Venice set for Art Crawl

Like its refined Italian Renaissance sister city, Venice Beach is an arts haven ““ just with a slightly more eclectic sense of style and a touch of Californian flair.
The notoriously quirky and creative community intends to celebrate this artistic spirit in its first monthly Venice Art Crawl, a free arts event beginning Aug. 19 and continuing every third Thursday of the month thereafter.
“There’s been an arts scene in Venice forever, that’s what it was intended for. (The Art Crawl) is meant to bring it back, emphasizing that there is an art scene here,” said Edizen Stowell, a Venice Chamber of Commerce boardwalk committee member and a key organizer for the event.
What began with an artist’s letter to the community, expressing concern over the city’s crowded boardwalks and limited space for artists, has since blossomed into a grassroots project and a yearlong event planning process focused on celebrating the community’s artists and their work.
Inspired by these concerns, Daniel Samakow, chair of the Venice Chamber of Commerce’s boardwalk committee, Stowell and other community members conceptualized a plan of action.
Looking to the “pop-up galleries” of downtown Los Angeles’ Art Walk and arts events in Silver Lake, the group realized that Venice artists could do something similar.
“When we went downtown, we saw that they did this thing called “˜pop-up galleries.’ They’re essentially anything from a restaurant, to a store, to a wall ““ anything that’s a private space. We thought, “˜You know, we could do this in Venice,’ and since we don’t have the galleries we need, we’ll create our own galleries and own opportunities to showcase Venice art,” Samakow said.
The Art Crawl area is currently defined by North Venice Boulevard along the Boardwalk, Speedway and Pacific avenues, and will end at Westminster Avenue, with the central arts area located at Windward Avenue, home to the historical “Venice” beach sign. But organizers anticipate that the event will grow to include other areas of Venice in future Art Crawls.
With more than 40 anticipated pop-up galleries for the inaugural event, organizers are optimistic about the event’s future in the Venice community.
“(The Art Crawl) will continue to evolve. We’re unleashing the creative energy of Venice. This is really an organic process where the local Venice artists express themselves in private spaces,” Samakow said. “If you’re an artist, you essentially have to find a restaurant or person who lives down here and you can exhibit your work. There’s not a committee where we say, “˜Your art’s good, your art’s bad.’ This is really about potentially having a real expression that’s a nexus of the artists and the community, and it will really reflect that specific mind-sight.”
The Art Crawl also caught the eyes of longtime Venice locals and alumni Jean Edelstein and Nancy Louise Jones, both professional artists participating in the event who also work from Venice studios.
“I’ve lived in Venice for over 30 years. I live on the first walk of the beach, which I love. … The reason that artists are attracted to Venice is because of the ocean, you’re right at the coast, which is beautiful in itself. (In the past) most artists were able to come here because of the affordability, which is unfortunately becoming more unaffordable,” Edelstein said.
Edelstein, a native New Yorker, studied art primarily at Pratt Institute and the Art Students League before moving to Los Angeles to work in fashion illustration and later studying printmaking at UCLA.
Inspired by a trip up the Li River while visiting China, she began painting the landscapes with brush and ink in an accordion-style book. While Edelstein works with a variety of media, she is currently focused on bookmaking, which she plans to show at the Art Crawl.
“Wherever I am, I have these books with me. So because I also do performance work, I can also go to the theater and sit in the theater and draw (performers) as I see them as the dances unfold, whether it’s musicians or dance. I also go to the Huntington gardens and work in their desert gardens on these books. I have over 118 books right now,” Edelstein said.
While Jones’ work is more locally inspired, she and Edelstein share a connection to the artistic spirit of the Venice community.
“I’m a native Californian. I consider myself a California colorist, although at times I do deal with black and white. But it’s the lighting in California that has the most impact on my work,” Jones said.
While Jones has not yet decided what she’ll be sharing from her portfolio for the Art Crawl, her diverse breadth of work includes watercolor, acrylics on canvas, photography and monotypes, a photographic print technique in which photographs may be painted.
“I am a Venice artist, and I really believe in supporting the local art scene, because I am a part of the local art scene. I’ve been here for a long time,” Jones said. “The young artists, the emerging artists, the kids coming out of school will probably be able to take advantage of the Art Crawl the most, because they have nothing to lose. (It’s) just about eyeballs that they need to see their work.”