicly, drawing and other visual pursuits have been a private passion for decades.
"My father was an artist," says Mr. Bonzai. "He was a very successful cartoonist and a writer, I found out later, but he died when I was 9, so I really had no guidance."
The lessons came when Mr. Bonzai was an English major at University of California at Irvine during the 1960s. He took a sculpture class on the side, which lead to a drawing class taught by an up-and-comer named David Hockney. "David was very articulate. he was very thoughtful," he says. "The assignments were very challenging, thought-provoking. I got to watch him draw and learn that way. I think the most important thing that I learned from him was how to see."
Drawing is a purely creative outlet. He doesn't try to sell his work. "I'm not trying to please anyone exactly. I want to please myself first," he says. That's different from his job as a writer and photographer, where he works with clients who may have certain demands.
Mr. Bonzai's writing and photography take precedence on most days. He'll do interviews from home or head out to Ocean Way Recording to take photos. "Much of my drawing happens whenever I feel like it," he says. "It might be at a restaurant. It might be when we're on vacation, where there are no distractions. A lot of my drawings and that kind of stuff is done on the weekend where there are no phone calls or distractions like that."
Kasai works out of a tiny studio attached to their garage. The space was designed by Peter Grueneisen and is based on recording studio drum booths. There are double windows and soundproof walls. This is because Kasai's work with granite can create a lot of noise, which can pose a problem when you live in a quiet, residential neighborhood. Granite can also produce a lot of dust. There's formica in the walls to prevent that dust from sticking. She'll spend long periods of time at work on a single project. The granite sculptures take between three to six months to complete. It's a potentially dangerous process too. Kasai wears goggles and a breathing mask when she works. Ear protection is a must. Mr. Bonzai describes her work clothes as a "rubber, Hazmat sort of outfit."
"It would take her 45 minutes to get ready before she goes to work," says Mr. Bonzai. "She's very fastidious about it. Afterwards, it's like an hour of mopping up and cleaning and checking the tools."
Their yard is lined with Kasai's creations. Smooth granite sculptures of varying sizes and shapes run down the grassy hillside. Downstairs, in a basement that has been converted into a spa, Mr. Bonzai showcases his wire sculptures. "Our life, it's easy to categorize," says Mr. Bonzai. "I feel that the whole environment that we're in is artistically oriented."
They continue to inspire each other. Mr. Bonzai admires Kasai's patience. Kasai says that Mr. Bonzai is a "Renaissance Man."
"He has such a passion and energy and he likes challenge in many ways," she says, "not only art or music, in many ways."
All images courtesy of Mr. Bonzai and Keiko Kasai.
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Top Image: Mr. Bonzai, "Fireplace/Grapelli" 1989, Pencil and Watercolor on Paper]]>
The artists who work out of 1019West, around 40 of them, are an accomplished lot. They show locally and internationally. Some teach. It's not easy to get a spot here. You have to go through a peer review to land a studio. By working out of this former car dealership, the artists here are contributing a booming scene in the South Bay city.
Years ago, Inglewood was called "City of Champions." Then the Lakers, who spent years of glory inside The Forum, moved to downtown Los Angeles. More recently, Hollywood Park ended its run as a race track. While The Forum and Hollywood Park came to be known as the two famed features of Inglewood. The city, which boasts a population of over 100,000 residents, has quietly built up another identity. The "City of Champions" became a City of Artists.
This isn't a new phenomenon. Inglewood has had a longstanding relationship with the arts. For over 15 years, Otis College of Art and Design has been situated a few minutes away in Westchester. Inglewood has long been seen as a good home base for those who work at or attended the school. In recent years, though, the city has seen an influx of artists based in Los Angeles and other neighboring cities as a place to set up workspaces. 1019West and nearby Beacon Arts, which hosts studios for around 30 artists, are part of the newest wave. These are buildings that are zoned for work, not live-work. While some of the artists live in Inglewood, others make the short commute from L.A. neighborhoods like Westchester, Venice, Mar Vista and West Adams. Others come in from South Bay cities like Redondo Beach. For these artists, there is a work opportunity available in Inglewood that L.A. doesn't have. A lot of that has to do with cost. Artists who have been priced out of neighborhoods like Venice can get a large, light-filled space at a price they can afford.
Location is another big factor. Inglewood is easily accessible for a lot of people in the Los Angeles area by freeway and street. It's close enough to the coast where taking a break at the beach is an option. It's also near the art galleries that line Culver City.
Back in 2009, Tony Kouba was looking for ways to redevelop the properties he owned in Inglewood. One of those was the former Bekins Moving and Storage Company, a multi-floor building on La Brea with a stunning rooftop view that captures much of the South Bay, as well as a good chunk of Los Angeles. The other was the old Volkswagon dealership on Manchester. Meanwhile, Scott Lane had heard about Inglewood Open Studios, an annual event where local artists open their doors to the public. Kouba and Lane talked about how their might be a need for more workspace in the area. They spoke to Renée Fox, organizer of Inglewood Open Studios, who confirmed their suspicions. Kouba funded the project and continues to make improvements on the development of it. When we met, he was with a group at Beacon Arts clearing out an archive to make way for more studio space.
