LA CANVAS V3 2

[email protected]

N 59° 19’ 54.03”E 018° 03’ 50.23”

vans_LACanvas_mani1.indd 1 12/21/12 8:28 AM

vans_LACanvas_mani2.indd 1 12/21/12 8:27 AM

vans_LACanvas_3.indd 1 12/21/12 8:23 AM

7266 MELROSE AVE | LOS ANGELES, CA 90046 | 323.413.2110

WWW.KILLCITY.NET

1778 N. MAIN ST. LOS ANGELES, CA 90031P:(323) 352-3250 O [email protected]

WANNA CONTRIBUTE? SEND ALL EDITORIAL SUBMISSIONS TO [email protected]

LACANVAS.COM

Copyright 2013, by LA CANVAS. All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission in writing from LA CANVAS. LA CANVAS makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information it publishes, but is not responsible for unsolicited or contributed manuscripts, photographs, artwork or advertisements. LA CANVAS is not held responsible for any consequences arising from errors or omissions.

publisherDANTE COLOMBATTI

editor-in-chiefREBECA ARANGO

+crewCOLE WESTERHOLM

RONALD PREMITCHEL DUMLAOEMILY BRADLEY

AJA DAVISOLIVER

chief account managersMATT OLSON

JANESSA MOLINA

art directorERIN DENNISON

contributorsROSS GARDINER

EMMA GOGONOVSKIBARBARA YNIGUEZ

art + books editorSHANA NYS DAMBROT

design + production directorRACHEL MANY

eventsMAX EHRLICH

JANESSA MOLINA

designersJORDAN ROMANOFF

MELANIE SMITH

VOLUME 3 ISSUE 2

JANUARY + FEBRUARY 2013

FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS

C A N V A S

photographyCAPTAIN

GRANT YOSHINOSTEVEN YATSKORACHEL MANY

social mediaASHLEY TUTTLE

KRISTA SANTIAGO

social media directorVI NGUYEN

editorial assistantJULIE ROTH

subscribe$6.00 AN ISSUE, $30 A YEAR

VISIT LACANVAS.COM TO SIGN UP

Shot at Sakinaw Lake Lodge www.sakinawlakelodge.com

No time for laces.

OxfordRoland12 Crepe

1778 N. MAIN ST. LOS ANGELES, CA 90031P:(323) 352-3250 O [email protected]

WANNA CONTRIBUTE? SEND ALL EDITORIAL SUBMISSIONS TO [email protected]

LACANVAS.COM

Copyright 2013, by LA CANVAS. All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission in writing from LA CANVAS. LA CANVAS makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information it publishes, but is not responsible for unsolicited or contributed manuscripts, photographs, artwork or advertisements. LA CANVAS is not held responsible for any consequences arising from errors or omissions.

publisherDANTE COLOMBATTI

editor-in-chiefREBECA ARANGO

+crewCOLE WESTERHOLM

RONALD PREMITCHEL DUMLAOEMILY BRADLEY

AJA DAVISOLIVER

chief account managersMATT OLSON

JANESSA MOLINA

art directorERIN DENNISON

contributorsROSS GARDINER

EMMA GOGONOVSKIBARBARA YNIGUEZ

art + books editorSHANA NYS DAMBROT

design + production directorRACHEL MANY

eventsMAX EHRLICH

JANESSA MOLINA

designersJORDAN ROMANOFF

MELANIE SMITH

VOLUME 3 ISSUE 2

JANUARY + FEBRUARY 2013

FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS

C A N V A S

photographyCAPTAIN

GRANT YOSHINOSTEVEN YATSKORACHEL MANY

social mediaASHLEY TUTTLE

KRISTA SANTIAGO

social media directorVI NGUYEN

editorial assistantJULIE ROTH

subscribe$6.00 AN ISSUE, $30 A YEAR

VISIT LACANVAS.COM TO SIGN UP

Shot at Sakinaw Lake Lodge www.sakinawlakelodge.com

No time for laces.

OxfordRoland12 Crepe

MUSICartist CHELSEA WOLFE 28playlist RAIN SONGS 32Q&A: IN THE VALLEY BELOW 34venue GRAMMY MUSEUM 37

ARTLA STREET ART 38artist JAY MARK JOHNSON 40artist DEVIN + GOSHA 42ART EVENTS 48gallery PROJECT GALLERY + ESPRESSO 51book PUNK: AN AESTHETIC 53

STYLEeditorial KIDS ON GOOD BEHAVIOR 57editorial THE WITCHING HOUR 62editorial BACK TO BASICS 72

C A N V A S

STYLE (CONT...)designer STUSSY 78store THE WELL 84#TRENDING: THE METHOD 91

FOODchef MATTHEW KENNEY 94food scoops SOUPED UP 100restaurant CORTEZ 103drink HOT CHAI POSSET 105

&NOTED 20photo story BETWEEN THE CRACKS 106Q&A: KEEP YOUR PANTS ON 122calendar JANUARY 124calendar FEBRUARY 126last look ALLISON TORNEROS 142

T H E

A R T ISSUE

E Y E W E A RTHE PROPER / CLASSICS COLLECTION / AVAILABLE AT SELECT RETAILERS AND ONLINE. ENQUIRIES +1 800 874 1850

EDITOR’S NOTE

“Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction, how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer.”

- Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

Even though I campaigned hard for “Apocalypse Later,” we decided to go with “The Art Issue.” Could

we have chosen a more hopelessly indefinite theme than “Art”? Is every issue of LA CANVAS not an “Art” issue

of some sort? Yes, and here’s why.

As I write this from back in mid-December, I’m finding that my shady spot beneath the tree of doom

may actually be the perfect place to ponder the function of Art. When survival is no longer an option—let alone a

concern—how will you choose to elevate your final moments? Will you crank Vivaldi and pirouette around your living

room while sipping outrageously expensive wine and gorging on bacon-wrapped dates? Or perhaps break into that

reserve supply of Bud Light and fire-up the taco-matic as KLOS bids you farewell with nothing but the classics?

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not peacing-out to Madagascar upon completion of this letter. But no matter

how thoroughly it’s been debunked by accounting errors (leap year) or whatever qualifies as science (Susan

Miller?), a looming Mayan prophecy produces at least a whisper of wonder in even the best skeptic. And I’m

only an average-to-satisfactory skeptic, which means I plan to carpe diem on apocalypse-eve, as it is the best

excuse for a morbidly decadent meal I’ve had to date (Y2K, please).

Ultimately, what all of this final-countdown indulgence reinforces is the idea that creations become

Art by way of how we experience them—a statement so subjective as to inflate the definition to an even more

incircumventable size than I had previously imagined.

Let’s break it down. Classically, anyone who channels their passion into the creation of a surplus,

ideally transcendent* experience might be an “Artist;” whereas someone who skillfully improves a vital or

commercial experience might just be a “Designer,” an “Artisan,” or a “Cook.” But a lifestyle publication like LA

CANVAS can’t help but dig for holes in that distinction when looking for value across all forms of production.

Especially because as notions of highbrow and lowbrow inch towards a truce, people seem primed to find

meaning in the most inane things. For example, in one of Earth’s most ubiquitous art forms, popular music, the

past few years saw artists frequently seeking pre-apocalyptic transcendence via “the Party,”—the last hurrahs

of a doomed yet invincible youth.* So as I sit here deliberating what to eat on 12/20/12, I can’t help but wonder

if even Kim Kardashian is kind of an artist in a very post-Art way. (I mean, have you seen her instagram?)

I don’t have all the answers,* but ultimately, what I can say is that as always this issue features a

group of LA artists—or whatevers—that we are decidedly proud to present. Between drone-folk-metal singer

Chelsea Wolfe (p. 20), mad genius photographer Jay Mark Johnson (p. 28), the designer of one the world’s most

iconic street wear brands, Stussy (p. 46), and Raw Food pioneer Matthew Kenney (p. 54), there is more than

enough art to break up the “Eh.”*

REBECA ARANGO

editor-in-chief

C A N V A S

*1 Defi ned simply as surpassing the usual limits of ordinary experience.*2 See “Till the World Ends” by Britney Spears, “We Are Young” by Fun, “Give Me Everything” by Pittbull.*3 But because I care, I will tell you that the fi rst person to make a sound after the question is posed has the box. (You’ll thank me later.)*4 Math. Earth – art = eh.

NOTEDWhat kind of band is handpicked to open for Nine Inch Nails at their final

show and then proceeds to perform before No Doubt? Riding on a rather

Japanese wave of pastel freakiness, LA electro duo Io Echo are poised to

bridge the gap between goth-art gloom and quirky princess pop. To add more

famous names to the mix, they’ve recently had two music videos directed by

Natalie Portman’s ballet-genius baby daddy Benjamin Millepied. And did we

mention they scored James Franco’s new movie? Only in LA.

IOECHOMUSIC.COM

EXCUSE ME, MSTR“Meister” is of course the German word for “Master,” and it also

happens to be the name of our favorite new series of contemporary

unisex timepieces. Valuing craftsmanship over trend, Meister

watches are what our post-apocalypitc accessory dreams are made

of. Carbon fiber, stainless steel, and an assortment of leathers?

Yeah, we fux with that.

MSTRWATCHES.COM

ECHONOMIX

CARNIVOROUS

The Great Art Factory is home to half-a-dozen artists and LA-based clothing brand

S.O.Terik. Local artists collaborate to produce one-off t-shirt runs along with vintage

silk pieces cut in seasonal patterns to guarantee every garment’s unique design.

All items are sewn alongside sponsored artists at S.O.Terik’s creative space in the

heart of DTLA, right around the corner from the Starbucks with the best cake-pops.

SOTERIK.COM

THE FACTORY

You mean the bacon is—in—the burger? Finally, mad-genius SoCal burger lab

Slater’s 50/50 hits a bit closer to home with a new location in Old Pasadena. Aside

from the famous 50% beef, 50% bacon burger Slater’s is named for, the new spot

boasts over one hundred beers on tap and a thorough menu of over-the-top comfort

food suitable for any diet—yes, veggie and gluten-free fiends are welcome. But who

can stick to a regimen when there’s the option to have a Bacon Cheeseburger Salad

followed by a B’B’Bacon burger finished off with 50/50’s Famous Bacon Brownie

and washed down with a Bacon Old Fashioned? Dreams really do come true.

SLATERS5050.COM

HAIR RAISING

To this day, the best quote we ever overheard in a Silverlake

coffee shop is still, “he’s very Buddhist.” And when we found

out our favorite spiritual/urban clothing line and twitter crush

FR3NEMY finally launched their collection to buy online, we

put our debit cards where our mouths were. So if you’re

into religious tolerance, truth, and coexistence, peep their

collection for the swaggy indigo baby in your life this Valentine’s Day.

FRENEMYCLOTHING.COM

21Following Hurricane Katrina, a teenaged Jesse Woodard, a.k.a Chase N. Cashe,

relocated to LA and started teaching himself to make beats. Apparently it didn’t take

long to graduate from MPC school, because just a few years later in 2009, Chase

landed an enormous break producing the much-anticipated Eminem and Lil Wayne

collab “Drop the World.” Now firmly established as a major hip-hop producer and

member of LA artist collective the Surf Club, Mr. Cashe is busy making a name for

himself as a rapper. His latest official album Charm dropped this past November; it

features appearances by A$AP Rocky and Lolah Brown with beats by araabMUZIK

and Jahil Beats alongside Cashe’s own. (Ed note: We left his set at CMJ in a daze

and with considerably less clothing than we arrived in.)

