Channeling Your Inner Art

Posted on by Diversions LA

 

Paint Wine 1

Paint Wine 2

Feeling artistic, but don’t have a brush or a canvas to your name? Then it’s time to let an artist help YOU be an artist for the day. Channel your inner Monet or Picasso with a paint party that’s good for the soul.

Paint Wine 5

Above: Wine & Design 

Paint and sip classes have been around for awhile, but today there are some wonderfully unique places for you to choose when it comes to getting your art on.

Painting Wine & Design

Wine & Design

Lisa Flette is the studio owner at the bright and cheerful Wine & Design in Burbank. Offering painting classes for all ages and experience levels, budding artists are led through the process of painting an original creation based as loosely or accurately on a sample work as each  attendee desires. Each class focuses on a different topic or style – whether it’s a scenic look at palm trees, a super hero, or a live model class. Pure pleasure, Flette’s enthusiasm and professionalism make this studio one of the best takes on self-made art around. There’s a fine selection of wines and Firestone Walker beer to enjoy while painting, too.

Paint Wine 4

Sure, other spots offer painting instruction and a glass of vino, but few reach the pro level of Flette’s spot, where training is concise, innovation is welcomed, and the comfortable, spacious studio is both welcoming and intelligently run. Whether you’ve never held a brush before or you’re an artist in your own right just looking for a little group fun, every participant is treated with respect, and the atmosphere is as relaxed as it is lively.

Painting Dank Canvas

Dank Canvas

Dank Canvas fuses cannabis with an art experience in the heart of Los Angeles, combining talented artist instructors, quality cannabis brands, and a relaxed environment in which to create.

Paint Dank 2

Owner and instructor Jennifer Korsen is also a muralist and professional artist, her skill and gift for sharing it is a high in and of itself. From classes to private events, the goal here is an immersive experience that draws participants into their own natural creativity. There’s even an arts and crafts bar for smaller projects.  The “puff and paint” experience provides fledgling painters with a cannabis product gift bag to take home along with their finished art on canvas.

Paint Dank 1

Above: Dank Canvas, Below: Paint Lab

Paint 9 Paint Lab

Paint: Lab

In Santa Monica, there’s Paint: Lab, a walk-in art studio. The sleek studio space holds two hour workshops as well as allowing clients to simply come in and paint with the guidance and encouragement of their professional artist staff. Lab fees include paint supplies, easels, brushes, workspace, and clean-up; canvasses are also available for an additional fee. Once a month, models for figure drawing are available. The goal: a welcoming space for practicing artists and folks who simply want to pick up a brush and give painting a try. Wine and Cheese nights are also offered.

Paint Blending 7

The Blending Lab

 

In West Hollywood, The Blending Lab puts the emphasis on wine with painting classes themselves just one of the options for a fun night out. Featuring local regional wines, this chic modern-industrial spot combines a flight of wine with canvas/brush/paints and the skilled instructors of Let’s Paint LA, for a true taste of art and vino.

 

So get ready to “brush up” on your artistic side – you won’t have to “canvas” the town to find the right easel for you.

  • Genie Davis; photos courtesy of art studios

Hostel Stays in LA: Tips for a Good Night’s Sleep

Posted on by Diversions LA

hostel 2As we approach holiday season, out of town guests may be heading our way and looking for accommodations. When hotel rates are simply too high and there’s no room at home for visitors, hostels can make a great option for a stay. 

Of course, some travelers will complain about the difficulty of getting a good night’s rest at a hostel in a city as busy as Los Angeles, but sleeping soundly at a hostel is hardly impossible. In fact, getting the right amount of shut-eye is perfectly doable if visitors follow a few simple tips.

Fros Relax

Avoid Staying at a Party Hostel

All it takes is a little research to avoid party spots. Checking online reviews goes a long way toward determining whether a hostel is a quiet spot or a great hangout for partygoers.  USA Hostels Hollywood, Surf City Hostel, and Banana Bungalow West Hollywood are all known as lively, fun spots; but a quieter option is the Orange Drive Manor Hostel, described by Trip Savvy as a 1910 manor home with a serene vibe, yet located in walking distance of Hollywood attractions from the Capitol Records Building to the TCL Chinese Theater.

