For Immediate Release:  March 10, 2011

Create:Fixate Presents

RISE

Celebrating 9 Years of Emerging Art & Music

Saturday, April 9, 2011

 

LOS ANGELES, CA – Arts organization Create:Fixate (C:F) celebrates nine years of infiltrating Los Angeles with curated events of emerging art and music for culture seekers of Southern California. After a brief hiatus in 2010, C:F returns to its downtown roots with a spring-themed show entitled RISE at the Premiere Events Center. The exhibit will take place on Saturday, April 9, 2011 from 7:00pm to 2:00am and features over forty local artists, DJs, and musicians with vibrant artwork and music. Admission is $15.00 before 9:00pm and $20.00 for the remainder of the night. Premiere Events Center is located at 613 Imperial St., Los Angeles, CA 90021. For more information, including an image gallery of participating artists’ works, please visit www.createfixate.com. C:F can be reached by phone at 310-590-7199 for other inquiries.

The evening begins with a preview of the exhibit from 4:00pm to 7:00pm. There is a $5 suggested donation during this period but kids twelve-years old and younger are allowed free entry.  Parents are encouraged to bring the whole family during the preview hours and take advantage of the Kids Kreativity Zone.  Overflowing with art supplies, the Zone provides a supervised space where youth can dive into their own expression while parents explore the evening’s exhibit. While all ages are welcome during the preview, attendees must be 21-years old or older to enter after 7:00pm.
Create:Fixate founder and artistic director Michelle Berc specifically chose the title RISE to describe the spring-timed event. “During this time of year the season brings renewal in all forms. The theme of this event speaks to the budding ideas awakening in our creativity.  We encourage all to RISE to this occasion.

RISE will feature the creativity of over thirty visual artists presenting a stunning array of painting, photography, multi-media, interactive installation, and performance art. Highlights include: Danuta Rothschild’s otherworldly landscapes and portraits capture the scope of the human experience—from the ominous to the magically affirming. Nighttime is when Garret Suhrie explores, contemplates, and photographs the world; from surreal cityscapes to serene landscapes he utilizes long exposures on transparency film.  Rachel Schultz uses the less traditional technique of reverse painting on plexiglass.  The energetic applications of vibrant paint colors bring a unique livelihood to the stillness in her abstract “tree-scapes.” Gwen Samuels wall sculptures consist of multiple transparent film prints sewn together by hand, like patchwork quilts, forming compound images that hang unframed. The “Chromastrobe” produced by Leif Maginnis is an interactive kinetic light installation that mixes moving elements with electronically-controlled colored lights and ultra violet strobe lights. A Create:Fixate exhibit is never complete without the spontaneity of live painting. On-site painter Ashley Montague will be joining the festivities all the way from Portland, Oregon. He uses his work to explore the unseen around him.

 

The Audio Lab – otherwise known as the music portion of the evening – completes Create:Fixate’s signature blend of art and music.  After a long history of hosting many of KCRW’s finest DJs, C:F finally welcomes award winning, critically acclaimed radio personality, DJ, and culture critic Garth Trinidad. The LA-based DJ is known for finessing the airwaves to expose new and progressive international music while paying homage to the classics, by weaving together intergalactic tapestries of sound. Whether on the radio or live, Trinidad artfully explores a multitude of genres and movements. With skill and ease, he anoints with jazz, indie rock, hip hop, world rhythms, and electronic music to make his point. Felix Bloxsom aka PLASTiC PLATES will be joining us all the way from Australia. As a musician, Bloxsom has toured and recorded with many artists including Empire of the Sun, Sam Sparro, Jamie Lidell, Sia, The Presets, and Sneaky Sound System, performing at music festivals including Coachella, All Points West, Capital FM Summertime Ball, V Festival UK and Radio 1′s Big Weekend. By embracing all moods and genres, Pumpkin is the music producer and curator behind the Wandering Marionettes and their eclectic event, Kabinet Theatre, as well as member of the famed Los Angeles collective POCKET Underground. His remixes and DJ sets – that walk the line between hip-grinding rhythms and bittersweet lyrical melodies – have been known to inspire lust, love and laughter.

