Graham Gilmore's photos at Santino's

Jay Brockman paintings at Bondi BBQ

Last night we had a great time at the Venice Art Crawl, the 7th installation of the monthly Venice Beach arts event. As always, there were numerous events throughout Venice, with shows at numerous venues throughout the boardwalk area. Artist’s included everything from first-time exhibiters like photographer Matt Branham, to Venice heavyweights Rip Cronk and William Attaway. We didn’t hit everything, but managed to take in a good majority of the shows. There are a couple more pics after the jump, and a larger gallery posted on my Facebook page. If you’ve never checked out the VAC, be sure to hit it up. It’s every third Thursday. More info at www.veniceartcrawl.com. I didn’t show this month, but plan on doing so next month. Stay tuned!

Conan the Librarian at Michele McManmon's photography show at Small World Books

Hired entertainment on the Boardwalk

Venice Art Crawl - December 2010

Video projection by Jesse Nikette on Market Street

Live poetry readings by James Berkowitz

The December Venice Art Crawl appeared to be a success, with solid crowds braving the (relative) cold and darkness (no argument there) to come down to the beach and enjoy some local art. This month had numerous exhibitions, including a cluster of video installations on Market Street, collectively called December Lights. The street was illuminated with numerous video projections lighting up buildings from rooftops across the street, including an interactive projection of the Nintendo classic, Donkey Kong, which participants could play by holding up a cutout of Mario and running his shadow up the wall. Pretty fun! The evening flew by, and we eventually found ourselves at an afterparty before suddenly waking up the next morning with a dull throbbing in our heads. A reminder that a good time was had. Looking forward to next month!

Donkey Kong

Jesse Nikette controls his video projections with a keyboard guitar on Market Street

74 Market Street exhibition

Bike taxi driver on Market Street

Momentum afterparty on Market Street, Venice, Calif.

Hanging art on Market St.

Venice Art Crawl After Party at Video Army

The inaugural Venice Art Crawl launched with a bang last night with a solid crowd showing up to check out the numerous local artists who were showing at pop-up galleries mostly located between the Boardwalk and Pacific Ave. I was showing my own work at Nikki’s alongside artist Scott Simon (check out his work here) and was also working the event as a volunteer, so I didn’t have much time to get out to all the venues, but I did manage a quick lap and took a few photos along the way. It was great seeing so many artists participating in the first event. A good sign that the event will continue to grow in the coming months. After the crawl wrapped up we made our way over to the official afterparty at Video Army, a new production company located on Pacific Ave. It was a fun environment with lots of people dancing and great light for shooting. After the party wound down we hit up a nearby taco truck and made our way home. Really a successful night if you ask me. Looking forward to next month!

Art on display at the 73 Market St. rooftop

Checking out photography by Martin Linss at the Hotel Erwin during the Venice Art Crawl

Live Painting by John Park at the C.A.V.E. Gallery exhibition at James' Beach

Venice Art Crawl After Party at Video Army

Venice Art Crawl After Party at Video Army

Venice Art Crawl After Party at Video Army

Venice Art Crawl After Party at Video Army

Venice Art Crawl After Party at Video Army

Venice Art Crawl After Party at Video Army

Venice Art Crawl After Party at Video Army

Fashion Week L.A. at the Petersen Automotive Museaum

Backstage during Fashion Week L.A. at the Petersen Automotive Museaum

Last week was quite fashion-heavy, with Thursday spent doing an all-day editorial fashion shoot up in Simi Valley and Friday night spent shooting the final night of Fashion Week L.A. at the Petersen Automotive Museum on Wilshire Blvd. Both were done in collaboration with my friend Erika Stanley for her fashion website, SNOBStyle.tv, and will appear there soon. I’ll be sure to add links when they do. Although the editorial shoot came first I’m posting the Fashion Week images now, as it may be awhile before the first shoot publishes. We’re also hoping to publish it in a new upstart magazine, SoCal-Scene, with which Erika has recently become affiliated. More on that later.
For this event I stayed away from shooting the standard, down-the-runway shots in favor of shooting more of a behind-the-scenes piece. It was the second of two nights of Gen Art’s Fresh Faces in Fashion show and featured a variety of designers I’m not personally familiar with. I was really just curious to check out the scene. Fortunately, Erika was able to get me a backstage pass to facilitate this and I came away with some decent images. I surely outshot Ashton Kutcher at least.

Fashion Week L.A. at the Petersen Automotive Museaum

Fashion Week L.A. at the Petersen Automotive Museaum

Backstage during Fashion Week L.A. at the Petersen Automotive Museaum

Backstage during Fashion Week L.A. at the Petersen Automotive Museaum

Backstage during Fashion Week L.A. at the Petersen Automotive Museaum

Fashion Week L.A. at the Petersen Automotive Museaum

Fashion Week L.A. at the Petersen Automotive Museaum

On Thursday I did some work as an event photographer at the opening of an art exhibit by Venice artist Jay Mark Johnson at the Ace Gallery in Beverly Hills. He’s doing some very cool digital photography using a jerry-rigged slit camera, which has been traditionally used for taking photos to determine the winners of too-close-to-call horse races. Depending on the way it’s used, the results are either these incredible images of expanded and compressed objects, depending on their speed, set against colorful backgrounds of horizontal streaks or, as in the top photo, flattened 360-degree views, similar to the way a globe is flattened into an atlas. That particular image is taken from the center of a ferris wheel. I enjoyed seeing the work, and as a photographer, watching the way others interacted with it. Despite the size of the prints – some were more than 10 feet wide – people were constantly coming up within inches to examine them and try to figure out what they were seeing. If you’re anywhere near Beverly Hills in the next 6 weeks I definitely recommend swinging by the Ace to check them out.