Buying Art

Buying Art

Today is Art Walk Downtown day. It's the second Thursday of every month and it's a tradition that I seem to be doing more and more of. Why? Well, for as much culture that transplants and New Yorkers claim that Los Angeles doesn't have, Art Walk provides a lot of little injections of culture that no one bothers to go to. It's really a shame, but at least this means that it's not so crowded.

Now, I'm not in the market to buy some art pieces. That's way to pricey for me at this moment. I'm in the middle of renovating a building to be a slum lord. I have no extra cash to spend on fancy art. But that doesn't stop me from going to Art Walk and taking it all in. Taking the new art in terms of paintings, sculptures and of course getting some first hand enjoyment of culinary art from the food trucks.



I'm sure some of you are wondering if Downtown is still a scary place at night. It's not. Far from it. Yes, there's still a couple of bums here and there. But for the most part they have been pushed out of the area and are only in the skid row of downtown even more so. Besides, they're not the scary kind of homeless anyway. Just the strange ones who have sort of lost their sanity.

Last month at Art Walk one of the homeless dudes walked up to me and asked me if I liked poetry. Frankly, I'm not that much of a fan of poetry. Yes, it's spoken word and expression, but as you can see from this blog, I don't mind a lot of words to convey what you are feeling. I told him I didn't, but he still offered me a poem he wrote for whatever I could spare. He gave me this piece of work;

Why?

Today, does not matter, so what
do beg for. I beg for man
to respect man, and in honesty,
what are we if we hold no
capacity to change another
frown to a smile. Happy
are we when we relinquish
control. It is only then
we gather the harvest of immortality.

Kenneth Towler

Now, I paid a dollar for this sheet of paper with these random words. Did I pay too much? Probably. But still I think I got my money's worth since I got someone's hard work out of it. Maybe Kenneth Towler is reading this blog at the downtown Library computers after doing a google search for his name. Maybe not. I don't know. All I do know is I'm not paying more royaleties for this.. And if anyone wants to copy it, it's all mine! I paid for it, damn it!



I like to think that in some small way I helped the local "Arts" that night. Though going through the flea market that is located on Main Street between 4th and 6th street actually does help a lot of local crafts and artist. As well as hearing and seeing a lot of galleries and their DJ's spinning. It's really a great event that more of you should go check out.

The flea market really does have a lot of interesting shops to go to. There's a card lady there that I love buying cards from. They're so strange and yet so good. I seem to pick up a couple of cards from her every month for birthdays and whatever holidays are coming around. They have quality put into the item, unlike the poem I bought for a buck, this lady has some good material.. Though she's a little insane also.. but in a good way.

What I'm trying to say is that you should go to Downtown Art Walk sometime. Good food, great art, great people watching and a chance to see that Downtown L.A. is actually alive and well.