CHASENCASHE.COM

BEST FR3NEMIES

PAPER CHASE

Rat’s nest or lion’s mane, sure—but on the microscopic scale your hair actually looks

more like a DNA chain. And what happens when you dunk it in sodium hypochlorite

and then try to set it on fire is that links in the chain get lost, and your hair becomes

damaged. Luckily, we live in the Future, where the people who brought us Keratin

in the 70s are back with a new discovery. Tapping into knowledge learned from the

Human Genome Project, the smarty-pants scientists and stylists over at Joico have

formulated a revolutionary Bio-Advanced Peptide Complex that replicates your hair’s

exact missing amino acids in the exact order, reversing damage better than ever

before. The best part? The molecular miracle cure can now be found in all Joico

products,including the new pro stylers, shampoos and conditioners.

JOICO.COM

C O M I N G A / W 2 0 1 3

www.thecomume.com

SOMETHING

BETTER

CHANGE

DOT COMLA’S BEST ART, STYLE, MUSIC, FOOD AND EVENTS SOURCE

>> PARTY ON WAYNE:It was lovely seeing your beautiful faces around town this

past year. In 2012, LA CANVAS played host to events all

over LA, from the Standard Downtown to the Virgil in

Silverlake and Hemingway’s in Hollywood. Stick with us

in 2013 to cop some gift bags and facebook tags.

>> #SWAG:Happy New Year! This winter, we’ll be giving away

exclusive swag from some of our favorite brands like

Etnies, Globe, URBANEARS, Filtrate and more. Follow

LACANVAS on twitter (@LACANVAS) and facebook

(facebook.com/LACANVASmag) for a chance to win.

>> SUBSCRIBE: Every week our editors round-up LA’s best concerts,

parties, art openings, sales and generally excellent

happenings. Subscribe to the Weekly to get them

in your inbox every Thursday, along with exclusive

invites to LA CANVAS parties.

ON LACANVAS.COM

>> MORE: FOOD SCOOPS

The best falafel we’ve ever had hits Fairfax at

Urban Garden, plus housemade breads, pasta and

salami at DTLA’s latest Italian restaurant, Bestia.

>> Q&A: IN THE VALLEY BELOW

The up-and-coming electro-folk duo gives us the scoop

on their series of strange, cinematic music videos.

>> Q&A: CLAM LAB

Etsy's top artisan Claire Castillaz tells us about her

collection of handmade ceramic wares.

>>BEHIND THE SCENES: #FASHION

Photographer Raymond Molinar and stylist Marissa

Peden give us some insight into their creative process.

IN THE E-ISSUE

>> FEATURE: BETWEEN THE CRACKS

LAC photographers Rachel Many and Christopher

Captain capture the unseen faces of our city.

>>FEATURE: KEEP YOUR PANTS ON

Filmmaker Drew Denny chats with LAC about her latest

movie, The Most Fun I’ve Ever Had With My Pants On.

>> MORE: RACKS ON RACKS

Extended fashion stories by Raymond Molinar,

Nancy Schoenmakers and Grant Yoshino.

>> FEATURE: FALLING WHISTLES

We catch up with founder Sean Carasso to find

out the real story behind the brand’s campaign for

peace in the Congo.

23

INSTAGRAM@LACANVAS

FACEBOOKLACANVAS

TWITTER@LACANVAS

C A N V A S

LACANVAS.COMPINTERESTLACANVAS

D

O

T

C

O

M

SCENE & HEARDIF YOU WEREN’T HAVING A GOOD TIME, YOU WEREN’T DOING IT RIGHT

VISIT LACANVAS.COM FOR A VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH CHELSEA WOLFE

WITH PLANS TO RELEASE

HER FOURTH ALBUM IN AS

M A N Y Y E A R S , C H E L S E A

WOLFE COMES INTO HER OWN.

CHELSEAWOLFE.NET

text REBECA ARANGOphoto STEVEN YATSKO

hair SIENREE @ CELESTINE AGENCY makeup LEIBI CARIAS

W H O ’S AFRAI D O F

CHELSEA

WOLFE?

On one of the first truly rainy days of the season, a nearly-six-foot-tall Chelsea Wolfe

arrives at the LA CANVAS studio in head-to-toe black, her inky locks drawn like drapes around

her wide, glacier eyes. Born and raised in Northern California, Wolfe has been in Los Angeles

for a little over two years now, though from the sound of her music you’d never guess she grew

up on a diet of vitamin D. Always walking on the dark side of pretty, Wolfe’s electrified drone-

folk records can be melancholic as a light-gray drizzle or heavy as a slow evening storm.

As it turns out, today’s inclement weather has disrupted what was supposed to be a

busy morning at the end of an even busier year for the singer. In 2012, she toured Australia,

Europe, the US and Japan; wrote and recorded a new album to be released this Spring; and

unveiled a collection of eerily beautiful acoustic songs titled Unknown Rooms. “I’m not big

on dream interpretation,” Wolfe tells us in a cautious, deceptively tiny speaking voice. “But

it comes from something I read, that when you dream about unknown rooms, or when you

create rooms or spaces in your dreams, it’s representative of something about yourself that you

haven’t been ready to fully explore or become comfortable with, and I think maybe making an

acoustic record was something I wasn’t ready to do until then.”

In a sense, the obstacle of becoming comfortable with herself has shaped the entire

course of Wolfe’s career. Her initial apprehensions manifested themselves in early gigs; she used

to perform wearing a veil, not quite showing audiences her face until mid-2011. And while Wolfe

has been making music since the age of nine (when she would borrow her country-musician

father’s home studio to tinker with Casio beats and record herself singing “weird” covers), it took a

lot of exploration to come to terms with the idea of being a musician in the public eye.

In 2010, after much encouragement from friends, Wolfe finally released her debut

album on nu-goth style house Pendu NYC. The Grime and the Glow was a disjointed yet

compelling collection of lo-fi eight-track recordings, culminating in a gently creepy rendition of

“You Are My Sunshine.” After a year on the road, she came back with Apokalypsis, an album

filled with idealistic reflections on the state of the Earth as humanity and nature struggle to

coexist. Named after the Greek root of the word apocalypse, the title translates to “a lifting

of the veil.” On the cover, Wolfe gazes upwards through whited-out eyes, representing the

moment of epiphany that precedes destruction.

Recorded with professional musicians in a studio, Apokalypsis reached a new level

of aesthetic cohesion and sonic clarity. The sound was still gritty, distorted, and swampy, but the

subtleties of Wolfe’s vocal performance were allowed to surface above the noise—which is crucial,

because her voice is truly her instrument. Like a guitarist switching between stomp-boxes or pick-

ups, she warps and stretches her tone and pronunciation from song to song without diluting its

recognizable idiosyncrasy. Exploring the ghostly spectrum between angelic and demonic, she uses

it to play ugly against pretty, rough against smooth.

“I’m constantly playing with contrast. The beautiful and the horrible are always

juxtaposed in life,” Wolfe tells us later that night from her LA home. Set against the relentless

California sun, it makes sense that Wolfe has always considered herself a musical outcast.

After all, our state’s definitive pop legacy was built by the Beach Boys; and even today, when

compared to their British, Scandinavian, or East Coast counterparts, LA musicians radiate a

relatively sunny disposition.

But there is a vision of California in Chelsea’s music, it’s just one you don’t often

hear. In the abstract paintings of her words, the vulnerable or ominous cry of her voice, and

the smoky doldrums of her sound, there’s a space of sharp edges against a dangerous ocean,

of an ancient, wild landscape, and of dry emptiness stretched around pockets of criminal

overpopulation. “There’s constantly a ton of cars, a ton of people, everywhere you go. And

I’m sort of a solitary person, so sometimes that can be hard for me…but there are also a lot of

creative people here who are willing to work hard and get things done, and I like to get things

done.” So misfit or not, she doesn’t plan on leaving any time soon.

I’m constantly playing with contrast. The b e a u t i f u l a n d t h e

horrible are always

j u x t a p o s e d i n l i f e ,

’’

I’m constantly playing with contrast. The b e a u t i f u l a n d t h e

horrible are always

j u x t a p o s e d i n l i f e ,

VISIT LACANVAS.COM FOR A VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH CHELSEA WOLFE

CHELSEAWOLFE.NET

RAIN DANCE

“I’m A Mess” Body Language

“Outsiders (Slow Version)”Io Echo

“Break Yr Heart”ooOoO

“Theia”Hundred Waters

“Running Back”How to Dress Well

“Flatlands”Chelsea Wolfe

“Hurricane”MS MR

“A Dedication”Washed Out

“Stark Weather”Icky Blossoms

“Tesselate”Alt-J

“Kill Yourself”Chase N. Cashe

“Kiss Me Dead”Magic Wands

Finally. It’s grey and wet and except for the serious athletes,

nobody’s gone surfing. So let’s just stay inside and have some

tea. Maybe take a nap. Sniffle. Have a little cry even. Because

that’s what people in Portland do when they’re not hiking or

at the bookstore, right?

STREAM THE FULL 32-TRACKS OF GLOOMY GOODNESS ON THE LA CANVAS SPOTIFY

I N T H E

VA L L E Y B E L O W

T H E N E W E L ECT RO - FOL K DUO ON T H E I R AU DIO - V ISUA L I NSPI R AT IONS

HAVE YOU GUYS EVER MADE A QUILT? ARE YOU AVID QUILTERS?

ANGELA: I tried to make a quilt once, it nearly drove me to madness. Respect to the Amish.

JEFFREY: I have a Quaker quilt from the 70’s on my bed.

HOW DOES THE CULTURE, LANDSCAPE AND IMAGERY OF THE OLD AMERICAN WEST INFORM YOUR MUSIC?

A & J: Growing up in Michigan and Tennessee, the west was always a mild fairy tale and it still intrigues us.

Also, there’s plenty of that landscape here to work with.

CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT THE CONCEPT BEHIND THE “TAKE ME BACK” VIDEO? WHAT CAN WE EXPECT

IN PART TWO?

ANGELA: It was pure collaboration when we met Laurent Michel Moreau, an odd character with a very

strange and beautiful mind. He splits his time between Paris, Berlin and LA, and I think he brings that

influence to the video. One evening we were having visions of how the video looked with all these women.

The concept becomes more clear in part two. You can expect a little more bedlam.

DO YOU ALSO DRAW NARRATIVE INSPIRATION FROM CULT HISTORIES, FRINGE SOCIETIES OR THE OCCULT?

THERE SEEM TO BE TRACES OF THAT IN THE VIDEO.

ANGELA: I tried a couple spells in my life and got freaked out, so I have a respect for the Occult. Cults and

religions (same thing?) are profoundly fascinating. So much power and emotion is involved, and when a

group concentrates that energy it can be catastrophic or magical. It’s a phenomenon of nature like auroras

and earthquakes. So, yes, it interests us.

YOU’VE MANAGED TO MARRY A DIGITAL, ELECTRONIC PRODUCTION STYLE WITH A NOSTALGIC, OLD-TIMEY

VISUAL AESTHETIC. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?

