The Ballerina Clown Turns 25

Above the entrance to the CVS Pharmacy is a sight 

that will persuade you to get back on your meds.

RoadsideAmerica.com

By Delores Hanney

It’s as emblematic of Venice as Mickey Mouse ears are of Disneyland. The 30-foot tall jester in a tutu is peculiar, to be sure, but its consummate oddness somehow makes it a suitable avatar for this its unconventional hometown. 2013 is the silver anniversary of its flamboyant reign.

It stands there at Main Street and Rose Avenue, a full story above the sidewalk on its kitty-corner Renaissance Building perch. Designed by Santa Monica architect Johannes Van Tilburg and built by first owner Harlan Lee, the building is home to commercial enterprises – such as the CVS Pharmacy – to pricey condos, vacation rentals, and housing for low income seniors; in addition to its function as way-visible display space for the kitschy Ballerina Clown.

Created by Jonathan Borofsky in his Topanga Canyon studio, the wiggy sculpture is constructed of aluminum, steel and painted fiberglass. It was fitted with an electric motor that allowed the right leg to kick back and forth – ballerina fashion – until the mechanism was turned off in order that the hum not be a botheration to the lawyer lady living right behind it. Along with the tutu, its quirky ensemble includes a pair of white elbow-length gloves that some say look more like washing-the-dishes gear than glamour wear. Two barely noticeable tiny red tears appear to slowly slide down its face.

The sculpture was commissioned by the aforementioned Harlan Lee. Borofsky offered him three suggestions: one traditional, one less so, the third – and chosen one – clearly over-the-top. It therefore conformed to what Borofsky termed Lee’s “flair for stirring things up.” Demonstrating success for this very thing, it seeded a whole bunch of controversy including a petition to have it removed circulated by a little assembly of aspirant taste arbiters. The petition was countered by a review written by L.A. Times art critic, Christopher Knight, reeking with respect for the statue.

The piece is hardly typical of the artist’s work, which tends to be spare, streamlined and dynamic. Using names like I Dreamed I Could Fly or Human Structures, Borofsky has spawned ginormous public installations around the world: in Switzerland, France, Germany, England, Norway and Canada; in Japan and South Korea and China – not to mention all the stuff in private collections – thus staking out for himself a claim to art big kahunaship. Weirdly enough, he was not so famed here in the United States till around 2004 when a temporary installation of Walking to the Sky went up in New York’s Rockefeller Center.

Born in Boston in 1942, his interest in art began percolating to the surface early on: a predictable symptom of his DNA given that his mother was a gallery owner, an artist and an architect. Dad was artistic, too, but his field was music. As a child Jonathan Borofsky was especially inspired by a Paul Gauguin painting that hung at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; well, less by the image than its title: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? It triggered in him philosophical musings he would glom onto as the overarching theme of his future work, in which he seeks to explore these heady, meaning-of-life questions.

He received a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, an MFA from the Yale School of Art and Architecture, between which he sandwiched in study at the Ecole de Fountainebleu in France. In 2006 Carnegie Mellon conferred an honorary doctorate of Fine Arts.

Early in his career, he taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Later he taught at the California Institute of the Arts, living, then, in a small funkadoodle apartment on the Venice boardwalk, there to soak up – he told me – the lightness, brightness and energy so different from the more muted tones of the east. Though unimpressive, the dwelling boasted a beach view from the window and outside the building’s front entrance the eccentric accumulation of amusement makers and vendors swirled and twirled like organisms in a tide pool.

The Ballerina Clown was always a salute to those gaudy habitués of Ocean Front Walk and – more deeply – a psychological “resolution of opposites.” At 25 familiarity with the bi-gendered statue and greater societal acceptance of sexuality as a continuum have reduced some of its original outrageousness factor. Today its symbolism may even be seen to have broadened, transmogrifying the sculpture into a visual celebration of diversity: that quintessential element at the core of the Venice, California experience.

Getting Around

By Delores Hanney

Always flush with imaginative ideas and the cash to fund them, Abbot Kinney – the milieu-maker of Venice, California – liked to do things with a flair. One of the most winning notions he brought into being, for his Italian-inspired settlement by the sea, was a pair of miniature trains. They were here from the very beginning in 1905, chugging over arching concrete bridges that spanned the canalways while circumnavigating the town site with frequent regularity. Initially they were tasked as the mode of transportation for schlepping prospective buyers of real property to check out the development’s offerings. Before long locals and vacationers were big enthusiasts of the five-cent service as well.

Even as Kinney’s ambitious Venice-of-America was still about the business of rising out of a marsh, he contracted with civil engineer John J. Coit to supervise the building of his Venice Miniature Railway made up of components similar to Coit’s own diminutive train then causing gladness at Eastlake Park in Los Angeles. Kinney commissioned two of them. Built by the Johnson Machine Works out of L.A. to a one-third scale, each consisted of a black Prairie-type engine and five 12-passenger cars that sometimes offered an al fresco ride, other times carried travelers beneath a fringed, awning-like top. Each one of the cars sported a lion’s head relief on the sides. And for a time, the dashing little engine from Coit’s Eastlake train lent a hand in Venice as a substitute.

By way of enrolling his younger kids into a kind of participation in the beachside resort venture, Kinney’s nine-year old son Carlton was listed as president of the Venice Miniature Railway on its State of California incorporation documents. Three years older, son Inne,s was named as Chief Engineer, though John Coit actually operated the railroad early on. Jauntily suited up in appropriately impressive uniforms, the boys were trotted out to take bows on ceremonial occasions or for visitations by dignitaries. One such event – in 1908 – was the gathering of 140 midwestern members of the National Association of Railroad Agents, at which time the annual inspection of Kinney’s Miniature Railway was executed for their edification.

