Tag Archive for: echo park art

Crazy color: An incredible front yard installation in Echo Park

I put together some photos and copy for the latest issue of the Echo Park Improvement Association (of which I am a member) newsletter, EPIAn Ways, on this brilliant Echo Park art installation.

Called Randyland/The Giant Glass Virgin of Guadalupe and located on the 1600 block of Lemoyne Street, this work of art consists of thousands of bottles filled with water and strung together using wire and rebar. It’s flexible, sways in wind and looms 24 feet high over the artist,’s Randlett Lawrences, front yard.

It’s truly dazzling. Check out my full article on the EPIA website!

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iam8bit hosting charity night with Robot Chicken

On Saturday night only, Echo Park gallery iam8bit will be hosting a charity art show with Adult Swim TV show Robot Chicken.

The event will benefit Steven, the brother of Robot Chicken crew member Lindsey Gilbert, who fell ill from a rare and deadly bacteria. All proceeds from this show will go to aid Steven’s medical expenses and rehabilitation.

“Robot Chicken and Friends Presents: An Art Show for Steven” is an exhibit of artwork from Robot Chicken artists and various artists from Los Angeles and beyond. Up for auction are custom, one-of-a-kind puppets sculpted to the likeness of the highest bidder.

The event takes place tomorrow night, Saturday, June 23, 2012 from 7:00 pm to 11:00 pm. Admission is free, beverages will be provided. Click here to RSVP.

iam8bit, located at 2147 W. Sunset Boulevard

h/t Echo Park Online

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Last chance to sign up for the Echo Park Art Walk

Last chance for artists, musicians, and venues to sign up for the Echo Park Art Walk – sign up online as soon as possible if you’d like to participate in this great neighborhood event!

Echo Park Public Displays of Art’s (PDA) annual art walk started as a small event involving businesses and artists along Echo Park Avenue. Now it’s expanded to Sunset Boulevard, as far as Alvarado. The Art Walk is a community event filled with music, art exhibits, store sales, film screenings, food trucks, workshops, and even sidewalk chalk and bubbles for the kids.

Echo Park PDA Art Walk
Saturday, May 19, 2012 from 12:00 noon – 6:00 pm
www.artneedsfreedom.com/pda

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Mystery of the hanging bears: Cracked (somewhat)

Via Heart Street He(art) Tumblr site

Earlier this week we asked the question: What’s up with the bears hanging from power lines around the area?

Well some of you guessed it: It’s some hipster art/event/act promotion. The people behind it are called Hearts Revolution / Hearts Challenger – an ice cream truck turned music group turned bedazzled ice cream truck playing music… we think. Some of the bears on their Tumblr site bear the words (get it?) “Fuck the Hype” and “Ride or Die,” which probably has something to do with a new album or… something. Not sure how the bear thing comes in, but hopefully they’ll message us back and clue us in!

h/t Atwater Village Newbie

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Alfredo Market on Glendale Boulevard gets a colorful makeover

Driving along Glendale Boulevard just got a lot more colorful!

LAist got the story on who’s behind the new colorful mural on the wall of Alfredo Market on Glendale Boulevard, between Alvarado and Berkeley. Street artist and Echo Park resident Kophns One (aka Koffinz) painted the mural at the end of December. According to The Site Unseen website, “Kophns is well-known within the LA street scene for his distinct and bold artistic style, dynamic characters and his always engaging art placement.” Hopefully a city-wide mural ordinance being debated won’t interfere with local art like this!

The Site Unseen uploaded this video of the mural process. Enjoy!


Kophns One: Kophenjoy from The Site Unscene on Vimeo.

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Get your holiday cards from local Echo Park businesses

As newlyweds, the hubby and I are going to be furiously writing a lot of Christmas cards this holiday season. And with December just around the corner… it’s time to get started! Luckily, we’ve run across quite a few options for these holiday cards locally – that’s right, here in Echo Park!