Tire Yourself Out

durden 1 copy 2

Yes, one sure way to get a good night’s sleep is to be tired enough to sleep as soon as you hit your hostel’s pillow, according to travel blogger RachelRTW. With so much to see and do in LA from cutting edge art galleries and museums to taking a surf lesson at the beach, hiking the trails of Griffith Park, or visiting all the area theme parks, it shouldn’t be a problem to get ready to drift off into dreamland.

Bring a Sleeping Kit Wherever You Go

hostel 4

Veteran travelers in the know keep this travel essential handy wherever they go. A sleeping mask keeps light away and comfortable earplugs mean unwonted noise can be easily kept at bay. Can’t sleep without music? Then ear plugs save the day. Keep an extra pair to listen to your favorite tunes, or perhaps white noise relaxation, such as recorded sounds of rain or ocean waves.  If you’re sharing your hostel space with other guests, this should take care of extraneous light and sound.

Avoid Alcohol

slow brew 3

Sure, Los Angeles is known for its craft brews from Angel City Brewery’s eclectic scene downtown to the wide array of tasty IPAs and ales in Torrance breweries like Smog City and Absolution. We even have our own whiskey distillery downtown. Not to mention the altogether awesome club scene from trendy speakeasies to revolving rooftop hotel bars. All the same, to get a good night’s sleep you might want to try an organic soda or sparkling water instead of these tempting alcoholic treats, at least close to bedtime, for a more solid night’s sleep.

hostel 5

According to sleep expert Lisa Scotti in her better sleep guide, it’s wise to avoid drinking alcohol within four hours of your bedtime. It might be tempting to consume alcohol, but to get a good night’s sleep it might be worth considering avoiding it especially if you’re staying in a hostel. While drinking can help you doze off initially, the effect is only temporary, and you’ll end up restless, possibly waking several times for toilet breaks.

Turn Off the Lights

Sleep studies have shown that lights can make it hard for people to fall asleep. And this doesn’t just mean turning off that overhead light or your bedside lamp. Digital devices include light, too, and they can also be overly stimulating. Put the iPhone or Android away, turn off that laptop, and save Netflix for another time. And if there are others staying in your hostel dorm room and you get to the room first, follow this slightly sneaky but sweet tip from Indefinite Adventure –  turn off the main light but leave a side light turned on. Having a dim light burning encourages later arrivals from switching on the overhead light. They can still see their way around, and get the message that someone else is already resting in the room.

In short, whether you’re seeking a good night’s sleep and economical accommodations – or you have guests in town staying at a hostel, it’s entirely possible to get a great night’s sleep. And because hostel guests spend less money that those who stay in a hotel, there will be more to spend adventuring in Los Angeles.

  • Guest post, curated by Genie Davis; Photos: Genie Davis, Flickr, Pixabay)

 

Lauren Mendelsohn Bass: Art Noir

Posted on by Diversions LA

MB 7 Dreamer

The work of Los Angeles-based artist Lauren-Mendelsohn-Bass feels uniquely, passionately a part of L.A. itself. Perhaps that focus is due to the strong noir style of her figurative paintings. Film noir is deeply embedded in the culture of the City of Angels, and her art, with its noir narrative focus, is equally emblematic of the artist’s hometown.

MB 13 Studio shots (1)

Mendelsohn-Bass has a sleek, seductive, highly sensual style to her work, and in each piece lies a wonderfully furtive element. It’s unusual and absorbing to see the way in which the artist creates a sense of tension and conflict, evokes a story that begins, as with any good noir screenplay, in the middle of things. Secret glances, the arch of a brow, the clasp of a hand, all of these convey psychological heft, the internal conveyed through external actions. This is the stuff of noir and of Mendelsohn-Bass’ lush, large scale art.