A dog showed up one day and rapidly self-appointed himself as the mini railroad’s mascot. Buster Braun was a Spitz that had become dissatisfied with the situation at home after his people brought home a newborn baby. Hanging out at the roundhouse and riding atop the tender as the train percolated around town – at a normal cruising speed of 20 miles per hour – apparently alleviated the loving-attention deficit the new home conditions caused and gratified his breed’s natural herding instinct hereby undertaken, nontraditionally, with a rumbling mechanical assist.

Over the years the railway suffered a few modest catastrophes. Train number two smashed into an unseen-till-too-late grocery wagon witlessly left on the tracks. A boiler explosion took out engine number one as it was parked at the Windward Avenue turnaround. On another occasion a fire at the roundhouse caused heat damage to both engines when flames engulfed the building. The passenger cars were successfully hauled off to a safe spot. None of these resulted in human harm but a horse was hurt in the train-wagon collision.

On a more ebullient note, the miniature railway was a not unusual element in Kinney’s recurrent hosting of orphans for a day of jolly good fun in Venice: amusement-parking, hunting Easter eggs or whatever. The pintsized trains performed as a prop in train robbery spoofs carried out by passels of comely beachwear-clad cuties.

Though lacking the current tug of nostalgia blocked by their au courant status in Kinney’s time, trains still ranked high in appeal factor. Miniature trains, then as now, packed a special cachet. The photogenic images of the little Venice trains adorned copious quantities of postcards that were sent to friends and family by happy visitors and residents alike. They made tasty bait for attracting even more tourists and new dwellers to Abbot Kinney’s dream, where their own sprightly presence added to the environment’s inimitable élan.

They breathed their final chug as a Venice, California feature in February of 1925.

VNC Monthly Meeting: The Great Storage Bin Debate

By Jamie Virostko

It was a particularly long night at the VNC monthly meeting on January 22^nd with the Winter Shelter Storage Program Motion taking over an hour of the night’s minutes. Other motions on the Agenda, included a Resolution on a Proposed $3 Billion Street Repair Bond Measure; Speed Monitoring Radar Signs on Pacific, and; Reconsideration of a Vote to Approve the Mural Ordinance.

During Announcements, the community was introduced to Greg Smith, a politician running for City Attorney, and also met a representative from Snap Tech, a company that has recently moved into 523 Ocean Front Walk.

Later in the meeting, the LAPD reported that, in 2012, overall crime was down 5.8% in Venice, with a 6.9% drop, specifically, in the Oakwood area. There was also a report from the Department of Transportation concerning its plan to address the proposed terms of a settlement agreement following the Coastal Commission’s twice rejection of the City’s application for overnight parking districts in Venice.

Shortly after calling the meeting to order, Linda Lucks “broke the rules” and gave the floor to Bill Rosendahl, out of order, to provide his Government Report, as he would have to leave early. He gave us the rundown of issues currently on the top of his agenda, namely his long battle to fight the expansion of LAX and to close the Santa Monica Airport.

Before discussing the first motion of the night, the LA City Attorney addressed a recent court case which impacts how the City of Los Angeles must deal with the personal property of homeless people. The Federal Government has told the City that it cannot summarily destroy the property of a homeless person. The Constitution protects the right to own personal property regardless of whether one has a residence or not. Now, the City of LA has the complicated problem of not being able to remove what may or may not be the abandoned personal property of a homeless person without due process. That due process could get expensive.

Shortly thereafter, we got to the Winter Shelter Storage Program Motion, which would be debated for a very long time and relates to the above in that it could be a potential, at least partial, solution to the City’s homeless clutter problem. For now it is simply a short-term, pilot program. Council President, Linda Lucks, recused herself, as she works for the VCHC and has a conflict of interest. Steve Clare, who operates the Winter Shelter and Arturo Peña were on hand to explain the details.

The Winter Shelter closes on March 1^st and is operating at 70% capacity, which means over 40 empty beds. It is a high funded program where the homeless are put in contact with health care and other city services. Each empty bed represents a person who is not being helped and funding that is going to waste.

A main reason that homeless people do not access the program, is because they have to abandon their personal property (should it be more than can fit on their lap), when they take the bus to the Winter Shelter. That personal property would almost certainly be lost as a result. The City, along with some people from the community, is implementing a pilot storage locker program (modeled after others in existence) to help fill those empty beds and collect data concerning its future and those of similar programs.

Most of the community present seemed to be for the program, which would provide temporary storage space for the personal property of about 22 homeless people.

Since the bins were to be placed near the beach, the issue was raised of needing a Coastal Permit. From what I understand, an injunction is to be filed by the Stakeholders. Another argument against the storage bins was that they would enable homeless people to live on the beach. You know, because if I had a locker by the ocean where I could put some of my crap, I would stop paying rent and just live there.

A few people took issue that the personal property was not going to be searched before storage. What if they put a gun in or a bomb in there? Really folks? An open and free beach where 16 million people from all over the world and their backpacks, purses and luggage mingle in heavily populated shops and restaurants every year, and we think, because no one is going to search the stuff of some homeless folks, that it will cause a major security issue? Ok.

As the debate moved to the Council, we quickly learned that the VNC itself was very dissatisfied that it could not properly vet the Winter Storage Locker Motion before it was brought before them. Though the point had been made numerous times, many council members felt the need to repeat their frustration again and again. To some, it even seemed their primary reason to oppose the motion, not its actual merits.

All in all, citing compassion and a willingness to try something new, the VNC, approved the Motion by a vote of 8 to 5. Nearing 10pm, when they closed the matter, well over half of Official Agenda had not been covered.