See below in the bio section to learn more about the musical acts rounding out the evening.  Don’t miss a special “Leisure Listening Lounge” hosted by SuperTall Paul Newman.  At 6’6” the improvisational musician/magician/MC/street performance clown will bring his multi-instrumental, live sampling, silly ukulele stage show to an intimate, interactive, headphone lounge. SuperTall creates a world ‘inside’ where the listener gets to experience this audible art as a process.

Since Create:Fixate is all about building community around Angeleno artisans, The Equation will be joining the festivities with an interactive project that will be revealed the night of the event. The Equation’s mission is to create opportunity and to keep the arts alive by cultivating community within creative industries.  They bring people together through unique and interactive events that support and nurture our fellow artists.  To become a part of The Equation go to www.theequation.org.
As part of Create:Fixate’s community outreach efforts the organization often works with nonprofits facilitating youth empowerment through arts education projects. For the second time, C:F and Youth Speak Collective (YSC) will join forces. YSC is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Pacoima, California. Youth Speak’s mission is to empower low-income, at-risk youth and their families with the skills necessary to pursue higher education and create strong communities. The organization provides teens throughout the Northeast San Fernando Valley with creative, high-quality programs that channel their intellect and talent, build their academic skills, and strengthen their investment in their own communities. Create:Fixate has saved a wall to exhibit student artwork – as it often does – so that kids from YSC can create an art piece inspired by the RISE theme.

Create:Fixate is an arts organization based in Los Angeles completing its 9^th year producing art/music events that bring together emerging artists and musicians, along with thousands of art lovers and party goers in massive, and at times intimate, warehouse locations and alternative spaces on a quarterly basis.  Founder Michelle Berc curates, produces and hosts these ambitious group art shows that present creative beings from around the globe with an emphasis on the local talent of Los Angeles. The production team also includes music coordinator Andrea Giardina, and a core team of volunteers and dedicated advisory board members. 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 one of the city’s most anticipated art events.

~ Optical Lounge ~

Amy Kollar Anderson
Amy Kollar Anderson grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. Her inspirations are gathered from the work of the Surrealists, Symbolists, Art Nouveau, and the decorative arts. Intrigued by the forms, textures and colors found in nature, she collects bits of plants, rocks, bones, and feathers, then sorts them in jars in her studio. Her recent Vivarium Series explores divergent environments inside and outside the containers, and addresses issues of environmental concern and child welfare.

She received her B.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her Master of Humanity with a focus in Fine Arts, from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. She currently lives with her husband and their four cats in Dayton, Ohio, and works as the Gallery Coordinator for the Rosewood Gallery in Kettering, Ohio. When she is not painting, she volunteers time with local organizations such as the SICSA Animal Shelter, Daybreak Youth Shelter, and United Rehabilitation Services.

Ashley Montague
Utilizing a broad mix of media and techniques Ashley Montague creates pieces that are cut from the richest of mental fabrics.   Raised by artist parents, visions of the abstract and impressionistic were an everyday sight.  Take that parental influence, mix in some aerosol, a keen sense of flow and motion, a heap of color, and what you have is a recipe for some tasty visual elixirs.

Ashley uses themes and color palates that morph and weave, creating a remixed version, only for a moment, as the piece finds a direction all it’s own.  “Entering the land of the unknown and unplanned is what really keeps me going…not knowing my next move but still stepping sure footed, really working through a piece on every level,” he uses his work to explore the unseen around him.

Christine Binns

Believing that art ran through her blood before she picked up her first crayon and ate it, Christine has began a reputation for her visually hypnotizing and emotional evoking abstract paintings.  Self taught, life inspired, mostly emotionally stable and fun to be around, Christine enjoys expression through the use of acrylic and mixed media. Relatively new to the Los Angeles area from a 14 year stint in Las Vegas, Christine has found the art community here most accepting and exciting.

Craig Cartwright
After receiving his BFA degree in Illustration from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1991, Craig Cartwright’s artistic pursuits led him to New York City where he began applying his illustration background into his Fine Art oil paintings.

