Welcome to the first issue of the Echo Park Arts newsletter. The purpose of this quarterly publication is to strengthen the arts community in Echo Park by keeping everyone informed and connected. Look here for profiles of artists—and we mean everyone from visual artists to writers to photographers--articles on local arts issues, a directory of grants, fellowships and arts related jobs as well as a quick run down on who is doing what and where.

Our inaugural issue features a profile of author Leslie Schwartz, a story on a new cluster of exhibition spaces on Alvarado Street and other items of interest.

Please feel free to submit story ideas, articles and grant information for future publications. 

Also, don't be shy about promoting one of your upcoming readings, performances, exhibitions or accomplishments (jury prizes, MFAs, etc).

This publication is made possible by a two-year grant from the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and funds raised by the Echo Park Arts Festival.

The newsletter will be mailed to those who pay a submission fee to enter work in the arts festival or who pay $15 a year to become a member of Echo Park Arts, the group that stages the festival and brings you this newsletter.

--Jesus Sanchez

Please call (213) 250-4155 for more information. Story ideas, articles and other written material should be mailed to:

Echo Park Arts, 1547 Echo Park Avenue, Los Angeles, Calif 90026 or e-mailed to jesussanchez@earthlink.net

Echo Park resident and author Leslie Schwartz’s first novel, “Jumping the Green,” won the James Jones Literary Society Award for Best First Novel. It was published by Simon & Schuster in October 1999 and has been translated into several languages.

 The critically acclaimed novel garnered rave reviews like this one in The Washington Post:  “In a final violent act we are reminded of the destructive forces of love, familial and romantic, that drive even the sanest to the edge of madness. It is a testament to Schwartz’s gifts as a writer that the novel transcends clichés of violence and ultimately becomes a tale of survival, even in the most harrowing of circumstances.”

 Schwartz has been a short story writers and journalist for many years.

Her articles have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Forbes, Shape,

Self and others, and her award-winning short stories have been published in several respected literary journals throughout the country. Her second novel, “Slaying the Snow Queen” is currently under consideration at Simon & Schuster.

 Much of her second novel takes place in Echo Park and residents of the neighborhood will recognize Elysian Park and various places along Sunset Boulevard in the novel. After her divorce, Schwartz left Silver Lake and bought a small cottage in the hills of Echo Park. She has found it to be a vibrant and inspired community.

 “I love the way Echo Park is so wild and untamed and yet how civilized the neighborhood is. It’s a rich, artsy community; a haven for people who really seem to care about the neighborhood’s sense of place and history. I can’t believe there’s a place in Los Angeles where you can still hear roosters crow at the crack of dawn,” says Schwartz.

 Schwartz, who believes that it is part of her job as a writer to give back to her community, was recently selected as a Pen Center West Mentor for its Emerging Voices Program. Next year she will participate in Pen’s “Pen in the Classroom” program, which places volunteer professional writers in under-represented classrooms in Los Angeles to teach creative writing to high school students at risk.

 She is a reporter for the Council of Literary Magazines and Small Presses, a national non-profit organization that supports independent, mostly not-for-profit presses and literary journals and a volunteer for the Echo Park Arts Festival.

 Here is a brief excerpt from her novel, “Jumping the Green.”

 There was a large poster on the main wall. ZEKE HEIRHOLM. JULY 13^th THROUGH JULY 19^th. Below the words was a black-and-white

Photograph of two hookers standing beneath a Guess Jeans billboard depicting a hooker wearing Guess Jeans. The model did not appear to be as quietly desperate as the real hookers. Under the picture was the address of a gallery on Gough Street. “Are you a photographer,” I asked. He stared at me. Then he lit a cigarette and sat down on the edge of the bed. Stupid question. “I like tying up women,” he said.

“It’s my thing. I’m telling you that now before you take your clothes off because I’m a decent guy. But once you take your clothes off, you’ve agreed to go the distance. I might hurt you. I haven’t killed anyone. Not yet. The safe word is cease. You say cease, I stop. Stop does not mean stop. No does not mean no. Cease means no. Cease means stop. Do you understand? We can start slow. But we don’t stay slow. Not over the long haul.” It sounded like a job interview. But I hardly knew what he was talking about. I lit a cigarette. My hands were trembling.

“You got anything to drink around here?”

The busy intersection of Sunset and Alvarado is home to Echo Park’s newest hub of artistic energy: The Alvarado Art Building. A row of formerly empty storefronts on Alvarado just north of Sunset Boulevard is now the scene of art openings, musical performances and socially-minded commerce. The south end of the two-story building facing the busy intersection is now painted a cobalt blue and will soon feature the names of the arts-related tenants.