El Bordello Alexandria

By CJ Gronner

I’ve walked by the big, crazy looking gargoyle house on Westminster and Speedway for years, always wondering what the story of the place could possibly be. I finally got the chance to hear it the other day when I sat down to talk with owner, Tony Wells. I had heard varying stories of its origins, none of which were correct. The one I most wanted to be true was the one I’d heard about an old man building it for his love to be protected from evil spirits by the gargoyles (as in Venice, Italy) as a Valentine to her. Not true … but it is still a love story of sorts … to Venice.

The building was a rat trap back in 2001, populated by tweakers passed out in the hallways, and left to crumble in its squalor. Wells and his partner, Brittany Stevenson, were looking for rental properties (both are in real estate), and were intrigued by the cool balcony on the front of this particular house. They liked Venice and its eclectic people, and thought they could maybe unearth a treasure if they bought it and gutted it.

As they began to renovate, they dug out the walls, finding a whole bunch of nice, restorable shiplap wood underneath, and then the real treasure was discovered – a hatbox of notes from a Madame Alexandra, who ran the bordello that was this house back when it was built in 1906. The railway lines ended nearby, and the ships pulled up to shore not far away, so it was an excellent location for this mysterious woman (no photographs were found) to run her business servicing the railmen and sailors. Racy. Stevenson always felt the house had a spirit, and a pulse, and began to decorate accordingly.

The house was entirely transformed in about three months, and Stevenson put up a couple little stone gargoyles on the roof for protection (ala Italy Venice), as the area was still a little iffy. Wells is not a guy to do things on a small scale, however, and decided that if they were having gargoyles, they were REALLY having gargoyles. Driving back from a trip in Baja, Wells saw a big metal statue on the side of the road near Ensenada. Intrigued, he stopped and met the metal worker (who he knows only as Perfidio) and inquired about his doing some commission work for him. Perfidio’s first gargoyle so impressed Wells, that they’ve created a lasting collaboration. Over recent years, Wells keeps getting ideas, and Perfidio keeps bringing them to life.

The big, scary, devil looking gargoyles have been joined by a St. Michael angel, and a Poseidon driving dolphins, and it doesn’t look like they’re going to stop adding them anytime soon. It’s a whole process of guys yanking the statues up over the side of the house via ropes and brute strength, and they’re stuck in solid, with interior metal poles and things. They’re not going anywhere.

As Wells likes things to be over the top, and both he and Stevenson are very creative types, they had to keep adding things. As they did, the photos started happening. People started lining up out front, asking “What the heck is this place?!” and slowly, a landmark was born. “If this was anyplace else, I’d have a church group out front picketing, but this is VENICE. It works. Just please give us this ONE place in the world to be unique!”, said Wells, creating a forever friend in me and everyone else who feels that exact way about our Venice.

The seven individual apartments inside soon filled up, all with artists and creative types, all of whom are now friends. Some have started businesses together (a family crest Iphone app – Crestmaster.com – inspired by the art and crests on the building, where you can create your own crest), they take ski trips and things together, and all speak of what a great time it is living there, and what great landlords Wells and Stevenson are.

Especially Brian Mylius, the resident painter. He had been homeless, and Wells hired him to do some commission paintings on the house. Mylius now lives in El Bordello Alexandra, and adds to its splendor in some way every day. His paintings (mostly of “badass women to protect the place, because men would fuck it up” – T. Wells) are all over the house, inside and out. The still-wet one in progress in the back stairway features Madame Alexandra, how they think she might have looked, with her Mona Lisa smile keeping her secrets intact.

Her secrets still attempt to get out though, as when I asked if it might be haunted (it feels like it could be), the answer given by Mylius was a firm “Yes”. Even after burning “pounds of sage”, weird electrical things happen, shapes have been seen walking, and odd sounds are occasionally heard when they shouldn’t be. The gargoyles might be slacking, but it doesn’t stop the tour buses from unloading out front, or the constant questions to residents from passersby as to its real deal. The residents aren’t above messing with people, and may tell you it’s a ship, or a whorehouse, or a recovery center … but really it’s just a super dope place to live. As tenant Anton Pereiaslavtstev told me, “I liked circuses when I was little, but now I live in one … What could be bad about that?”

The interiors are painted all brothel purple, red and gold. It’s all very bordello chic. Gothic furniture, stained glass windows, painted guitars, paintings of women who look like they probably worked there back in the day, and a sly sense of humor permeates it all. A bathroom overlooking the beach features a sign reading, “The Confessional”. A Captain Jack-like passed out pirate mannequin watches over the rooftop deck, and a comfy couch/fire pit area make it a perfect scenario from which to watch the sunset, as the statues cast their fairytale shadows all around you. Trippy. Venice.

After living in a colorful place like this, you can’t really go and live somewhere vanilla and boring, so the residents tend to stay a long time. When someone does leave, the residents have to approve a new tenant, co-op style, to make sure that the harmony, creative flow, and friendships made within can continue seamlessly. Everyone seems to be having a good time, and to Wells, that’s the whole point.

“Venice needs color. Venice needs creativity. Venice needs attractions. If you live here, it’s your duty to step it up. Be colorful, show people a good time. Let’s bring it back. And let’s start now.”

Obviously I whole-heartedly agree. I was so happy to discover that this house’s story was indeed a true love story. Pure love for Venice is lived out in these walls and on the sidewalks around it, every single day. A Valentine to the town that inspired the fun and creativity and Why Not?! attitude that literally leaps out at you as you pass.

We were standing out front talking, wrapping it up, when Wells said, “Do good things … it comes around.” Just then a car drove up, stopped to take pictures, the people inside smiling and happily asking questions. Community, color, fun, conversation with strangers …. All good things, all coming around, at the end of the street, at the end of the country, in the gargoyle-protected, X on the treasure map … Venice, California.

