For Immediate Release: August 19, 2008
Create:Fixate Presents
“AMP (Art.Music.Politics)”
A political art show with intention.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
LOS ANGELES, CA – Arts organization Create:Fixate presents “AMP (Art.Music.Politics) A Political Art Show with Intention,” its first exhibition of self-evident political art with co-curation by Michelle Berc and Janice Markham. On Saturday, September 20, 2008, the eve of International Peace Day, the new downtown LA location known as Premiere Events Center will play host to AMP with two warehouses filled with politically charged and social-conscious artwork along with a live musical soundtrack provided by top local DJs and musicians. The venue is located at 613 Imperial Street, Los Angeles, CA 90021. The full-blown event runs from 7:00 p.m. – 2:00 a.m. Admission is $15.00 before 10:00 p.m., and then $20.00 for the remainder of the night. All ages are welcome. For more information please call 310-590-7199 or visit www.createfixate.org.
The evening begins with a preview of the exhibit from 4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. There is a $5 suggested donation from 4-7pm and kids twelve-years old and younger are allowed free entry before 7 o’clock. Parents are encouraged to bring the whole family during the preview hours of each Create:Fixate art event. The Kids Kreativity Zone overflows with art supplies and provides a supervised space where youth can dive into their own expression while parents explore the evening’s exhibit.
“AMP (Art.Music.Politics.) A Political Art Show with Intention.” is presented as an “artist as activist” event to promote free speech, progressive thought, and peace. On the eve of International Peace Day, Create:Fixate brings together leaders in the Political Art and Music Community, Activist Groups, and over 40 individual artists, musicians, and DJs. As our country embarks on the upcoming presidential election we are faced with the opportunity to actively utilize the powers to choose, voice, and influence the path we will take. Since the beginning of time, artists have been at the forefront of political consciousness, reflecting and altering societal perceptions and voicing a call to action. Participating activist groups and partners include: The Onion, Code Pink, Young Progressive Majority, Press for Democracy, Giveback, NextAid, and Healthcare for All.
The event will include a group project self-titled “Art Piece for Peace.” The curators have asked all participating visual artists to produce an art piece that demonstrates each artist’s individual expression of peace through their art form. Proceeds from the sales of these art pieces will be donated to VFP – Veterans for Peace. VFP is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational and humanitarian organization dedicated to the abolishment of war and is an official Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) represented at the UN. VFP activities include military family rights, supports recently returned vets. VFP actively participates in efforts to save VA healthcare and defends veterans’ rights.
http://www.veteransforpeacela.org
The event will exhibit over 40 political artists including live painting by well-known graffiti artist Mear One who sees himself as a messenger as well a spiritual warrior using his imagination as a communication device. Robbie Conal‘s artwork includes images of politics, power, and the abuses of both. Conal realizes that art institutions are a severely limited arena of reception for ideas about public issues, so he makes posters of his paintings and runs around the streets, spattering glue in every major city he can get to on his no-budget poster tours. Influenced by Pop Art and the inherent manipulation found in advertising, Nikki Nash enjoys shining a light on our attachments: currently the connection between commerce and terrorism as represented in her recent paintings of front page horror mashed-up with happy Pg. 7 Macy’s underwear ads. Feel anxious about terrorism? Buy some new underwear. The exhibit also includes the work of AkoEyong aka ‘the painter of the white dove’ who is a political refugee from Cameroon – one of the countries within the Congo Basin. His paintings are influenced by the ancient “griot story telling,” an oral tradition which is an integral part of the African culture.
Political art collective Yo! What Happened to Peace? is committed to highlighting the beauty of hand-crafted printmaking techniques as a method of visual protest, the show has traveled the globe continuously adding new artist’s work and has just published a book in 2007 that features over 200 prints. MARK OF THE BEAST is a traveling art exhibit that serves as a conscious happening in each city it reaches, aimed directly at the issues of consumerism and alternative globalization. Curated by Los Angeles-based artist Brandy Flower, the show exposes, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, current issues of corporate manipulation in our society. With over 50,000 posters, the Center for the Study of Political Graphics’ (CSPG) archive is the largest collection of Post World War II graphics in the United States. The CSPG collects, preserves, and exhibits posters relating to historical and contemporary movements for social change. Through its varied programs, CSPG is reclaiming the power of art to inspire people to action.
The Audio Lab portion of the evening includes an important fixture in the Los Angeles House Music scene the BodyRockDJs who have become widely known for spinning some of the best that house music has to offer. Jeremy Sole’s Musaics juxtaposes elements of Afrobeat, Cumbia, Highlife, Jazz, Dub and experimental beats. As a true music lover Sole’s has always found a way to blend them all together and can be found every Wednesday night on KCRW 89.9 FM and at his weekly night club Afro-Funké where he is a co-founder and resident DJ. Drawing on the passion and soul instilled in him growing up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Los Angeles breaks DJ Patricio will make you get off your ass and dance. He has blessed the turntables across the states, internationally, and is a regular at large summer festivals.