He quickly established himself in New York’s underground art scene throughout the 90′s. Exhibiting at venues including CBGB’s 313 Gallery, The Gershwin Gallery, and also directing performance art, influenced by his paintings, at the Mazer Theater in Lower Manhattan. His commercial illustration work eventually brought him to Los Angeles four years ago where he has been hired by Pixar, Disney, Warner Brothers, and Ridley Scott designing storyboards, and concept illustrations for commercials, trailers, theatrical displays, and short films.

Although he has experimented with different painting styles over the years including abstract expressionism and a series of relief paintings, influenced by cave art pictographs, his first body of work established what is his signature illustrative style. Incorporating humanlike forms into surreal landscapes with underlying environmental themes, he attempts to reconnect the viewer with the natural world. He now resides in Venice, CA where he is revisiting and expanding his first series of paintings “Organica: Union with the Plant.”

Danuta Rothschild
Danuta’ Rothschild’s recent and less solemn interests include luminously rich and otherworldly landscapes, as well as portraits for which she is most widely known for. Her ability to capture the scope of human experience—from the ominous to the magically affirming—is what makes her art so powerful. The brightly hued images of Rothschild’s opus, including drawings, etchings, wall-sized portraits and sculpture, eclectically coexist amidst her studio bookshelves, photos, sketches, brushes and paint-boxes that portray an artist at work.

Her works have been shown in museums in Poland, France, Bosnia, and the United States. A prizewinner of the Los Angeles World Contemporary Art International, Rothschild participated in numerous gallery shows in the Greater Los Angele area, appeared on TV shows in France and Poland, and was featured in several magazine articles and daily press. Her paintings have been reproduced in about a dozen different art books, along with collected by prestigious private collectors and institutions all over the world.

Rothschild’s continuing journey of self-discovery led to a considerable change in character and subject matter of her most recent paintings. According to Rothschild:

“I have changed and so has my art.The good news is I have fond my key. There are many keyholes, doors, pathways and mirrors. I am curious and delighted with what I might experience when I encounter any of them. Each experience is necessary to get me to the next place. I just might ride a Tsunami or paint the sky with my brush. I may need a ladder or bunch of chairs or a high tension wire; but I will learn to fly. I know one thing: I can take it !!!!!!”

Dave Lovejoy
Dave Lovejoy has been working as an artist and designer since the early 1980′s. A successful career as a graphic designer supported a long and leisurely arts education at several schools, focusing on ceramics. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums in California and Oregon since the mid 1990′s. As a maker of things, his artistic direction has always involved an exploration of old, weathered surface textures, whether in clay, wood, or an assemblage of various media. Lovejoy has a studio in the Spring Arts Tower in downtown Los Angeles, where his installation “Walk / Don’t Walk” is currently on display in the street-level windows.

Hestin Lostwood
Hestin Lostwood was born not too long ago from the remnants of childhood memories and lingering emotion, from a long forgotten place that no longer wished to stay silent. He is the physical personification of all the nostalgia, loneliness, good, and bad of childhood that the Treehouse, and the forest around it, has seen over countless generations. Wasting little time upon his corporeal manifestation, Lostwood moved the Treehouse, roots and all, to a dense, wooded location within Los Angeles, CA. Since then, the Treehouse and Mr. Lostwood have spawned and attracted a plethora of new spirits; creatures of myth and the ghosts of countless broken dreams.

Gwen Samuels
Gwen Samuels is a Los Angeles based artist.  Originally from New York, Samuels attended Syracuse University, where she earned a BFA in textile design.  She is an active member of Los Angeles Art Association and is presently represented by: voila! ART FOR THE MODERN EYE.

Her present technique began with the purchase of some antique lace at the flea-market that she printed on transparent film and began to arrange and hand-stitch. This process led to further investigation using a digital camera, creating multiple prints sewn together by hand, like patchwork quilts, forming compound images that hang unframed on the wall.

Javiera Estrada
Javiera Estrada is a fine art photographer who believes every piece of art created is a self-portrait:  ” A physical expression of that inner world that is nameless: the part of ourselves that goes beyond our thoughts and self created paradigms. The external factors of time, light and space are inescapable influences.  The sound of the camera’s click is the confluence of these two worlds, a place between reality and the ethereal.”

