Frank Gehry House, Venice Beach

The Frank Gehry House is located at 2509 Ocean Front Walk in Venice.


The scaffolding on the right is NOT part of the house. Everything else is.

A little (OK, very) strange, odd. But it honestly fits in with the rest of Venice Beach.

The Obama 2008 posters is a reminder that this was taken back in late 2008, early 2009.

Short post - lots of things going on this weekend.

Here's a link with more info.

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Tagging at Venice Beach

Back in March of 2007 I took a friend from out of town to Venice Beach (it was on his list of places to see). I've been to Venice Beach hundreds of times over the years, and thought I'd "seen it all." But even I was a little surprised what we experienced. 

Apparently, the City of Los Angeles decided to allow - even encourage - graffiti and "tagging" in a small area along the boardwalk. Huh?

I guess the idea being: "vandalism and graffiti is going to happen; let's set aside one area where it can actually be legal." 

If you've never actually been to Los Angeles, vandalism caused by tagging has absolutely exploded in terms of impact and damage. It's a HUGE problem for the city, costing tens of millions of dollars every year to clean up. 

So it's hard to believe that the city would actually ENCOURAGE it - anywhere. Even at Venice Beach.

Looks like mom and dad brought their kids. Just another day at the beach. 

Yes, there is an aspect to graffiti that can actually be considered art. Maybe not my style, but art none the less. But much of what we saw was simply tagging. 

Like this. Next to the "designated" area, a palm tree was covered with graffiti. This is art?

Here's another view. Welcome to the beach. 

After walking around a bit, we headed back to my car. Spotted the Piano Man on the Venice Beach Boardwalk. Just one of the cast of characters that are part of the local community. 

A block away was a beautiful mural on the side of a building. Correction, formerly beautiful mural. 

Beautiful until it was vandalized by taggers. It's bad enough the see graffiti like this on blank walls. But on someone's artwork? I wondered if whoever did this "practiced" down the street on the city sponsored graffiti walls? 

There are thousands of murals throughout Los Angeles, and - unfortunately - hundreds of them have been vandalized by taggers. In some cases, the artists gave up and their work was painted over. Once again, poorer communities bear the brunt of this.

Apparently, the City of Los Angeles realized the tagging walls in Venice weren't such a great idea after all. A couple months after these photos were taken, they began to require a "permit" to spray paint the walls around the Venice Beach boardwalk (wonder how that's working out?) 

As an aside, my family and I were in Chicago for six weeks this past summer. NO graffiti - anywhere. And NO barbwire keeping people off freeway signs, walls, billboards, etc. The City of Chicago simply made it illegal to buy, sell, use or possess spray paint within city limits. Guess what? NO graffiti. Kind of nice. 

© 2011 www.experiencingla.com

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Venice Beach: Solarium at the Boardwalk

The Venice Beach Boardwalk is a large pedestrian walkway that runs along the beach from Ocean Park in Santa Monica to the edge of Marina del Rey. On summer weekends it can be absolutely packed. For both locals and visitors from around the world, it's definitely an "Experiencing L.A." type of place. 

As one reviewer said on yelp.com, "Venice Beach is basically all of Los Angeles in one place: movie film set locations, large variety of food, unique people, creative and individualistic craft stands, pan handlers, street performers, exercise gyms, the beach, and - yes - difficult parking."

 You'll find outdoor dining and restaurants ...

 ... stands selling cheap-o sunglasses, t-shirts, and other tchotchkes ...

... colorful murals ...

 ... oddities like the Venice Beach Freak Show ...

 ... and wacky street performers. 

The boardwalk is also lined with outdoor displays of artwork and photography, as well as space set aside for political, religious and other non-profit displays. 

Solarium was one such display. Hosted by the the campus ministry "Cru",  Solarium is a series of images designed to engage dialogue on topics of faith and spirituality. 

Questions around the photographs included "which images describe your life right now?" and "what images represent how your view God?"

Some people spent a lot of time talking ...

... others were content just looking and reflecting. 

A student volunteer interacting with of the more colorful local characters. This was, after all, Venice Beach. 

 

In addition, there were several questions with space for comments.

Another questions: lots of answers. 

Why do I like Solarium? I'll admit my bias: not only am I a Christian, but I was also part of this event. But I like to think that even if I wasn't (a Christian) I would still like the whole thing. Over the years we've had many people say "I'm not religious, but I think what you guys are doing is really cool." Of course, the goal isn't to be "cool" - it's to engage people in life's most important questions - and to consider the claims of Jesus Christ. Both at places like Venice Beach, and then during the year, university campuses. 

My son (the good looking kid in the blue shirt) answering the question, "what is true love?" These photographs are all from last summer - I'll have to ask him if he still remembers what he wrote. 

Feel free to leave a comment below to any of of these questions. As Socrates said, "the unexamined life is not worth living." 

View Larger Map

The Venice Beach Boardwalk is located along the beach between Navy Street (the border of Santa Monica/Venice) and Washington Blvd. Parking, especially during the summer, can be tricky. There is a large lot (that fills up quickly on weekends) where Venice Blvd meets the beach. There's also a much less crowded lot just south of Ocean Park Blvd, a few blocks north of Navy. 

© 2011 www.experiencingla.com

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