Normal Is Dead

By CJ Gronner

I am thrilled to report that my good friends at the Venice Beach Freak Show are getting their own reality show on AMC, called, appropriately, Freakshow, which starts airing this Valentine’s Day, February 14th at 9:30 pm.

Todd Ray, his wife Danielle, kids Asia (now the youngest sword swallower in the world!)and Phoenix, and their extended family of performers invite you into their world, where “Normal is relative”. I first got to know and write about the Ray family in 2010, and am so happy to see their message of fun and acceptance blowing up all over the world.

“Normal is an illusion, there is no such thing is normal … some people have a problem with the word ‘Freak’, but we should have a problem with the word ‘normal’,” explains Todd, as everyone has a struggle to fit in and appear “normal,” but no one really knows what that is. So the Freakshow cast decided to have a funeral for Normal, and held a parade carrying Normal’s casket all the way down the Venice Boardwalk, celebrating its death, and our differences. Todd old-timey preached the funeral, asking for a moment of silence for Normal. When it was through, the entire Boardwalk erupted in two minutes of joyous shouting, proclaiming that we are ALL Freaks in our own way. That funeral will be in the show, along with supercool things like the Freak Show performing in a huge tent during Fashion Week in New York, and also just the every day happenings that make it all tick.

Venice is as much the star of the show as any of the performers, and beautifully portrayed. The Tallest Man in The World (8 feet!) joins Amazing Ali (the tiniest lady), Larry the Wolf Boy, Murrugun The Mystic and all their friends at the Freak Show, in a real behind the scenes portrait of Todd Ray’s childhood dream not only coming true, but growing and growing.

While you’re learning the story of the Rays and Freakshow, you’re also learning what Venice still means to so many people around the world. Todd is inspired by the place that another man with a dream thought up long ago. Abbot Kinney would appreciate the renaissance that the Rays are trying to bring back to Venice, and as Todd says, “We NEED it here now. It’s a piece of history, and a piece of Venice that is positive and creative. Everything we love about Venice is in this show.”

That’s all I needed to set the dvr for every single episode. Join us Freaks, starting February 14th on AMC.

Our Venice Skatepark – A Diamond in the Rough

By CJ Gronner

Happy New Year, People! In the interest of shining a light on the things that are still awesome about living in Venice in 2013, I recently dug a little deeper into the everyday goings on at the Venice Skatepark. I grew up with my brother’s half-pipe in our backyard, smashed my own face trying to drop in off that thing, and was always surrounded by skaters, so I have a soft spot for the whole scene, but also recognize the beauty and importance of this place in our community. Officially known as the Dennis “Polar Bear” Agnew Memorial Skatepark, this gleaming jewel of a skatepark smack in the middle of Venice Beach is maintained – every single day – by the Venice Surf and Skateboard Association (V.S.A.), which really means by professional skate legend and V.S.A. President, Jesse Martinez, and his helpers.

After working for over 20 years to erect a skatepark in what many believe is the birth place of skateboarding, Venice finally got its skate home in 2009, and skaters have been tearing it up ever since. Which is why the maintenance of the park is such a big deal. Many places have skateparks put in by well-meaning skate companies and foundations, or grants or whatever, but then they leave and it’s up to whomever else is left to keep it up and running. Venice Skatepark is on Park and Recreation (City of L.A.) territory, but no one from the city has ever stepped a foot into the park to clean it. Ever. ALL the clean up and maintenance of the park is done by beyond dedicated, hard working and meaning it volunteers (hmm … kind of like The Beachhead).

The head of these volunteers is the very reluctant interviewee, Mr. Martinez. He’s out there seven days a week, before dawn, cleaning up the sand, glass, piss, blood, booze, graffiti, and whatever else winds up in the bowls of the skatepark overnight. I don’t think people really know how much work this takes, and that the skatepark isn’t just magically sparkling pristine and perfectly skateable every day on its own.

I’m impressed to my core that someone of such legendary skate stature as Martinez (which he completely down-plays every time it comes up – and it comes up a lot down at the skatepark) is the one that willingly gets up at 4 a.m. every day to make sure the park that he and his friends all worked so hard for so long to bring to life, is given the respect it deserves. As impressed as I am though, Martinez isn’t. He suggested I go interview a guy who lives down the street from him, a doctor, “that saves kids. THAT’S someone worth interviewing …”. As much as I admire his true humility, I would also argue that Martinez, in his own way, also saves kids.

Kids that – because of him – have somewhere safe to skate, which in turn, may be saving them from a more thug life, like the one Martinez came from, and feels that skateboarding really saved him from. He rejected gang life for skate life, and has dedicated most every waking moment to that end. Injured now (ankle), and a couple healing months away from shredding at his normal level, you can feel Martinez just aching to be in there, as he watched the others skate a few days ago, offering pointers (like leaning forward when you drop in, not back. That might have helped me out years ago …) and encouragement. You can also feel the very tangible respect all the kids down there have for Martinez. Respect not just for his Pro/Dogtown/Bones Brigade status, but for the fact that they can feel the deep care he has for the park, the up and comer skaters, and for skating itself, and that respect is infectious (if also a little fear-based, as no one wants to get chewed out by Martinez and Company).

