Located at the AC Hotel Los Angeles South Bay in El Segundo,
AC Lounge makes a terrific get- away whether you’re staying at the hotel or
not.
It’s a beautiful space with a sleek modern bar, cushy indoor seating – and a fireplace – and intimate outdoor seating with fire and water features. While the look is elegant and modern, it is also comfortable, which is in no small part due to the accommodating, friendly staff.
On a chilly winter (for Los Angeles) evening, we started with two wonderful locovore cocktails. Happy Hour, which runs from 3:30 to 6:30 weekdays make these well-made drinks an even bigger treat.
We had the Immune Boost and 72 Degrees. Immune Boost is a lighter spin on a gingery drink that is often made with whiskey. Here it is Tito’s Vodka, ginger beer, grapefruit bitters, turmeric, and a seasonal citrus, making it crisper and more citrusy, while not negating the lovely combination of tastes. 72 Degrees is also vodka based, with honey, passionfruit, basil, and lime, it is slightly sweeter, but again light and refreshing.
We started our dining with a surprisingly generous portion of warm olives marinated in-house in a fragrant citrus blend. Warning: it is almost impossible to stop eating them.
The roasted mushrooms with torn herbs were delicious; the flavors rich but not heavy.
Grilled salmon with spiced lentil stew was a perfect main course: the salmon was beautifully prepared and a surprisingly large portion for a very reasonable price. The lentil base was terrific, with a bite of spice and a texture that nicely contrasted with the silky fish.
We also enjoyed an avocado, tomato, and fresh crumbled cheese bruschetta on chiobatta bread – a meal in itself.
Along with an extensive small bites menu, lunch is served in the AC Lounge space as well. Both locals and hotel guests frequent, adding to the vibe of the welcoming servers and bartender. The hotel’s design team created the space, nicely melding the clean lines of minimalism with relaxing seating and sparkling fire walls and small waterfall outside. The variety of seating options means that guests can enjoy a serene space or a lively one.
All in all, it’s a vacation from the everyday in a modern
new hotel you may just be vacationing in to begin with – or it makes a perfect
spot for after-work drinks and noshing, or a relaxing date night.
AC Hotel and the AC Lounge is located at 2130 Maple Ave. in El Segundo
SLO – San Luis Obispo – is far more than a half-way point between Los Angeles and San Francisco. If you haven’t discovered it yet, you should – it’s a food haven, a paradise for wine and beer afficiandos, and a town with delightful, uniquely different accommodations.
It would be hard to think of
a destination that’s more of a one-stop pleasure. Take Amtrak, leave the car at
home – or drive – either way, SLO is an easy and engaging destination that
offers so much to explore we’ll be featuring this charming city in several
articles in the next month.
Valentine’s Day sweetheart stay? President’s Day Getaway? Winter break or spring fling – SLO is a great choice.
We loved staying at SLO Brew Lofts in the center of town. The sleek urban lodging is more cool apartment than it is hotel.
Beautiful hip furnishings, a full kitchen, and bathrooms that will make you want to bask are enhanced by touches such as a blue velvet sofa, Edison lights, cushy leather dining room chairs, sleek industrial-style Smeg refrigerators and stoves, cozy, tile rimmed fireplaces, and a state-of-the-art espresso and coffee maker.
Another fun feature: rooms come with Crossley record players – replete with lp choices in the rooms, and additional selections available in the hallway.
Exposed brick walls, unique and artful lighting features, high-end furnishings all win large points; loft sizes range from one to three bedrooms, with the largest unit including a private, creek-side patio. They’re romantic, but with the space they offer, the lofts also make for an excellent friends’ getaway or family gathering.
Although the lofts make it incredibly tempting to just stay in and enjoy a 70s-era 33 rpm and a blazing fire, SLO itself is well worth exploring.
Besides, you might only have to take a short walk to one of the top restaurants in town. These five luxury short-term rentals are positioned over one of them, The Carissa.
The Carissa occupies a space that was once the more casual SLO Brew gastropub. It was terrific too, but this change is particularly sweet.
With a lovely outdoor patio that overlooks the creek, and location offers both fire pits and comfortable, cushioned alcove seating, making the restaurant a vacation in and of itself. Inside, it feels hip and airy.