Create:Fixate is dedicated to showcasing the work of emerging and mid-career artists in a unique environment. Usually, every three months, Create:Fixate founder Michelle Berc curates, produces and hosts these stunning group art shows that present creative people from around the globe with an emphasis on the local talent of Los Angeles. Janice Markham joins Berc as guest co-curator for the A.M.P. exhibit. Markham is the Artistic Director of VOX BOX Arts Collective as well as co-writer and host on a progressive TV interview show entitled “Press for Democracy” which airs on the satellite channel FreeSpeechTV. The production team also includes music coordinator Andrea Giardina and technical producer Andre Freimann. Awe-inspiring painters, photographers, sculptors, and multi-media artists exhibit alongside an equally impressive array of Los Angeles’ finest DJs and musicians. Each event’s aural artists are poised to create a soundtrack for the night that transforms this from a simple ‘art show’ into the city’s most anticipated Art Event.
PHFE Management Solutions (PHFE) helps to provide a comprehensive administrative and fiscal structure for Create:Fixate’s nonprofit division. PHFE Management Solutions, also known as Public Health Foundation Enterprises, is a 37-year-old 501(c)3 nonprofit organization providing back office support and management services to other nonprofit organizations.
The Onion
The Onion is a national publication and website that offers award-winning news and views that readers can’t get anywhere else. Every week, the Onion’s attention grabbing headlines and photojournalism paint a unique picture of the world. More than 3 million people read The Onion each week, online and in print in select cities, making it by far the most popular news organization in its class. A million more listen to Onion Radio News coast to coast. In 2007, The Onion launched Onion News Network, its 24-hour video news network.
~ Optical Lounge~
Ako Eyong ‘the painter of the white dove’
Ako Eyong is ‘the painter of the white dove’ . He was born in Cameroon, which is a country located within the Congo Basin. Eyong has been making art through out his lifetime and in 1996 he earned a bachelor of arts in history and political science from the university of Buea. Shortly after, he became the cartoonist for Cameroon’s biggest, English, privately owned paper: The Post. In a country suffocating in the stranglehold of a brutal and corrupt dictatorship, Eyong had a lot to say in his cartoons and the government did not find them funny and the artist soon became a target. The following year, he successfully slipped out of his country, using a fake passport. The U.S government came to the rescue immediately after. Today Ako lives in California where he continues to dedicate his life and his work to raising awareness about peace, love, freedom, our environment, and the relationship between people. He is a Christian and he is extremely grateful to be alive.
Andre Freimann
Andre Freimann was born in Germany and has been painting professionally for 13 years. At a very young age he was busy creating and building things with his hands. He started working with cut metal and acrylic to create sculpture and large works on canvas in an attempt to capture artwork that has infinite possibilities, infinite choices of color and movement that eventually form and take final shape.
Annie Madison
Annie Madison was born and raised in Palm Springs, California. She escaped from the desert to Los Angeles, were she now works as an artist. Most of her days are spent designing for the fashion industry, translating her fine art into t-shirt graphics. Chances are you have seen her work, or perhaps are wearing one now. Gathering inspiration from her middle of nowhere, desert upbringing, Annie’s art mixes 20th century modernism with pop psychedelia. Societal topics and taboos such as drug use, religion and peaceful protest are explored through her modern female perspective.
Bryan de Roo
Bryan de Roo is a Los Angeles based artist working in a broad range of materials to form 2-D and 3-D objects and installations. His work often evokes a range of subjects from the topical to the philosophical as well as from the physical to the emotional, and at best, all at once. The work exhibited here is a response to the insurmountable damage being caused environmentally, politically, and personally by poor choices and willful ignorance, of which the artist himself attests to being complicit in.
Chris Lee
Chris Lee is a photographer and artist based in Long Beach, CA. Lee took up photography in 1984 and started freelancing for local news services such as the OC Weekly, Zuma, and the Associated Press in 1996. In 1999, Lee was the lead photographer and photo-coordinator for the first World Festival of Sacred Music-Los Angeles. He has traveled to India, Canada, Mexico, Singapore and across the United States on documentary projects and client commissions. During his travels he has met Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the Dalai Lama and Tom Hanks. He hopes that his artwork will inspire fellow human beings to pursue pathways to love, understanding and non-violence. In his spare time, Lee practices peace meditation at a monastery in Long Beach, CA.
Dan Levin
Friendly lunacy and logic do an odd kind of dance in the assemblage work of Dan Levin. The impression one gets from Levin’s work, for the time being, is of political and social conscience being the prime motivator. Levin is wise enough in his approach to the assemblage medium to understand that logic, even of a twisted variety, can prevent the appearance of randomness in work all about found objects. Despite its wild-eyed humor and hints of chaos, Levin’s art has a surprising cohesiveness of design through a series of variations on a particular theme. It’s a ploy designed to startle and amuse the observer, also to jar the viewer out of a collective sense of what goes where. But behind these hijinx, which provoke thought and snickers, is a method of the artist’s careful devising. Levin spent the last few years living in Australia and Europe. He now resides in California, spending much of his time fabricating assemblages, in addition to distributing his Warhol influenced pop art: G.W. Bush Toilet Paper.
