Art and Architecture in East LA

One of the benefits of being a LACMA docent is the field trips.  We tend to go to interesting places. This spring the trip was to Boyle Heights and East LA, with the caveat ‘isn’t it amazing that art is being created here! Well no, but I”ll get to that shortly.

Lonnie C. Blanchard III, a successful attorney, also got into buying real-estate. He moved his law offices to a pretty shady street in an industrial area of Boyle Heights. At the far eastern section of Pico Blvd.  ‘pretty’ is a misnomer, we are talking about a rather downscale area of old warehouses, but despite the tires and couches on the street, the big old ficus trees give this section of Pico Blvd a very pleasant feel.He painted the compound this deep grey, he may be responsible for the fact that it is completely walled off from the street. Love this ‘graffiti’ fly. He has his law office here, which is much more unusual than having artist studios in old industrial sections of town.A serene garden in the complex.

Artists are always looking for large workspaces with low rent. They tend to move to undesirable areas, then as the area gets gentrified – newer artists can’t afford the rent and they look for the next undiscovered area.  In LA this progression started in Venice Beach, moved downtown to the Arts District and now is moving east. Say Venice or the Arts district today and you are talking very expensive real estate.So Lonnie is renting out most of this space to young budding artists. A passion of his, to support contemporary art.I think this brick patio was added, I doubt this was part of the original building.  As I mentioned, this is in an old industrial part of town. Much of LA’s economy used to be small business and manufacturing, of course that is changing, but there is still a lot of that going on.

So where’s the art you ask??  Here’s the thing, I really don’t like contemporary art. There is a reason why I proudly call myself a crafter and not an artist. I find most contemporary art to be pretentious crap.While a photographer droned on about the importance of the thought process behind a rather mundane photo, I looked up to the ceiling and was intrigued by the building itself, in this case, peeling paint.I stopped listening to art student babble and instead looked to the beauty that hard working construction workers created at least 80 years ago.The engineering intrigues me, the struts, the long bow that supports the roof better than straight steel beams would. And of course the gradual decay.Skylights, sheet metal, florescent lights, all became fascinating to me. I mentioned them to one of the artists – who had to admit – looking up in old industrial buildings can be a thing of beauty.Out on the street I was thrilled to see an Art Deco facade, we tend to think of this style of architecture as very elevated and high brow. Not so, when a style catches on – it makes it’s way to the simplest and most mundane of buildings.Even if this was a simple metal workshop.

So what about the Art?  Meh.This caught my eye not because it was destined to be painted and glued into figurative shapes that are a social criticism of how we view the human body. Rather, it’s the pile of plywood jigsawed into organic shapes that pleased me. The material is more fascinating than the highbrow reasoning behind it.This one infuriated me. The artist calls this a quilt, well guess what sweetheart – I’m sure you’d look down on my craft, but what I do is make quilts. This is simply old movie cells dripped with bright paint and sewn together. Also, without the light table underneath, it would be dark and boring.  I know the art world looks down on crafters, which is why many a crafter feels the need to call themself an artist.  Art these days isn’t about beauty – it’s about ‘messaging’. Thankfully, crafting is about making pretty things that can be useful or not. I finally did see something I like. At East LA community college there is an exhibit of wonderful painted woven objects. Lorenzo Hurtado Segovia, is Mexican American, so he can bridge art and craft – there is a hierarchy like no other in the art world. Of course to be honest, I didn’t read any of the explanations of his work, it was simply a matter of reacting to the beauty and the workmanship. Back side of plaid carpet.

See, even in the contemporary art world, I can find beauty.