Despite not living that far from the Westside, I rarely make it to that part of town (Culver City, Westwood,Venice), only because it always seems to take me forever and a day to get to my destination, I avoid the 10 West like the plague (I think the 10 West might be the only free parking in Santa Monica–I should try leaving my car on it one day, walking to my destination, and then seeing if it’s still in the same spot upon my return). The surface streets near the 405 fwy entrance around Santa Monica Blvd. are not much better. This area does have many great gallery spaces, restaurants, boutiques, not to mention the Nuart Theatre so it is worth the journey, and generally if you take Olympic Blvd. down you can avoid a lot of the traffic.
With that said, I braved the drive to make it to Artwalk Culver City last Saturday. You see if we ever put up events on TRAffIK, it’s usually because we’re (either Brandy/”BB” or I, or both) going (next week look for us at the Wine Tastings and screening of Corked and The Graffitti Art Event at the Downtown Independent–we’ll put up details soon).
About 3pm, I gathered a bunch of the girls (among them Lady Di and Maureen Shampine) and hit the road to the Washington Blvd. La Cienega intersection where this was all taking place. Somehow, Notes From Vivace had already made it there and called me as I was still looking for parking. He was antsy to make it to the beach, but was willing to wait around for us and walk through a few of the galleries. We found him quickly at Indie Collective and laughed as we crossed the street towards him at the display we must’ve made comparing it to the Sex and the City intro–briefly arguing about who was more like Charlotte– Lady Di or I? I say neither and both, but we did agree Maureen would have to be Samantha) We ended up checking out about 3/4 of them (in actuality, I think we really only missed about 3 or 4 of the 41 total galleries exhibiting that day). Our favorite piece was located at the LeBasse Projects Gallery, where it was decided I should commission UK artist Joe Black to create a piece in my likeness like his Lost and Found button collage (read Maureen’s much better write-up on Artwalk and this piece here), I insisted that it was more of a Michelle Marini piece. Speak of the devil who do we run into right as we’re exiting the gallery? Michelle and our friend Jason who had spotted us upon arrival, but had lost track of us. So I had to go back inside and show her the piece, and she agreed. Lady Di’s friend Jamie (who is also an artist) caught up with us and he also spent most of the afternoon with us.
I believe this was the fourth annual Artwalk Culver City, but I feel that it was still missing a lot of the community vibe that it should have had. It was nice to see some parents and grandparents bringing out their kids/grandkids to experience the art, since there aren’t many kid-friendly art shows these days. We had a great time enjoying the art (but we have a great time anywhere we go for the most part), but I couldn’t help but feel like each of the galleries was having it’s own private party as opposed to one big party.
We left shortly after our feet started to hurt and headed towards our girl’s night at Amanda Jones’ house. I would tell you about it, but what happens at girl’s nights stay at girl’s nights.