Dave Bondi
Dave Bondi has over fifteen years experience working as an artist and animator for such notable entertainment companies as Mattel, Activision, Electronic Arts and the television comedy “South Park.” Over the past few years, he has been involved with the Designer/Art toy movement as a sculptor, in addition to pursuing his own art career. His work uses urethane resins and foams to create vibrant, twisting, three-dimensional landscapes of color. Whimsical and eye-catching, it often deals with much deeper issues of representation and identity. He lives and works in Venice, CA with his wife and daughter.
David Andés Kietzman
David Andrés Kietzman designs his projects to make the viewer curious about the images and how they relate to our world and their life. Kietzman uses found wood as a canvas and anything, including magazines and markers, as his medium. His artwork ranges in scale depending on the size of each piece of wood, which creates a natural frame around the artist’s thoughts. Imagery and inspiration for Kietzman’s pieces comes from a variety of places such as old boy scout manuals, political propaganda, graffiti murals, ancient typography books, and street signage. Kietzman’s methods behind the art making process have evolved from his background in graphic design and silk-screening.
Holly Wood
Holly Wood lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Cartoon-influenced yet painterly, some stylistic influences include the scenes of everyday life in Medieval manuscripts, with dashes of Latin American Fantastic Realism, Mexican Socialist art, Indian folk art narrative paintings, and Underground Comics. Her subject matter, inspired by daily life, news stories, history and her own vivid dreams, often features a mix of humans with other animal characters in roles of equal importance.
Also a songwriter, in ’07 Wood released “Fat and Furry”, a collection of 7 pointedly political songs. Done “just for fun”, her songs nevertheless generated enough interest to have been played around the world on indie and Internet music programs. Her song, “My Spider” was at #7 for two weeks on the American Idol Underground Top 100 song list, she was interviewed live from Berlin, and was asked to send autographed CDs to a music critic in Minsk, Belarus.
Jeff McDonald
In this time of political unrest, struggle and strife, Jeff McDonald’s works focus on timeless spiritual ideals of purity and beauty. Each piece begins with a kanji/hanzi character (Japanese/Chinese characters for words or expressions) carved out of birchwood onto which layers of found objects and mixed media relating to the character’s meaning are attached. Finally, several layers of paint are applied in chaotic drips and swirls.
McDonald has been painting for close to 20 years and he has had paintings in art shows and galleries in Los Angeles, Orange County, and Northern California. McDonald was also a Lecturer in the Studio Arts department of UC-Irvine for two years, teaching classes in Web Design and Photoshop.
Jim Gentry
Jim Gentry’s work merges the threads and textures of a sewing machine, with the inks of a manual typewriter. Combining them, he sews the portraits of people, birds, insects and flowers, then types a repeating phrase around the sewn image. All this work is done on canvas. The pieces aim to start a conversation with the viewer’s inner dialogue by using emotionally charged imagery and words. Gentry’s inspiration comes from observing himself, and others, interacting and reacting to the world.
Jon E. Nimetz
Jon E. Nimetz creates a body of worked which is loosely autobiographical and based on the political dialogue between both his culturally-driven comprehension of society’s constrictive methods of infringement and his fight against such conformist ideologies. Nimetz works on canvas with mediums ranging from White Out to paint pens, to spray and acrylic paints, balancing them in a textural malaise. His political perspective is liberally minded and a large majority of it speaks of the disenfranchisement of the spiritually minded in a world contorted by media propaganda and subversive consumerism.
Kelly Fogel
Kelly Fogel began documenting protests in 1999 in Washington, DC outside of the World Bank. The first protest Fogel documented was an anti-globalization demonstration, and by 2001 her work turned to the subject of war. Fogel photographed the streets of New York the week following 9/11, capturing images of a National Guardsman handing out tissues and the words “Heroes Live Forever” sketched into the dust of a bank across the street from ground zero. She has documented over 20 pro-war and anti-war demonstrations in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, New York, and San Francisco. The collection of photographs and video work is titled Protest Nation. Through her photography, Fogel hopes to capture the moment when society questions the very tenets of its foundation.
Kermit Charles Graham
Kermit Graham arrived in Los Angeles 10 years ago to study Fashion Design; he has stayed ever since. A fine artist for many years, his work has been a constant evolution. Many recycled objects go into his finished creations, from bottle-caps and buttons, to painting his entire piece on used pallets. His oil and acrylic work addresses the topics of religion, hate, greed, and desire in a more surrealist and expressionistic style. Whether it is life, death, news, or his imagination; Graham finds inspiration in the simplest and most complex images of our world.
