San Pedro Art Walk

Even though San Perdo, the self declared Edge of LA, is so close to Long Beach I had never been to the town before so I thought what better way to see it than through an Art Walk.  Their Art Walk is every 1st Thursday of the month.  We wandered down there this past month which happened to be Cinco de Mayo, so it was an especially festive event.  They have a free 1 hour tour that people can jump on if you're not familiar with the area or just want a little more direction.

We met at the Chamber of Commerce which is where the tour starts.  We were a few minutes early so we were led to the Chamber's board room and gallery for some light snacks and wine.  Most art walks or gallery events feature wine so this wasn't surprising.  We talked with the other patrons who all seemed to be regulars.  Promptly at 6:30 we headed outside to meet a larger group waiting for the tour.  The docent mentioned this was one of the largest tours they have ever had.

We went to 3 galleries on the tour the 1st being Studio 345 where artists Pat Woolley and Gloria Lee had a variety of their own acrylics and watercolors. It was mostly non objective works by Gloria and French village scenes watercolors by Pat, who lives part time in Provence.  We were also able to see their workspace which is in the back of the gallery.  Our second stop was the Croatian Cultural Center which featured 10 artists of Mexican descent.  This was great for Cinco de Mayo because there was Mexican art and lots of Mexican food and drinks.  Very festive and appropriate for the walk.  The last stop on the tour was the Annie Appel Photo Studio for the exhibit Afterglow by Amy Chambers.  Her images were colorful and summer like.  She is a self taught photographer doing very original work.  She also uses a common digital camera (not an SLR) and a photo printer at a local drugstore.


The art district in San Pedro is very cute.  There is a huge difference from where the galleries start to the rest of the city that we saw.  The downtown has a regentrified, urban-chic feel. There are 26 galleries and over 30 restaurants around the art area.  The next walk is this coming Thursday, June 2nd.  If you're looking for a fun, free, relaxing outing you should go to the San Pedro Art Walk!

Downtown LA Art Walk

Art walks are always a blast!  Wine, fun people, interesting food, music, creative things to look at :)  LA is an insane creative mecca.  Outside of the whole entertainment industry there is a thriving art scene.  So many museums and galleries all around town.  So I was super excited to go to THE Downtown LA Art Walk.  It's held every 2nd Thursday of the month in the historic downtown area.  The Art Walk website is extremely helpful but unfortunately I didn't take advantage of it before I went.  We showed up at 4:30.  I read somewhere that its held from noon-9 so I thought 4:30 would be prime time for the walk.  The first place we went was the Art Walk Lounge because they were giving out free hand woven bags to the first guests (I'm not sure how many but I wanted one).  But, they were still setting up when we got there.  Apparently the festivities don't really get started until 6pm and we soon learned even that is early.  The noon-9 applies to the galleries so we went in search of them. 

The interesting thing about the downtown gallery area aka gallery row is it's spread throughout a 6 or 7 block area.  Navigating it is a bit confusing and it's not the best area in the city to walk around looking confused.  So in the hour and a half we had before the art lounge opened we managed to find 2 galleries.  The first was the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art.  The exhibit was fun but slightly confusing.  I have a hard time interpreting art that isn't straight forward and this definitely was not straight forward.  After spending some time in the LACDA we went to Bert Green Fine Art Gallery.  The exhibit here was more subtle and understandable.  I could appreciate a lot of the work and it was refreshing.  After the Bert Green Gallery it was approaching 6 so we made our way to the Art Lounge.  This gallery featured a lot of different artists, all young and creative.  I didn't understand most of the depictions.  We stood in line for the tote bad made out of recycled billboard material and it was indeed being sown at the table.  After looking around the lounge we went to the outside exhibits and craft fair in the courtyard where there were trinkets, posters, novelties and what not.

The last stop we made before leaving was the food truck parking lot.  This was the first time I'd seen a big food truck gathering.  There were a lot of interesting and delicious looking offerings.  Most notably the Grilled Cheese Food Truck that had a line 5X another other trucks.  Since we were exhausted I did not stand in line for anything but look for a post soon on food trucks!

All in all, the downtown art walk has a lot to offer.  If you have time this Thursday make the trip into the city for it. My only advice to go around 6:30 so there is a decent crowd to enjoy the shows with.