Los Angeles Arts District

I was talking to a friend at UCLA the other day.   She's been in LA for 5 years or so, and lived on the West side for all of it.  Anyway, she told me that the entire time she's lived here, she's only been downtown a handful of times...mainly because she's afraid to leave the west side!  What?!?!?  That's crazy to me.  I love downtown.  And there's SO much to do.  There's bars, restaurants, artists/galleries, and newer things to do that pile on the already huge list of cool things in the downtown area.  Anyway, the Arts District is downtown.  This place is cool.  There's basically a bunch of old industrial buildings now inhabited by artists, mixed in with a bunch of still functioning warehouses/factories, hip eateries, music venues, and galleries.  And of course, being that thousands of artists live there, the place is visually awesome.

There's a bunch of pictures in the gallery below:

PS I started adding these gallery things to put up more pictures in less space, but the trade off is definitely having to use flash.  Let me know if they load too slow and I'll find another solution.

JR Downtown

JR, this really great French street artist, has some new art work up in LA.  Basically he's been wheat-pasting the world like crazy, and LA's his most recent stop.  I hadn't heard until he did a show in Long Beach and postered up half the walls in town, but JR won a TED grant and has been spending it pasting up HUGE pictures of people on buildings/windows/billboards/etc for the past month.  It's really cool.  The "show" is called "Wrinkles of the City" and LA's only the most recent stop.  Before that was Shanghai and Cartagena.  I heard there are going to be 20 of them put up all over the area.

LA Graffiti

Cold and rainy here, but Spring, woohoo!  Anyway, on my commute everyday I pass through this sort of warehousey/factory/train yard area of LA and there's always really crazy, bright, cool graffiti around.

Banksy Buzz

LA's been all about BANKSY recently. See the Oscar's are Sunday, and senor Banksy and his movie "Exit Through the Gift Shop" are up for Best Documentary.

"Crayola Shooter" on the Urban Outfitter's in Westwood -
which I walk by everyday

So "Banksy" has been tagging tinseltown for the last week and a half or so.  Annnnd, of the seven new Banksy works that popped up this month (that I know of), 4 of them are on the very route I commute on - or were, two have already been removed.  Pretty pretty awesome.


Okay The LA Banksy tour recap in case you want to wander around LA and check them out:  There are 5 still up that I know of.  "Crayola shooter" is still up in Westwood, "Livin' the Dream" - the billboard on Sunset has been taken down, "Charlie Brown arsonist" - which was on an abondoned burned down buidling in West Hollywood, was stolen or removed or something, "Dog Wizz" is in Beverly Hills and is still up, and I haven't seen the other three, "Kite Caution," "Crayola House Foreclosure," and "This looks a bit like an elephant" but I think they're still up. Recap photo from here.

Okay, where are they: Just click on the map to go to the actual google map for more precise locations.

UPDATE: "Kite Caution" and "Crayola House Foreclosure" are no more...gone...removed by thieves or the owner or something.

Cool Things

Two things I think are super cool: rooftops and graffiti.  And 5,000 pictures to prove it...

Annnnnnd graffiti

Also, for the first time in my five years as a legal adult I have jury duty...or at least maybe I'll have jury duty if I make it pass the selection process.  I'm sort of excited.