Javiera has exhibited in numerous galleries such as the Tracy Parks gallery in Malibu, The Whole 9 gallery in Culver City and the M2 Gallery in Eaglerock.  Recently Javiera exposed new work in a juried show at SmashBox Studios among some of LA’s top photographers.

Her new series Crowns + Veils, is a unique mixed media exploration of traditional photography, digital texturing, sanding, wood and resin.   Crowns + Veils is a photographic journey on humanities struggle between the ego and our true nature. Years of cultural conditioning and programming have coated our essence with a dirty residue, shielding our souls with rusty armor.  Underneath it all we are naked; FLESH, BLOOD, BONES and HEART.  Behind every mask and crown is a brilliant spirit.

Jeff McDonald
In this time of economic uncertainty and hardship, Jeff McDonald’s works focus on timeless spiritual ideals, a glimmer of hope and peace set against a backdrop of chaos and noise.

Continuing in the tradition of Robert Rauschenberg and Antoni Tàpies, Jeff’s art plays with texture and layers, challenging the viewer’s understanding and expectations of the boundaries between painting and sculpture, employing a mixed media, multi-layered approach which incorporates contrasting textural elements and also found objects (such as the distressed wood in this series, but also broken windows, fabrics and other elements in earlier works).

McDonald’s fascination with Asian culture is also apparent in both phrases in kanji/hanzi characters (Japanese/Chinese characters for words or expressions) as well as the silkscreen prints of Asian deities and spiritual figures.

Jeff has been painting for over 20 years but also has an MFA in Directing from UC-Irvine and directs and writes films.

Jordan Rosenheck
Jordan is an experimental mixed media artist out of Santa Monica, California. After exploring various combinations of art throughout high school and college at the University of Santa Barbara California, he has found comfort with acrylics and paint pen on canvas. At times, the content of his work focuses on alternate interpretations of words, concepts, idioms, and simple realities of everyday life. His pieces range from certain mixed mediums as tile and acrylic on canvas to the more recent play with paint, film, music, and location all in one.

Jyll Ethier-Mullen
Ethier-Mullen is an artist, illustrator, and painter of jovial characters in whimsical lands. The primary land is known as Sickfeet, and it is the contextual world in which her characters adventure and interact with one another. It is a world of joyful tones, organic emotions, reminiscent textures, and inspiring tales. There is something strangely familiar in her work, which reminds the observer of something in the past, while filling it with a fresh and hopeful commentary.

Leif Maginnis
A Graduate from the San Francisco Art Institute, Leif Maginnis is a creative professional who’s artistic career started with building props and special effects for television, film, and music videos in both New York City and Los Angeles. Through the years, he has utilized his carpentry, welding, and electrical skills by venturing into more complex art projects. Recently, he became interested in kinetic light sculpture and is now producing various interactive art installations that mix moving elements with electronically-controlled colored lights and ultra violet strobe lights. His current installation titled “Chromastrobe” allows the user to “create” their own visual art by controlling the dials that adjust the movement and pulses of light. Observing the spectator’s process of discovery can be quite rewarding as an unlimited number of hypnotic and mandala-like patterns are produced by the various dial settings. Captivated by the visual illusion, spectators find themselves stimulated and lost in time when interacting with the installation. Expect more from Maginnis as he develops this technology in future projects.

Lisa Occhipinti
Lisa Occhipinti is a mixed media painter, book artist and author. Her work is in private and corporate collections worldwide. She creates multi-layered paintings that merge book pages with organic shapes and patterns, and distinct book-art sculptures that embrace the physical form of the book as well as the words within. Transforming things rather than always creating anew, Lisa constructs her works so that they lend their own histories. All her work is colored by an elegant quietude. Lisa is also the author of “The Repurposed Library”, a book of 33 book art projects published by STC/Abrams and available May 2011.

Mads Christensen
Mads Christensen grew up in Denmark but is now based in Venice, California.  A software architect by day, an artist by night, Mads combines his learned skillsets with a desire to explore how patterns of light affect us emotionally.  Mads uses custom circuitry, programming and lots of bright LEDs to create his art.  Create:Fixate features a brand new kinetic piece called Cirkel 43.