A & J: It wasn’t really a planned thing. We just kind of look this way and gravitate towards the visuals of the

prairie frontier. When we started ‘In The Valley Below’ we used 80’s Synths as our altar, most notably, the

well named Prophet 5. We built our sound around that. We try and write songs that are both interesting and

epic. Most everything is recorded at home or in our rehearsal studio Downtown.

HAS LIVING IN LOS ANGELES SHAPED OR CHANGED YOUR APPROACH TO MUSIC OR YOUR SOUND?

A & J: I think it pushes us to be more creative. There are a lot of great bands here, and we have to dig deep

to come up with something original. Los Angeles is full of darkness despite the sunshine. The ghosts of the

city creep in and whisper to us.

ANGELA, YOU LIVED IN A SMALL BOAT IN THE WEST INDIES. WE’RE INTRIGUED. CAN YOU TELL US MORE?

ANGELA: My ex and I decided to sell everything we owned and buy a sailboat. We intended to sail around

the world, and got as far as Dominica. A friend gave me an old warped classical guitar, which I brought

along and found that writing songs was easier and more rewarding than learning songs. Eventually El Nino

crept in and blocked the Pacific, our empty pockets turned us north, and Los Angeles split us apart.

Somewhere in the cross section of 70s psychedelia, prairie frontier nostalgia, and lo-fi synth-pop, LA duo In the Valley

Below have built a strange world all their own. Following the release of their debut self-titled EP this Fall, vocalist Angela

Hail and vocalist/guitarist Jeffrey Jacob collaborated with director Laurent Michel Moreau to create a two-part video for

their songs “Take Me Back” and “Palm Tree Fire,” scored a residency at the Bootleg, and went on tour with Mates of State.

We caught up with the LA transplants to fi nd out a bit more about their new project.

I N T H E

VA L L E Y B E L O W

interview REBECA ARANGO

35

THE FAB 4 WERE ONCE 5

They were ready to change the world. But first, they would change each other.

Before they were the Beatles, five rowdy working class lads from the docks of Liverpool rocked out eight days a week in the raucous clubs and red-light seediness of Hamburg, Germany, creating an epic new sound.

Direct from London, Backbeat thunders with live rollicking classics like “Twist and Shout,” “Love Me Do,” “Long Tall Sally,” “P.S. I Love You,” “Rock and Roll Music,” “I Saw Her Standing There” and so many more!

Pick your exact seats online! CenterTheatreGroup.org/BackbeatJanuary 20–March 1 Ahmanson Theatre

season sponsors

213.972.4400

SCAN

THE CODE

TO

ROCK & RO

LL!

Based on the Universal Pictures film.

BEHIND THE MUSIC 37

Keeping up with the incessant onslaught of recorded music is hard

enough—how can we be expected to know what Muddy Waters was up to in

the 1940s, or how many records the Beach Boys released before they ditched

the surfboards and took a trip to the petting zoo? How can we understand the

relationship between Jazz and Third Stream when we’re so busy deciphering

Chillwave from Witch House? Does anyone have the time to keep track of this stuff?

Apparently, yes. The Recording Academy has been actively

celebrating and documenting popular music since 1959, with the 55th

annual Grammy Awards taking place at the Staples Center this February. At

the Grammy Museum, you can sift through the entire archive of televised

shows, starting with the inaugural event at the Beverly Hilton that awarded

Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, and Perry Como, among others.

While you could spend hours perusing epic performances and searching

for train-wreck acceptances speeches, the viewing room is only one small part of

this four-level building. Inside, you’ll find futuristic audio-visual exhibits like the

big colorful touch-table linking together almost every genre imaginable (though we

don’t think they’ve added Witch House yet), interactive maps exploring American

music by city, and short video docs analyzing social trends by decade. There’s

also a smattering of weird pop-artifacts: stage costumes—like the little pink get-up

Beyonce wore to sing “Purple Rain” with Prince, a collection of Michael Jackson’s

signature jackets, and even an original blood-stained Andrew WK outfit—are

presented alongside hand-written lyrics—Brian Wilson’s scrawl of “God Only

Knows” in blue pen (suspect)—as well as original albums, label contracts, early

recording devices, instruments, sketches, and artwork.

But that’s not to say the Grammy Museum is all inanimate objects;

it’s a space for live humans too. Annie Lennox, Tom Morello, Stevie Nicks

and Yoko Ono—just to name a few—have all been featured in the program

“An Evening With,” in which legendary musicians are interviewed on

stage, engaged in an audience Q&A session, and then invited to perform

in the intimate, 200-seat Clive Davis theater. Other performance series, like

“Homegrown” and “The Drop,” focus on up-and-coming or local artists, while

“Reel-to-Real” screens music documentaries followed by panel discussions.

So as soon you and Ross Geller are all done brushing up on fossils,

set your next field trip for LA Live. Gearing up for a game of trivial pursuit or

not, a day at the Grammy Museum is a foolproof way to get your music-history

IQ up. (And, they have synthesizers.)

text REBECA ARANGO

THE GRAMMY MUSEUM PRESERVES AND CELEBRATES MUSIC HISTORY THROUGH INTERACTIVE EXHIBITS, ARTIFACTS, AND INTIMATE LIVE PERFORMANCES

800 WEST OLYMPIC BOULEVARD A245

LOS ANGELES, CA 90015

GRAMMYMUSEUM.ORG

V

E

N

U

E

A R TSTREET

powered by Jarritos LA

photos provided byCOLORS IN LOS ANGELES // COLORSINLA.COM

LA STREET ART GALLERY // LASTREETARTGALLERY.COM

39A R T

ADVENTURES IN SPACE & TIME

ADVENTURES IN SPACE & TIMEADVENTURES IN SPACE & TIMEADVENTURES IN SPACE & TIMEADVENTURES IN SPACE & TIME

PHOTOGRAPHER JAY MARK JOHNSON BREAKS HIS CAMERA AND BLOWS YOUR MIND

text SHANA NYS DAMBROT

JAYMARKJOHNSON.COM

Digital-age machinations aside, the camera enjoys a

reputation for providing trustworthy, unmediated depictions of the real world, more or

less as it actually appears. Whatever filters or post-production technologies abound, the

basic idea remains that you can look at a picture and know what something looked like

in a recognizable world. But when it comes to the photographs of Jay Mark Johnson, that

presumption is turned on its head. His pictures look nothing like the world as we know

it, and they are not really meant to. Yet still, their brain-melting relationship to the truth

remains unassailable. The best thing to do is just relax, and let art and science blow your mind.

Instead of recording the optical contours of what a place looks like, JMJ has

figured out a way to record the temporal events that happen there. Instead of what a

person looks like, he records the evidence of what they’ve done—in a unique process

he calls Spacetime that produces fixed-point images depicting objects and figures

as time passes. The overall effect is ironically surreal and abstract, considering the

hyper-accuracy of the information the images contain. There is a certain conceptual

kinship with the work of video artist Bill Viola —who also manipulates time and sees

the drama of motion as central to an event’s meaning. In Viola’s case, he dramatically

slows down time to set a seemingly still image in motion; in JMJ’s case, he converts

motion into a still image. Basically by “tricking” a moving camera lens into taking

still images in a process not unlike what happens when your scanner breaks, objects

in motion appear still, while stationary surroundings appear as stripes of pure color.

Yet even though you don’t “see” the backgrounds, they play a huge role in the

images’ energy, giving liminal subconscious cues to the eye as to the urban, natural, bustling,

or remote location. He’s the only guy I know that has the surf report and the CalTech particle

physics lab on speed dial. His subjects range from ferris wheels that appear to corkscrew;

waves that carve out infinitely receding spaces; architecture that collapses; roads and rivers

that straighten out their bends; mining towns enveloped in dust storms. His travels take him

to Rome, Cambodia, Ojai, West Virginia, South America, the Venice boardwalk, and Belgrade

—no small feat considering the miniature space station he carries around with him. Besides

the ten-pound camera and hefty tripod in its own case, we’re talking 100-150 pounds of

equipment in titanium briefcases wherever he goes, and the TSA guys stop him every time.

On the ground, he relies on local drivers and guides up for driving around for hours “in

Terminator scan mode” looking for the perfect shot. From train depots to dance studios,

rain forests to recycling plants, what JMJ is really documenting are the innate, inescapable

underlying patterns of the universe, the stripped-down coordinates of where beauty comes

from—but try explaining that to your average random cabbie. He was once abandoned in

a Cozumel alligator reserve, but still he isn’t daunted. “I’m hoping this year to shoot the

Wildebeest migration in Masai.” Drivers wanted.

THE THING ABOUTPHOTOGRAPHY IS ITS TRUTHINESS.

CATCH JMJ'S SPECIAL PROJECT EXHIBITION AT JANUARY'S PHOTO LA ART FAIR.

TEXT ROSS GARDINER

PHOTO CAPTAIN

O F FT H E W A L L

LA ARTISTS DEVIN LISTON AND GOSHA LEVOCHKIN JOIN FORCES TO PAINT A POWERFUL

NEW HOLLYWOOD MURAL

“I’ve been playing around a lot with telephone lines,” said

Gosha as he pointed out the thin silhouettes of pylons poking up from

the half-finished mural. They were connected by a single line moving

across the entire wall, transcending moods and scenes in its path

around us. “I’m fascinated with how everyone in the world is connected

now. But I’m forever puzzled with how lonely everyone seems.”

In the acidic LA drizzle, falling on us like someone spitting as they

spoke, we all stood on top of The Audience building in Hollywood and looked

at the sprawling dreamscape that spread across the once expressionless grey

wall. Devin Liston, formerly of LA-based art collective Cyrcle, and Russian

watercolor painter Gosha Levochkin tried to explain the narrative that nudged

along the characters and colors that burst from the cold damp canvas.

“We see it being about conscious and subconscious states,”

said Devin, gazing off, trying earnestly to form what was clearly a

powerful aesthetic vision into words that people could directly relate to.

“But within that there’s the battle between nature and industry, man

and machine, connect and disconnect.” The mural does exactly what

a great collaborative piece of work should: it simultaneously divides

and unites the artists. Though they have distinctly different styles, they

have managed to blend their work together perfectly, utilizing Gosha’s

tremendously steady hand and vivid characterization to complement

Devin’s striking realism and acute understanding of depth, creating a

vibrant dream world that seems to claw at you from the wall.

Connected by the single black telephone line, themes of

diminishing social relevance and evolving and devolving environments

wrap around one another, playfully strangling the textured central figure

that bears the proverbial weight of the city on his head. Around him, beasts

devour semblances of positivity while eerie silhouettes of strangers, lacking

description but for their reddened eyes, brush past one another without a

glance. Opposing the blaring dissonant city is the loosely layered image

of a young Vietnamese girl topped with a volcano. Her soft, damp eyes

seem to stare down the chaos on the opposite wall from her simple, serene

environment, yet the imminent destruction of that environment is palpable.

The artists met around five years ago in an art supply store.

Gosha was working, and Devin was buying paints and canvas. They got

“THIS BUILDING REMINDS ME OF RUSSIA. FUCKING NICE T O P U T SOME COLOR ON IT!”

to talking about their art, exchanged information and quickly became

very close friends. As they got deeper into their portfolios the two found

that their styles complemented one another. “Since I met him I wanted

to collaborate with him,” said Devin, “I was blown away by his art.”