“As soon as we saw the space, we new it was home. We knew we could make it work,” said Orchid Velasquez, who opened Labor Fruit last summer with partner Aaron Kuehn. The two twentysomethings were looking for studio space (he’s a graphic artist; she works as a freelance artistic designer) and a place where artists could also display and sell their work. The arts and crafts on exhibit and for sale at Labor Fruit include jewelry, clothing, hand-made books and musical instruments. The goal in part is to help the artists maintain and develop their craft, said Kuehn.

“It’s a classic hippie, socialist concept,” said Kuehn, who built most of the fixtures and furniture in the shop. “There’s more energy. It’s more fresh.”

Labor Fruit shares the brick building with three other exhibition spaces, including one in which the owners hope will double as a cafe.

The first artists on the block were Eric Fisher, a blacksmith, sculptor and recent graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design, and filmmaker Justin Blumenthal. With the help of friends, the two have renovated a forlorn storefront and basement into a bright, large studio and gallery space called Artistas Anonimos.

“I love it here,” said Fisher. “We put out a good vibe.”

Fisher is working on showcasing a different artist on a monthly basis.

But the 24-year-old Los Angeles native is also looking into applying for grants to work with local youth on arts projects.

“I want to bring some creative inspiration into the area,” Fisher said.

Book Bound is located at 1545 Echo Park Avenue, a cozy bookstore between the Ojalá and Show Pony galleries.

The offbeat treasure trove was voted Best New Bookstore by

Los Angeles Magazine, and was recently featured in Glue Magazine. Covering the literary and performance side of Echo Park’s burgeoning art scene, Book Bound has hosted a variety of authors, spoken word events and punk rock musical happenings. Books run the gamut: counter-culture, pop culture, classics, beat poems and art books. There are yoga books and spiritual books, kids’ favorites and a wide selection of zines.

You won’t find any self-help books at Book Bound since the neighborhood clientele tend to be women who read Kafka too much and men who can drink like Bukowski. Recent events have included Jim DeRogatis (Let it Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs), John Sinclair (Guitar Army, founder of the radical ‘60s political group The White Panthers, and former manager of the MC-5), Alicia Bay Laurel (Living on the Earth, Being of the Sun), Jennifer Blowdryer (White Trash Debutante).

Upcoming events include local author Leslie Schwartz who will read from her new novel, Jumping the Green (Simon & Schuster). Leslie will appear at Book Bound on Saturday, March 17 at 7pm. Local parent and storyteller Mo Figuls will be hosting children’s storytime on Saturday mornings once a month (call for details). Later this year look for Inga Muscio (author of Cunt), Abram Himelstein (Tales of a Punk Rock Nothing), and Alex Farr (Undertow).

Springtime Hours:

Monday & Tuesday by appointment

Wednesday 2pm-8pm

Thursday 2pm-8pm

Friday 2pm-8pm

Saturday 12pm-8pm

Sunday 12pm-6pm

1545 Echo Park Avenue

Los Angeles, CA 90026

213-481-0802

PLANNING BEGINS

The 2001 Echo Park Arts Festival is seven months away but Echo Park Arts—the group that stages the event--has already begun its planning.  Last year's event attracted more than 1,000 people to a weekend of exhibitions, studio tours, poetry readings, musical performance and youth art workshops.

More than 80 neighborhood artists, writers and musicians participated in the festival, which was spread over 20 venues.

Our goal every year is to improve upon the previous festival, try new and different activities and increase attendance. We strive and struggle to retain the festival's welcoming and neighborhood feel while providing a fitting and professional showcase for the talents of our many artists.

This year's events, which will be held the weekend of Oct. 13-14, will require that we once again draw upon a large pool of volunteers to stage what has become one of the city's largest neighborhood arts festivals. We need help not only on festival weekend, but in the weeks and months leading up to the event.  Assistance is needed in organizing activities, publicity, fund raising and administration. The help of all residents--artists and non-artist--is welcome.

Festival applications should be available by June and will include details on venues and events (please see the related story on our plans for this year's visual art exhibitions).  We anticipate taking submissions for visual art and crafts exhibitions, studio tours, poetry readings, musical performance and outdoor installation art. Preference is given to artists who live or work in Echo Park.

To make sure you are on our mailing list for applications, please call

(213) 250-4155 and leave your name, address and phone number.

The Echo Park Arts Festival is supported primarily by a grant from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs in addition to submission fees and advertising revenue.

In addition, we have relied heavily on the support and generosity provided by Los Angeles Council District 1 & 13.

For more information and volunteer opportunities, please call:

(213) 250-4155.

VISUAL ARTS EXHIBITION

The visual art exhibition program for this year’s Echo Park Arts Festival will consist of a juried art show at one location and a more focused group show at another.