Lionel Uhry
Lionel Uhry is a Los Angeles artist whose work has established a growing following. Lionel’s art attempts to evoke emotion in the viewer by capturing the essence of a particular moment in time while further exploring the expressive potential of color contrasts and modulations. He lures the viewer into a false sense of complacency by using a palette of soothing pastels, but as you examine the work more closely, its subversive strain and political undertones become more apparent.
Lola Scarpitta
Born in Rome, Italy but raised in Greenwich Village, Lola Scarpitta grew up in the backdrop of the New York City art scene of the 1960′s and 1970′s. Her father Salvatore Scarpitta’s studio was her classroom and the galleries of New York City were her playgrounds. It was in this environment that Scarpitta formed her ideas about painting. The pop art that was around her influenced greatly the sense of irony and storytelling in her work. “The art anarchy that was around me in childhood nourished the go against the grain mentality in me. I never feel the need to go with flow and with the movements of the present. And that gives me a greater liberty, which is the greatest gift from my unique upbringing”.
Lucy Mesa
Lucy Mesa is a professional artist, designer and activist. She has been actively creating and exhibiting art for almost 20 years. A painter, sculptor, & photographer, her work has been in both the private and public eye. Mesa’s work represents a wide range of feelings, ideas, explorations and experiments. Working in many mediums, Mesa’s oeuvre has been described as playfully serious, like ‘an innocent punch in the nose.’ Mesa’s art ranges from her signature mosaic pop art style to textiles to stone carving to oil painting to graffiti stencil, et al. She loves to explore it all. Currently, Mesa is working on a series dealing with ‘the modern realities(or inconveniences) of life’, which is kind of punk and kind of anti-establishment. “There is always a strong statement in there somewhere.” Mesa studied various forms of art throughout her life and in college, but really started becoming a serious artist well into adulthood as experience and life started to unfold…and she could finally think for herself.
Marco Nunes
Marco Nunes was born in Madeira, Portugal and raised in Riviera Beach, Florida. He earned his Bachelor of Arts Degree from Florida State University. Currently, Nunes lives and works in Los Angeles, California. His style reflects a surrealistic approach that is influenced by a combination of nature and the human form. These organic images are expressed with oil paint and plaster on wood panels with custom handmade wood frames.
Werc
Werc was born in Cd. Juarez and grew up in El Paso where he began writing graffiti in 1992. He left El Paso in 1997 and floated around until he landed in Los Angeles, where he is currently based. He is internationally known for his graffiti art and murals. Werc’s interest in border themes, urban struggle, and social justice can also be seen throughout his mixed media pieces, which incorporate found objects, logos, and collage. His broad range of prints, multimedia paintings, and sculptures have appeared thoughout major U.S.city galleries and publications such as URB Magazine, HOW Magazine, and Graffiti Planet. Recent projects include The Gateway <http://crolvswerc.com/blog/?p=32> , a public art project in San Diego, California, and the East Coast Concrete Alchemy <http://www.albuscav.us/concretealchemy/> art tour.
Nikki Nash
Nikki Nash was born in Hollywood, and raised in the San Fernando Valley, where she painted as a teenager before taking a decades-long break to work in TV. She returned to painting in 2001.Influenced by Pop Art and the inherent manipulation found in advertising, she enjoys shining a light on our attachments: currently the connection between commerce and terrorism as represented in her recent paintings of front page horror mashed-up with happy Pg. 7 Macy’s underwear ads. Feel anxious about terrorism? Buy some new underwear. Nash has had paintings at the Orlando Gallery, the Brea Gallery, the Keller & Greene Gallery, several group shows at the La Luz de Jesus Gallery, and had her first Solo Exhibit last year at the Conference Room Gallery in Beverly Hills.
Patrick Haemmerlein
Patrick Haemmerlein is compiling a database of imagery to simulate the urban experience. Originally from Kinderhook, NY, Patrick found his way to Los Angeles in 2000. What started with obsessive photographic cataloguing of the city gradually moved into graphic design. His work captures the urban idealism of imperfect beauty, and while replicating the chaos and assaultive commotion of city life, reminds us to stop and appreciate the grotesque, yet endearing details that make city living so appealing.
Savva Teteriatnikov
For many years Savva Teteriatnikov has been interested in sneaker soles and the imprints/footprints they leave both physically on the ground and mentally in our minds as we walk by countless of them on the beach or the trail.He then began to imagine many everyday objects as rubber soles with tread that leave their imprint on our memory as we see them in magazines, road signs, or TV.In his work, Teteriatnikov tries to take and render the tread of a rubber sole and explore what it represents when you change the silhouette from a sneaker sole to a totally different but recognizable form, especially ones such as a gun, a road sign, or a map.