Martin Webb
Originally from England, Martin Webb’s art reflects on the experience of travel, man’s interaction with the natural landscape of the West; on stories of migrants and migration, and on society’s underdogs. To this end he has developed a simple vocabulary of abstract forms, patterns, representational symbols and figures.

His studio work has been exhibited in the Western states and beyond, and his commission work includes private, corporate and public art projects. Webb has an aversion to art-stores and prefers to work with construction materials – cement, industrial pigments, reclaimed wood, and found metal objects.

Max Neutra
Perhaps best known for his painting exploits, Max Neutra has made a name for himself as one of Los Angeles’s premier fine artists.  He has been commissioned by Toyota, Warner Brothers Records, Jack White of The White Stripes, and has recently risen to the international arena during a sponsored two month live painting tour across India.

Riding the line between mayhem and control, Neutra masterfully paints images that are both chaotic and contained, each canvas an arena where chance and skill come together in a colorful dance to produce striking imagery.  Utilizing his distinctive gonzo style, he explores subjects such as the dark side of humanity, the beauty in nature, the fading line between man and machine, and the unabashed celebration of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, all while matching his subjects with the expressive vitality they deserve.

On the heels of his recent sold out show in Hollywood featuring the album artwork for his 2010 release on UK label Mofohifi Records, and recently being voted onto a 6 week European Art Battle tour, Neutra continues to explore the many creative and adventurous paths that open for him in Los Angeles and beyond…

Michael Giancristiano
Michael Giancristiano was born in Los Angeles, California.  He is a self taught artist accomplished in areas of painting, sculpture, photography, functional art, and computer graphic design, but is best known for his abstract, plywood, wall relief. His work has exhibited internationally and can be found in many private and corporate collections.

“Barren Indecision” is a series of plywood wall relief depicting inter-dimensional mirror images that serve as a kind of Rorschach test. Each piece illustrates a conflict that the viewer must resolve.

It can be argued that decisions are physical realities created by thought, coexisting in parallel universes. Our choice manifests our individual physical reality.

Owen Maigret
“If any visual artist captured the ethos of the San Francisco house music scene during it’s ’90s salad days, it would be Owen Maigret.” – Darren Keast – SF Weekly – Oct 25, 2006

Though painting and drawing since he could hold a brush or pen,  Maigret didn’t even consider himself an artist until his 20s and the word ‘owenart’ was common in the Bay Area underground dance scene. During his teens watercolor and ink gave way to oils and stone, but it was still just a hobby to his thinking, definitely not a direction in life. But an artist is not something one chooses to be, a true artist is born one… Thankfully the blooming of that particular scene at that exact time allowed him to show his art to large groups of people, who’s response changed his path.

Rachel Shultz
Rachel Shultz was born in Los Angeles, California. Mostly self taught- she was born into a family of artists. She studied Art and Art History at Santa Monica Jr. College and in her last year was awarded the mentorship scholarship to the San Francisco Art Institute under Prof. Mario Barratucci. She studied there in 1996 and used her time to explore her interest in sculpture and various other mediums before finding painting to be her true love.

In 1993 Shultz started using the technique of reverse painting on plexiglass. For her, it is a very exciting medium with many unusual qualities. Being a less traditional painting medium than canvas and paper, and because of this mediums unique requirements this process puts her right on the edge, fully engaged with the moment where she feels most free. Her passion for color and ongoing fascination with nature continue to inform her process. Shultz’s believes color has a way of accessing our emotions without effort or thought and therefore can be healing to us on a deep and instinctive level.

Roman Roth
Roman Roth has worked as a full-time commercial photographer for more than a decade.  His commercial focus is fashion and lifestyle for its open artistic palette and the fast-paced environment. Roth, besotted with his digital camera upon the dawn of its era, has since turned his back to it for a plastic camera with a plastic lens to shoot fine art. After shooting with his quiver of old, toy, film cameras, Roth brings his captured images into the digital world creating his ‘Pop Landscapes’. Roman brings true art to the under $25.00 camera world.