But soon after, Devin became preoccupied with Cyrcle, the

much-lauded art and design trio responsible for some of the boldest murals

in Los Angeles, and plans to collaborate with Gosha were temporarily

shelved. Giving almost all of his time to the Cyrcle project took its toll, and

he recently left the group to pursue his own path, finally allowing time for a

serious collaborative venture with the young Russian painter.

“This building reminds me of Russia,” said Gosha, as he

looked around and the sterile straight lines and the damp dark grey

walls of the building we stood on, “Fucking nice to put some color on

it!”Levochkin’s family arrived in Los Angeles from the Soviet Union

seventeen years ago. Influenced by a mixture of Japanese and American

animators, he first got a taste of their colorful cartoons on Sunday

nights as a child. “There was one TV station that would play American

and Japanese cartoons, and they would run from 5pm to midnight on

Sundays. I remember how much more color they had than the Soviet

cartoons. Russian cartoons are bleak.”

Gosha paints the vivid watercolor worlds that he treads in his

imagination, polarizing both the overbearing, morose landscape of his

birth and watercolor’s more typical roots in realism. And it’s this reaction,

fueled by an ethereal optimism, which defines his vast body of work.

Despite the fact that their stylistic compliments stem from

stark differences, there is a conceptual outlook that binds the two artists

strongly together. Both believe in inspiring people to create, addressing

the individual rather than society as a whole, and encouraging a spatial

awareness that travels to the very edges of the worlds they depict.

As Devin and Gosha work towards hitting that stride and

finding the perfect balance between their talents, they’re quickly

building up a body of work for their first show, “Pressure,” opening at

the Soze gallery on March 1st. And given the work they are producing

this early into their collaborative venture, you can be sure of a unique

creative experience when the opening night finally comes round.

®

SILVER LAKE. STUDIO CITY. MAR VISTA. COSTA MESA. SEAL BEACH. SAN MARINO. HOLLYWOOD. SANTA MONICA. 3RD AND FAIRFAX. REDONDO BEACH

GET MORE OF L.A.’S BEST OPENINGS AT LACANVAS.COM

GALLERY OPENINGSMARC FICHOU: CONTENANT CONTENURobert Berman GalleryJanuary 5 - February 16, 2013Opening: January 5, 6-9pmMarc Fichou produces cross-platform work investigating the relationship between time, image and matter that combine video, painting, sculpture and photography. His new exhibition is part of the city-wide program Ceci n’est pas…Art between France and LA, organized by the Cultural Services of the US French Embassy. robertbermangallery.com

LA EXISTANCIALLos Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE)January 16 - March 3, 2013Opening: January 16, 8-10pmLA Existancial, organized by curator Marie de Brugerolle, is an ambitious group exhibition that brings together international artists across generations, media, styles, and disciplines to explore LA as myth as well as a site of cinema and crime. The show is part of the Ceci n’est pas…Art between France and LA programs. welcometolace.org

FREE ENTERPRISE: THE ART OF CITIZEN SPACE EXPLORATIONUC Riverside Arts BlockJanuary 19 - May 18, 2013Opening: January 19, 6-9pmThe fi rst contemporary art exhibition in the US to explore implications of civilian space travel, which represents a major political and cultural shift away from sponsorship by the federal government and toward a free-market, private enterprise model. This exhibition focuses on artists who have had a deep engagement with space exploration issues throughout the course of their work. sweeney.ucr

CHRIS OATEY: SOME THINGS I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT.CB1 GalleryFebruary 24 –March 31, 2013Opening: February 24, 5-7pmHalf of the gallery is dedicated to a solo show Chris Oatey, whose drawings, sculptures, and installations riff on obsession, repetition, and pattern. The other half features the group show

“Performing Methods,”curated by Oatey, with dynamic work by Amelie Chabannes, Marc Philip van Kempen, Joey Kötting, Pascual Sisto, Maria Walker, Joe Winter. cb1gallery.com

TILT: ALL YOU CAN EATFabien Castanier GalleryJanuary 19 - February 17, 2013Opening: January 19, 7-10pmFabien Castanier Gallery is proud to present “All You Can Eat,” a solo exhibition by Tilt. Recognized internationally as a traditional graffi ti artist, Tilt began as a youth on the streets and train cars of Toulouse, France. Most intersted in conveying the action of graffi ti throw-ups and tagging, Tilt’s style retains this classic hip-hop ideology. Tilt will present new work for his solo exhibition. castaniergallery.com

LLYN FOULKESHammer MuseumFebruary 3 - May 19, 2013One of the most influential yet underrecognized artists of his generation, Foulkes makes work that stands out for its raw, immediate, and unfiltered qualities. His extraordinarily diverse body of work—including impeccably painted landscapes, mixed-media constructions, and deeply disturbing portraits— resists categorization and defies expectations. hammer.ucla.edu

SCRATCHING THE SURFACE: CONTEMPORARY WOOD SCULPTURECraft and Folk Art Museum (CAFAM)January 27 - May 5, 2013Opening: January 26, 6-9pmAn exhibition featuring the works of nine contemporary sculptors who capitalize on the naturally occurring textures and irregularities of wood. Using both machine-cut and natural surfaces, each shares a proclivity for working with the grain of wood surface via sawing, bleaching, sandblasting, and exposure to the elements. cafam.org

ANDREW SCHOULTZ: Fall OutMark Moore GalleryJanuary 12 - February 9, 2013Opening: January 12, 6-8pmFor his first solo show at Mark Moore, SF-based artist Andrew Schoultz translates the motifs in his frenetic two-dimensional works into a real scale three-dimensional installation—presenting an interrelated combination of painting, sculpture, drawing, and collage drawing aesthetic inspiration from 15th Century German map making and Indian miniature paintings. markmooregallery.com

THE ART OF COFFEE 51

Unless you’re there for an opening party or a little afternoon

art-shopping (NBD), walking into a gallery can be a bit intimidating. Enter

Project Gallery + Espresso, the latest art space to grace Cahuenga Boulevard

in Hollywood. With an artisan espresso bar tucked neatly inside, Project

manages to bridge the gap between the highbrow art patron and the average

passer-by. The brain child of Sarah Gough, originally from Kentucky via

Miami, Project opened last November with an inaugural show by young San

Francisco-based artist Zio Ziegler.

Sarah imagined the concept while working in various art galleries

and observing the way the museum-like spaces left audiences apprehensive.

“Project started as a multifunctional space,” Sarah tells LAC. “I wanted it to be

all about the art, yet with something else added into it.” Sarah has succeeded

in creating a welcoming space; warmth is emanated through exposed brick and

the barn wood bar that holds the magnificent espresso machine in the rear of

the gallery. The aroma of coffee drifts out onto Cahuenga, drawing you in, while

the small act of holding a coffee cup allows you to stay just that much longer.

As for the art, Project is focused on showcasing established

and emerging artists in the genres of Contemporary, Street, Lowbrow, Pop

Surrealism, Photography, and Installation. Zio Ziegler’s Lost Illusions set the

tone for the program with a fitting showcase of color-drenched, large-scale

canvases and murals. Creating an illusion of simplicity from afar, Zio’s work is

incredibly intriguing, drawing you closer (coffee in hand) to discover intricate

patterns and stories. It will be a bittersweet moment when Lost Illusions

closes; but Zio’s work is now ingrained into Hollywood, his murals dotting the

walls along Cahuenga. Next to Project is Venice local Cari Lee, followed by

Facebook HQ’s in-house artist and muralist Ian Ross.

So the space is great and the art resonates, but what of the coffee?

Sarah’s “Espresso Master” Toby believes Project has all the makings to be the

best espresso in LA, with beans sourced from a micro roaster and blended

specifically for the gallery. But whether it rules the city’s roast-race or not, Project

is an exciting moment for the LA art and coffee worlds alike. It is a space for all,

with infinite possibilities to walk out feeling all the richer.

text EMMA GOGONOVSKIphoto CAPTAIN

PROJECT GALLERY + ESPRESSO ADDS AN AROMATIC NEW DIMENSION TO THE ART GALLERY EXPERIENCE

1553 N CAHUENGA BLVD.

HOLLYWOOD, CA 90028

PROJECTLA.NET

G

A

L

L

E

R

Y

T H EB O O K

O F P U N K

text SHANA NYS DAMBROT

53

Graphic violence and violent graphics are the order of the day in

Punk: An Aesthetic. Rizzoli ’s hefty new tome revisits the proliferation and

perfidy of the punk era, roughly 1975-84, and in the process i l luminates

the enduring, fresher-than-ever legacy of those years not only on our

music, but on our fi lm, visual art, and design.

The visual art associated with the punk movement was just as

important as the music and the clothes; embodying the same raw rush for

total freedom of expression and reckless disregard for authority that exploded

on stages and in back alleys from London to Los Angeles and the Lower East

Side. Intertwined and inextricable, the incendiary painted, photographed,

and printed matter was frequently made by the same people that made the

music—especially when it came to concert posters and fan zines. Raymond

Pettibon’s early work for Black Flag is legendary and he is well represented in

the book, alongside other artists who went on to become fine-art giants, like

Larry Clark, Malcolm McLaren, and Gary Panter.

This lavish eye-feast of expertly archived and contextualized

culture is framed by suitably pop-academic texts from, among others, post-

modern science-fiction luminary William Gibson, author of Neuromancer and

All Tomorrow’s Parties (yes, like the song). His essay is called 1977, and is

centered on the Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, and xeroxing. “Punk was

the last pre-digital counterculture. The last thing I thought about punk, in

1977, was how amazingly old-fashioned the technologies it took for granted

would seem. I’d never seen a fax machine, or a PC.” Ironically, the dead sexy,

high production value of the book is, itself, about as far from a DIY object

as punk can ever get, with a fineness of reproduction the 70’s could only

dream about. Yet this poshness is only fitting, as the occasion for the book

is the official creation of the Cornell University Punk Archive, founded on

the extensive collections of punk-era art and ephemera bestowed by Johan

Kugelberg and Jon Savage, the book’s editors. High-end irony aside, crushed

beer cans and spiked boots never looked so good on your coffee table.

RIZZOLI’S NEW PUNK: AN AESTHETIC GIVES A HIGH-IMPACT SURVEY OF PUNK ROCK’S VISUAL LEGACY.

