In Hollywood even Mountain Lions become stars. The wild cougar dubbed P-22 by the Park Service roamed Griffith Park for 12 years. After a few scrapes with dogs and humans in December 2022, NPS biologists captured P-22 in the Los Feliz area and transported him to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park for a thorough health evaluation. Results showed P-22 had several severe injuries, such as significant trauma to his head, right eye, and internal organs from a suspected vehicle strike, as well as multiple chronic health illnesses, including irreversible kidney disease, chronic weight loss, an extensive parasitic skin infection over his entire body, and localized arthritis. Due to his poor condition, CDFW made the extremely difficult decision to euthanize P-22 on the morning of Dec. 17, 2022.
My gouache and monotype on paper artwork "P-22" was inspired by numerous images of the mountain lion including Steve Winter's photos as well as the big cat paintings of Delacroix and Géricault.
My Apple algorithm keeps featuring Bob Seger's ode to L.A. - "Hollywood Nights." I listened to the song as I painted "P-22." As if in Seger's song and my painting, P-22 slinks across the Hollywood Hills looking down on the lights of L.A.
See this artwork and more at our upcoming evening Open Studio Art at the Airport event on May 13, 2023 from 5-9 PM.
A photo memento from May's Venice Art Walk & Auctions at Frank Gehry's Google building. The Talented Actress Robin Tunney ( The Mentalist / Prison Break) with my painting "Museum Whispers (de Young)"
I just learned from the Venice Family Clinic - "that with the collective efforts of our participating artists, we raised more than $780,000 ($50k more than last year). We are pleased to announce that this is the most successful Venice Art Walk that we had in over a decade! "
Peter Clothier Reads at the Standard by Paige Wery's Torchlight (March 23, 2010)
Artillery Magazine hosted an intimate event with art writer Peter Clothier last night at the Standard Hotel in Hollywood. Peter began the evening by reading a bit from his new book Persist and then in an honest vulnerability spoke of his personal and artistic challenges to a supportive audience. Peter encouraged the group to face the inhibiting lies that keep us from reaching our full potential in art and life. Peter explained that his personal lie began at his birth when he was delivered with an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. A skilled, quick thinking nurse cut the cord but Peter spent much of his life held back by the illusion that "I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be alive." Peter Clothier has left that illusion behind. In Persist and on his continuing book tour, Peter provides vital clues and encouragement learned through meditation and community to his readers.
Congrats to Peter Clothier and to Artillery Magazine publisher Paige Wery for an important event. Read Peter's thoughts on the evening on his blog :The Buddha Diaries
Artillery Magazine's next event at the Standard - this time at the Downtown Standard will be held on Sunday, April 11, 2010:
ROUND TWO * ART DEBATES (arguing the issues that really matter) 2-6 P.M. Debate Starts at 3P.M. sharp THE STANDARD, DOWNTOWN- LA ART SERIES
LOWBROW & HIGHBROW: ROBERT WILLIAMS VS. EZRHA JEAN BLACK
PORNOGRAPHY IN ART: ZAK SMITH VS. BETTY ANN BROWN ECONOMY & CREATIVITY: ROBERT BERMAN VS. SHANA NYS DAMBROT PROJECT DEITCH: MAT GLEASON VS. MARGARET LAZZARI
THE STANDARD 550 South Flower Street $15 Valet Parking /Self Park Lots Nearby
A Reading by Peter Clothier Date/Time: Tuesday March 23 at 7 pm Location: The Standard, Hollywood Please join Peter Clothier from 7 to 10 PM in the Cactus Lounge for this public event Hosted Wine bar for the first hour
Artillery Magazine presents a special book reading and signing of Persist: In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad with Commerce, by writer Peter Clothier.
Peter Clothier's Persist: In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad with Commerce arrives at the perfect time. As the art world tries to reinvent itself in the current economic malaise, Clothier's book inspires us to see the soul and spirit inherent in the creative process. Money may not be the root of all evil but it is the root of a lot of bad art. Peter Clothier challenges artists, writers, actors and filmmakers to value artistic process as a goal in itself rather than a path to wealth and power. Most of all, Clothier urges us to keep on creating - to never give up. The world would be a lesser place without the arts. A beautiful, inspiring book. Highly recommended.
Peter Clothier is a long time student of the dharma and a meditation practitioner. In this context he examines the qualities of compassion, perseverance and discernment on the artist's predicament in a world that judges success in terms of celebrity and material reward. Peter describes his new book:
"The title, together with the subtitle, pretty much says it all. This latest book is a collection of essays, written over the past thirty years, addressing in a variety of ways the predicament of the artist in a cultural climate in which celebrity and established commerical track record too often count for more than talent and quality of work. Yet artists of all kinds still have to "do it"- if only because that's who they are. The book describes strategies I myself have found to be indispensible in learning to "persist" beyond the all too familiar obstacles: practice, the exercise of mental and logistical discipline, and building community."
Peter Clothier has a long and distinguished career as an an internationally-known art writer, novelist and poet. Peter avoids the jargon that obscures much current writing about art by using readily understood language that illuminates rather than obfuscates. Clothier seeks to achieve a harmony of mind, heart, and body in his work, and looks for this quality in the artists he writes about. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Artscene, ARTNews and other publications. Peter writes a daily weblog,The Buddha Diaries, and is a contributing blogger to The Huffington Post. He also hosts a monthly podcast entitled "The Art of Outrage," on ArtScene Visual Radio." Peter Clothier's latest book is Persist.