Rose Masterpol
Masterpol’s painting versatility comes from her refusal to study only one style or medium of art, like Lee Krasner before her. As a result, her work remains true to her own depth and defies easy classification. She works intuitively, explores with a fluid, inspired approach much like and compared to De Kooning, Franz Kline and Motherwell. Yet, the unity of her work is genuine. Brave vulnerability shines through, revealing both the unconscious and conscious, making her paintings at once both abstract and concrete. She sees her works not synonyms but as rhymes.

Victoria Livingstone
Victoria Livingstone is an award-winning independent filmmaker and a senior character animator working in feature films.  Her extensive feature credits include Lead Animator on such films as Star Wars Episode II and the academy-award winning, Happy Feet.  Her incomparable and vibrantly colored Acrylic Pen & Ink works are an extension of her visual talent. Working out of her downtown art studio in the Fashion District of LA, she creates her bold large-scale illustrations based on narratives reflecting intellectual ideas or current events. Intense. Sometimes a little disturbing. Definitely unique.

~ Live Portrait Photography ~

Instant Gratification by Paynie
“Paynie – Who’s genius leaves as much to chance as to skill.” – Written by Tim Smith and a credit given to him on a Cardiacs CD over a long time ago. Paynie explains, “It’s about the ability to trust ones judgement and just and pictures is extremely liberating. Thank you Tim.  My life and my photography will forever be in debt to you.” Think about it for just a moment and you’ll understand.

~ Live Video Mixing ~

Elevated.tv
Elevated.tv aka Ryan Pohanic, is a motion graphics artist and VJ based in Venice, California. While studying sculpture he discovered the works of Alan Rath, Nam June Paik and others that are responsible for his current love affair with video.  In addition to designing graphics for broadcast and the web, he has toured nationally and internationally as a VJ for artists such as DJ Z-Trip, Dilated Peoples, Q-tip, and numerous others.

~ Fashion & Jewelry Designers ~

Brooke Benson Designs
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.”

Crow’s Cloth
Doriandra Smith is the mother of a crazed child, wearer of spider web jammies, navigator of ridiculously large piles of fabric cast offs from the Los Angeles textile industry, voracious reader and firm believer in doing your own thing.  Textiles of every persuasion, disturbing & fanciful images from history, colorful thread and run away cat hair- combine it all and we’ll someday fulfill those plans of world domination. Gentle garments, top hats & oddities, handmade in Smith’s dangerously cluttered sewing room- Crow’s Cloth is a limited line with all one of a kind’s.

Fruition
Raychel Huff is a Southern California native and the designer behind Fruition’s simple, modern, organic jewelry. A workshop is silver smithing inspired the change from a decade and a half as a massage therapist, to designing and making jewelry. She finds herself inspired by the simple elegance and sensibility of vintage sophistication, pieces that evoke a sense of style mediated by quality and practicality, and subtle nuances that set one piece apart from others. She loves pouring over gems and metals; the endless variety of elements kindles an energetic desire to create. One piece inspires another, and the cycle of fruition continues as one idea begets another.

Jenneration Fix
Jenneration Fix is a small company made up of two Jennifers:  two women who wanted to help the environment in their own way.  They aim to make a difference in the world by transforming rescued materials into art and supporting various non-profit organizations at the same time.  Jenneration Fix, in effect, makes a complete circle back into the community by taking potential pollutants in the world from businesses and individuals, creating fun and useful items and then donating a portion of their profits back into a wide variety of charities.

The crafty ladies use materials such as discarded fabrics and clothing pieces, leather, scrap wood, e-waste, warped vinyl records, corks, and plastic packaging to make art work, jewelry, purses and clutches, pet toys, clocks, greeting cards and other quirky and fun gifts!

(soy’-ka designs)
Natalie Sojka found her first elements of inspiration for this line at an antique shop in rural Pennsylvania. After seeing the unique blend of metal shapes and textures she was inspired to produce her current line of jewelry. With this line her goal is to give her clients something unique, authentic, and edgy to wear, as well as a conversation starter.