The juried show will consider the work of all artists from the Echo Park area, working in all media, at all levels of art-making and exhibition experience. Prizes will be awarded for excellence at all levels. Also new this year will be an exhibition of local crafts.

For the more focused group show, professional artists from the Echo Park community with an educational background in fine art, exhibition experience, a proven dedication to art production, and at least one fully developed body of work are warmly encouraged to apply.  Echo Park Arts, the festival-organizing group, is actively seeking to identify these artists while the conceptualization of the exhibition is still in progress.

If you would like to be considered for the group exhibition or can offer a recommendation please call (213) 250-4155 and leave your name and number.

Sculptors are strongly encouraged to apply.

--Paige Payne, festival curator

POKY? WELL, MAYBE

NEW TIMES VOTES EPAF BEST FEST

As printed in the March 8, 2000 edition of the Los Angeles New Times:

Best Neighborhood Arts Festival The Echo Park Arts Festival

Autumn, annually 213-250-4155

Pugnaciously homesick transplants to L.A. complain most of the city’s lack of center and nonexistent sense of community. Many neighborhoods change face as swiftly as Hollywood’s images, contrived for the durability of the latest trend. Completely without pretension, Echo Park is one of our oldest and most stable communities, with much of its original architecture and character intact. For this reason we prefer its “poky” arts festival. Numerous artists and musicians have made their homes here, relatively low rents being more amenable to the bohemian lifestyle. There is also the benefit of charming rolling hills, steep grades, and clandestine staircases, which give residents a strong sense of inclusion in a defined geographic field.

EVENTS, READINGS, SHOWS

Look for new shows nearly every month at the four exhibition spaces that make up the Chicken Corner Galleries. The galleries—Delirium Tremens, fototeka, Ojala and Pink--hold joint opening receptions on the first Saturday night of the month. Chicken Corner is located at the intersection of Echo Park, Morton and Delta Avenues.

fototeka:

Gallery Phone: (213) 250-4686

“LAND”: Photographs by Butch Welch.  Opening Date: April 7. Welch works in the traditionalist mode of landscape photography but explores new territory in both the technology and in formal concepts of black and white photography.

"junk TRACE relic wreck": Photographs by Patrick A. Piazza. Opening Date: May 5. Inside the bodies of junked automobiles, artist Patrick Piazza photographs the points where human culture and nature collide and fuse. He is expert at locating the telling moment. Yet part of what is extraordinary about his pictures is their emotional accessibility; the artist as witness truly feels like part of the image.

Ojalá Fine Arts:

Gallery Phone: (213) 250-4155

Vices & Virtues: Paintings by Kevin O’Connell. Opening Date:  April 7 O’Connell uses familiar scenes of Los Angeles as a backdrop for the exploration of spiritual themes. His most recent paintings include the juggernaut series, which show giant Hindu devices rolling relentlessly through Los Feliz streets and drawings depicting anarchist Emma Goldman and the sacking of the Glendale Forest Lawn Cemetery.

Paintings by Hadley Holliday. Opening Date:  May 5.

The Pink Gallery:

(213) 977-8839

“SHRAPNEL”: Photography by Mollie Culligan and Walter Williams. Opening Date: April 7.

IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

YOUR PLACE FOR THE LOCAL BUZZ

The mixed media work of David Meanix was included in “The Body Modified,”a group show held in March at Circle Elephant Art in Los Feliz.

Sculptor John Biggs will have a piece in the fourth annual International Exposition of Sculpture Objects & Functional Art, which will be held May 30-June 4 in New York. John’s work is being presented by the Wexler Gallery of Philadelphia.

Artist Katrina Alexy was one of several artists awarded a $2,000 grant to create public artwork for downtown Echo Park. Katrina’s proposal for a Sunset Boulevard bus shelter is for a collage representing the many cultural groups that have lived in the neighborhood over the decades.

In another life, photographer Martin Cox—whose work has been exhibited across the U.S. and Great Britain—is a specialist in ocean liner history. His web site is a popular stop for those interested in vintage and preserved ocean liners, personal stories of liner travel and links to maritime businesses, museums, ship cams and more. The web site address is www.maritimematters.com

Please let us know about your upcoming or recent show, book, performance, reading or other accomplishments. All items must be about Echo Park artists. Send the material to Echo Park Arts, 1547 Echo Park Ave., LA, 90026 or e-mail them to jesussanchez@earthlink.net

DURFEE FOUNDATION GRANTS

Artists’ Resource for Completion Grants provide short-term assistance to individual artists residing in Los Angeles County who wish to complete work for a specific, imminent opportunity that may significantly benefit their career.

Artists in any discipline, who have secured an invitation from an established organization to present their work within six months of the application deadline, are eligible.”

Information (310) 899-5120.

www.durfee.org