MB 3 Cake

Working in oil on canvas, Mendelsohn-Bass most often shapes works that are a combination of images, a consolidated, single-canvas triptych reminiscent of individual frames of film. Sometimes images are monochromatic, others are full color. There is a recurrent use of bright food images combined with darker images of people, sometimes in motion, sometimes in conversation. To unpack all of the visual metaphors in each of her works takes repeated viewings.

MB 6 Cup of Joe

Take “Preparations,” below, with the top of half of the work featuring four women. Three are sepia-toned, softly realistic figures; the fourth is the most dominant, a highly stylized, comic book-like black and white image. In each case, the women are in motion and in profile. The realistic renderings are in various stages of undress; the cartoon image is busily scrubbing a pan, frowning. Each of these women is preparing for something just out of sight, whether concealed visually by the artist or hidden, internalized by the subjects. The lower portion of the canvas is in full color. A plate of partially hidden, and in their own way, equally mysterious, cupcakes. A woman diving deep into blue water. What appears to be chocolate cake, with one slice missing.

MB 11Preparations

To the viewer, all but the cartoon-like image of the woman scrubbing her pan are sensual. The semi-nude renderings of the women painted in sepia tone, the curve and shadow of the female swimmer, the lush imagery of the desserts – all are a physical manifestation of longing, desire, reach perhaps exceeding grasp.  That dominant image, the black and white comic-book-like woman is scrubbing what exactly? Just a pan? A blood stain? The longing for more from her life? Is she removing the memories of the other images?

MB 10 Pick Your Poison

Above, “Pick Your Poison” follows a similar artistic trajectory,  juxtaposing four images, interconnected.  A softly focused, sepia-toned man reads a newspaper, smoke from an unseen cigarette resting in an unsettling cloud around him. A comic-book-style image of a man writhing on the ground, his form almost immediately raising the specter of unseen bullets or a hard fall. Empty thought bubbles emanate from his frame. Here the dominant image is a full-color cup of coffee being poured,  next to which the profile of a sepia-toned woman offers a tentative half smile, as if daring the viewer to ask her what exactly she is up to or what is going on here.  The correlation between reading the news, smoking, an injury, coffee, and the seemingly benign glance of a woman is up to the viewer: perhaps the woman is pulling all the strings here, or perhaps it is an unseen woman, one whose manicured hand is pouring the coffee, who is the ultimate in hidden puppet-master.

MB 8 Full Service

Above, with “Full Service,” we have again a mouth-watering dessert, this one lemon meringue pie, an unseen woman – here, with her hands wrapped around a partially observable man’s neck, and a tray of realistic cocktails born by a stylized black and white comic book character. Would the full service of the title represent dining service from cocktails to dessert? Or would it include the potential homicide of the man?

MB 5 Call Me

With “Call Me,” above, the artist’s intent seems entirely clear – a woman is cajoling a phone call from an unseen suitor with her friendly if a touch avid profiled smile, her seductive legs, her Marilyn-esque face and nude body, and center-stage, a very noir-era dessert, what appears to be Cherries Jubilee.

As with all Mendelsohn-Bass paintings, the urge to decipher them from the clues she leaves is as strong as the urge to simply admire, take the work in, appreciate the restlessness and desire her art captures. The noir in her visual stories is based around relationships; she is the hardboiled detective uncovering the detours and illusions of a case, the subtle and not-so-subtle actions of a femme fatale, the idea of what a femme fatale is, and the role’s feminist implications.

MB 15 Untitled (1)

As in her “Untitled” work above, Mendelsohn-Bass uses the female form, vibrant desserts – which have a highly sensual quality, and images that both literally and figuratively “dive in” to new psychological territory to examine the nuances of relationships. Of very LA-relationships, with our obsessions about the perfect body, the perfect appearance, the ultimately sinful dessert.

Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett – eat your hearts out.