Viola Living Jewels
Jessica Viola is a botanical designer and the founder of Viola Living Jewels and Viola Gardens. For the past 13 years, she has been cultivating her design portfolio and practice based on sustainability, whole-system solutions and artistic vision.   Viola Gardens was born nearly 6 years ago, specializing in permaculture-based botanical design, California native plant restoration, drought-tolerant water-wise artscapes, edible gardens and organics.  Viola Gardens has worked with a large range of clients throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, both residentially and commercially.  Jessica lectures on sustainable landscape design and permaculture at Santa Monica College, Venice Community Housing and Pepperdine University.  After many years of working in design, studying, stretching, exploring holistic living, traveling to South and Central America, playing music, singing, making art, creating gardens and teaching,  Viola Living Jewels was born.  Fashion-forward botanical jewelry, amulets of our wild essence.  

Silvermoon Chocolate
At Silvermoon Chocolate, each of our chocolates are handcrafted from the finest possible ingredients- raw, organic, dairy-free, and nutritionally intact.  Raw Food Artist, Chocolatier, and Feel Good Foods Expert, Aradhana Silvermoon has created these alchemical blends of superfoods that invigorate the palate as well as uplift the spirit through the magical properties of raw cacao.  Her raw chocolate creations are delicious, innovative, nutritious, and sure to put a smile on your face. Experience the bliss and share it with someone you love!

 

~ Audio Lab ~

Garth Trinidad (KCRW)
Garth Trinidad is the award winning, critically acclaimed radio personality, DJ, and culture critic. Through his work in radio, music supervision, and as a voting member of The Recording Academy, he’s broken artists like MIA and Gnarls Barkley, exposed music of independent bands on HBO’s Emmy winning series, Entourage, and is credited in part for creating The Grammy Awards “Best Urban Alternative Performance” category. The LA based DJ is known for his signature style of finessing the airwaves to expose new and progressive international music while paying homage to the classic, by weaving together intergalactic tapestries of sound. Whether on the radio or live, Garth artfully explores a multitude of genres and movements. With skill and ease, he anoints with jazz, indie rock, hip hop, world rhythms, and electronic music to make his point. Over the years he’s satisfied dance floors in South America, Western Europe, and across the US, while his constant presence in Los Angeles and online has informed local and global music trends. http://www.garthtrinidad.biz

P L A S T i C P L A T E S is Felix Bloxsom
As a musician, Felix has toured and recorded with many artists including Empire of the Sun, Sam Sparro, Jamie Lidell, Sia, The Presets and Sneaky Sound System, performing at music festivals including Coachella, All Points West, Capital FM Summertime Ball, V Festival UK and Radio 1′s Big Weekend. As a DJ, Felix has played gigs in LA, NY, London, Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne and Mexico City. Under the moniker of Plastic Plates, Felix has remixed songs for I Blame Coco, Body Language, Midnight Juggernauts, Sia and Empire of The Sun. The remixes have got the attention and support of well respected DJs and producers like The Magician, Utern, Midnight Savari, Bang Gang and Space Ranger to name a few.

Golden Touch (Modus Vivendi Music)
Jesse Rogg aka Golden Touch is the LA born and Munich raised Grammy nominated producer, songwriter & DJ responsible for such hits as “Black & Gold” by Sam Sparro and countless other musical endeavors. Jesse’s globally revered productions and DJ sets highlight his trans-continental influence surmounting a reputation for producing credibly unique material for established and up-and-coming talent. As a DJ he has traveled the world and has built a reputation for keeping dance floors packed from LA to Sydney and the space in between. www.soundcloud.com/modusvivendimusic

Pumpkin (Pocket Underground, The Wandering Marionettes)
Pumpkin is the music producer and curator behind the Wandering Marionettes and their eclectic event, Kabinet Theatre, as well as member of the famed Los Angeles collective POCKET Underground. By embracing all moods and genres, Pumpkin’s remixes and DJ sets have been known to inspire lust, love and laughter. Tactfully walking the thin line between hip-grinding rhythms and bittersweet lyrical melodies, Pumpkin truly loves every song he shares with the dance floor.