S.Lee Robinson
S.Lee has always been very interested in painting what cannot be seen by the eye, but especially that which is deeply felt in our collective gut. The mixture of raw emotion as it collides with the daily grind of events is what inspires her mostly abstract paintings. In addition to her ongoing use of oils, she has turned to ink and mixed media in order to explore the more immediate abstractions created by the quick-flowing properties of lighter-based fluids, on paper and canvas.
What she has discovered is that her state of mind directly affects the flow of the ink, and the meanings that she assigns to the resulting human and animal-like images. By restricting her editing, and letting her very raw emotions take over, she has been able to tap into something crucial to her storytelling abilities.
Shepard Fairey
Artist Shepard Fairey has long been haunting consumer culture with an ambitious mocking street campaign featuring an omnipresent Andre the Giant. An astute student in the arts of persuasion, Fairey began his epic satire on the science of celebrity endorsements and the alchemy of suggesting desire back in 1989, while he was still a student at The Rhode Island School of Design,. Since then his propaganda has been proliferated through stickers, clothing, skateboards, posters, stencil based graffiti and even a documentary film, to spread over the United States and the unsuspecting world at large Currently bas in Los Angeles, where his design firm Number One islanding high-level corporate counts from companies eager to see how his commercial parodies can help sell their products. Fairey’s rising success has helped transform his once homemade Xerox style into lush multi-colored screen prints. There’s no telling what these images are selling, but whatever it is, it’s alls o seductive that it’s hard to resist.
Stevi Carroll
Stevi Carroll is a long-time educator and activist who sees photography as a way to blend these two pursuits. Through her photographs, Carroll wants those who see her work not only to enjoy the images themselves but also to think about the deeper meaning they imply. She has photographed images in Hiroshima, Japan, the Nevada Test Site, Arlington West in Santa Monica, CA, and recent political protests in Southern California. In addition to this, she has photographed what she calls “found political art”: statements anonymous individuals have left around town.
Robbie Conal
Robbie Conal grew up as an “art brat” in New York City, and he and his friends made a habit of getting kicked out of every major museum and every public library in town. He got psychedelicized at San Francisco State University in the ’60′s and professionalized at Stanford University in the ’70′s. In the ’80′s, encroaching adulthood forced him to integrate his personality–getting his art and social concerns together–and finally make pictures about subjects that were important to him: politics, power, and the abuses of both. Conal quickly realized that art institutions are a severely limited arena of reception for ideas about public issues, so he made posters of his paintings and ran around the streets, spattering glue in every major city he could get to on his no-budget, non-skeddo, total loss, rock’n'roll poster tours…building up a volunteer, guerrilla, postering army as he went. Conal currently lives in Los Angeles, CA.
Political Artist Groups:
MARK OF THE BEAST
MARK OF THE BEAST is a traveling art exhibit that serves as a conscious happening in each city it reaches, aimed directly at the issues of consumerism and alternative globalization. Curated by Los Angeles-based artist Brandy Flower, the show exposes, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, current issues of corporate manipulation in our society. The exhibit features more than 500 altered, yet recognizable logos of companies ranging from McDonald’s to Chevron, Gap to Mastercard, with each logo “spoof” depicting the corporation’s fundamental ills. As part of each one-night event, guests are encouraged to bring items of clothing to be silkscreened on-site for FREE, arming them with their own protest statements of the brazen, culture-jammed logos found in the exhibit.
The Center for the Study of Political Graphics
With over 50,000 posters, the Center for the Study of Political Graphics’ archive is the largest collection of Post World War II graphics in the United States. The CSPG collects, preserves, and exhibits posters relating to historical and contemporary movements for social change. Through its varied programs, CSPG is reclaiming the power of art to inspire people to action. There has never been a movement for social change without the arts–music, poetry, theater, posters–being central to that movement. Political posters in particular are powerful living reminders ofstruggles worldwide for peace and justice. University, museum, and public collections of this material are rare, and are seldom accessible to the public. Luckily, CSPG is uniquely committed to widely exhibiting this rich visual record of social movements.
http://www.politicalgraphics.org/home.html
Yo! What Happened To Peace?
Yo! What Happened to Peace? was started in 2003 with 14 prints and an opening hosted by Cross World Connections in Tokyo as a response to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Committed to highlighting the beauty of hand-crafted printmaking techniques as a method of visual protest, the show has traveled the globe continuously adding new artists and artwork. In the spring of 2007, a Yo! What Happened to Peace? book was published, featuring 144 color pages of over 200 prints from the show, a die-cut stencil cover and an introduction by Winston Smith. Currently based in Los Angeles, the show is put together by John Carr (curator), Katherine Kirby (coordinator), Ra (operations), and Caton Volk (producer).
~Video Projections~
Grant Davis
Grant Davis (VJ Culture) Grant has provided sight and sound for audience around the world. From Torino, Italy where he performed 19 shows during the 2006 Winter Olympics to the American Music Awards on US NBC TV for Mary J. Blige live with 7 million viewers.