Mendelsohn-Bass may very well be the quintessential purveyor of contemporary noir story telling, with one picture being indeed worth a thousand words.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by Kristine Schomaker

WeHo Artes Starts “In West Hollywood”

Posted on by Diversions LA

WeHo 4 Artes postcard_web

The City of West Hollywood is celebrating the Getty Foundation initiative Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA with WeHo Artes.  This special program encompasses exhibitions funded by The Getty, and additional original projects featuring Latin American and Latino art presented by the city of West Hollywood. Celebrated throughout West Hollywood, WeHo Artes events are about to start soaring. With an exciting exhibition of works by Ramiro Gomez and David Feldman, presented in association with the Charlie James Gallery, and an interactive, site-specific theater piece, Señor Plummer’s Final Fiesta, as centerpieces, there’s no lack of fantastic arts events in the program, which is presented with the support of the City of West Hollywood’s  WeHo Arts  program.

On Wednesday the 23rd, WeHo Artes events kick off with the opening reception for In West Hollywood, the work of Gomez and Feldman.

In West Hollywood is not Gomez’ first project with the city of West Hollywood. In 2012, the artist worked on Install: WeHo, an LGBTQ pop-up art village that included the artist’s creation of large cardboard cut-outs that included movers, a couch, and a valet. Even before his official collaboration with the city, Gomez had made visual waves placing cardboard cut-out figures around West Hollywood, art focusing on the “invisible” workers such as gardeners. After installation, Gomez left the pieces where they were placed, symbols of the forgotten work of domestic laborers. A West Hollywood resident, the artist is well known for addressing immigration issues, and illuminating the domestic labor forces around Los Angeles. Photographic artist and filmmaker Feldman, his collaborator on the upcoming In West Hollywood, documented the cutouts, and these unique photos are a part of the new exhibition.  Feldman’s  short film Los Olvidades covered Ramiro Gomez’s creation and installation of a work in Arizona’s Sonoran desert, and was the winner of the Oxford Film Festival in 2015.

weho 1

Above: (c) 2015 Ramiro Gomez, “Mulholland Drive: On the Road to David’s Studio (after David Hockney’s Mullholland Drive: The Road to the Studio, 1980)

With Gomez and Feldman’s work presented together in this new exhibition, the installation serves as a powerful and impactful statement on the influence of Latin America in the culture and art of Los Angeles. Included in the exhibition will be a never-before-seen commissioned painting from Gomez. Adding to the reception celebration is the live music of Mariachi Arcoiris de Los Angeles, the world’s first LGBTQ mariachi group. The reception and exhibition will be held at the West Hollywood Library.

Weho3

Photo credit: Otis Woods

Another WeHo Artes highlight is the commissioned performance of the Rogue Artists Ensemble’s interactive, site-specific theater performance, Señor Plummer’s Final Fiesta.  Using a heady mix of tall-tales, puppets, masks, and music, the play celebrates the 75th anniversary of the 1942 book Señor Plummer: The Life and Laughter of an Old-Californian.  Written by former Los Angeles Times writer John Preston Buschlen, the book documents interviews with Eugene Plummer, or Don Eugenio, a Spanish-American pioneer whose family once owned 942 acres of land in the area. Considered West Hollywood’s first resident, Don Eugenio is a fascinating, larger than life figure. Rogue Artists will workshop the play with an open rehearsal on August 19,  and offer performances with full readings, sets and costumes August 24-26th in Plummer Park,  the site of Don Eugenio’s last residence.

Of course, WeHo Artes offers other stellar programming as well, with PST LA/LA Getty Foundation-Funded Projects sited in West Hollywood presented by LAND, LAXART, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, and MAK Center for Art and Architecture.

we ho 8

Photo credit: Sense of Place Artist Render, Estudio Jose Dávila, 2017

Jose Dávila’s Sense of Place presented by LAND, the Los Angeles Nomadic Division, is a commissioned work by the Guadalajara-based artist, a multi-site, large-scale, public sculpture exhibition which invites viewers into an experiential view of LA’s diverse urban landscape. The work paints a portrait of the city’s experiences, geographies, and histories.  A nine-foot square interactive sculpture made up of 40 unique modular forms will be installed in West Hollywood Park, with an opening on September 16th. The sculptural work will be disassembled and reconfigured at three different public sites during the exhibition, which runs through May 2018.  With each reimagining, scheduled for November, January, and March,  the piece will take on a changed functional shape. It will return to both its original whole cube shape and the West Hollywood Park location in April 2018. The piece is Dávila’s largest public work, and his first major exhibition in Los Angeles.