RIZZOLIUSA.COM

B

O

O

K

BREN NECKLACE$68

CARLY NECKLACE$78

LIFE LINK BRACELET$100

BLESSED RING$95

DISC-O-BALL NECKLACE$85

BRANCH BANGLES$95

goo

db

eh

av

ior

kid

s o

n

ph

oto

GR

AN

T Y

OS

HIN

Ost

ylin

g SA

RA

H P

ER

ILL

Oh

air

JA

KO

B S

HE

RW

OO

D @

Art

ists

by

NE

XT

NY

ma

keu

p M

AR

GIN

A D

EN

NIS

ass

ista

nt

ma

keu

p C

AS

SIE

KU

RT

Zm

od

els

NIC

OL

A W

INC

EN

C @

Req

ues

t /

NO

MA

HA

N @

Fu

sion

/ G

OR

GIA

@ W

ilh

elm

ina

ON

GE

OR

GIA

dre

ss b

y A

gain

/ m

otor

cycl

e ja

cket

vin

tage

goo

db

eh

av

ior

kid

s o

n

ph

oto

GR

AN

T Y

OS

HIN

Ost

ylin

g SA

RA

H P

ER

ILL

Oh

air

JA

KO

B S

HE

RW

OO

D @

Art

ists

by

NE

XT

NY

ma

keu

p M

AR

GIN

A D

EN

NIS

ass

ista

nt

ma

keu

p C

AS

SIE

KU

RT

Zm

od

els

NIC

OL

A W

INC

EN

C @

Req

ues

t /

NO

MA

HA

N @

Fu

sion

/ G

OR

GIA

@ W

ilh

elm

ina

ON

GE

OR

GIA

dre

ss b

y A

gain

/ m

otor

cycl

e ja

cket

vin

tage

ON

NO

MA

sh

irt

and

den

im b

y C

omm

un

e /

den

im J

ack

et b

y C

omm

un

e

op

po

site

pa

ge O

N N

ICO

LA

sh

irt

and

lea

ther

jac

ket

by

Nu

die

Jea

ns

/ d

enim

by

Com

mu

ne

ON

GO

RG

IA d

ress

by

Aga

in /

den

im j

ack

et v

inta

ge O

N N

OM

A s

hir

t b

y C

omu

ne

/ d

enim

by

Com

un

e

this

pa

ge O

N G

OR

GIA

ju

mp

er b

y A

gain

/ d

enim

ves

t vi

nta

ge

T H E W I T C HI N G H O U R

PHOTOGRAPHY RAYMOND MOLINARPHOTO ASSISTANT ALEX SCHMIDT

STYLING MARISSA PEDENHAIR + MAKEUP JENNA KRISTINA

MODELS MEGHAN + SABINE @ NEXT MODELS

DRESS BY AGAIN / HAT BY BRIXTON

BONNETS BY WESTERN COSTUME COMPANY, VINTAGE / SHOES BY JEFFREY CAMPBELL

W W W . S H O P W A S T E L A N D . C O M

L O S A N G E L E S S A N F R A N C I S C O S A N T A M O N I C A S T U D I O C I T Y

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

lacanvas.pdf 1 10/16/12 4:09 PM

BA

SIC

S

After an opulent, barouque-inspired fall, a minimalist spring peaks its well manicured hand around the corner.

backto

photography STEVEN YATSKOhair + makeup JEFFREY BAUM

model ALEX NOIRET @ VISION MODELS LA

BA

SIC

S

THESTYLING RAUL GUERRERO

ASSISTANT STYLIST SARAH PERILLOGROOMING TIFFANY LEIGH PATTON

MODEL MICKY AYOUB @ REQUEST NY

STUSSY’S ROOTS IN SURF AND STREET CULTURE BEGAN IN 1980, WHEN SEAN STUSSY HAPHAZARDLY SCRIBBLED HIS NAME ONTO ONE OF HIS CUSTOM SURFBOARDS, UNWITTINGLY CHANGING THE STREET WEAR LANDSCAPE FOREVER. TODAY, THAT SAME HANDWRITTEN LOGO STANDS FOR A BRAND WITH A GLOBAL CULT FOLLOWING COMPRISED OF SURFERS, SKATERS, INDIE KIDS AND HIP-HOP HEADS ALIKE. LAC SAT DOWN WITH STUSSY HEAD DESIGNER NICK BOWER FOR A LITTLE INSIGHT INTO THE ICONIC BRAND’S IDENTITY, PERSPECTIVE AND EVOLUTION.

THETRIBEWHAT MAKES STUSSY SO ICONIC? CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE

STUSSY “TRIBE”?

As a brand, Stussy played a major part in the birth of a worldwide youth style.

The OG Stussy Tribe were like-minded kids from LA, NY, London and Tokyo

that were the early style makers. They recognized that the gear Shawn Stussy

was making was what they wanted to represent. Tribe was a title Shawn gave

this crew who were mostly kids he had met in NYC and became his friends.

HOW HAVE YOU EXPANDED THE BRAND WHILE STAYING TRUE TO STUSSY’S

ORIGINAL CULT FOLLOWING?

Our distribution in the USA is not that different from what it was some years

ago; we don’t sell to a lot of stores that would like us to. The expansion

over the last ten years was in Japan, where quality and design is part of

their national character. More recently we’ve expanded our presence online

through our own site and collaborations.

HOW CAN YOU MAKE STREET WEAR DAPPER?

Dapper is not gear, it’s a style. If that’s your thing, and you put it together

right, I guess street wear could be made dapper.

DO YOU SKATE OR SURF? HOW DID YOU BECOME INVOLVED WITH THE BRAND?

I surf. I was loosely involved, not so much with the brand, but with Shawn

because we both lived in Laguna Beach in the 80’s.The job of designing for

Stussy wasn’t offered to me till 97—two years after Shawn had left. I joined

Paul Mittleman in the design department.

WHAT ITEM OF CLOTHING DO YOU WEAR MOST OFTEN?

Solid poplin shirts.

WHAT CAN’T YOU LEAVE THE HOUSE WITHOUT?

It depends on how long I’m leaving the house for. For a day, there’s nothing

that important, but for a week I have to have a quiver of shoes.

DO YOU WASH YOUR JEANS?

Nope, I’m only interested in indigo rigid denim. When my denims get to the

point where even I can smell them, I wash them with water only, inside out.

After that happens twice, I’m over them.

STUSSY STARTED IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WITH SURFBOARDS. HOW WAS

THE BRAND ABLE TO ADAPT AN EAST COAST SENSIBILITY?

In the interest of clarity, Shawn Stussy started with surfboards, shaping

and selling them. The brand Stussy was born when Shawn started making

clothing. Stussy was originally designed for California with Reggae being the

musical influence. Then in the mid 80’s, the musical influence became more

about Hip-Hop—the Beastie Boys, Run DMC. It was this influence that had

an impact on the Stussy gear and made it relevant on both coasts.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EAST COAST AND WEST COAST STREET

STYLE? WHICH DO YOU PREFER?

Not much difference. The internet has changed all that. There’s a common

language to streetwear worldwide. There are obviously groups within street

style that see themselves as “local” and wear their own style, but in the big

picture we don’t design for it.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR STUSSY?

Making sure we stay relevant, everything will follow on from that.

“STUSSY PLAYED A MAJOR PART IN THE BIRTH OF A WORLDWIDE YOUTH STYLE. THE OG STUSSY TRIBE WERE LIKE-MINDED KIDS FROM LA, NY, LONDON AND TOKYO THAT WERE THE EARLY STYLE MAKERS.”

URBAN LEGEND THE WELL OPENS ITS FIRST PERMANENT

LOCATION DOWNTOWN

text ERIN DENNISONphoto GRANT YOSHINO

assistant photo DIANE JONGstyling TON AGUILAR

hair JEFFERSON NTYS makeup BARBARA YNIGUEZ

models JEREMY YUGECLINTON @ PHOTOGENICS

BROOKE @ VISION MODELS LABRANDON @ VISION MODELS LA

G E TW E L L

G E TW E L L

G E TW E L L

URBAN LEGEND THE WELL OPENS ITS FIRST PERMANENT

LOCATION DOWNTOWN

text ERIN DENNISONphoto GRANT YOSHINO

assistant photo DIANE JONGstyling TON AGUILAR

hair JEFFERSON NTYS makeup BARBARA YNIGUEZ

models JEREMY YUGECLINTON @ PHOTOGENICS

BROOKE @ VISION MODELS LABRANDON @ VISION MODELS LA

G E TW E L L

G E TW E L L

G E TW E L L

GETTWELL.LA

opposite page ON BROOKE TOP BY CLOVER CANYON / NECKLACE BY AVANTE GARDEthis page ON BRANDON JACKET BY CHAMBERS / TOP BY ROARK COLLECTIVE

What do you get when you cross an events space, salon, photo

studio, and clothing store? The Well. Our favorite underground party

hosts and creative types have collaborated with some of their closest

fashion friends to bring Angelenos a retail experience they haven’t even

dreamed of yet. Emerging from the ashes of their former warehouse digs,

The Well has finally opened its doors in the heart of Downtown LA.

Walking in on the day of the shoot, we discovered an expertly

cultivated array of designer garments lining the space’s custom-built

racks to the left, while to our right, five salon chairs sat facing rows of

candy-colored hair product and wooden wave-shaped walls. Embedded

flat screens streaming fashion videos lined the inner consul next to Nail

Swag’s art manicure station. The Well’s brightly-lit futuristic ambiance was

impressive on its own, but enhanced by the notion that just the night prior,

we were shuffled to the back through a revolving door and into a 3,000 sq ft

warehouse space where we moshed to Juicy J until our gel-eyeliner got all smudgy.

Needless to say the Well has graduated from underground

warehouse jump-offs to a high-concept design experience, and we’re more than

just a little excited to see what this team of creatives has in store for us next.

ON JEREMY TOP BY UNIF / BOTTOMS BY PUBLISH ON CLINTON TOP BY UNIF

91THE METHOD

text ERIN DENNISON

Ever considered the alchemy and architecture behind handmade jewelry design? These kids have. Here’s a brief rundown of our favorite LA-based precious metal masters.

Blake Hardy and Logan Stanton are the real life couple of model-slash-designers

who joined forces to create re-worked vintage jewelry in 2010. After two years

of swap-meet thugging and exponential demand, the sartorially-inclined duo are

producing their fi rst major collection, slated to drop this spring.

BLOJEWELRY.COM // @BLOJEWELRY

PHOTO BY ALEX STONE

B.LO

The brainchild of Nicole Morral and Natalie Mauro, BFC is conceived and produced in the lovely Jewelry District in

Downtown LA. The girls began designing fresh fl owered headpieces in 2010 and have since transitioned to molds

of puzzled bones and pieces made of recycled bullet casings. Nicole and Natalie’s combined Hawaiian/Midwestern/

Manhattan infl uences are especially felt in the line’s goth-inspired utilitarian boho-chic FW’12 collection.

BANDFCOLLECTIVE.COM // @BFCOLLECTIVE

PHOTO BY ROBERT SIGLER

BONES AND FEATHERS COLLECTIVE

It takes up to 48 hours of labor to make one of Jared Tate Johnson’s custom metal pieces. Based in

the warehouse district of Downtown LA, the jewelry artisan behind Dear Raymer has earned a loyal

following over the past six years for his raw and geometric, yet streamlined aesthetic. By using hand

oxidized precious metals, a draping technique more often used in fashion/textile construction, and

soldering up to 100 jump rings per piece for strength and functionality, Johnson’s taken a step

away from the mass-produced norm and built a personalized genre of accessory design.

DEARRAYMER.BLOGSPOT.COM/ //@DEARRAYMER

PHOTO BY GREG GAINOR

DEAR RAYMER

T

R

E

N

D

1410 Abbot Kinney Ste. 101, Venice, CA 90291 310.399.3988 - gossamershop.com - facebook.com/gossamershop

Hudson | BB Dakota | One Teaspoon | Joie | Joe’s Jeans | Eberjey

A space filled with memories, designer collectibles and a variety of items that fit any style or budget.

WWW.MATTHEWKENNEYCUISINE.COM

HOW HAVE THE TECHNIQUES CHANGED SINCE YOU STARTED?

