Clement Hanami, Goonsquad Garage , 2016 By Pancho Lipschitz What happens when a Japanese American kid grows up in East L.A. in the ’70s? It sounds like the set-up for sit com on the El Rey network but it’s really the story of Clement Hanami’s life. We sat down for beers in Little Tokyo to talk about his journey from East L.A. to UCLA, coming home again to design the art for the East L.A. Civic Center Metro station and how he learned about the true meaning of art by being a roadie for Los Illegals. PL: Did you always think of yourself as an artist? CH: My father was a photographer and my mother was a seamstress but they both dabbled in artistic things. My dad was a poet on the weekends. He would do this thing called senryu. It’s like a haiku but haiku deals with nature and senryu deals with ironies in life. Like a Seinfeld episode. My mother used to paint. So I grew up in a house that was very creative. Do you remember when you started to take art seriously? Growing up Asia...

Organized as a collaboration between three well-known LA non-profit arts organizations that include socially and politically engaged art as an integral part of their focus, 43: From Ayotzinapa to Ferguson opened at Self Help Graphics & Art on May 12th.  The milestone exhibition, an effort to underscore a parallel between the reasons for the rise of the #blacklivesmatter movement in the U.S. and the disappearance of 43 politically active students from La Escuela Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos in Ayotzinapa, Mexico, featured work by artists from throughout the world. “We wanted to bring artists from both the African-American and Chicano-Mexicano communities together over the idea that excessively aggressive policing in places like Ferguson, New York, Texas, the Bay Area, is part of a larger problem,” says co-curator Jimmy O’Balles. Raised in both LA’s East Side and Monrovia before being sent to Vietnam, O’Balles founded the Monrovia Latino Heritage Society and has organiz...

Urban Renewa l, 2016, Mixed Media on Canvas, 96"x 41" The Latino Art Museum opens an exhibition featuring the work of renowned artist Jesús Toro Martínez this week. The show, Jesús Toro Martínez: NOT TRADITIONAL , a collection of 100 paintings and drawings will be on view through July 30th.  The exhibit presents Martínez’s newest works on canvas, wood and paper.  An artist reception will be held today from 4 p.m. - 9 p.m. as part of the monthly Pomona Art Walk.   “I’m thrilled to have my work exhibited in such a prestigious  and rapidly growing institution. It’s an honor to have been invited to have a one-man show by the world-class staff at the Latino Art Museum in Pomona,” said Martinez. “I love to paint visual expressions that change the viewer’s opinion by using unconventional organic materials.  It’s rewarding to see individuals appreciate my art and their interest in technique and purpose.  I am grateful to have been included as part of the...

From Staff Reports MAS ACA , the self-published, hard-cover edition of photographs by East LA-raised and Boyle Heights-based Rafael Cárdenas, will be released with an official book-signing and exhibition on July 8, 2016 at Espacio 1839, a long-standing gallery, bookstore and artisan boutique located at 1839 E. First St. The powerful and highly anticipated collection, made possible in large part through crowd-funding support, is the artist’s first-ever foray into the realm of high-gloss, coffee table quality publication and represents a survey of his photographic work from 2010 to 2015. The book release and accompanying exhibition of photographs will be preceded by an informal plática from 5p.m. to 7p.m. at Primera Taza, the eclectic, home-grown Boyle Heights café located across the street from Espacio 1839 and now co-owned by Chuy Tovar and Angel Orozco.  During the coffee house discussion, Cárdenas will share the story of how the book came together and describe his non-trad...

By Alan Diamante Diamante Law Group APLC There is a small storefront in Tijuana near the Otay Mesa port of entry known as “The Bunker.” It is the Deported Veteran Support House, a shelter for deported veterans managed by a deported soldier, Hector Barajas, who has not forgotten about his military brothers, unlike the U.S. government. The vets at “The Bunker” are indistinguishable from any one born in Los Angeles. They are more likely to be listening to Tom Petty’s “Forgotten Man” rather than Los Tigres del Norte’s “El Mojado Acaudalado.” Hundreds and possibly thousands of deported veterans reside south of the border, separated from family and the country for which they were willing to risk their lives. Most of these veterans have been honorably discharged and decorated. The biggest mistake made by these veterans is that they did not apply for naturalization when they had the chance. A naturalized citizen generally cannot be deported but a permanent resident who commits an “aggra...