That respect is there because of the specter of Venice’s skate past. Dogtown, Z Boys, the Bones Brigade … all those guys had was the streets and the pools, and look what they did with it! They created a legendary time, legendary tricks and styles, and legendary names for themselves. Now that today’s skaters have a beautiful skatepark, perfectly kept and maintained by one of their own, they need to step it up, and represent VENICE, like the guys before them did. Martinez remembers when every contest they went to, it seemed like every other name called was “So and So – Venice, California!” Now you’re lucky if you hear of one or two competitors called out for Venice. With that gorgeous park as their home turf, we’d like to see some new legends coming out of here. And not just coming out of here, but respecting it on the same level as the guys before them did. Which also means helping. If you appreciate that you get to have this unreal, super clean, amazing view, skate mecca as your home park, maybe you’d like to give back a little too – take turns helping on a dawn patrol clean-up one day a week. Push yourselves to charge it, and not just because you want a cool sponsor or a rad photo in a magazine, but because you love it to your core, like they used to and still do. Have PRIDE, like they used to, and still do. They knew what they represented back then. That is how you stand the test of time. And the Dogtown guys still do, which is why THEY are giving back now, in so many ways.

The reason why they’re giving back, is to keep that legacy going into the future, to raise another generation of pros from Venice, and to keep the Venice skate scene vibrant and exciting. This is the home of some of the best skaters of all time EVER, and that fact is honored and built upon every day that our skatepark exists.

And it exists in large part because of the V.S.A. In talking to Lauren Wiley of the V.S.A., I was very surprised to learn that here is no help from the City of L.A. or Park and Recs with the maintenance. When film crews shoot at the skatepark, they are charged a clean-up fee, which the V.S.A. never sees, nor do they see anyone else out there doing the fee-charged cleaning. When the V.S.A. wants to put on a contest or an event, they are charged for expensive permits and a usage fee by the City – for their own park that they use every day. These fees can run into the thousands, making it hard to pay for simple things like cleaning supplies (which also do not come from the City – but from donations and the V.S.A.’s own pockets), never mind putting on the contests themselves, or even paying a small salary to the guys out there keeping it all clean and safe. They don’t see a dime as it stands now, and that just doesn’t feel right. Not when they work so hard, and the park is such a tourist attraction, and when it provides such a home away from home for so many of our local kids. Though the V.S.A. is extremely grateful and appreciative for any help they do get from the City, Park and Recs, the “awesome” lifeguards, the LAPD Pacific Division, Councilman Rosendahl (a champion for the skatepark from day one), and from various local business donations, I’m pretty sure we can do better for it, as a community. Like Martinez said, “ALL locals should look out for their neighborhood.” Of course.

By doing better, I mean getting more involved. Local businesses can be sponsoring events at the skatepark. Local parents, grateful that their kids have a safe, fun – and FREE – place to hang out, could be donating, taking their turn doing some clean-up, organizing fundraisers so that the kids can have contests (like the one coming up in early 2013 for slalom and the crowd-pleasing Highest Ollie!), attend away contests, get prizes, have a summer camp where kids learn to surf and skate … and the good ideas just keep flowing. Those kinds of cool things are so possible, but they also cost money. Money that is as scarce at the skatepark as it is most everywhere else, but this is a place where you can actually see the few dollars they do have in action.

Ideally, it would be great to have the skatepark take in enough donations and monies earned from contests, summer camps, etc .. that they can be entirely self-sufficient and not have to worry about scrounging funds up from the City and grants and all that to do anything. The V.S.A. has already saved the City multi-thousands of dollars, because if they had to employ (and they would HAVE to) a couple full-time city workers to maintain the park, that would add up in a hurry, especially at the pre-dawn hours that it all has to be done. It would help to actually see those clean-up fees that the city collects from shoots used for clean-up – that they aren’t is shady, in my opinion. It would also help to NOT charge those usage fees for use of their own park – that just doesn’t make sense, Park and Recs, C’mon! Let’s give them a little break. So much good can be done, with just a very little help.

SO much good. I talked to V.S.A. member and the pretty much lone consistent volunteer, Victor Blue, who like Martinez, was born and raised -and hell-raised – his whole life in Venice. After a life of trouble-making, Blue got into skating, which led him to spending pretty much all day, every day at the skatepark, giving back and helping out today’s skaters. “I get to be a good example here,” Blue told me, after sharing a story about how a local mother interrupted a meeting to find out who this “Mr. Blue” was that her kid had been talking about so much. She wanted to thank him for putting her son on the right path, with his counsel and support every day down at the park. As Blue sees it, “The skatepark is the brightest spot in Venice right now … this park was built to stop destroying other areas … and you can see the positivity down here spread through Venice like a virus.” Let it!

This sentiment was echoed by local skater, Sean Vasquez, who told me that he loves to come skate Venice because “It’s one of the nicest skateparks around, it’s really well-kept and smooth, which makes your skating better.” He went on to say that “It’s all about the friendships, and the good vibes. Who wouldn’t want to skate on the beach?” I think Martinez and Blue and Wiley alike would be happy to hear that Vasquez also said, “I just come here to relax and skate. This place keeps kids here skating, instead of on the streets getting into trouble … I do it for the love of skating, which is a lifestyle, not a trend.” If Vasquez’s sentiments are the common ones held by today’s skaters, Martinez may be able to rest a little easier.

But he won’t. Because he has to get up at 4 a.m. to go clean the park all over again. Please think about that the next time you cruise past the wonderful Venice Skatepark, remember how it got that way, and consider what you can do to help preserve and protect both the history and the future of skating in Venice. Thank you in advance.

John Mooney Blows Moonlight Glass in Venice

By Greta Cobar

Venice has always fostered creativity, having drawn and inspired countless artists in endless media for over a hundred years. One such current story of bewildering, shining and colorful beauty is daily unfolding as John Mooney blows and sculpts glass, adding and mixing colors in infinite and never the same variations.

Putting color on canvas, building a castle out of sand, immortalizing a sunset with a camera or putting words on paper can, and often do, produce beautiful creations. But when Mooney puts two hundred pounds of powder in the 2100 degree furnace and draws out a fiery ball of molted glass that he then blows or sculpts into a bowl, a sea creature, or a light fixture, the transformation is one of overwhelming wonder towards the finished product and of admiration and respect for the craftsmanship that is required.