UK’s DJ Mag has voted VJ Culture among the top 10 VJs in the world for the past three consecutive years. He has toured with Beck during the summer of 2006 and in the fall of 2006 performed at NYC Fashion Week and Macy’s Fashion Shows Los Angeles and San Francisco. After returning from a tour in Japan, last year Grant performed an audiovisual set at Forum International in Mexico and Germany as StarCulture with David Starfire.
~ Fashion/Jewelry~
Brooke Benson
Brooke Benson is an emerging designer working and living in Venice, CA. After graduating from UCLA with a degree in Theater her creativity began to extend to other art forms. Her jewelry designs are inspired by her extensive travels throughout Southeast Asia, Nepal and the Middle East. There is a distinct style that is captured in the designs, revealing a uniquely raw, but refined style. Using spiritual symbols, gold, wood and semi-precious stones, her pieces are created to ignite the divine creative energy within each of us and enhance our awareness to the beauty that lies within. Each one of these energetic adornments carries a special essence that is felt by all who wear it. Recently written up in “Daily Candy” her creations, “blend the earthy with the ethereal.”
Clothing of the American Mind
Clothing of the American Mind (COTAM) is a grassroots company deeply committed to creating apparel that is environmentally safe and responsible, politically and socially conscious, sweatshop free and fair trade. A portion of all funds collected from their clothing sales is donated directly to progressive causes and candidates fighting for issues of social and political justice. COTAM was launched in March 2004 on the first anniversary of the Iraq invasion. Since then, they have brought their form of activism to cities across America, spreading a progressive message of change. COTAM promotes activism as a way of life, encouraging the notion that anyone can be a political activist; all you have to do is get dressed! With their stylish, eco-chic designs, you can look as good as you feel knowing you are creating a dialogue, spreading a progressive message and sporting gear that is manufactured fairly. COTAM understands what is at stake in the 2008 election and wants YOU to get out and vote this November.
Otterbach
Dustin Otterbach was born in Southern California and currently resides in Venice Beach. Otterbach’s unique rustic perspective surfaced early in his passion for travel, found art, and natural form. Founded from an extraordinary myriad of life experience, Dustin’s work is now inspired by his local community, fellow travelers from all over the globe, and the powerfully creative, self-reliant spirit that inhabits his world. Sheet metal has played a large part in his most recent work, using rich colors as a refreshing approach to telling the story of contemporary urban life. Charitable work and art donation take a primary role in Otterbach’s artistic vision and expression. The original concept for the cuffs came from the idea of donation. Personal and magnetic the jewelry is each handcrafted and individual with a distinct color palate and personal engraved message. While each piece of art is complete unto itself, they also represent one aspect of a larger picture: a compelling union of natural form, community, and personal discovery.
Jana Camp (Janaration)
JANARATION is a Yoga Inspired Jewelry Company that incorporates healing elements into its pieces. Janaration researches the healing properties of gemstones and symbols in an effort to design jewelry that looks beautiful and radiates a positive, healing message that inspires and promotes spiritual growth. The artist JANA CAMP is a jewelry designer, yoga teacher and actress from Atlanta, Georgia currently living in Los Angeles. She feels blessed to have three creative and mentally stimulating outlets, which helps aid her in the balancing of the mind, body and spirit.
Search+ResQ
Ando Pndlian is a graduate from Cal Poly Pomona in architecture. In the profession for 8+ years with several design awards, Pndlianestablished the independent design studio Search+ResQ as a clear and direct expression of examining design ideas.The artist’s work reflects a continuing interest in the union between research, design and culture. His approach is intuitive and sensory; with concern for the way the user will experience the piece; and the value each piece adds to the space.
The series, ‘homeless/hopeful’ is inspired by the voices of individuals who live on the streets of Los Angeles. Sharing the experience through the eyes of the homeless, Ando is focused on bridging lines of communication to raise awareness about the issues that surround the fabric of the city.Each artwork is designed with a variety of mixed material such as eco-friendly woods, aluminum, copper, metal mesh and texture paper. The interlocking and folding of these materials create a 3-dimensional sculptural component that adds the energy and movement to printed graphic illustrations.
~ Guest Co-Curator~
Janice Markham
Janice Markham is Artistic Director of VOX BOX Arts Collective. With VOX BOX she has produced, written, directed and acted in many theatrical productions. Markham co-founded the 8 Sundays Emerging Artist High School Program, a collaboration of Create:Fixate and VOX BOX. After the 2004 presidential election resulting in King George remaining in power, Janice decided to expand her political action beyond the art she was creating and even her multiple poison pen letters. So, she began work on a progressive TV interview show as co-writer and host entitled “Press for Democracy” which airs on the satellite channel FreeSpeechTV. She is thrilled to be co-curating AMP with Michelle Berc and to be involved with so many inspiring artists and activists.