The Carissa is named for the classic building in which it and the lofts themselves are located; the interior reflects its heritage with bright white and blue floor tiles, the space’s original white-washed brick walls, wood-plank flooring and pressed tin ceilings.
The Carissa has a definite California-cool feel with both beachy artwork and cozy nooks within the large room, providing a sense of intimacy.
A mezzanine level includes a pool table.
We sat outside for dinner, warmed by heat lamps and thoughtfully provided soft lap blankets, as well as inventive craft cocktails to start our meal. SLO Brew beers are also on tap, and an intelligent wine selection is available.
We went with a Salty Dog – a refreshing, vodka-based drink with bitters, grapefruit, and a sea salt rim; and the Cigar Smoke, which arrives in a dramatic, covered presentation that literally features aromatic wood chip smoke. I’ve enjoyed smoked drinks before, and this one is outstanding. Rod & Hammers straight rye, orange, sugar cube, and that richly satisfying smoke.
We began our meal with the vegan tortilla soup – thick, creamy, and delightful; redolent of cilantro and with just the right bite of spice offset by silky avocado. The Refreshing Salad lives up to its name. Spring and spinach mix with raspberries, Asian pear, candied walnuts and the lovely bite of a mint jalapeno vinaigrette, the palette is both original and just right – sweet and spicy and cool. We shared a salmon plate with fries and cucumber slices with a dusting of chili powder as our sides. Pan-seared in shallot ginger butter, the salmon was intensely flavorful, tender and fresh.
We left room for dessert: mini churros and a banana fritter. The churros came with a rich chocolate dipping sauce and more than delighted. The banana fritter far exceeded expectations – I’m not a banana fan – a fluffy fried banana with the restaurant’s signature waffle batter, caramel, strawberries, and a scoop of vanilla Van Leeuwen ice cream.
With twinkling white lights
strung across the patio and feeling cozy we concluded our meal with two more
cocktails – one the sensationally inventive Head in the Clouds. Featuring a
pouf of pink cotton candy, Asian pear, aloe, and watermelon, this vodka based
treat is also Instagram-ready. I opted for a more traditional off-menu Irish
coffee, made sweeter and lighter with Amaretto in the mix.
Although shops and a bevy of other lively clubs abound on SLO’s main street, we retired to our loft suite for a great night’s sleep.
Morning found us at the lovely, bright Joliene Bakery located in The Creamery complex, where owner Chloe Fertel offered us pastries such as a lemon tartlette and honey almond cake.
The bakery features beautiful breads such as Meyer Lemon Herb, sandwiches, and French macarons. Flavors on macarons vary; we had pistachio, chocolate, and raspberry – all terrific.
We browsed shops and took a long walk along the Cerro San Luis Lemon Grove Loop. Vast views of SLO reward a steep but well laid out four-mile trail.
We’ve taken this trail at sunset as well, when the westward-facing heights make a stunning view point.
For starters: Crispy Cauliflower, a dish that has been over-used in many venues was a treat here – dusted with Cajun seasoning and coconut flour, with a dipping sauce of bracing chipotle aioli. The Dip Duo is a classic appetizer that could make a meal. Comprised of both roasted corn elote and guacamole, it’s an elevated take on a casual nosh that’s hard to stop eating.
But then came the beet salad with shrimp: made with sweet greens and gorgonzola; and a mushroom truffle flat bread featuring earthy crimini mushrooms.
The restaurant added a Beyond Meat sausage topping that made the dish even heartier. To drink? The Ciro peach vodka based Pismo Fog with muddled strawberries was beyond delicious, and alluring served with dry ice for a stunning effect. The light Cambria Pines was gin based, and included fresh squeezed lemon, a quite wonderful rosemary infused simple syrup, and a splash of Brut.
The restaurant is multi-leveled, with two patios back and front; the fresh, modern look embraces its catch phrase of “eat, drink, be happy.”