Watching him blow a bowl seemed like a series of thousands of perfectly timed and flawlessly executed movements. “Working with glass helps me become a non-perfectionist, it’s good therapy,” he said. Funny, I guess we are our own worst critics.

It takes hours, sometimes many hours, of an extremely intricate, split-second timely dance to bring to life the splendor of each piece. It also takes talent and consistent practice over a long period of time to master the art of blowing and sculpting glass. Mooney has been at it for 26 consecutive years, but he feels that “the lesson is never over, you have never learned everything.” And so he continues on his path, as if no other path was ever even possible. “The problem is keeping the furnace on,” he said regarding the expense of running his own studio, Moonlight Glass, and having to pay the $500 monthly gas bill to keep the glass molten and ready to play with. “I like the fun and freedom of playing with glass,” he said.

“Venice is cool, it’s the only place to live,” according to Mooney. Originally from Colorado, he spent his first spring break in Venice in 1983, and returned in ’86 after finishing his BA in Philosophy from Pomona College, in Claremont. It was during his last year at Pomona that he got the chance to take a glass-blowing class with renowned glass artist Therman Statom. Once in Venice, he worked with Richard Silver for ten years before building his own furnace and opening his own studio, Moonlight Glass, in 2000.

“Abbot Kinney created Venice to be how we like it, he made it for us,” is how Monney expressed the sense of belonging and the inability to fit in anywhere else that many of us feel towards the little town we call home. “Money is a really powerful thing – but so are people. I’m not going, I’m not gonna sell out,” he said when asked about the latest wave of gentrification taking over the neighborhood surrounding his studio. Located at 705 Hampton Dr., Moonlight Glass is only a stone-throw away from the recently-transformed-into-Rodeo Dr. Abbot Kinney Blvd. “Abbot Kinney would be happy seeing what I do,” Mooney said of his studio and his art.

Venice, Italy, is of course famous for its Murano glass, with a strong tradition going back several centuries. However, the small-studio glass blowing movement, which is different from the factory-like system still operating in Murano, originated right here in the US of A in the 1960s and exploded in the ‘90s and 2000s. It is these small studios, like the one Mooney is operating, that took glass from the decorative, mass-produced mentality still flourishing in Murano and opened the door to self-expression, experimentation, creativity and autonomy.

“I like the freedom – glass is free – there’s no limit to what you can do with glass,” according to Mooney. Not only did he purposely avoid the constricts of other media and of the Italian glass factories, but also those taught by conventional education. After just one glass-blowing class, Mooney proceeded to teach himself the art of glass. “In a school-like setting, people feed off each other and steal each other’s ideas. By not being submerged in art schools, I started fresh with my own ideas,” Mooney said.

And off he goes, to another full day spent blowing glass. His Moonlight Glass studio also serves as his showroom, with over 300 pieces available for admiration and purchase. The selection is almost as wide as the possibilities: tumblers, Betta fish, fish bowls on lit pedestals, his unique candlelit “Moon light bowls”, hanging lights, shot glasses, sea creatures, bowls, vases, and many, many more, each different and distinct like a non-mass-produced piece of art ought to be.

Following the stream of endless possibilities, the glass enthusiast is not limited to admiring or purchasing Mooney’s art pieces, but can also take one of the classes Mooney is teaching out of his studio. That offers not only the experience of working with molten glass next to the 2100 degree furnace, but also of walking away with two of your own original glass pieces of art.

When asked for a quick description of his endeavor, Mooney described it as a “life-long exploration of color and shape through glass and time.” And then he said that he wants to keep it going, because “there’s a lot to explore.”

To view a sample of Mooney’s artwork and find more information about taking a class, visit www.johnmooneyglass.com, call 310-399-0999 or stop by 705 Hampton Dr.

Book Review: The Lure of a Land by the Sea

By Greta Cobar

Long-time Venice historian Delores Hanney did it again: published yet another wonderful Venice memoir, made up of over thirty “vignettes,” as she calls them. With grandiose vocabulary and in what could be called poetic prose, she tells funny and insightful stories from the times of Abbot Kinney’s arrival in Venice all the way to more recent events that long-timers might remember.

Venice is “the spot just before one falls off the edge,” according to Hanney, and her latest book, The Lure of a Land by the Sea, illustrates Venice characters and stories that most definitely have not just an edge, but an importance and a relevance that break through the geographical boundaries of what we call Venice.

The book starts, appropriately, with the beginning of our community, which established the way we do things by letting a coin toss decide where Venice of America was going to materialize. It could have been in Ocean Park, you know. “Abbot Kinney was a dreamer, and Venice-of-America was his most vivid dream,” writes Hanney. She goes on to give details of Kinneyland, such as the philosophy movement it was based upon,  which was meant to foster a sense of contentment, cohesiveness and belonging, “inviting surrender to a felicitous lifestyle.”

“To see Venice is to live!”, Kinney is quoted as exclaiming after he rearranged the marshland with a lagoon, canals, imported gondolas, singing gondoliers, even Italian pigeons.

Ever wondered who introduced Mardi Gras to the Venice scene? Read The Lure of a Land by the Sea to find out about Arthur Reese, “the first black businessman in Venice,” who was originally from Louisiana and for who “it would have been unnatural” not to come to Venice. The book beautifully describes his journey from shining shoes to cleaning houses, to winning the first prize in the Tournament of Roses, to assuming the operation of the Venice Boat and Canoe Company. And yes, he is credited with bringing Mardi Gras all the way from Louisiana to Venice. Read that vignette for inspiration!

