If you’re ready for some Halloween fun by the sea – and don’t mind a bit of a drive from Los Angeles, Fear Grounds at Surfer’s Point Live on the Ventura Fair Grounds should fit the bill. Open Friday-Saturday for the next three weekends, and from Tuesday, October 26th through Sunday October 31st, this lower key, three-maze haunting event is a nice alternative to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal or Knott’s Scary Farm this year.
Produced by haunt-creating pro Edward Marks, the event features the Terror Trail, The Fright Train, and The Cage. There is also a beer garden with other alcoholic beverages called The Dead End, a food stand, and copious picnic tables decorated with oversize pumpkins. Scareactors and other entertainers, such as a stilt walker or two, and spooky femme fatales twirling colorful hula hoops, traverse the area.
Once inside the main gates, The Terror Trail is the most elaborate and satisfying scare, an approximately mile-long journey past a variety of set pieces and talented scareactors as witches, evil clowns, demented killers, ghosts and the like. From bloody wrecks to covens and monsters, there’s something new popping out of the dark around every corner.
The Fright Train is a smaller attraction in which guests ride the dusty backroads of the fairgrounds in a tram, heading past a variety of scares, lit-up Halloween decor, and best of all, passing through a bevy of chain-saw wielding evil doers and into a warehouse from which suspended cocoons containing dismembered bodies hang.
The Cage leads guests through a contained series of metal fencing winding inward, as dark monsters prowl through the chain links and bars, waiting to rattle nerves and torment the unwary.
All three are completely outdoors, well distanced, and thoughtfully laid out for pandemic times.
Marks says “Growing up in California, Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays…guests [will] test their fears at this one-of-a-kind beachside journey…”
Coming to you live, and available globally, the Los Angeles Center of Photography’s Fundraising Gala and Auction will open October 2nd at 5 p.m. – virtually.
Mona Kuhn
The event will honor photographic artist Mona Kuhn with receipt of the Stieglitz Award; the event will be hosted by Ben Giroux and include a number of special guest appearances including photographer and actor Norman Reedus, co-star of The Walking Dead. The Stieglitz Award will be presented by LACMA’s Curator of Photography, Rebecca Morse.
The event is an important one: for 22 years, LACP has worked to build a community of photographers and to support photography as an art form.
LACP offers classes, workshops, exhibitions, portfolio reviews, mentorships, lectures and events for photographers of all ages, interests and skills. Prior to the pandemic, LACP also provided ongoing weekly after-school classes focused on underserved youth through Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Los Angeles.
The annual benefit is an essential element of LACP’s mission and work, as programming covers only 50% of the LACP’s operational costs.
But you can help support the organization’s mission by bidding now on works by acclaimed photographers as well as a variety of experiences, and bring this gala fundraiser to a true photo-finish.
As to the auction itself, works are viewable now through October 4th on Artsy at https://www.artsy.net/auction/los-angeles-center-of-photography-benefit-auction-2021. They include donations from a wide range of collectors and artists, such as Sam Abell, Jeff Bridges, Alejandro Cartagena, Ann Cutting, Keith Carter, Greg Gorman, Lois Greenfield, Pamela Hanson, Michael Kenna, Gerd Ludwig, Joe McNally, Sheila Metzner, Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Ruth Orkin Foundation, Herb Ritts Foundation, Rose Gallery, Josephine Sacabo, Susan and Eugene Spiritus and the Susan Spiritus Gallery, Aline Smithson, Art Streiber, Ami Vitale, Ellen Von Unwerth, among others.
In addition to the photographic art work, LACP is also auctioning a variety of experiences such as a four-hour portrait sitting with honoree Mona Kuhn, a personal tour in LA with artist Matthew Rolston, and more, all viewable now at https://www.charitybuzz.com/support/5549.
As the gala’s honoree for the 2021 Stieglitz Award, Kuhn is renowned for her large-scale photographs of the human form, which reflects upon themes of spiritual connection and solidarity.