Late afternoon found us just south of town in the Edna Valley, enjoying the sunny outdoor tasting tables at Saucelito Canyon Winery. Crafting fine red wines from 13 acres of Zinfindels, Bordeauxs, and a handful off off-estate Cabernets and Merlots, the winery is unique in the region which often features Pinot Noir as its signature red. In fact, Saucelito is the only winery in the region that doesn’t produce Pinot; their Zinfindel was planted in 1860 and remains a centerpiece.
Their flagship Zin is produced from
40-year old vines from Croatia, a part of the U.C. Davis Heritage
Collection.
My favorite was the late harvest Zin which was sweet and delicious with the taste of berries and chocolate notes. The Rose was crisp, bright and tart; the unique Dos Mas introduces Grenache to the winery’s line-up, blending Zinfandel with Petite Syrah and Grenache.
Open from 10-5 daily, the winery offers generous pours and an astonishing variety of tastes.
From a luxurious loft stay to wine tasting and fine dining – SLO is easy
to visit and fabulously easy to enjoy.
Always reinventing and reinvigorating its historic spaces, there are more stories coming up on SLO — a Central Coast original.
When artist Kate Kelton sets out to do something – she does it. She, like her latest series, is Indomitable. Kelton’s astonishingly lovely and glowing images of women are created to tackle an important subject with grace and power: “I try to uplift and elevate Silence-Breakers, Patriarchy-Smashers, Truth-Tellers, Survivor-Hero and Sheroes to the highest reaches of architectural strata. Apotheosis through a reclaimed, reapplied Art Nouveau. Sampling my own lineage, I transform a historical body of work, itself a thing of lasting beauty; exchanging granite for graphite, plaster for paint,” she says. “To date, 105 silence-breakers accused Harvey Weinstein of gross sexual misconduct, 60 came forward about Bill Cosby. Over 200 are rumored to be coalescing against Donald Trump, with 24 having come forward already. More than 400 spoke out within the first 48 hours following the publication of director James Toback’s profile. One can’t even imagine the number for Jeffrey Epstein. With Harvey Weinstein’s trial finally coming up… I want to focus on weaving my protection spell over the subjects of my work, because I’m a hella superstitious astrology aficionado.”
She is also a riveting artist; her subjects leap at viewers, deified, as she puts it with “headdresses, helmets and crowns from my ancestors’ constructs,” as she creates she also works to “weave an unbreakable spell of protection. Could my paintings inadvertently put Harvey in jail? With a pandemic, global 1% conviction rate for rapists who even make it to the courts… it certainly couldn’t hurt to try. I suppose it’s a little like that Bible bit from Isaiah, but far less evangelical since I was raised agnostically. Even under heavy resistance and surrounded of adversaries, no weapon that is formed against me, shall prosper.”
Kelton is also donating a portion of the proceeds from the show to Citizen Lab, located in her home town of Toronto, an organization that studies how surveillance and content-filtering impact the security of the Internet, and in so doing, pose a threat to human rights. In regard to her subjects, she notes that so many have been cyberstalked, tracked, hacked and gas-lit for speaking their truth.
But in her work, the women she depicts are filled with light, life, and fierceness. Her recent paintings include E Jean Carroll, Lili Bernard, Andrea Constand, Victoria Valentino, James Safechuck, Drew Dixon, Louisette Geiss, Kadian Noble, Caitlin Dulany, Jessica Bishop, Lou Godbold, Lisa Christie, Johnathon Schaech, Tasha Dixon, Jill Harth, Lisa Christie, Reverend Vera Lauren, Eden Tiril, Alice Evans, Erika Rosenbaum, Stacey Pinkerton, Molly Maeve, Ani Easton Baker, Sand Van Roy, Natasha Stoynoff, Melissa Schuman, Samantha Holvey, Lauren O’Connor, Mhairi Steenbock, Lucia Evans, Melissa Thompson, Lizzette Martinez, Lisette Anthon,y and Jasmine Lobe.
She terms her current work both a continuation and a departure from her previous art. As to her subjects, she notes that last year she painted famous actors almost exclusively while this year she has included lesser known survivors of abuse atrocities, those who have “been on the very frontline” of bringing down predators. “Uplifting these truth-tellers is triggering, arduous, and begging for trolling from fixers’ bot armies on social media. Yet it’s more fulfilling then anything I’ve ever done. When I began painting these warriors, it was because I too had just been effectively ousted from the acting industry.”
