Angel City Culture Quest

Join us in discussion with Artist/Photographer Reidar Schopp, about two very special Photography Series, Shibari (Japanese Rope Bondage) his Boxed Series and the LB Shibari Dojo. 

Reidar takes inspiration from photographer William Mortensen, 1897-1965, who Ansel Adams called the Antichrist.

On Mortensen, Reidar wrote; “His imagery was the first to stop me in my tracks. I loved the dark undertones, the stories he was telling ..." 

Reidar’s current series necessitated his learning of Japanese Rope Bondage including suspensions. These series entitled “Renaissance Shibari” and “Vases” are his latest avenue of exploration into surrealism.

Find  below, a listing of Reidar's recent photography series:

1. Boxed, The Life We Build for Ourselves - nearly complete with about 350 images

2. Life's Entanglements - Shibari series. Includes the subseries of the Renaissance Still Lifes and the Human Vase - created about 25 images so far

3. Starting the series of "franz xaver messerschmidt character heads" this will be about 90 images

4. Organized Chaos - forming random lights into mandulas and kaleidoscopic images - About 30 images

5. Musical Instruments - applying pieces of instruments to a human body to become that instrument and have another play them - Only 2 have been created. I need musical instruments to continue creating this series.

6. 180 Degrees of Portraiture - Infrared portraits where a 1st time model is asked to bring an object that is very emotional to them, either good or bad emotions.

https://www.instagram.com/rlsfoto/

www.lbshibaridojo.com

Evelyn had been talking about writing this book for some time with her publishers. Trying to write a biography of a person who's still alive is never easy, especially for such a vaulted figure as Joan Didion.  

After her death, the book had a context of also trying to explain Didion's legacy in the wake of many articles that came out on Didion. Evelyn wrote this book because there was so much interest in Joan Didion, but also hype around her.

Listen in to hear more about Didion's Contrasts and Transformations including significant connections between Evelyn and Joan.

The son of United Nations diplomats, Artist Javier Proenza grew up in the global foreign service networks of Washington DC, San Jose, Costa Rica and Rome, Italy. While Rome nurtured his interest in art, history and global politics, his high school and college years in Miami are when he reached his final form of Florida Man. 

His conceptual art practice is centered on the universal absurdities of contemporary experience, and is realized in various traditions including painting, sculpture, video, and installation. 

In 2018 Javier gave up on grad school, designed a scam to have artists teach him for free, and pretended it was a podcast called What’s my Thesis?

https://www.instagram.com/whatismythesis

This site hosts audio only. 

To see the video of this special episode, please go to, https://youtu.be/8NdUlrhpjHk

Marie is an internationally exhibited painter. Her oil paintings address the tension of urban landscape and the natural world. Inspired by frequent walks through various trails and open spaces in California, her work reveals her observations of the changes and dynamics of nature in the face of the ongoing climate crisis. Engaging notions of abstraction, her work references the surrounding landscape using atmospheric color shifts, fragmented imagery and multiple viewpoints to suggest the ideas of flux, change and instability in the environment. Marie taught painting and color theory at CSULB for 30 years, where she developed an Advanced Studies in Color class.

June is a recipient of the COLA Fellowship, the Guggenheim and the California Community Foundation, Fellowship for Visual Artists.  June uses abstract painting to explore how color, repetition, movement, and balance can serve as conduits to spiritual contemplation and interpersonal connection to her African-American roots. Exploring the psychological construct of skin color or tone through pattern and abstract painting has proven to be a revealing gesture and these ideas are explored in her two ongoing series: the Energy Wheel Paintings inspired by her meditation practice and her Flag Paintings, which explore the alignment of multiple identities such as race, nationality, gender, or political leanings.  June’s public art works include a Venetian glass mosaic at the Metro Pacific Station in Long Beach

Influences: 

Marie has two main influences: first, the New York abstract school where her formalist abstract artist teachers were students of the pivotal figure in Abstract Expressionism, Hans Hoffman. That experience that has always remained with her. Second, were her teachers Elmer Bishoff and Joan Brown at Berkeley, members of the "second generation" of the Bay Area Figurative Movement. Marie always loved the California painting of Richard Diebenkorn and Wayne Thiebaud and the landscape expanse.

June’s influences include Varnette Honeywood, Romare Beardon, Jacob Lawrence, Charles White, David Hockney and Alma Thomas. Another influence was the 1976 LACMA show ‘Two Centuries of Black American Art.’ These works had a profound, formative impact upon June. Other inspiration/explorations have drawn from cultural and African American historical references, sacred geometry and very recently, the Benin emblem of the river leaf.

Find more information at: 

www.mariethibeault.com  and www.luisdejesus.com/artists/june-edm
 

Breeze Smith plays drums, percussion and creates electronic live-looping. An improvisational drummer, instrument designer/builder, visual artist/designer and sound sculptor, he has completed several commissions for sculptures, paintings, designs and soundtracks.

 His growing interest in experimental/improvised music and his ever-expanding search for new sounds led him to incorporate his metal sound sculptures into his drum/percussion universe.