826LA holiday cards

First up: 2011 Holiday cards from 826LA are letterpress, blank on the inside, and include a green moss envelope. Designed and hand-printed by 826LA volunteer Mary Peterson on high quality, sustainable paper from Waste Not Paper. $3 per card or $24 for a 10-pack. Click here for more info and to buy online (except you’ll walk there because you live in or near Echo Park).

Cheeky holiday cards from Villainy/eEvil Ink Designs

A quick stop into Villainy General Store will get you a few great packs of holiday cards (also sold individually) made by the owners’ design company, eEvil Ink Designs. You can preview and buy them online, but they are right on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park so spend that $14 per pack wisely.

Not picture because we were too busy shopping, Kelly Green just moved into Echo Park and carries a few eco-themed holiday cards that will certainly impress!

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Will Echo Park benefit from a city ordinance regulating murals?

"Cine de Oro" by Ernesto de la Loza on Sunset and Mohawk in Echo Park

Last month, City of LA committees and departments held a public hearing on a possible new city-wide mural ordinance – one that would hopefully protect/preserve the city’s murals from land-use issues and graffiti, as well as foster an environment where new murals can be created. Long story short – the mural thing has been an issue for a long, long, long time in Los Angeles, involving law suits and billboard laws and unhappy artists. Echo Park has been a wonderful hub for colorful murals and activist art, including new artists like the French street artist JR, Cache, Banksy, and others (we even got a tour earlier this month of some of the city’s best and oldest street artists decorating the walls of Keystone Studios on Glendale Boulevard). And because Echo Park is historically a friendly environment for these murals, the new mural ordinance will definitely affect our neighborhood (and hopefully in a good way!).

Last week, Open Culture released nice summary of the mural issue (link via Curbed LA), along with a short documentary by Oliver Riley-Smith on the sad state of murals in Los Angeles in the face of graffiti and the white-washing of neighborhoods in the name of “redevelopment” (aka gentrification). The documentary features artist and activist Ernesto de la Loza, who has been fighting for years to save the city’s murals (of the 42 murals he painted over the last four decades, on nine remain). We believe he still lives in Echo Park (at one point his studio was also located here) and he once had several murals in the neighborhood – you can see his remaining piece, called “Cine de Oro,” on Sunset Boulevard and Mohawk Street (pictured).

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Along Glendale Blvd.: A thriving world of art you’d never know existed

Shandu One sculpts amongst his favorite graffiti pieces in La Fonderie

This weekend, the community along with the Echo Park Improvement Association (which I am a member of) will start a major cleanup of Glendale Boulevard, an almost blighted entryway to our beautiful Echo Park neighborhood. Throughout the planning process, we’ve been slowly discovering these amazing businesses located along the thoroughfare that you would honestly never know existed. Forget the recycling centers, empty lots, and graffiti-covered buildings. Here we are lucky to have places like La Fonderie located in Keystone Studios, an exciting world of LA’s best artists inside a huge brick building on Glendale Boulevard.

You probably recognize the building on Glendale Boulevard by the big graffiti/mural by JR (now infamous in Echo Park). But I got the idea for this article from friend, real estate agent, and EPIA chairperson Darren Hubert. He and Josh Post – the Echo Park resident who started and organized the Glendale Boulevard cleanup – visited as many businesses as possible one day, hoping to encourage everyone to contribute to the day of cleanup. Granted, I had read about the art space in a The Eastsider LA article when it first opened in June of 2009, but I really had no idea what was really going on these days.

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An Echo Park artist’s submission to the LA vs. War show

Echo Park resident Mike Fisher is a seasoned vocalist in hardcore/metal bands, a graphic designer, and multimedia artist (he’s done skateboards, album covers, t-shirts, websites of course, commissioned artwork… the list goes on). Lately he’s been working on a piece for the upcoming LA Vs. War show in Downtown Los Angeles, and his piece certainly fits the theme.