She adds “The women I depicted last year had established careers, most with years of work under their belts. The framed, high gloss, full color, rich and finished quality to my Sentry series is something I wanted to contrast this year while working on paintings of many whose lives and careers were derailed so early they never got the traction to elevate, to become ‘household names.’” The limited palette in which she works serves as a metaphor for the limitations her subjects must surmount to express their messages when careers and platforms were stolen, she attests.
Her moving, lush images, and the almost frenetic pace at which she creates these visually and spiritually glowing works are inspired in part by a story “about a woman who received her poetry on the wind and allowed it to flow through her from the top of her head to the tips of her fingers,” according to Kelton.
She describes her use of gorgeous headdresses with faces as a combination in the “hope the Gestalt elevates the individual pieces into a third and separate whole, something alchemically different.” She credits the subjects for selfies as well as photographers such as Freddie B, Rich Klein, Naomi Kaltman, Dawn Quiacos, Skip Gue, Lou Noble, Sabrina Reeves, Matt Sayles, Dana Patrick, Brooks Freehill, and Ernst Tramposch, who provided images for her to work from.
Her palette has its own poetry. “When paint becomes swampy and muddled from too many changed minds and crazed brushstrokes; when the lines lose their vibrancy buried under the weight of simply too much frenetic gesticulating, OCD levels of surface decoration on my part generally mean color is where I have to place emphasis on simplicity anyway. The eye already moves about so much over the surface of my pieces, that a full rainbow spectrum feels as garish and overwrought to me as it must have to the initial critics of Fauvism, back in the day.”
Kelton says she also clings to the natural color schemes her mother uses in her own painting and assemblage, and uses patient applications of thinly layered glaze in her work, as did one of her father’s favorite artists, Rothko.
“I’m additionally experimenting with the textural differences between matte and glossy surfaces. It’s expanded my grey scale considerably, working from Stuart Stemple’s Blackest Black to various silvers and iridescent whites that exceed even titanium white, given the right light.”
She stresses that she refuses to “lose a painting’s ability to alter through time by reflecting changing lighting conditions.” Her passion for mutable light is both geographically and seasonally driven. “Have you ever noticed the quality of light in different cities? Blue-ish white light bounces from Lake Ontario over most of Toronto, while smog’s red haze hyper-saturates every stunner sunset in LA.”
More on Kelton’s palette: “Underpaintings have always fascinated me. Desaturated, black and white work that emphasizes the importance of Notan, a Japanese design concept involving the play and placement of light and dark elements as they are placed next to the other.” She adds “The only color I’m adding alongside the various metallics, grays and neutral browns I’m working with this year, is green. Partly because it represents lush growth – in plant life as well as one’s finances, something all Silence Breakers could stand to enjoy after all the illegal punitive retaliation – but also because seeing how subtle an infinite amount of different greens naturally appear in the undertones of the gold, or in copper’s oxidization, is unendingly inspiring to me.”
The
visceral quality of her work goes far beyond color, and pay tribute to Kelton’s
ancestors. “Listen, you’d rip off your ancestors too if you suddenly found out
they’d designed the Central Train Station in Prague and hired incredible
sculptors to blow people’s minds… just because. There are dozens of arches on
either side of the train station’s main entrance. Each one is crowned by a face
wearing a helmet, crown, or headdress of some kind. They represent, presumably,
the people and places connected by those trains.”
Just as connected are her recent series of works: With Joe’s Train Station, she paid homage to her great grandfather, Josef Fanta, the architect, engineer, painter and sculptor behind that station. “My father’s family fled Prague when Czechoslovakia was handed over to the Russians after the war. The real repercussions of politics – something that many Americans only seem to be waking up to now – were always a tangible part of my life growing up. Metaphorically rebuilding my great grandfather’s train station became as soothing as any balm or salve for the times.” That exhibition was followed by Artstar, in which portraits of artists “were now cloaked in the garb of statues my great grandfather tasked Ladislav Šaloun with sculpting onto his train station. The work presented a tactility against the digitized space, and represented a taking, an acquisition of power back from the tastemakers.” Next came Sentry, marking the #metoo movement, and combining “the faces of brave silence breakers with photos of the statues’ headpieces, in situ. I asked the incredibly talented artist Steve Seleska to add a super high gloss glaze to the pieces, to bring out the rich reds, blues and browns.”