Kouba, who lives in Brentwood, has owned the properties since the 1980s. He's also had a hand in redevelopment nearby in Westchester and Culver City. His work in Westchester helped bring in new, thriving businesses to a formerly neglected intersection near LAX. In Culver City, a redeveloped shopping center helped pave the way for the surge of shopping and retail establishments that have popped up there in recent years. The Inglewood projects are different though. "It's an unusual use," Kouba says of the properties. "It's not residential. It's not a retail use. It's not exactly a manufacturing use, although things are being manufactured."
It's also a different city. He notes that the Westchester and Culver City projects "had a dramatic effect" on the neighborhoods, but doesn't anticipate the same thing happening with the areas surrounding Beacon Arts and 1019West.
"This is a stable, long-term community," says Kouba.
Michael Massenburg, the subject of a 2013 Artbound feature, is one of Inglewood's longtime artists and residents. He grew up in Los Angeles, but settled in Inglewood in the early 1990s, several years after he and his father started a business in the city's downtown. "Through the years, there have always been some things brewing underneath that artists are organizing," says Massenburg.
However, Massenburg notes, the perception of Inglewood has often been clouded by stereotypes. "Once the community became more Latin and African-American, there's a certain perception they have," says Masseburg. According to 2010 census data, Inglewood's population is 43.9 percent black or African-American and 50.6 percent Hispanic or Latino. Massenburg points out incidents in film and television where the city was portrayed in a less than savory light. He also mentions the remarks that he has heard when people come into Inglewood for art events, questions as to whether or not the area is safe. "It's no different than any other community," says Massenburg. "There's middle class. There are working folks."
In fact, Inglewood's economic demographics aren't that different from other South Bay cities. The median household income between the years of 2008 and 2012 was $44,558. That's on par with neighboring Hawthorne. What makes Inglewood unique in comparison to other parts of the South Bay is that it has more of an urban feel to it. There aren't the sprawling business parks and shopping centers that you'll see in Torrance or Gardena or Hawthorne. It looks and sounds like a version of Los Angeles where the mid-20th century architecture remains a focal point and the constant hum of jets adds to the ambient noise.
"There's a tendency to think that there's nothing here and it's the complete opposite," says Massenburg. "There's a lot here."
In the latter half of the 1990s, the City of Inglewood developed its "Cultural Arts Master Plan," which outlines the goals of the city in relation to its arts community. These include supporting art events as well as arts education programs for both students in the school district and community members, set aside funds to assist the development of the arts and "expand Inglewood's image to include arts and culture." The "Master Plan" led to the development of Inglewood Cultural Arts, a non-profit organization of which Massenburg is a founding member. The group hosts events, like the forthcoming Afro-Latin Festival of Music and Dance at Edward Vincent, Jr. Park.
More recently, Inglewood established an Arts Commission, as part of the city's Parks, Recreation and Library Department. Right now, the commission's focus is in public art projects. Part of this, says commission member Sabrina Barnes, is to "attract tourists." That's something that will benefit the city as the renovated Forum brings in more traffic. The other part is support the many local artists, while bringing art to all residents. Back when the city was researching for the "Master Plan," Barnes says that a number of artists commented that they were looking for more work within their city. To accomplish this, the city has established IGAP (Inglewood Growing Artists Projects), a grants program that offers awards in the amounts of $10,000, $15,000 and $20,000. Artists can propose projects that range from graphic novels to billboard pieces to musical works.
It's a perfect storm of interest from artists, developers and the city that's built up to the current deluge of creative works pouring out of Inglewood. The future of Inglewood remains to be seen, but art continues to be the heart of the community.
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Top Image: 1019West | Image courtesy of 1019West.]]>


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About the contractor
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
There aren't two more deserving players in the country of a banner than Stu and Zack. Congratulations guys you deserve it. Now lets go make a tourney run!
And to think the best is in front of us...
There aren't two more deserving players in the country of a banner than Stu and Zack. Congratulations guys you deserve it. Now lets go make a tourney run!
And to think the best is in front of us...
For a renovated arena...errr Center.
I was thinking of the BTT miracle shot by Evan Turner that made my ultimate happiness tears of unfathomable sadness.
I love this team. I love Novak and Douglass and Pearson.
Now let's make some noise in BTT. After a hearty night of celebration. I can't stop clapping.
a tough one year really. 3 of the last 4 have been pretty good. and better to come.
because they are a TEAM...not Dum-Dum and a bunch of individuals. Izzo is on suicide watch tonight!
Great season! Congratulation seniors!
Sparty, U mad bro?
Big Ten Titles way to go Stu, and Novak. Way to go everyone involved moar i want moar.
double post sorry Go Blue
GO BLUE! Thank you Seniors! Thank you Coach Beilein!
The first of many. Hail.
Those who stay will be Champions! #rememberwhatHEtaughtus
— Bacari Alexander (@bacari34) March 4, 2012
i wonder if darius has any regrets right now.