by Abel M. Salas It is not unbelievable or surprising that Isaac Pelayo, still in his early 20s, is opening his first solo exhibition as a fine artist this week at Paul Stewart’s Over the Edge art gallery in South Central LA. He has been drawing since he was in diapers. His father, an event producer, a curator, a self-taught illustrator and an accomplished, internationally recognized graphite artist with a day job at Disney, keeps the earliest evidence of his son’s artistic promise in his collection. The drawing, says the University of Nevada-Las Vegas art student, is proof enough that he came to art on his own. As toddler, Pelayo observes in retrospect, he couldn't know his father was pursuing a career as an artist. The impulse to create, he honestly believes, came from within. As a result, he does not count the biological father he saw only when occasion allowed during his childhood, as a primary influence. “My dad (artist Antonio Pelayo) has a drawing of a big smiley f...

Dr. Yanis Varoufakis in Pasadena. Photo by William Alexander Yankes By William Alexander Yankes While serving as Greece’s Finance Minister, Dr. Yanis Varoufakis made every attempt to negotiate an acceptable bailout for Greece while both the world and his countrymen waited with taut nerves. At press conferences, he spoke with the confidence of a winner, even though his country was battling for its financial and political survival. His efforts preceded the massive migration of war-ravaged Syrian migrants to Greek shores. The country already teetered on both bankruptcy and the loss of its standing as a member of the European Union. The fate of a nation hinged on the destiny Varoufakis could carve with his crucial intervention. After cliff-hanging negotiations, the European Union lenders handed Varoufakis bailout terms that were tantamount to an ultimatum: either accept loans demanding deeper sacrifices or exit the European Union. Rather than using his ministerial powers, he subm...

By Pancho Lipschitz, El Art Pocho Before I was hanging out in John Valadez’ new Boyle Heights studio a few miles from where he grew up, before he poured two shots of good mezcal into styrofoam cups and we toasted to nada y todo, I always thought he was one of the best painters working in America over the past 40 years. After we hung out, I realized he’s just a cool vato who happens to be one of the best painters working in America over the past 40 years. (Left: Emerald Float, 2016, pastel. Courtesy of John Valadez) Pancho Lipschitz: I know you said you grew up in Boyle Heights but I didn’t know you worked at the Fine’s Market. John Valadez: I always had a job. I lied and said I was 16 when I was 15. I was there about four and a half years. Every week I would buy an album. PL: What was the first art that influenced you? JV: I liked drawing, and I remember in grammar school when the Flintstones were the big rage. I spent one night looking at Fred Flintstone and trying to draw ...

by Abel M. Salas A year ago, the successful soft launch of Mi Pasión Catering & Taqueria, a unique gourmet catering concern, surprised a vast circle of friends, long-time partners in several downtown L.A. law firms and an exacting cross-section of municipal, county and state employees. Founded by partners Lydia Rodíguez Arago and Chef Camron J. Torres, “Mi Pasión” is the inevitable and natural offshoot of a family gastronomic tradition Rodríguez Arago traces back for at least three generations. (Composite photo courtesy of Lydia Rodríguez Arago) Raised on the East Side in both Boyle Heights and El Sereno, two adjacent East Side communities, Rodríguez Arago recalls her first job as a teenager. “I went to work at my uncle’s restaurant in Boyle Heights... La Serenata de Garibaldi,” she says. The restaurant, a mainstay on the high-end lists of recommended destinations for aficionados of upscale Mexican cuisine, was established in 1985 by her great-grandmother Isabel, her grand...

by Citlalith Pérez Reprising the inaugural community-wide, multi-media homage to “Lucha Libre,” the Mexican wrestling sport characterized by larger than life characters, theatrical showmanship, acrobatic virtuosity and a perennial parade of masked wrestlers, Exodus Events is pleased to present the second annual edition of LA’s most authentic homage to the internationally popular tradition. (Photo courtesy: Santino Bros. Wrestling Academy) Part sport and part made-for-TV entertainment, the classic Lucha Libre wrestling legacy—the unique cultural expression which originated in Mexico and went on to spawn the wildly successful World Wrestling Federation (now the publicly traded World Wrestling Entertainment) media juggernaut—has inspired a growing legion of fans even as it has stoked the imaginations of countless aficionados drawn to its pageantry, near comic book hero iconography and all-American fun. The brain-child of artist Antonio Pelayo, founder of Exodus Events, “La Bulla” b...