All of Kelton’s work has a dream-like quality despite its realism. “Working to combine the stone statuary with living, breathing flesh is the trick for me now. The spaces in between fall into an abstract category bridging the gap, hopefully suspending the viewers’ disbelief long enough to be enchanted by the whole; the Gestalt of it.” She describes the headdresses worn by her subjects as “heavy crowns to bear — sometimes showing up in gilded hands holding up heads hung low. These powerful Silence Breakers have been doing the work of moving the dial thanklessly and tirelessly for years now,” she explains.
The inspiration for and genesis of Indomitable comes from those who, Kelton says, “have spoken up at great personal cost to inspire the #metoo wave that’s swept the world…To champion them and their work seems such a small token of gratitude, since they risked everything to make this industry safer.”
Kelton is working on plans to tour the series, starting with the Arkansas Coalition Against Sexual Assault’s Masquerade Ball on May 2, 2020.
A music industry legend, the song that is spilling from Macey Lipman’s artistic heart today is visual. With a new body of work, The Summit Series, Lipman offers a pinnacle – play on words intended – achievement.
The artist has painted all his life, devoting
himself full-time to his art for the last twenty years. The immersive
landscapes of North and South American peaks that make up this current series
were inspired by Lipman’s daughter and her passion for mountain climbing. The
result is exhilarating.
The artist’s acrylic on canvas and birchwood works are uniquely compelling. While the images are firmly grounded in the real world, the dreamy, vibrantly colored works also carry with them expressionistic elements. The works are also highly visceral; viewers can almost feel the chill in the shadows of Glacier Peak Volcano; absorb the crisp thinness of the air at the crest of Mt. Shasta.
On January 25th and 26th,
the artist will hold two afternoon receptions at his West Hollywood studio and
gallery, presenting works from this series and previous bodies that
include images from California’s wine country, Cuba, and Italy.
Over the course of his music career, Lipman received 57 gold and platinum album awards, working with artists such as the 5th Dimension, Heart, Chet Baker, Ravi Shankar, and Johnny Rivers. In 1972, he established Macey Lipman Marketing, the first independent marketing company in the recording industry, through which he managed a wide range of campaigns for top recording artists from Dolly Parton to Cher.
But through it all, he painted. He paints daily, depicting pristine landscapes such as “Mt. Rainer and Nisqually Glacier”; the tallest mountain in Washington and the Cascade Range; “Popocatepetl Volcano (El Popa), Mexico,” raining ash below its slopes; and “Glacier Peak Volcano,” the most remote of the five active volcanoes in Washington State.
One of his sparest and most fascinating landscapes from this series is the 30” x 40” “Foggy Lake/Gothic Peak, Washington,” above, a dream-like vision that merges meticulous pointillist technique with wild and mystical scenery.
Equally absorbing are images such as that of a young Guatemalan woman climbing Santa Maria Peak in Guatemala while breast-feeding her baby. Other recurring motifs in Lipman’s work include the wine regions of Napa and Sonoma; and graceful images of reflections in windows, images that shape their own illusory landscape.
Having been accepted to the Michelangelo Accademia D’Arte in Florence, Italy, Lipman is learning to expand his technique with the use of egg tempera and the creation of paints and colors from scratch.
The
artist says his life-long passion for painting began as a child, visiting the
art section of Gimbel’s department store, attracted to the scent of oil paints
and linseed oil. Despite his early inspiration, he did not sell his paintings
until 2002; but by 2004 he was selling out at LACMA’s Sales Gallery. Today,
Lipman works at his West Hollywood gallery and studio five days a week.
The dual receptions for The Summit Series take
place at Macey Lipman Art studio
and gallery, located at 511 N. La Cienega Blvd., #210 from 2-6 p.m. both days.
The Summit Series will remain on view through February 20th.