When I first got into raw food, everybody had a blender and a dehydrator. Over

the last six years, we’ve started to incorporate more types of fermentation; we

use something called an ultrasonic homogenizer, it’s a multiplication. And we

do a lot of smoking, and we use thermal immersion. So we’re incorporating

all these modernist techniques that allow for different textures and lighter

ways to prepare the food with less fat and less nuts. It’s changed from one-

dimensional, completely raw or dehydrated recipes to utilizing the modernist

equipment and all the new ingredients that are available in the market. If

people ask how we do what we do, I say the best ingredients, really innovative

techniques and equipment, and a lot of creativity.

CAN YOU THINK OF ONE DISH THAT EXEMPLIFIES THE NEW TECHNIQUES AND

EQUIPMENT?

Sure, we have this very simple dish on our lunch menu—or it appears to

be simple. It’s a salad, but it’s got a coconut bacon that’s smoked with

our smoking gun, and it’s got this Portobello mushroom that’s prepared

under vacuum-sealed pressure in a machine called the thermal immersion

circulator, and that allows us to keep all the moisture inside the mushroom

while still tenderizing it, or “cooking” it, at a low temperature whereas if

you dehydrated it, it would get dry. So that dish combines the smoking, it

combines the thermal immersion, and it’s still a salad.

WWW.MATTHEWKENNEYCUISINE.COM

HOW HAVE THE TECHNIQUES CHANGED SINCE YOU STARTED?

When I first got into raw food, everybody had a blender and a dehydrator. Over

the last six years, we’ve started to incorporate more types of fermentation; we

use something called an ultrasonic homogenizer, it’s a multiplication. And we

do a lot of smoking, and we use thermal immersion. So we’re incorporating

all these modernist techniques that allow for different textures and lighter

ways to prepare the food with less fat and less nuts. It’s changed from one-

dimensional, completely raw or dehydrated recipes to utilizing the modernist

equipment and all the new ingredients that are available in the market. If

people ask how we do what we do, I say the best ingredients, really innovative

techniques and equipment, and a lot of creativity.

CAN YOU THINK OF ONE DISH THAT EXEMPLIFIES THE NEW TECHNIQUES AND

EQUIPMENT?

Sure, we have this very simple dish on our lunch menu—or it appears to

be simple. It’s a salad, but it’s got a coconut bacon that’s smoked with

our smoking gun, and it’s got this Portobello mushroom that’s prepared

under vacuum-sealed pressure in a machine called the thermal immersion

circulator, and that allows us to keep all the moisture inside the mushroom

while still tenderizing it, or “cooking” it, at a low temperature whereas if

you dehydrated it, it would get dry. So that dish combines the smoking, it

combines the thermal immersion, and it’s still a salad.

VISIT LACANVAS.COM FOR A VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW KENNEY

DO YOU HAVE ANY FAVORITE RAW RE-INTERPRETATIONS OF TRADITIONAL DISHES

OR THINGS YOU LOVED GROWING UP?

I always loved pizza; we don’t call it pizza but we do a flatbread with a topping,

it’s more of like a hummus-type of topping with fennel. And I always loved Italian

food, so we have this heirloom tomato lasagna, which incorporates zucchini

instead of pasta, but it still has pesto and tomato sauce and a macadamia nut

cheese. And we do dumplings, but they’re entirely different than a typical

dumpling because we’re using a young Thai coconut wrapper colored with

spinach juice, spread thin and dehydrated just enough to give it that texture.

Then it’s filled with kimchi, cashew, ginger, green onion and a little bit of chili.

IS IT POSSIBLE FOR A DEDICATED PERSON TO CREATE AN INTERESTING RAW DIET

USING WIDELY AVAILABLE INGREDIENTS? WHERE DO WE START?

One of the programs we’re doing here is a guided cleanse. We have a nutritionist

on our staff, and you can do a week-long or a month-long cleanse, and people

have the option of us preparing the food, or we can give them a digital guide

to let them know what they have to shop for and how to prepare it themselves.

There’s also my book Everyday Raw Express; all the recipes in there are done

in less than a half hour, it doesn’t require any fancy tools, there aren’t any Thai

Coconuts—you just need a good blender—so that’s a really good place to start.

We’re also doing a weekend intensive program here, it’s a twelve hour class, so

that’ll give people a really thorough understanding of how to get started.

It may be rare compared to your biweekly fro-yo craving, but a hankering

for a bowl of hot, savory, slurp-able goodness can be very downright dire.

Whether triggered by dreary days, the sniffl es, or plain old nostalgia, here

are some of your best bets for scratching that old soup itch.

WEST LA o NONG LA CAFESPOT: A Vietnamese eatery isn’t so easy to find on the Westside, so it was pretty exciting when Nong La moved into Little Osaka last year. The home-spun food—soups, rice dishes, bahn mis and appetizers—is as comforting as any apple pie. SOUP: If the Pho craving strikes, any of Nong La’s five flavors will surely satisfy. But there’s also the Bun Bo Hue, a Central Vietnamese broth of lemongrass, beef and chili oil served with a heap of pork patty and some nice juicy brisket. 2055 Sawtelle Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90025

SOUPED UP

GET MORE OF L.A.’S BEST FOOD SCOOPSAT LACANVAS.COM

CULVER CITY, BEVERLY HILLS + HOLLYWOOD o M CAFESPOT: Macrobiotic bungalow M Café is famously a favorite among health-conscious celebrities, but even omnivores can get down with M’s potently yummy and diverse menu listing everything from macro burgers to bi-bim-bop. SOUP: A rotating selection of seasonal soups like Mushroom Barley, Butternut Squash, or Curried Lentil accompany the miso that’s available daily. Any option succesfully warms up a combo of two deli salads. Three locations; visit mcafedechaya.com

HOLLYWOOD o THE BOWERYSPOT: LA’s first ever gastropub, this dark and cozy joint brings a little bit of NYC to Hollywood, boasting a menu of on-point modern comfort food—burrata and butternut squash salad, burger with red onion confit, gravy fries with brisket—and the bar to back it up. SOUP: There’s only one on the menu, but it’s the quintessential one—perfected. Bowery’s Roasted Tomato Soup topped with an Herb Goat Cheese Crouton may just be the best tomato soup in the city, and you can have it at lunch or dinner. 6268 Sunset Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90028

SILVERLAKE o FORAGESPOT: This minimalist-modern Silverlake staple is family-owned, sourcing ingredients from the local farmers they’ve known for years. You can compose your own meal from their daily-made seasonal salads and sides, and finish it off with one of their stunning pastries. SOUP: Through the winter months, you’ll fi nd one soup special daily (except Mondays, when Forage is closed). Recent favorites include the Butternut Squash with creme fraiche and pumpkin seed oil, as well as the made-to-order Chicken Pozole with salsa roja. 3823 West Sunset Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90026

DOWNTOWN o SAI SAI NOODLE BARSPOT: Chances are you’ve already waited in line at Daikokuya or Shin Sen Gumi, and while they may be the reigning king and queen of DTLA ramen, Sai Sai is definitely the unsung hero. SOUP: Sai Sai is only open for lunch and happy hour, so pop in before seven for some Kimchee Pork Belly or Lobster Miso Ramen and some sake, beer or wine. And don’t forget to start with spicy edamame and end with a selection of specialty mochi from Bubbies in Hawaii. 501 South Olive Street Los Angeles, CA 90013

VENICE o FARMHOUSE KITCHENSPOT: Started by two farmer’s market pros, Farmhouse Kitchen is the latest bastion of the local food movement, now serving up hearty but healthy food from a window on Ocean Front Walk in Venice. SOUP: Every day the kitchen cooks up a whole slew of organic soups from their market haul. Alongside traditional favorites, you’ll find inspired creations like Pomegranate Beef Stew, Curried Squash Soup and their signature Sloppy Jake’s. 1827 Ocean Front Walk Venice, CA 90291

600 S. Main St., Los Angeles, CA 90014213.622.6333

artisanhouse.net

“Break Bread. Share Wine. Feed the Soul.”

600 S. Main StreetLos Angeles, CA 90014

www.artisanhouse.net213.622.6333

Open daily 11am - late515 West 7th. st. LA, CA 90014213 985-4332www.masmalorestaurant.com

103

Food shopping in Los Angeles rarely means strolling to the

neighborhood green grocer and picking up a few essentials. Unless you live

in Echo Park, where Martha Teegan’s tiny shop Cookbook stocks a small,

careful selection of responsibly grown produce, meat, dairy, freshly-baked

bread, artisanal delicacies, and house-prepared goodies.

Elegantly contained and never crowded, Cookbook takes you back to a

time before towering aisles of plastic packaging, long cash register lines and thirty-

two-pack toilet paper. And because just one magic tollbooth to the old world is a

bottleneck waiting to happen, Teegan did the smart thing and introduced another.

You can catch a glimmer of Cortez as you dart past the Super 8

on Sunset Boulevard, where floor-to-ceiling windows on the slope of Allison

Avenue reveal a warmly lit dining room barely larger than a Beverly Hills

master bath. The sparsely decorated space whispers a modern version of

rustic, with rectangular terra cotta tiles sitting beneath bare walls in stark

white and exposed brick. You can grab a stool at the modest bar offering a

view into the kitchen, or pull up a chair to one of two communal tables. Space

is limited, and reservations are not an option. Because going to Cortez is less

like your typical LA dining experience than it is like going over to Martha’s to

sip from her fabulous collection of wine and sample whatever fantastic thing

she’s managed to do to Brussels sprouts this week.

As with Cookbook, Cortez is focused on simplicity, agricultural

sustainability, and curatorial integrity. The streamlined menu is inspired by

Spanish cuisine with all its Middle Eastern influences, and the kitchen turns

out an ever-changing list of about twenty items each night. Plates are shareable,

but not too small, and ultimately they feel homespun and comforting rather than

pretentious. While the food is old in spirit, it’s still contemporary in style; and

often, simply executed dishes are elevated through an unexpected twist—like

the supremely tasty pickles we found tucked beneath a spicy Merguez sausage

on soft grilled flatbread, or the crisp hazelnuts and savory, gooey roasted apples

dressing up our Brussels sprouts.

Meanwhile, the concise drink menu is all Belgian beer and rare

family-vineyard wines listed from light to heavy. And the servers will not

only guide you towards the right bottle, but regale you with stories about the

people and places it comes from. Naturally, the bulk of Cortez’s collection is

from Italy, France or Spain, where the art of wine has been perfected over

centuries and historical practices are being actively preserved. So if the food

isn’t enough to transport you into the old world countryside, fear not—you can

always pour another glass.

EURO TRIP text REBECA ARANGO

photo RACHEL MANY

CORTEZ BRINGS OLD WORLD GASTRONOMY TO ECHO PARK

1356 ALLISON AVE

LOS ANGELES, CA 90026

RESTAURANTCORTEZ.COM

R

E

S

T

A

U

R

A

N

T

RECIPE

Chai-infused Steamed Milk

5 cups Whole Milk

4-5 packs sugar in the raw

3 bags of the fresh, high-quality Chai tea (make sure spices are listed as

ingredients)

Heat on medium in a saucepan for 15 minutes until milk is toffee-colored,

stirring frequently. Transfer to a teapot.

Hot Chai Posset

1 oz Plantation 5-year old Grand Reserve Rum

Dash whiskey-barrel aged or angostura bitters

Nutmeg-infused whipped cream (Add grated nutmeg to whipped cream to taste)

2 oz Chai-infused Steamed Milk

Heat the teacup by pouring in boiling water and allowing it to sit for a few

minutes. Empty the glass, then pump in whipped cream to taste. Add the rum

and a dash of bitters. Pour Chai-infused steamed milk on top. Garnish with

grated nutmeg and another dash of bitters on top of the whipped cream.