~Audio Lab~
The BodyRockDJs (Ninjaskills)
As an important fixture in the Los Angeles House Music scene the BodyRockDJs have become widely known as some of the best that house music has to offer. The BodyRockDJs’ love of electronic music and most specifically house-music-without-a-genre is reflected in the performance they give each and every time they rock the floor. In 2006 they created Quietly Freakin’, a record label which debuted remixes of LA Loves You Vol. 1 by Justin Martin, of San Francisco and DirtyBird Records fame, as well as Broken Home. Although newly created, the record label intends to focus on the same ideology as their DJ sets, house-music-without-a-genre.
Christos Kedras (Kapa Music/Groove Kitty)
Christos Kedras (www.christoskedras.com) was born in Greece where he grew up next to the majestic waters of the Aegean Sea before moving to Los Angeles. He started his music career as a DJ known for his sophisticated music sets full of bossa nova, afro-latin, nu soul/jazz, and soulful house. He gradually moved into songwriting & production co-establishing Kapa Music (www.kapamusic.com) with fellow DJ & producer Martin East. Christos’ releases have earned him kudos from international heavyweights like Pete Tong, Claude Monnet, Ian Pooley, Nick Warren, Tony Humphries, Kaskade, Ralf GUM, DJ Gregory, and have aired in numerous radios in USA & Europe including KCRW, Radio 1, Ministry of Sound, Hed Kandi, Radio FG, and Ibiza Global Radio. He has DJed alongside John Beltran, Jay-J, Q-burns, Martin East, Graham Sahara, Raul Campos, Isaiah Martin, and for the likes of Sting, the Coalition of LA Designers, the Kabbalah Center, Create:Fixate, and for numerous events.
DJ Stephen R. (Architects and Heroes)
DJ Stephen R. is a Los Angeles-based DJ and music producer. He’s the founder of Architects and Heroes a blog, record label and events promotion collective. He has releases on Fateless Flows, Under the Radar Records and Alectric Records. He is the founding organizer of The “Under the Radar” experimental music and video events in San Francisco, as well as the founding member of the left-of-center instrumental band Summer of Flux. He also records as and performs as Zygote.
http://www.myspace.com/djstephenr
http://architectheroes.blogspot.com/
DJ Vika (heat | air conditioned)
DJ Vika is originally from the Ukraine and has lived in Los Angeles for 30 years. Mesmerized by music her entire life, she was naturally drawn to the art of DJ’ing. With a music collection that covers decades and various genres, she is known for her smooth blends of hot disco, deep-soulful house, classic hip-hop, funky soul and roots reggae.
http://www.myspace.com/dj_vika
Henry Strange (Fateless Flows, Puretone)
Henry Strange performs all original funky dub and glitch hop beats, live mangling and processing while ‘scratching’ a Theremin. Henry has performed his electronic madness at festivals and venues such as Coachella, Electric Daisy Carnival, and the Winter Music Conference. A veteran electronic music producer and film composer, Henry has worked on remixes like Michael Jackson’s ‘One more chance’, on films such as Wes Craven’s ‘Red Eye’, and television shows including Bruckheimer’s ‘Cold Case’
Jeremy Sole’s Musaics (Afro-Funke, KCRW)
As a Chicago-born DJ/producer/designer/guitarist/human, Sole has been making beats since the MPC 60 was born, deejaying since rotary crossfaders were the standard, and playing clubs since he was too young to (legally) get in. Since then Sole’s obsession grew to include music from around the world. As Co-Founder and resident deejay of Afro Funke, J.Sole and his partners Rocky Dawuni and Cary Sullivan produce an event that brings a diverse mix of music lovers together each week at the Zanzibar in Santa Monica. Blending Afrobeat, Funk, Reggae, Latin and Brazilian.Jeremy has had the honor of sharing the stage and/or the studio with hundreds of his deepest inspirations, including Roy Ayers, Ben Harper, DJ Krush, Lauryn Hill, War, The Meters, Chaka Khan, The Greyboy Allstars, Antibalas, Ray Charles, Jerry Garcia Bandand many more. In April 2006, Sole spent a few months making music for Lauryn Hill.The first thing she told him after hearing him DJ was “Have you ever thought about getting into radio? because THIS is the music that the people need to hear”. Exactly one year later, Anne Litt from KCRW called, asking him that exact same question, and now you can catch J.Sole on 89.9 KCRW every Wednesday from midnight-3am.
http://www.myspace.com/musaics
http://www.myspace.com/afrofunke
http://www.myspace.com/funkysole
Patricio (LABA)
Drawing on the passion and soul instilled in him growing up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Patricio will make you get off your ass and dance. Patricio has DJ’d in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Oregon, Canada, Japan, Portugal, Spain and Argentina and has been rocking big summer festivals all over the world.
http://www.labadj.com/patricio.html/ http://profile.myspace.com/djpatricio
Slash Fiction (Full Frontal)
Smut peddling, bootlegging, trafficking in mood-altering substances… truth is, there’s not a whole lot these two shadowy figures haven’t been involved in at some point or other. Their exact whereabouts remain a mystery, although rumor has it they can typically be found lurking in the sleazy discotheque underground, always three steps ahead. Listen, I could go on and on with tales about these boys but the less you know about Slash Fiction, the better.