It was August 1, 1905, in Venice, California, that octogenarians Susan B. Anthony and Caroline Severance were speaking about woman suffrage to the 3600 audience members that filled the local auditorium. “Nothing is impossible to organized womanhood,” Severance is quoted as saying. Indeed, on October 10, 1911 California became the sixth state in the nation in which women could vote, nine years before women’s voting rights would go national. Hanney proudly states in her book that “as the centennial anniversary of women’s suffrage in California is celebrated, these days more women than men are casting ballots.”

From inspirational stories of nation-wide relevance to funny anecdotes that might make you start laughing out loud as you are quietly reading, go on to the next chapter, “lions & tigers & bears, oh my!” to Al G. Barnes Circus and Wild Animal Zoo coming to Venice and “those times when elephants or camels escaped to thunder about on the pier and the streets.” From that story go on to the next, this time not about animals running wild among the humans, but about a well-known celebrity swimming with a certain dolphin every Sunday for nearly a year, “happily as a pair of sea otter sisters.”

Wanna know about the beginning of Harley motorcycle’s presence in Venice? In The Lure of a Land by the Sea, Hanney divulges how a 300-mile racing track was built in our 3-mile long community, and how Otto Walker claimed Harley’s first national win at that very race.

No, it’s not all happy stories, and December 18, 1929 was not a happy day for Venice. Oil was discovered offshore and within two years 450 wells were erected, “uglifying the once lovely shoreline, fouling sand and surf and the toes that might touch them with despicable tar-y blobs,” Hanney writes. To make matters worse, the money did not stay in Venice, but was redirected to fund a fishing pier somewhere else. Read the book to find out where.

After laughing out loud to being saddened, the reader of The Lure of a Land by the Sea might find himself shedding a tear while reading about President Franklin D. Roosevelt signing Executive Order 9066, which committed 110,000 men, women and children of Japanese descent to various internment camps. “The Japanese Venetians were ordered to gather, with only what they could carry, on April 25, 1942, at Venice and Lincoln Boulevards where they waited with quiet dignity in a long, long line before being hauled off by the busload to Manzanar, 230 miles northeast of L.A., high in the Sierra Mountains,” Hanney writes. Not coincidentally, just as we now have Suzy Williams as our beloved Songbird of Venice, so back then they had Mary Kageyama as Songbird of Manzanar.

“the beat of a bongo, the howl of a poet” is the title of the vignette about the Venice Beat Movement, which Hanney describes as “free of the inhibiting bondage of the conventional worldview … under the influence of this substance or that.” You might know about Larry Lipton and Stuart Perkoff, both of whom played a significant part in the Beat Movement, but did you know that there were not one, but two gathering spots called “Venice West”? Hanney gives details and locations for both.

The Lure of a Land by the Sea also tells the story of our Venice Poet Laureate Philomene Long, and how she jumped the covent wall of St. Joseph’s of Carondelet in Los Angeles to be “spirited off – in the dark of night – in a get-away car driven by sister Pegarty.” Hanney goes on to explain that leaving the covent did not represent an abandonment of spirituality, or even a rejection of Catholicism, and goes on to reveal Philomene’s new self-identification.

Nowadays one might think that surfing is inherent to Venice. However, as Hanney discloses in her book, the first surfer here was actually brought from Hawaii as a lure to potential buyers. He came here with his 200-pound, eight-foot-long wooden board of his own design.

Although many may have followed, the first Venice snake charmer was Carroll Shelby himself, who opened his Cobra manufacturing plant right here in Venice. His official mascot was a live cobra, which somehow escaped for a few days, and Shelby took drastic action upon its return. Read the book to find out what, and why Shelby moved out of Venice when his business went from a startup of nothing in 1962 to a $16 million company in ’65.

Hanney’s vignettes abound, entertain, inform and mesmerize. In “painting the town” she writes about Rip Cronk, who “came upon a mural-painter-seeking ad placed by SPARC” upon his arrival in Venice. The first mural he painted in Venice was Venice on the Halfshell and it was located in the old Venice Pavilion. According to The Lure of a Land by the Sea, Venice’s oldest mural is Edward Biberman’s 1941 “Story of Venice,” which all of us enjoyed looking at when visiting what used to be our historical post office. After the building’s recent sale into private ownership, the public’s access to its beloved mural was cut off. Hanney’s quote of Cronk as saying that “the community mural de-alienates and delineates the individual in society” is relevant to Venice residents’ current efforts to maintain the Biberman mural available for public view.

Hanney’s book tells so many more stories, divulges so many other secrets, and sheds light on so much history. To get the full details, get yourself a copy at Small World Books or Beyond Baroque.

Venice Art Scene Heavyweights Square Off Over Proposed Mural Ordinance

By Roger Linnett

What had begun nearly a year ago as a way to replace the current ban on new murals in the city of L.A. and jump start the moribund municipal public art works process came to an abrupt halt in raucous debate before the L.A. Planning Commission and illuminated a schism in L.A.’s mural community, including prominent Venice art institutions. The moratorium was prompted in the first place by the pell-mell invasion by commercial interests into the realm of the muralist in a dispute over the use of private wall spaces.

The proposed ordinance “amends Article 4.4 (the Sign Code) of the Los Angeles Municipal Code . . . [to] carve out a distinct space for murals in the City’s sign regulations . . . Additionally, Public Art Installations are included in the proposed ordinance to ensure that all public art (whether a mural or other object) is treated similarly and does not conflict with the City’s regulations pertaining to commercial messages and signage.”

But, the L.A. Department of City Planning’s (DCP) Recommendation Report was amended to include several surreptious provisions prior to its presentation, creating a furor at the July 12 Planning Commission hearing.