For more of Greg’s toddy tips and to learn how to make his Green Tea Toddy with Japanese whiskey, visit LACANVAS.COM

SOME LIKE IT HOT 105

It’s tempting to keep 1886 our little secret. This intimate cocktail

bar tucked into The Raymond’s backroom is a favorite hideout haunted by a

colorful history. Once the caretaker’s cottage to the old Raymond Hotel during

its turn-of-the-century heyday, the lovingly restored building is now home

to some of LA’s most innovative mixologists. And so on a particularly dreary

winter night, we turned to 1886’s Greg Gertnenian for a lesson in hot booze.

As soon as we arrived, Greg began heating our glasses by pouring

in hot water. “Making sure all the ingredients are as hot as you can reasonably

make them before you combine them is really important,” he explained,

adding, “No one wants a warm toddy.” We learn that a hot toddy is traditionally

just hot water, a spirit, and a sweetener (boring), but that Greg’s been busy

playing around with fresh green tea and Japanese whiskey; fig-infused rye

and maple syrup; and most interestingly, something called a Posset.

“The Posset is a drink from hundreds and hundreds of years ago. It

was traditionally made by heating milk and mixing it with ale or wine to curdle

it. You would then separate the whey and spice it.” Okay—curdled anything

sounds terrifying, we know. Thankfully, Greg’s Hot Chai Posset is a modern

twist on the medieval punch, with spiced milk tea, nutmeg-infused whipped

cream, and a healthy dose of dark rum.

The resulting concoction is ideal for winding things down like only

a mix of rum and melatonin can. First, a warm, milky aroma crawls up your

nose and gives it a hug. A hearty swig will then leave a sweet, spicy kiss on

your tongue and a soft bite in the back of your throat. Make a big batch of

spiced milk and keep the rum coming; you’ll be either blissfully ready for bed

or passed out in front of your iPad with the fireplace app running.

1250 SOUTH FAIR OAKS AVE.

SOUTH PASADENA, CA 91105

WWW.THERAYMOND.COM

1886 BARTENDER GREG GERTMENIAN SHOWS US THE RIGHT WAY TO MAKE A HOT COCKTAIL

D

R

I

N

K

text REBECA ARANGOphoto CAPTAIN

PHOTOS BY RACHEL MANY

PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPHER CAPTAIN

FILMMAKER DREW DENNY CHATS WITH LAC ABOUT PERFORMANCE ANXIETY, DARK HUMOR AND THE ABSURDITY OF THE HUMAN CONDITION.

keep yourp a n t soninterview ERIN DENNISON

HAVE YOU ALWAYS BEEN ABLE TO NAVIGATE BETWEEN PERFORMING AND

DIRECTING? WHICH CAME FIRST? CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE PROCESS WHEN

YOU’RE MAKING AND STARRING IN A FILM?

Performing definitely came first! I performed as a musician and performance

artist for years before making this film. In both music and performance art, I

negotiate a desire to be completely swept up by the performance and a need

to occasionally exit my body and view the piece from afar to make sure I’m

communicating with the audience… In many ways, that’s easier to do in live

performance because I can feel the response and resonance in the room. I’d

never really acted before making this film, so it was exciting and a bit scary to

work with a pro like Sarah Hagan! She’s so natural and easy-going though, and

a brilliant improviser so my, um, “performance anxiety” subsided eventually. I

placed a huge amount of trust (and pressure!) on my collaborators Clay Jeter

and Will Basanta. Sometimes scenes were shot with just Will and me so I had

to ask him not only if we got the shot we needed but if I got the performance

we needed. Most scenes were shot with a crew of four or five led by Clay, who

worked closely with Will as well as with Sarah and me. I can be a bit of a control

freak - requesting to see the monitor before every take so I could check the frame

for production design or lighting or our blocking – but Clay and Will knew just

when to tell me to stop thinking about the frame and submit to our performances.

HOW DO YOU THINK YOUR GRIEVING PROCESS WOULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT

HAD YOU NOT HAD THE OUTLET OF MAKING THIS FILM?

I can’t imagine the grieving process without the filmmaking process. Art-

making and storytelling are the processes by which I understand the world

and my relationship to it and to my own experiences. A philosophical quandary

regarding humanity’s representation of nature becomes a series of installations;

a break up becomes a song of course; my father’s death becomes a film...

HOW WERE YOU ABLE TO GET SUCH EPIC FOOTAGE AND PHOTOGRAPHY ON SUCH

A TIGHT BUDGET?

Will Basanta, Clay Jeter, Matt Chavez, Naveen Chaubal! Our incredible

cinematographer, creative producer, AC/grip/gaffer and PA who had to do a little

bit of everything. Will, Clay and I discussed the look of the film for hours and hours

over the weeks preceding our shoot. We watched tons of movies together and

looked at photography, paintings, and performances. We share a passionate love of

landscapes – both as physical environments and as a photographic form. We share

a common philosophy. Our tastes align for the most part but, again most importantly,

I trust their instincts completely. It was that trust that allowed us to show up to a

location, let’s say a cliff in Sedona, and be able to block performance and camera in

a couple hours so we could shoot before the monsoon chased us out.

DESCRIBE YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO BOTH HUMOR AND ART? HOW ARE THEY

RELATED? HUMOR AND TRAGEDY?

Humor is a brush and art is the frame—a mode of manifesting meaning and

its context, regardless of medium. In EMT school I learned that cardiac tissue

cut from two different hearts will start beating on the same rhythm if placed

near one another. That’s how I think of humor and tragedy—composed of the

same substance, pulsing with the same life but representing different destinies.

HOW IMPORTANT IS STRUGGLE IN NARRATIVE? ARE YOU ABLE TO CREATE

WITHOUT GOING THROUGH SOMETHING DIFFICULT?

Struggle is the skeleton of narrative, right? Our attempts to meet our needs, to

manifest our desires, even if that’s as simple as wanting to be loved or to feel

okay. That quest is the foundation, and everything else hangs on to that. I’ve

never written a happy song but I’ve written a sad song in a major key. My movie

doesn’t have a happy ending, per se, but my desire to celebrate life, love and

friendship is apparent in every frame—at least, I hope so. And the end is about

making peace with memories, remaining present, and celebrating the collective

nature of existence despite the absurdity and tragedy of life… I don’t know

what kind of artwork or stories I’d make if I hadn’t enjoyed the totally fucked

up life that I have! I’m kidding. But you know, being a runaway, a drop-out,

experiencing abuse and all that… becoming friends with my dad just in time to

watch him die. The difficult bits shape my perspective but optimism colors it.

WHEN MAKING/THINKING ABOUT/WATCHING A FILM, WHAT COMES FIRST, THE

PICTURES OR THE WORDS? WHICH DO YOU CONNECT MORE WITH?

This project arose as text embedded in the landscapes of the American

Southwest. I think it reads almost like theater because of that, which could

be due to my history in live performance and probably has a lot to do with the

fact that it’s my first film. My next one is written with the language of imagery,

so it will be a very different experience to make and view. I think that’s the

goal of cinema because the power of imagery is much more subliminal and

can be much more emotional than language. But I’m a writer and am very

critical of the manipulation inherent in the filmic medium so there will always

be some textual experimentation and self-reflexivity involved in my projects.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU? ARE YOU CURRENTLY WRITING?

I’m writing two features and a series, hoping to get started on one of them

this year. I’m also starting to go out for auditions. It’s a very odd sensation,

coming from the worlds of art and music into the TV/film universe… but it’s an

interesting experience and I’m very excited to challenge myself as a performer.

Performance artist, songwriter, actress, and screenwriter Drew Denny’s first feature film, The Most Fun I’ve Ever Had with My Pants On, was undoubtedly one of our favorites screened at this year’s AFI FEST in Hollywood. The film, a quasi-autobiographical com-edy-drama follows Denny, or rather, “Andy,” and best friend “Liv” as they spread her recently deceased father’s ashes across the Southwest. The duo’s aesthetically compelling journey from Los Angeles to Austin beautifully captured the dark period in her life

with sincerity and a sense of humor. We caught up with Denny after the film festival to get a little more insight.

15PAR

TY

DR

OP

TH

E L

IME

@

DIM

MA

K S

TU

DIO

S

CO

NC

ER

TC

AL

EX

ICO

@ T

HE

EL

RE

Y

17AR

T O

PE

NIN

GR

OG

UE

WA

VE

PR

OJE

CT

S:

GR

AN

T S

TE

VE

NS

: SU

PE

RM

AS

SIV

E

@ L

A LO

UV

ER

18CO

NC

ER

TL

ET

’S D

RIV

E TO

AL

AS

KA

@ T

HE

CE

NT

RA

L

FO

OD

A N

IGH

T IN

NE

W O

RL

EA

NS

! @

NO

LA

’S

TH

EA

TE

RB

AC

KB

EA

T T

HE

BE

AT

LE

S

MU

SIC

AL

@ T

HE

AH

MA

NS

ON

, T

HR

OU

GH

3/1

20EV

EN

TIN

AU

GU

AR

TIO

N D

AY

EV

EN

TD

INE

LA

RE

STA

UR

AN

T W

EE

K,

TH

RO

UG

H 2/1

21

24AR

T FA

IRL

A A

RT

SH

OW

@ L

A C

ON

VE

NT

ION

C

EN

TE

R (1/23

-1/27)

25CO

NC

ER

TK

ID IN

K @

KE

Y C

LU

B

26

TALK

DIE

GO

LU

NA

:S

HO

OT

ING

RE

FL

EC

TIO

NS

@

MA

RK

TAP

ER

FO

RU

M

29

CO

NC

ER

TJE

SS

IE W

AR

E @

TH

E E

L R

EY

23

CO

NC

ER

TM

S M

R @

TH

E E

CH

O

30CO

NC

ER

TT

HE

WH

O @

TH

E S

TAP

LE

S C

EN

TE

R

CO

NC

ER

TR

AQ

UE

L A

ND

TH

E B

IG G

UY

S

@ W

ITZ

EN

D

31TH

EA

TE

RR

AIN

@ P

AN

TAG

ES

TH

EA

TE

RG

AN

ES

H V

ER

SU

S T

HE

TH

IRD

R

EIC

H @

FR

EU

D P

LA

YH

OU

SE

2722

AR

T O

PE

NIN

GA

LL

ISO

N TO

RN

ER

OS

SO

LO S

HO

W

@ T

HIN

K TA

NK

GA

LL

ER

Y

19

CO

NC

ER

TLO

CA

L N

AT

IVE

S @

TH

E F

ON

DA

2828CO

NC

ER

TN

IKI A

ND

TH

E D

OV

E@

TH

E E

L R

EY

CO

NC

ER

TA

ND

RE

W B

IRD

@ L

AR

GO

, TH

RO

UG

H 1/18

16 16

AR

T FA

IRP

HO

TO L

A @

TH

E S

AN

TA

MO

NIC

A C

IVIC

AU

DITO

RIU

M

1717AR

T FA

IRA

RT

LOS

AN

GE

LE

S C

ON

TE

MP

OR

AR

Y

@ B

AR

KE

R H

AN

GA

R, S

AN

TA M

ON

ICA

, T

HR

OU

GH

1/27

24

20

19

TW

TH

FS

SM

JAN

UA

RY

CA

NV

AS

EV

EN

TD

OW

NTO

WN

ON

ICE

@

PE

RS

HIN

G S

QU

AR

E

CO

ME

DY

HA

HA

VE

RY

FU

NN

Y: C

OM

ED

Y

NIG

HT

@ A

CE

HO

TE

L PA

LM

S

PR

ING

S

3PAR

TY

HA

IR, FA

SH

ION

& M

US

IC E

VE

NT

@ E

SS

EN

SU

AL

S S

ALO

N

PAR

TY

1ST

FR

IDA

YS

W/ W

ILD

CA

T! W

ILD

CA

T!