Aguilar_Retransmisión

Pável Aguilar, Retransmisión (Retransmission), 2011. Color video. Courtesy Pável Aguilar

LAXART presents Video Art in Latin America, the first substantive U.S. survey on this subject, moving from the late 1960s to the present. The exhibition will be held at LAXART’s Santa Monica Blvd. location. The show moves from early video experiments in South America expressing dissent in an era of repressive military regimes, to the ways in which contemporary video artists discuss subjects such as labor, ecology, migration, and issues of identity and the consequences of social inequality. These single-channel video programs will be accompanied by a selection of dimensional environmental video installations.

weho7

Photo credit: ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives Gallery

Also on tap for WeHo Artes will be Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano LA, presented by ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives Gallery at the USC Libraries and exhibited at the ONE Gallery, West Hollywood and the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles’ Pacific Design Center September 9 to December 31, 2017. Co-curated by C. Ondine Chavoya, professor of art and Latina/o studies at Williams College, and David Evans Frantz, curator at ONE Archives, the exhibition features over 40 LGBTQ and Chicano artists with experimental works in a variety of mediums. Pieces created between the 1960s and early 1990s include works by LGBTQ and Chicano artists, many of whom passed away due to the AIDS crisis. Artist Edmundo “Mundo” Meza (1955-1985), who collaborated with many of the featured artists, will be a focal point of the exhibition.

Weho5

Photo credit: MAK Center for Art and Architecture

And at the Mak Center for Art and Architecture’s Schindler House,  How to Read El Pato Pascual: Disney’s Latin America and Latin America’s Disney will be presented by MAK Center for Art and Architecture and Luckman Gallery at Cal State L.A. Over 150 works by 48 Latin American artists challenge nearly 100 years of cultural influence between Latin America and Disney. The exhibition, curated by writer and filmmaker Jesse Lerner and artist Rubén Ortiz-Torres explores the idea that there are no clean boundaries between art, culture, and geography. The large scale exhibition will have its reception at Schindler House September 9th, and will be split between that location and the Luckman Gallery on the Cal State LA campus.

unnamed (3)

Photo credit: MAK Center for Art and Architecture

The Chase, a large-scale multi-piece sculpture is created by Los Angeles-based artist HACER, and will be installed on Santa Monica Boulevard east of Doheny Drive; and later in the year, Queer Califas: LA Latinx Art, will open in November at Plummer Park’s Long Hall.  Both projects are part of the City’s Art of the Outside public art program. 

For more information on WeHo Artes: http://weho.org/residents/weho-arts-and-culture/west-hollywood-celebrates-pacific-standard-time-2017

For more information on PST LA/LA, an inclusive and wide-ranging exploration of Latin American and Latino art in Los Angeles held throughout Southern California, and supported by the Getty Foundation, visit: http://www.pacificstandardtime.org/ 

In West Hollywood, an exhibition of works by West Hollywood-based artists Ramiro Gomez and David Feldman will be shown at the West Hollywood Library (625 N. San Vicente Blvd., 90069) The opening reception will be August 23 from 7-9PM; the event is free and open to the public, but RSVPs are required; to RSVP, contact: nschonwetter@weho.org.

Señor Plummer’s Final Fiesta will be performed at an open rehearsal August 19,  (drop in anytime between 1-4PM), and performances with full readings, sets and costumes on August 24, 25 and 26 at 7PM in Plummer Park(7377 Santa Monica Blvd., 90046) – the site of Don Eugenio’s last residence.  Seating is limited; to reserve tickets RSVP at https://www.rogueartists.org/senor-plummers-final-fiesta – guests are asked to pay what they can to join the fiesta, with a suggested minimum donation of $5.00.

  • Genie Davis; photos courtesy of the city of West Hollywood