This weekend the Hammer Museum organized a collaboration with LA><ART and presented an amazing show on the boardwalk. Artists from Made In LA 2012 rubbed shoulders with the veteran artists and sold their wares.
We spent both days gleefully stepping out our front door into an art wonderland. Mark and I bought work from both local and Hammer artists. Here’s our favorites from the weekend stash:
1) Alex Becerra a pair of shoes made from acrylic paint and an amazing oil pastel drawing.
Today we experimented with a laser etching process for making name plates for all our pieces. They look amazing, but the process needs a little fine tuning,
Popped over to Culver City for a peek at the WWA Gallery show. Wendy discovered a painting by an old college friend, Craig LaRotonda. She laughed and said he was still doing creepy great work!
Whenever we travel, we look for like minded artists (either through their sense of whimsy or use of materials). Dave Borba has both. A Salt Lake City native, Dave creates interactive folk art. His wood carved sculptures incorporate movement through a mechanical device. I bought one of his limited edition prints, “The Wounded Bird Flies Again”.
Carlos Montanaro from Indio, CA was showing amazing kinetic jewelry at the Utah Arts Festival. Created from vintage time pieces, each work is meticulously crafted with the inner workings exposed to show the running mechanics. Truly beautiful. I bought one of his pieces for my mom’s birthday.
On view til September, the installation “Cantastoria” explores how contemporary artists communicate histories and cultures using languages. Also on display was the show “FAX” which was an invitational for 100 artists to transmit their fax-based work. My favorite exhibit was a film they had playing titled “Casting Jesus” by Christian Jankowski.