Continuum
Continuum is a live Electronic band infusing live instruments with live electronics. The brain child of producers Joe Wendt and Ryan Aicklen, Continuum began as a duo and has grown into a collective of musicians, performing as a duo, trio, or quartet.  Mixing live loops, beats, and effects with live bass, keys, and drums, this project keeps the music running seamlessly through out the entire set.  Focusing on sound design, they spend a lot of time making new sounds and satisfying the listeners’ ears.  Continuum always brings the dance party with them and will get any party moving with their sexy bass lines, catchy melodies, and enticing beats.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Continuum/171409889564001
http://www.soundcloud.com/continuumlive

DJ Alfonso (RENDEZVOUS!, LA)
Alfonso was perfectly happy playing downtempo records with his Recline Sounds partner in crime (and co-founder) Jubal until he picked up a reissue of Jean-Claude Vannier’s 1972 LP “L’Enfant Assassin Des Mouches” in 2005.  It all went downhill from there… Alfonso now spins an eclectic repertoire of 60′s & 70′s soundtracks, library music, and odd bits of global psychosploitation. He currently holds down a monthly residency at the Verdugo Bar, every first Wednesday of the month, called RENDEZVOUS! Event information, free downloads, and other goodies are available at www.DJAlfonso.com.

Jimmy Maheras (Plastic Love)
Jimmy began DJing after relocating from New York to Los Angeles in the late 90s. Much like the old school New York DJs he grew up listening to, Maheras doesn’t limit himself to a single sound. His genre-crossing sets include elements of soulful New York Garage, Detroit Techno, and dark tribal rhythms. In 2010, Jimmy partnered up with Bas to start a new brand called Plastic Love. These parties are an outlet for booking artists from around the world and playing music with no limits – house, disco, techno, funk.
http://www.facebook.com/JimmyMaherasDJ

SuperTallPaul (Helios Jive)
SuperTall Paul Newman is a man that can be described as 6’6” with wild hair, great outfits and full of comedy.  Paul fulfills the roles of; MC/Host/Improvisor Street Performance Clown, Musician; including Beatbox, Looping, Ukulele, Flute, Sax, Nose Whistle &Voice and last but not least, a magician. It is guaranteed that something funny, unexpected, and amazing will happen! SuperTall Paul Newman magically juggles multiple acts and talents into a very unique show! www.heybeepbeep.com
Video Reel: http://vimeo.com/4138274

JC Chamboredon (Milan Records)
JC Chamboredon, the head of LA based Milan Records, will provide his mix of downtempo, film scores and world beat.  www.milanrecords.com

DJ Lucas (Distant Beat)
DJ Lucas has been a member of the dance community since the mid nineties, and has thrown countless outdoor and indoor music events to showcase the old techno, break beats, and house music that he truly loves. In recent years, he’s taken that love from the dance floor to the decks to further communicate his deep devotion to the scene through the music that has inspired him for nearly 2 decades. To preserve what he feels to be the true sound of underground music, Lucas plays every one of his tracks on vinyl, insuring that each beat is carefully chosen and dutifully delivered to your ear in its finest form.

Viktor Carrillo (Droid)
Viktor Carrillo is a Los Angeles-based techno DJ and musician who has been immersed in the local electronic music scene since the 1990s. He is a well-known DJ in LA and has been performing and promoting his own events for more than a decade. A member of the Droid Behavior techno crew, he has performed at many Droid events including legendary sets at their ‘Black + Silver and Blue + Silver Open Airs.’ Viktor is a graduate of the Recording Engineering program at the Musicians’ Institute of Technology in Los Angeles, and his resume includes a 6-year stint as the manager of Higher Source Records, helping select music for some of the top DJs in LA. Carrillo moonlights as a Traktor DJ specialist for Native Instruments and is the Artistic Director for the techno label Xeriscape Records.

DJ Celeste (Boutique Electronique Records)
Things that go BOOM in the night, are DJ Celeste’s true delight! Electro and house, Downtempo, Chill-out… This lady hones in on the VIBE. A music producer as well…She writes AND she mixes – it’s Swell. She’s quite the gear-head, and will rock till she’s dead…Or at least till they tell her to go to bed…
http://www.soundcloud.com/celeste-lear
http://www.celestelear.com/dj.html

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For more information, images or to set up interviews please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Tejada (née Hasty) at 213-840-1201 or lynn@greengalactic.com.