Breeze says his journey of musical expression has gifted him with opportunities to create with so many  including Dwight Trible, Stan Smith, Scott Heustis, David Ornette Cherry, Justo Almario, Ralph Miles Jones lll, Roberto Miranda, Neneh Cherry, Rod Poole, Hannibal Lakumbe, Dianne McIntyre, Roger Hines, Dwight Trible, Trevor Ware, John Beasley, Billy Childs, Charles Owen, Maggie Brown, Eric Barber, Tony Green, Andre Caporaso, Thomas Hamasu, Eddie Ray & Co, Willie Pooch Blues Band AND duos with his wife, dancer/vocalist Cheryl Banks-Smith.

Breeze will perform with his band, Cosmic Vibrations at The World Stage May 31. You can connect with Breeze to inquire about, or to purchase, his music or art at:

       www.breezemuse.com/about 

  www.instagram.com/breezemuse888

 In this episode, Steven noted what Pathos Press can offer LA authors who might think to query them, along with some (not all) indie publishers:

"Small publishing houses tend to be much more willing to consider challenging or experimental works, especially by new authors without an established reputation. Some indie publishers assign editors to their authors in order to ensure the quality of the final text of the book. With larger publishing houses, it is sometimes the case that editors serve to recalibrate aspects of the book's plot or characters they consider as being possibly detrimental to future sales. Often, indie publishing editors are concerned only with the ultimate integrity of the manuscript and guaranteeing the legibility and artistic vision of the author."

Novels:

"Disposable Thought"

"Grid City Overload" 

 "Affliction Included"

"3rd & Orange"

"The Year I Went Away" ("El Año Que Me Fui")

In May, 2022, when the SCOTUS leak threatened to overturn Roe v Wade and strip half the country of their reproductive right protections, Pamela quit her corporate sales job and embarked from her California bubble to Red states to capture the harrowing and mundane stories of American women. The resulting documentary, WE’RE NOT GOING BACK! won the Grand Jury award for Emerging Filmmaker when it premiered at The Awareness Film Festival in 2022.  Since then, Pamela continues her pro-choice activism with her feminist blog and podcast, The HisTerical Society. 

About WE’RE NOT GOING BACK!

The film is a Pro-choice documentary film from 2022 before and after the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Roe v Wade with its Dobbs decision, taking away the constitutional right to abortion, abandoning almost 50 years of precedent, and paving the way for states to ban abortion. Capturing stories from Red states to educate and promote awareness of what’s at stake now that Roe has fallen and to encourage everyone to vote, in what Pamela dubbed, Roe-vember

You can find Pamela at; https://torranceproductions.com

Link to WE’RE NOT GOING BACK! Pro-choice documentary 

on YouTube:  

https://youtu.be/FF9f4aNgnVU?si=oD1gfhV8MfK9iTwj

In this episode, hear about why COLLAGE became a nonprofit as opposed to simply a venue and the good work its doing to help students in the Los Angeles region.

        "I have a sense that music can give people a reason to live, a reason to stay alive. So, rather than just run shows, I want to do something more than that," — Richard Foss.

COLLAGE is a beautiful venue, built in the 1930's, featuring  art deco styling both original and recreated by George Wytovich. It’s intimate and relaxed, seating 49 and the inside is more modern and visually interesting thanks to aged brick walls, a curved wooden ceiling with open beams. 

COLLAGE is best known for concerts, but also offers art classes, poetry events, storytelling, culinary events and much more. The venue presents both live shows and live streams for many of its events.

 https://www.collageartculture.org

   ~  COLLAGE is located at 731 South Pacific Ave., San Pedro

Jorge posits that publishing houses used to be vanguards. But now, they instead follow the trends that the social landscape we live in wants them to.  

Listen in as we discuss this, Jorges new book and his creative process, advice for young writers and the beauty of the small press.

Jorge is also co-owner. along with his wife Alejandra Menduina, of Menduina Schneider Gallery in San Pedro, California.

Look for Jorge's book "El año que me fui," wherever your favorite place is to buy books. The English version will be published later this year.

Mario Ybarra Jr. is a Mexican-American, a conceptual artist born and raised in Los Angeles. His artwork operates as examinations of excluded social norms, often examining complete environments, histories, and narratives. He received an MFA from the University of California Irvine and a BFA from Otis College of Art and Design. He has been featured in many local, national, and international exhibitions/fairs

Karla Diaz is a writer, teacher, and multidisciplinary artist who engages in painting, installation, video, and performance. Using narrative to question identity, institutional power, and explore memory, her socially engaged practice generates exciting collaborations and provokes important dialogue among diverse communities. Critical discourse is central to her practice as she explores social, subcultural, and marginalized stories. In her introspection, splashes of color became figures and objects that transformed into scenes of domesticity and city life drawn from her upbringing in Mexico and Los Angeles. 

Karla & Mario have been in the forefront of many pilot events, exhibitions and programs in diverse cities, museums, and art galleries all over the world. Diaz's background in youth education, performance, art and writing, influence a multidisciplinary, pedagogical approach to her work, creating dialogue among diverse communities. Mario’s conceptual work and interest in alternative histories and narratives interface with art and cultural contemporary practices.

        Karla Diaz

https://www.karladiazart.com 

https://www.luisdejesus.com/artists/karla-diaz

https://www.instagram.com/karladiaz76/

        Mario Ybarrra Jr.

www.marioybarrajrartist.com

https://www.instagram.com/mario_ybarra_jr/

        Slanguage Studio

https://www.instagram.com/slanguagestudio/