I can say enough good things about the direction of this program. I cannot wait to see the next few years with all the guys we are getting.
Yes! GO BLUE!!
Hell Yes! I'm going to grab a beer and watch Seinfeld with a smile now.
http://michiganstate.247sports.com/Board/Michigan-State-Spartans-Message-Board-Forum-93 Enjoy the MSU tears once again tonight. More posts about why Michigan gets to share the title then why they blew the game and big lead they had.
Yeah, if Dawson hadn't gone out, they would have won. And don't get me started on the refs! lol
Hail! Congrats on the ship!
Beer! Celebrate! Sparty tears! No more rooting for OSU! Big ten champs! Zack & Stu!
Outside, banging on the bottom of a pot with a wooden spoon to celebrate!
Pass that stogie...
Buford was clutch in the second half. I'm glad the OSU rooting is over.
goodbye sweetheart, it's time to go. #Sparties
Buford was clutch in the second half. I'm glad the OSU rooting is over.
Here's a novelty magnet as a consolation...
Having said that, GO BLUE! BANNER TIME!
Feels pretty good. I was 16 the last time this happened. Took it for granted then. Go Blue!
I was -2
Still amazed that the Spartans couldn't win the game at home. I know they'll complain about the refs (and they were bad), but this is the type of game you win on Senior night.
But neither did Michigan, OSU, Illinois, Northwestern...
Maybe Senior Day isn't the great advantage people think it is.
I don't know if there is anything that makes me happier than a bunch of whining pissed off spartans... Man have I missed that.
Mmmm, that does sound good!
"...mmmm..That sounds good. I'll have that."
would be negged into bolivia on this board if they switched their allegiances to Michigan suddenly. It's like they'd start convulsing if anyone actually said "Michigan" instead of Walverines, scUM, etc.
Shirts are on sale. My order is in.
Time for beer.
Pos bang thread!
Congrats boys,
Posbangs for ALL!!
How happy are you for Stu and Zack? I hope they have a good night of partying!
Congratulations you are now Co-champions of the B1G, how does if feel?
Michigan: "Wooo Muppets!!"
OSU = "Wooo Bucky!"
MSU: "$%#@ the B1G! #$@% Delany!! The game was rigged!!!"
Did I miss something?


text:
A friend of mine just gave me a belated birthday gift???? omfg
posted 11:12 am on Monday, April 8, 2013 with 74 notestags » #I AM EXCITED
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The Labyrinth worm!
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- if-u-like-it-put-a-bun-on-it reblogged this from somejuliet
- introsquirrel reblogged this from fairytaledove and added:
isn't the to worm thing from the Labyrinth? like, the one who tells the chick to go one way when she actually needed to...
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- somejuliet reblogged this from boxofmangoes and added:
what the fuck is that
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The worm is adorbs! He's from Labyrinth, which is my fave movie. Jeremy, on the other hand
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text:
First Pitch: July 21by: Matt Lutovsky
Jul 21, 2012 9:06 AM
|Age: 44
|Height: 6'3"
|Weight: 250 lbs
|Born: Aug 27, 1970 - Peoria, IL United States
|College: Illinois Central
|Throws/Bats: R / L
|Salary: $1,250,000
|Debut: 9/4/1991
|Draft: 1989 - Round 13
|No depth chart available for this player.
|Herniated Disc
Wed Jan 30, 2013 12:54 pm Hardly capable of playing the field anymore, Thome still curiously came back to Philadelphia last year and was mostly used a pinch hitter. Baltimore brought him on in its wild-card run, but the power wasn't quite the same in his limited role.
Fantasy Source Spin: Even if he finds another job, expecting him to be a single-league value again is probably reaching.
Source: Fantasy Source
Fri Feb 3, 2012 9:25 am Thome's awesome home-run pace from 2010 wasn't a realistic expectation for a repeat at age 40, but he still showed that he had plenty of power left. His value back in the NL with Philadelphia will be determined by Ryan Howard's health.
Fantasy Source Spin: His bat remains useful while in the lineup, but Thome doesn't look to get many at-bats unless Howard has an injury setback.
Source: Fantasy Source
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text:
Patriots release TE D.J. Williams
|12.04.13 at 5:23 pm ET
FOXBORO — One week after signing him for roster depth, the Patriots Wednesday released tight end D.J. Williams.
The 25-year-old was signed by the Patriots on Nov. 27 and saw limited action in the win last Sunday at Houston, playing four snaps. He was not targeted in the passing game.
The release of Williams comes on the same day that tight end Michael Hoomanawanui returned to practice after missing two games with a knee injury.
Williams played in seven games with one start for Jacksonville this season before being released by the Jaguars on Nov. 4. The 6-foot-2, 245-pounder originally entered the NFL as a fifth-round draft pick (101st overall) by Green Bay out of Arkansas in 2011. Williams was waived by Green Bay on Aug. 31, 2013, and claimed off waivers and awarded to Jacksonville on Sept. 1, 2013. He has played in 34 NFL games with three starts and has nine receptions for 70 yards.
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