@ T

HE

NA

TU

RA

L H

ISTO

RY

MU

SE

UM

MA

RA

TH

ON

NE

W Y

EA

R N

IGH

T R

AC

E M

AR

AT

HO

N

56A

RT

TOU

RA

RT

TOU

R @

BR

EW

ER

Y A

RT

S

CO

MP

LE

X

CO

NC

ER

TP

AP

A @

TH

E B

OO

TL

EG

8CO

MD

EY

DO

UG

BE

NS

ON

LOV

ES

MO

VIE

S

@ U

CB

TH

EA

TE

R

PAR

TY

DU

B C

LU

B @

EC

HO

PL

EX

AR

T TO

UR

AR

T W

AL

K @

DT

LA

10

9 9DE

AL

AL

L N

IGH

T H

AP

PY

HO

UR

@

MIC

HA

EL’S

(WE

DN

ES

DA

YS

)

CO

NC

ER

TTA

KE

N B

Y T

RE

ES

@ T

HE

EC

HO

1112

14CO

NC

ER

TF

EE

DIN

G P

EO

PL

E @

TH

E E

CH

O

21

AR

T O

PE

NIN

GC

AR

I LE

E : T

HE

STO

RY

OF

A

HU

RR

ICA

NE

@ P

RO

JEC

T G

AL

LE

RY

+

ES

PR

ES

SO

5CO

ME

DY

PA

TTO

N O

SW

ALT

@ L

AR

GO

4MU

SIC F

EST

IVA

LF

EA

R O

F M

ISS

ING

OU

T 20

13@

TH

E E

CH

OP

LE

X

4

DE

AL

AL

L N

IGH

T H

AP

PY

HO

UR

@

CO

LE

’S (T

UE

SD

AY

S)

8

13CO

ME

DY

RO

B D

EL

AN

EY

@ L

AR

GO

13CO

NC

ER

TT

YC

HO

+ D

OO

MB

IRD

@ T

HE

TR

OU

BA

DO

R

7

DE

AL

$2 B

UR

GE

R M

AD

NE

SS

@

MA

LIB

U IN

N (T

HU

RS

DA

YS

)

3

2625

2427

22PE

RF

OR

MA

NC

E A

RT

JOE

Y A

RIA

S @

TH

E B

OO

TL

EG

AR

T O

PE

NIN

GL

LYN

FO

UL

KE

S A

ND

TH

E M

AC

HIN

E

@ T

HE

HA

MM

ER

23AR

T O

PE

NIN

GE

ND

S A

ND

EX

ITS

@ L

AC

MA

23TH

EA

TE

RJE

KY

LL

AN

D H

YD

E

@ P

AN

TAG

ES

CO

ME

DY

EM

PIR

E S

TR

IKE

S S

UN

DA

Y

@ G

RO

UN

DL

ING

S

CO

NC

ER

TT

HE

RE

SID

EN

TS

@ T

HE

EL

RE

YPA

RT

YLO

W E

ND

TH

EO

RY

@

TH

E A

IRL

INE

R

CO

ME

DY

RIS

K! L

A

@ M

ELT

DO

WN

CO

MIC

S

CO

NC

ER

TG

AL

AC

TIC

@

TH

E E

L R

EY

28

2828 C

ON

CE

RT

JUK

EB

OX

TH

E G

HO

ST

@

TH

E E

CH

O

1819

20

CO

NC

ER

TIN

DIA

NS

@ T

HE

EC

HO

2115PA

RT

YC

HE

CK

YO

PO

NY

TAIL

2 W

ITH

UN

KN

OW

N M

OR

TAL

O

RC

HE

ST

RA

@

TH

E E

CH

OP

LE

X

1616 CO

ME

DY

SO

CK

PU

PP

ET

SITC

OM

DO

ES

AB

-FAB

@ T

HE

EC

HO

OP

EN

HO

USE

OP

EN

HO

US

E @

LA

FIL

M S

CH

OO

LC

ON

CE

RT

CO

CK

NE

Y R

EJE

CT

S W

ITH

Y

OU

TH

BR

IGA

DE

@ T

HE

EL

RE

Y

CO

NC

ER

TB

UK

E A

ND

GA

SE

@

TH

E E

CH

O

SPO

RTS

LA

LA

KE

RS

VS

. BO

STO

N C

ELT

ICS

@

STA

PL

ES

CE

NT

ER

17SPO

RTS

HA

RL

EM

GLO

BE

TR

OT

TE

RS

@

TH

E S

TAP

LE

S C

EN

TE

R

TH

EA

TE

RS

PAN

K! T

HE

FIF

TY

SH

AD

ES

PAR

OD

Y

@ C

LU

B N

OK

IA

17

FO

R M

OR

E E

VE

NT

S, V

ISIT

LA

CA

NV

AS

.CO

M

FE

BR

UA

RY

CA

NV

AS

FS

SM

TW

TH

34

67

910

8

1314

21

TALK

PA

TT

I SM

ITH

@ U

SC

BO

VA

RD

A

UD

ITOR

IUM

AR

T O

PE

NIN

GS

HIN

IQU

E S

MIT

H: F

IRS

TH

AN

D

@ L

AC

MA

AR

T O

PE

NIN

GIA

N R

OS

S: H

YP

ER

OR

GA

NIC

@

PR

OJE

CT

GA

LL

ER

Y +

ES

PR

ES

SO

PAR

TY

CH

INE

SE

NE

W Y

EA

R F

ES

TIV

AL

@

TH

E H

AM

ME

R

CO

NC

ER

TE

LL

IE G

OU

LD

ING

+ S

T. LU

CIA

@

TH

E W

ILTE

RN

9

8

10

11CO

NC

ER

TK

AN

WA

KA

AN

@ T

HE

EC

HO

CO

NC

ER

TR

A R

A R

IOT

@ T

HE

EL

RE

YC

ON

CE

RT

TH

E B

LIN

D P

ET

S

@ T

HE

CE

NT

RA

L

FILM

FL

UX

SC

RE

EN

ING

SE

RIE

S

@ T

HE

HA

MM

ER

AR

T O

PE

NIN

GF

IFT

Y W

OR

KS

FO

R F

IFT

Y S

TAT

ES

@ M

OC

A (T

HR

OU

GH

11/7)

12

PAR

TY

GA

SL

AM

P K

ILL

ER

+ D

J SO

DA

PO

P

@ T

HE

NA

TU

RA

L H

ISTO

RY

MU

SE

UM

CO

NC

ER

TT

EG

AN

AN

D S

AR

AH

@

CL

UB

NO

KIA

FO

OD

FL

AV

OR

S O

F T

HA

I TOW

N F

OO

D

TOU

R W

ITH

CH

EF

JET

TIL

A

@ T

HA

I TOW

N

PAR

TY

IT’S

A S

CH

OO

L N

IGH

T @

BA

RD

OT

55 FILM

OP

EN

PR

OJE

CTO

R N

IGH

T

@ T

HE

HA

MM

ER

CO

NC

ER

TD

IRT

Y P

RO

JEC

TOR

S

@ T

HE

TR

OU

BA

DO

UR

CO

ME

DY

DE

ME

TR

I MA

RT

IN

@ L

AR

GO

CO

NC

ER

TC

HE

LS

EA

WO

LF

E

@ F

IRS

T U

NITA

RIA

N C

HU

RC

H

NEW WORKS BYCHARLIE ANDERSON

JONONE

SEEN

SPEEDY GRAPHITO

RERO

TILT

Fabien Castanier Gallery12196 Ventura Blvd. Studio City, CA 91604 t.818.748.6014

www.castaniergaller y.com

Opening Reception | Saturday, January 19 7-10pm

All You Can Eatsolo exhibition by TILT

January 19 - February 17, 2013

Tilt-LaArtShow.indd 1 12/16/2012 4:34:13 PM

barrassalon

5607 North Figueroa St. Los Angeles, CA 90042 323 257 8493 •

$30 Blowouts ~ All DayBlowout Tuesdays

A Full Service Salon

BARRAS-ba’hass

STRAIGHT FROM THE HUEMAN’S MOUTH

142text SHANA NYS DAMBROTphoto CAPTAIN

COVER ARTIST ALLISON TORNEROS BLURS THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN STUDIO AND STREET

ALLISONTORNEROS.COM

I LIKE THAT OLD SAYING, ‘IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK.’ I FEEL I'M GIVING THE WALLS AND ENVIRONMENT A VOICE.

Her paintings begin with an energetic, free-form

splattering of paint, then a step back, allowing imagery to

emerge from the primordial chaos. “For my Design Matters show,

I painted a giant woman taking her shirt off, and a small man

standing next to her, pointing a gun. I saw those characters in

the paint, but the viewer puts together their own story by reading

their body language.” Translating the splatter-actionism to the

size and verticality of a wall isn’t easy, but she’s learning to love

freestyling with latex and spray. One of the most impressive things

about her art is its consistency of style, detail, and delicacy that

transfers seamlessly from canvas to mural. And her trademark

glossy plump lips look, if possible, even hotter on the big walls.

“I like that old saying, ‘If these walls could talk.’ I feel I'm giving

the walls and environment a voice. And sometimes that voice

is a raspy, sexy one!” And it’s not just the walls, but her true

inner self that gets a voice in these works—hence the advent of

her alter-ego, Hueman. “For a long time I was working in web

design, spending crazy hours staring at a computer screen. I was

dying to create art, and live life. I would literally repeat to myself,

‘I'm human, not a robot!’ Going by the name Hueman marked a

transformation point for me; it represents being true to yourself

and going after what you really want in life.”

Allison Torneros is part of a new generation you

might call Post-Street. Perhaps it was inevitable given the

recent passion for Street Art style, but younger artists coming

into their own under its heady influence are incorporating

its raw vibrancy and pop-culture puckishness into their

studio work, whether or not they’ve ever climbed a ladder

with a bucket of wheat paste. Growing up in the Bay Area,

Torneros has been looking at graffiti, murals, and throw-ups

since childhood. She was fascinated by “beautifully executed

artwork on cold walls and rough surfaces and environments.

I think that's partly why I like juxtaposing different styles and

elements: spontaneous splatters, dripped backgrounds, dense

details, tight subjects, the beautiful and grotesque.” Her 2004

move to LA, where Street Art is impossible to avoid, influenced

her art even more profoundly. Eight years later and with a slate

of successful gallery shows under her belt, she’s all up on that

ladder, executing an ongoing series of murals across the city.

“

”

LA CANVAS V3 2

Documents

Transcript of LA CANVAS V3 2