To view an exhibition of Kuhn’s work and a selection of auction photographs in person, LACP’s Culver City Gallery, is offering viewings through October 7th, Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5. The gallery is located at 5566 West Washington Blvd.
And don’t miss the gala – coming right to your living room. Get a front row seat:
Singing with light and strung from the ceiling, crunching on the floor, and draped over windows and walls, Durden and Ray offers a stunning immersive exhibition now through October 2nd in the Bendix Building.
Curated by Valerie Wilcox, The Big Embrace is just that, embracing mind, body, and spirit with curiosity and reverence – and the sense of transcending place and space.
This is one you must see in person. The three artist exhibition by Flora Kao, Rebecca Niederlander, and Amanda Yamashita is dazzling, snaking, weaving, and dangling around the gallery space.
Kao’s Hope is a luxurious tent of packaging twine and bamboo. Beneath the viewers feet, the bamboo crunches and heaves like soft, other-earthly ground. The artist says in her family’s language “the word for fishnet sounds the same as hope.” The woven canopy’s palette reflects Buddhist funeral tradition and a sacred color of enlightenment and freedom. Being within it offers an encompassing, golden sense of beauty
Niederlander uses plastic coated copper conduit to form sinuous and intersecting wire sculptures that are being individually sold to support social, legal and medical needs of transgendered people. The colors of the different wires represent different iterations of sexuality in her Wald-en. The lush puzzle piece sculptures represent a wide variety of gender representations – a forest of gender and peace. It’s kinetic and alive, with new shapes visible at every turn.
Yamashita’s Linked is a glittery hung snake of nylon filled with polyester fiberfill, and shimmering with sequins. It weaves to the edge of Kao’s work and slightly within Niederlander’s, forming a perfect connection. The artist says “as social creatures people long to feel connected to others…Linked explores connection in the form of a larger than life sequined chain…creating a cocooning effect.” It’s a rivetingly beautiful one, indeed.
Get connected, find hope, or lie back on pillows to contemplate the fascinating diversity of Wald-en. Hurry though.
Saturday’s only, or by appointment through October 2nd ONLY.
Durden and Ray is located at 1206 Maple #832 in the Fashion District.
Just before the pandemic struck us numb, artist Kristine Schomaker opened a stunning exhibition of works not by her, but about her, at the Ronald Silverman Gallery at CSULA.
Today, a new iteration of that exhibition, Perceive Me, replete with fresh curation and artist’s talks, is currently on display at Studio Channel Islands through September 25th. It will move to the Museum of Art and History, MOAH Cedar location, in Lancaster October 9th through December 12th. Whichever venue you choose to view the show at, you will not be disappointed. It’s as meaningful as it is magically fun.
Kristine Schomaker had an idea. It started with the personal and has become a galvanizing collaborative project that reaches and speaks to a wide-range of viewers. It’s a conversation starter, it’s a collection of absolutely unique artworks, it’s an exultant vision of personal spirit, a creation from and of the soul that’s grounded – both literally and figuratively – by the body that holds it.
Artist: Kim Kimbro Taylor Artist: Emily Wiseman
According to Schomaker – artist, curator, publisher and founder of Shoebox Arts – the concept for the show started with a conversation between herself and artist Amanda Mears. Mears was drawing Schomaker at the time. “We were talking about body image, ideas of beauty, modeling nude, and I brought up the story that I had only been asked out on a date a couple times in my 46 years of life. I think unconsciously I took that as this validation that I wasn’t worth anything. Of course I know it is much more complicated than that,” Schomaker laughs, noting that the first time she expressed this out loud was in a previous interview for DiversionsLA.
Artist: Holly Boruck
Describing the idea as having come “full circle,” Schomaker says “I never realized that that was where a lot of my self worth came from. The need for outside validation. Or the idea that we often take our own self-worth from how we imagine others perceive us. Working with Amanda and looking back to a collaboration I did with J Michael Walker for his Bodies Mapping Time project as well as Chris Blevins-Morrison for a photographic project, I thought it would be an interesting ‘research project’ to see how I look through another person’s eyes. It was like a lightbulb.”