Among those present at the hearing was Anna Siqueiros, a prominent L.A. artist and muralist, who was among many that were outraged that the ordinance she and many others had passionately worked on for six months had been unilaterally revised. (See her report of the hearing below)

Two of these new provisions in particular caused considerable uproar.

The most egregious to traditional muralists was the re-defining of Original Art Mural to include “digitally printed images” – computerized reproduction an existing mural on vinyl, or other such substrate, installed over the original.

The muralists were particularly exercised over this expanded definition of a mural, which they contend means ‘painting on a wall’, period.

Besides being an assault on the aesthetic fundamentals of murals, traditional muralists fear these new methods will significantly impact the amount of future work available to them, hence their ability to make a living as artists.

But, more importantly to the muralists, the process of creating a work of art in the community, interacting with the local peoples so they see the mural being created and begin to think of it as something organic and integral to the neighborhood is completely lost.

A digitally created mural comes from someone in front of a computer screen, virtually alone. When the finished printed work is installed the artist may only set foot on the location for a day, or just a few hours. There is no connection made with the environs the work exists in. And isn’t a major function of art to help people connect?

The issue has also been raised as to whether these “installations” will be afforded the protections granted under the federal Visual Artists Rights Act, which ensures copyrights for the artists, but is limited to visual works that fall within a narrowly defined category.

Furthermore, they contend that painting or ink-jet printing on these artificial materials is inferior to the original process and may substantially deteriorate before the end of the two year minimum lifespan requirement that was also added to the ordinance.

Additionally, because installations are affixed to buildings or walls as opposed to being painted directly on them, the L.A. Department of Building Safety will also have to sign off on any such project, which is not an issue with traditional murals.

Emily Winters, president of the Venice Arts Council, was among those who spoke against the other contentious provision that states “No new Original Art Mural shall be placed on a lot that has an exclusively residential structure with fewer than five dwelling units.”

This provision was apparently added by the DCP in answer to a Commissioner’s concerns about a proliferation of murals on single family homes and alley walls.

But an important part of the permit process states that “The Mural Ordinance Administrative Rules to be adopted by the Department of Cultural Affairs shall include a neighborhood involvement requirement for any applicant of a new Original Art Mural to provide notice of and to hold a community meeting on the mural proposal at which interested members of the public may review and comment upon the proposed mural. No new Original Art Mural shall be registered until the applicant certifies that he or she has completed the Neighborhood Involvement Requirement.”

This would seem to be a more bottom-up approach that would allow homeowners the freedom to pursue having a mural on their property than a ham-handed pronouncement from above by the city.

Supporters of the amended definition include Venice’s own SPARC, which is home to the UCLA/SPARC Digital Mural Lab that has developed a process for the digital reproduction and installation of murals.

In a July 19 guest editorial on KCET’s Departures website, SPARC co-founder Judy Baca wrote:

“Yes, fellow muralists, we do have a common enemy but it is not each other. It is corporations that claim the rights of individual personhood with resources so vast that people do not have to matter in a globalized world. The ban on murals goes into litigation because of the proliferation of billboards, super graphics and unchecked advertising. And there seems to be no end in sight for the use of every inch of space for advertising. This has created a visual glut in Los Angeles, and murals become almost invisible in such an environment, lost amongst the dominance of advertising image.”

SPARC is in the process of making a digital replica of “Calle de la Eternidad,” which was located in downtown L.A., on the sixty-something-year-old east facade of the 101-year-old Zobel Building on Broadway near Fourth St.

Under the current façade, on which the mural was painted in 1993, is the original façade, which has windows across the upper floors, and the owner wishes to restore the original façade as part of an over-all renovation.

The scan of the mural will be digitally restored by the original artist, Joanne Poethig, and then put on a canvas-like fabric made from recycled plastic and vinyl, and retouched again by hand, before being attached to the south side of the building once renovations are complete.

Thus, in this case, the replication process seems the only logical alternative to destroying this beautiful work. Obviously, there is a place for such a process in the L.A. art scene.

However, won’t the installation, being on the southern face of the building, be subjected to more intense degradation by sunlight, accelerating its fading and deterioration?

Recently, the last of a series of these “mural replicas” also referred to as “banners” of the works of six muralists was installed along the 101 Freeway between Alameda and Broadway as part of a seven-year study by Caltrans on a cost-effective way to maintain public art.

Caltrans main concerns are worker safety and cost of maintenance, and this method, which is purported to be more vandal- and graffiti-resistant, while not a “mural” in the strictest sense, is not without merit with regards to restoring art to public spaces and inspiring an aesthetic awareness in the community.

But people on both sides of the digital image divide have issues with the project on aesthetic and quality grounds.

Unable to decide on the ordinance’s final language, the Planning Commission has postponed the matter until Sept.13. But, the furor over what is a mural, and the possible economic and social implications for the artists and the citizens of L.A., will remain at the forefront of artistic politics in Venice and elsewhere in the city.

Community Improvement Projects Approved at July VNC Meeting

The VNC yearly sets aside part of its budget from the City of L.A. for use by local groups. The annual Community Improvement Projects for 2012 were presented by the Neighborhood Committee to the full VNC Board, which approved funding for the following projects:

Venice Boys & Girls Club “Sew What” Sewing Club $1,000
826LA Venice Wave Newspaper $1,000
Safe Place For Youth Venice Volunteer Fair $2,000
Westside Global Awareness Magnet Beautification $1,000
Marina Peninsula Neighborhood Ass’n. Doggie Bag Dispensers $2,000
Venice Vintage Motorcycle Club Spring Job Fair $1,000
Walgrove Elementary School Schoolyard Murals $1,000
Brady Walker Venice Surf & Skate Festival $2,000
Venice MoZaic Youth Poetry & Spoken Word $1,075
Venice Community Housing Corp. Centennial Park Improvement $2,000