The theme, of course being the state of the nation – and how we as individuals are processing – in a post-9/11 world. This weekend marks 10 years since that horrific day – and one curator John Carr will never forget. Which is why he and partner Estee Ochoa started LA Vs. War in 2008 (which around 6,000 people showed up for), an exhibit of live art demonstrations, workshops, fine art, street art, and more. The show asks the question of its artists: After 10 years of the Global War on Terror, where do we now stand as a nation? Is the world a safer place? Where does the Peace movement go from here?

For Mike Fisher, his piece for the show expresses his frustration with the politicians and those in power who got us to where we are today:

I decided to participate in the show because I truly believe we were lied to about starting these current wars. I’m not even an anti war guy. I just think these wars are criminal. Started by criminals. The painting is my 10 years of frustration with the fact they essentially have ruined our country. Everyone points fingers at each other but, it’s all the Bush family and their cronies that are directly to blame.

His piece is a combination of hand painting and multiple layers of silk screening. You can check out more of his artwork by visiting his website.

Mike is probably not the only Echo Park artist to submit a piece to the show (we have such a creative neighborhood!) – there is a mix of local artists along with out-of-towners, you can find a complete list on their Facebook event page.

The LA Vs. War exhibit (curated by Yo! Peace, Center for the Study of Political Graphics, Political Gridlock, and Ad Hoc Art) goes on from Friday, September 9 through the 11th from noon to midnight. The Vortex is located at 2341 E. Olympic Blvd. Entry is a $5 suggested donation.

Other cities should keep an eye out for this popular exhibit, they are hoping to expand the show to other cities under the “Vs. War” name.

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Tonight: Art show and music at Ballard’s in Echo Park

Check out a new show at Ballard’s Artwork Framing tomorrow, Saturday July 30, from 8-11:00 pm. They’ll be featuring new works by Diana Creighton, and performances by The World Record at 9:00 pm.
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In love with art at the Echo Park Community Art Project

Sandwiched between a bargain store and, well, I believe, another bargain store (formerly a you-know-what kind of coop) on Sunset Boulevard is an Echo Park art gallery space. Formerly Bandit Gallery, it now holds the name Sancho Gallery, and – for a week – it’s the place of the Echo Park Community Art Project (EPCAP).

EPCAP is a nonprofit event aimed at provided youth in Echo Park and the area with basic art supplies like pens, pencils, and paper. They are curating art that has been donated by young, local artists from high school students, non-professional artists, and even some bigger local names. 100% of the money raised with the sale of these art pieces fund these “Art Survival Kits” – hand-printed tote bags filled with bi-lingual educational materials that “equip individuals with tools for making and exploring art.”

This weekend, they’ll have an opening celebration and a weekend full of free workshops, from photography to creative writing to animation, and are open to all ages.

EPCAP is curated by nonprofit team the Negative Space Curation, led by art-lovers Meredith “Mere” Rosenbluthand Angela Gonzalez Hall. Mere is a Los Angeles native as well as a curator, educator, writer, photographer and printmaker. Angela is also a curator, educator, writer, and gallery enthusiast, and she’s completely in love with LACMA.

In a press release, the curators told us about why they created this event:

“The idea for this project came from a shared love of art, a deep belief in the importance of art education, anda frustration with some of the systems that the art worldis hinged upon—namely, that of commerce, of the gallery, of an elite space that only few can truly access and that reaches out to a very select public.”

Yesterday, we checked out EPCAP and are excited about their project, even bought some Peter Shire ceramics (score!). It’s for a good cause, and all the neighbor kids should go check it out (we hear all they have to do is talk about their favorite piece of art to snag a bag).

Check it out:

Echo Park Community Arts Project
Sancho, 1549 Sunset Blvd.
May 9-15, 2011 from 12-7:00 pm
Opening celebration: Friday, May 13, 2011 from 7-10:00 pm
Workshops: Saturday and Sunday, May 14 and 15

Please visit the EPCAP website for details about the free workshops going on this weekend!

Here are some photos from our recent visit:

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

PS the are also participating in this weekend’s Echo Park PDA/Art Walk (which we’ll dedicate another article to).

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