The Airborne Toxic Event played at the Music Box @ the Henry Fonda Theater in Hollywood last night. The evening was a homecoming of sorts for The Airborne Toxic Event as members of many of their fellow bands from L.A. were in attendance. The sold out crowd at the concert spanned all ages from kids to grandparents which contributed to the musical reunion vibe. Mikel Jollett, the lead singer and writer, in his drive to connect with the audience, reminded me of a young Bono or Springsteen blended with the bittersweet romantic yearnings of Smiths era Morrissey. Mikkel has a gripping but sweetly humble stage presence that projects power but not swagger. Guitarist Steven Chen lays down a sonic field that gives air and space for Jollett's searching soul to roam. Chen's guitar opens up ambient washes as well as chiming lines that bring to mind the Australian band The Church and the vast spaces found in their song Under the Milky Way. But even with the lyrical guitar and all the strings on stage as Chen told Scott Timberg of the Los Angeles Times that he "always loved it when you take something really clean and proper sounding and dirty it up a little bit.” There is grit in the music as well as haunting desperation in the vocals.
Wishing Well
Lead singer, Mikel Jollett is as much a writer as a musician and I think this is what gives the band such great possibilities and at times can drive some critics to write poison pen letters to the band in place of honest reviews. The painter RB Kitaj faced similar antagonism when he dared to present his writing as on a par with his paintings.
R.B. Kitaj Los Angeles No. 22 36 x 36 oil on canvas 2002
The longing and loss found at the end of a relationship or the end of a life is a shared human condition that artists strive to get down on paper, or canvas or in song. But, that strange mix of dread, fear, anger, resistance and ultimately letting go can prove elusive or even bathetic in an artistic setting. RB Kitaj's late paintings of love lost work for me as do Mikel Jollett's song stories. The lyrics to the song Sometime Around Midnight are darkly evocative and well worth a read on their own:
Sometime Around Midnight
And it starts sometime around midnight, or at least that's when you lose yourself for a minute or two. As you stand under the bar lights and the band plays some song about forgetting yourself for a while. And the piano's this melancholy sound track to her smile in that white dress she's wearing, you haven't seen her for a while.
But you know that she's watching. She's laughing, she's turning. She's holding her tonic like a cross. The room suddenly spinning she walks up and asks how you are. So you can smell her perfume. You can see her lying naked in your arms.
And so there's a change in your emotions and all of these memories come rushing like feral waves to your mind: of the curl of your bodies like two perfect circles entwined.
And you feel hopeless, and homeless and lost in the haze of the wine.
Then she leaves with someone you don't know. But she makes sure you saw her she looks right at you and bolts, as she walks out the door, your blood boiling, your stomach in ropes.
And your friends say "What is it? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Then you walk under the streetlights. And you're too drunk to notice that everyone is staring at you. You just don't care what you look like, the world is falling around you.
You just have to see her You know that she'll break you in two.
On stage last night the song was riveting. Couples danced, wrapped tightly together in the packed crowd as if this could be their own swan song.
Sometime Around Midnight
The Airborne Toxic Event is at the cusp of stardom and at times Mikel seemed apologetic for their recent success, thanking the audience at numerous times for being there - almost as if he needed to remind himself where he was now and how much he and the band had gone through and how far they still have to travel. Near the end of the night Mikel slipped through the throng pressing up against the stage and climbed up onto a side ledge in full voice while violist Anna Bulbrook was held aloft by the crowd. Mikel invited those lining the stage to join the band for their finale of Missy. The first lines of the song are: "Missy got off the bus one day in a crowded depot in downtown L.A. She looked around as if to say: "I'm home." The band was home for one night only then off to San Francisco the next and on up to the Northwest as the current tour continues. But for that moment as the audience joined the band and danced onstage Mikel's vision of Los Angeles held sway. As he told Molly Bergen, "I love that it’s ... all of these cultures rammed up against each other. People who don't live here think LA is Hollywood. But there are 14 million people here from somewhere else: Salvadorian, Ethiopian, Korean, Armenian...we're just one giant civil stew. "
Echo Park (New Song - First Time Played in Los Angeles) *These clips by okeastron2008 provide a brief intro to the band and the inspired performance.
1. Paul Debraski writing about McSweeney's Issue #27 describes Mikel Jollett's short story in the issue:
"The story concerns a giant crack in the road of a major street of Los Feliz. The foursome gather their spelunking gear (so to speak) and decide to investigate this gigantic crack/sinkhole. As they dive in and discover a gigantic expanse of darkness, they become, obviously, very intrigued. Eventually some neuroses come to light. And, as they proceed further into the cave, they see some extraordinary things."
2. Molly Bergen in the LAist asked Mikel about the band's name:
I read that you took your name from the novel White Noise by Don DeLillo. For those of us who are unfamiliar with the work, what is that referring to?
In the novel The Airborne Toxic Event is a big cloud that is a result of a giant chemical explosion The huge poisonous cloud threatens a nearby town. The hero, Jack, gets exposed to it. He’s told by the doctors that he’s going to die. When he asks when the doctor says, "You may live a week you may live 40 years." Which is really unhelpful because that is true for everyone. The Airborne Toxic Event his fear of death. It changes him in these really important ways. The same thing happened to me in that year I formed the band with my mom dying and my own health problems.