Artist: Austin Young
Over the next several months, Schomaker put together the idea of how Perceive Me would work, meeting with 57 different artists between November 2018-August 2019.
Schomaker selected the artists for the exhibition beginning with artists she knew who created work using a figure. “I have a folder on my computer of ‘Artists to Watch’ and culled from that. Plus, I looked at my walls, my art collection and invited those artists. And I invited friends, of course. I started off with the idea of 20 artists, then it went to 40; because I couldn’t say no then it went to 60. Most of the artists were invited, but there were a few who contacted me and after looking at their websites and seeing how their art practice was aligned with mine, I knew they were a perfect fit.”
What she mosts want viewers to take from this powerful and poignant exhibition is to “feel free to be themselves. I want people to be less afraid of ‘going for it,’ whatever that means for them. I want people to not be afraid to be different, unique, authentic and to not hide from others or themselves.”
Artist: Geneva Costa
What led Schomaker to create such a vital piece of the project, or as she calls it, performance, is her belief in its social practice/impact and community engagement.
“I think my thesis was to see if my perception of myself changed as I saw myself through others’ eyes. Or maybe by inviting the many talented artists to collaborate with me, I thought they could make me beautiful? I am just now at this moment asking this question. This is just one project in many in my art practice that will continue helping me develop my own identity.”
Artist: Sydney Walters
“I have a story to tell, a message to relay. I want to educate and inspire. I knew an exhibition would not be enough to get the message out there. I knew a catalog would help get the word out there more,” she relates. “We are also doing artists talks; I am working with classes at the colleges, and there will be a video. I want to support others as much as I can. The catalog was one way of sharing the artists’ amazing work.”
Artist: Dani Dodge
Schomaker terms the exhibition a continuation of her own work, which focuses on challenging and finding herself. “I don’t think I will ever get to an end-point, because life changes all the time. Our identity changes all the time. Our weight changes all the time. My art practice is about telling my story of my eating disorder, struggles with weight and self-confidence. So, it will continue on.”
Artist: Nurit Avesar
The genuinely brave and beautiful show is uniquely notable from its lush and individually terrific images to the concept and Schomaker’s willingness to literally and figuratively expose herself.
Artist: Anna Stump
A wide variety of styles and media fill this powerful and delightful show.
Artist: Bradford Salamon
Participating artists include: Amanda Mears, Anna Kostanian, Anna Stump, Ashley Bravin, Austin Young, Baha Danesh, Betzi Stein, Bibi Davidson, Bradford J Salamon, Caron G Rand, Carson Grubaugh, Catherine Ruane, Chris Blevins-Morrison, Christina Ramos, Cynda Valle, Daena Title, Daggi Wallace, Dani Dodge, Debbie Korbel, Debby/Larry Kline, Debe Arlook, Diane Cockerill, Donna Bates, Elizabeth Tobias, Ellen Friedlander, Emily Wiseman, Geneva Costa, Holly Boruck, J Michael Walker, Jane Szabo, Janet Milhomme, Jeffrey Sklan, Jesse Standlea, John Waiblinger, Jorin Bossen, K Ryan Henisey, Karen Hochman Brown, Kate Kelton, Kate Savage, Kerri Sabine-Wolf, Kim Kimbro, L Aviva Diamond, Leslie Lanxinger, Mara Zaslove, Marjorie Salvaterra, Martin Cox, Monica Sandoval, Nancy Kay Turner, Nurit Avesar, Phung Huynh, Rakeem Cunningham, Serena Potter, Sheli Silverio, Susan Amorde, Susan T. Kurland, Sydney Walters, Tanya Ragir, Tony Pinto, Vicki Walsh.
The exhibition at Studio Channel Islands, through the 25th, is located at 2222 Ventura Blvd. in Camarillo. MOAH Cedar is located at 44857 Cedar in Lancaster, and there the exhibition runs October 9 through December 12th.
You owe it to yourself, your body, and everybody to “perceive this.”