http://www.myspace.com/slashfiction
Somnambulist (LIVE)
Somnambulist is a performance group that seems to defy definition. Put into the mix Hungarian folk songs, Middle Eastern Dirges, hip-hop, blues violin, tap dance, wind-up toys, vocal rants, story telling and the kitchen sink! The Somnambulist family includes a host of crazed musicians and performers including Janice & Gideon Markham, Tim Jimenez and Adam Levy. Somnambulist had their debut performance at MONA (Museum of Neon Art) in 2000, have performed at Create:Fixate events and are Performance Group in Residence at the Craft and Folk Art Museum.
Square Root Square (Bass Ritual)
Squarerootsquare is the Los Angeles-based duo of DJ Saadhu& DJ Sand. With their “back 2 basics” approach of spinning purely vinyl duringtheir live sets and on their mixes, this DJ tandem has been droppingtheir funky, electro blend of house & breaks all over southernCalifornia. The pair hold down their monthly residency “Bass Ritual”at Nocturnal Bar in Santa Monica and frequently spin at undergroundevents in and around the city.
Valida (Concentric Beats, Standard)
Commanding Thursday nights at the Rooftop Bar at the trendy Standard Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles where she spins it all from hip-hop to electro and a whole lot of stuff in-between, Fresh Face Valida “not only has the skills to pay the bills, but the looks to back it up.” (Jointz mag.) In June 2005, LA.com named Valida as one of the “Hottest Nightlife Personalities” in Los Angeles. Originally from Sarajevo, she immigrated to the United States to pursue higher education. Completing a Bachelor of Arts degree in World Arts and Cultures (UCLA), and a Master of Arts degree in Dance Ethnography and Video Production (UCLA), Valida has always been in pursuit of expressing her love for music, dance, and visual arts.
~Political Organizations~
CODEPINK
CODEPINK emerged out of a desperate desire by a group of American women to stop the Bush administration from invading Iraq. The name CODEPINK plays on the Bush Administration’s color-coded homeland security alerts – yellow, orange, red – that signal terrorist threats. While Bush’s color-coded alerts are based on fear and are used to justify violence, the CODEPINK alert is a feisty call for women and men to “wage peace.” CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the war in Iraq, stop new wars, and redirect our resources into healthcare, education and other life-affirming activities. CODEPINK rejects the Bush administration’s fear-based politics that justify violence, and instead calls for policies based on compassion, kindness and a commitment to international law. With an emphasis on joy and humor, CODEPINK women and men seek to activate, amplify and inspire a community of peacemakers through creative campaigns and a commitment to non-violence.
http://www.codepink4peace.org/
Giveback
Inspiration. Action. Change.
Giveback is you and your community inspiring and empowering each other to create positive world change. It’s a free and open dialog on world events in which you decide the issues. It’s a growing group of people who believe that community, understanding, and working together are the keys to a better future. The Giveback network empowers each and every person to participate in local, national, and global efforts to create tangible real world change.
Health Care for All
Health Care for All California regards health care as a human right and is dedicated to ensuring that all Californians have comprehensive, reliable, and affordable health insurance. Universal health insurance is critical to the health, security, and economic well being of our country. Health Care for All was founded in 1995. Since then the organization has put single payer in the center of the debate about fixing California’s broken health care system. HCA is a member-based organization and boasts local chapters across the nation.
http://www.healthcareforall.org/
Next Aid
Using the Beats of our Generation to Provide Hope for the Next
NextAid represents the electronic music community in a sustainable response to the AIDS orphan pandemic. Through the creation of initiatives involving music and technology, NextAid provides an opportunity for people to truly make a difference in the lives of African children.
Press for Democracy
Press for Democracy is a TV NewsMagazine featuring 1/2 hour shows on issues of importance to the community, state, nation, and world. It is produced by Gloria E.Garvin, PhD, and Conchita Thornton Marusich, hosted by Janice Markham, with research and writing by Janice Markham, Stevi Carroll, Conchita Thornton-Marusich and Gloria E. Garvin. Each show explores issues of pressing importance through interviews in the studio as well as the use of existing and original footage. Press for Democracy programming has dealt with issues ranging from health care to impeachment, from militarism in our schools to electronic voting machines. Press for Democracy entered the independent media landscape in the summer of 2005 and has been exercising our right to free speech ever since.
Young Progressive Majority
Young Progressive Majority (YPM) is a social network of 22-39 year-olds dedicated to increasing voter turnout for local and state elections. We provide information and community built on shared our values. Through YPM, politics is accessible and demystified.
**The views expressed by the artists and musicians do not necessarily reflect those of Create:Fixate.
For more information, to request photos or to arrange interviews, please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Hasty at 213-840-1201 or lynn@greengalactic.com.