Friends of the Los Angeles River Fandango

Posted on by Diversions LA
FoLAR Fandango - Photos: Jack Burke
FoLAR Fandango – Photos: Jack Burke

A fandango is a party, and there was a big party for FoLAR, the Friends of the Los Angeles River, last Saturday night. Where? Along the banks of the river of course, now mired in flood channel concrete and separated from the glowing spires of downtown by train tracks and warehouses.

Lewis McAdams, FoLAR founder
Lewis McAdams, FoLAR founder

Held on the east side of the River in what is becoming a burgeoning arts district,  the event drew 700 plus guests, local politicians, and of course, FoLAR founder, Lewis McAdams. “I want people to be aware of Alternative 20, which the Corps of Engineers has signed off on. It’s going to take 1.35 billion dollars to take out eleven miles of concrete, and if we can do that, we can restore the river, and really get it going,” McAdams says. The issue is funding: the Corps wants the city to pay 80% of this cost, and the city is seeking a 50/50 split. McAdams,  was born in Texas, and he has a vision as big as his home state where the river is concerned. Next year will mark the 30th year for FoLAR, and while the organization has achieved much, their dedication to a renewed and renewable river is unstoppable.

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The evening was dedicated to the celebration of FoLAR’s achievements over the past year, building a pro-river community. Attendees were encouraged to sign FoLAR’s Alternative 20 petition – which can still be signed at www.folar.org/action – to ensure proper funding of the river’s revitalization. FoLAR’s goal is to create a swimmable, fishable, bikeable, boatable Los Angeles River greenway, a vision promoted at the event.

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From a beautifully designed fish sculpture – crafted with river trash – titled “Steelhead, friendly ghost of the LA River” created by FLOD Enterprises to live art documenting river creatures and a vision of the new river itself by Man One, the evening was packed with entertainment.

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Mudpeople
Mudpeople

Also on board: the silent, ballet-like performance art by river-supporters the Mudpeople, whose literally mud-covered, masked bodies move together in an ethereal motion that evokes water and river reeds. Emblematic of the life of the river itself, Mudpeople do not speak, but serve as silent, sinuous witnesses to nature’s resilience.

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The evening included live music, d.j. inspired break dancing, and exhibits representing different architectural visions for the river. Beverages from Austin’s all-natural Deep Eddy vodka and LA’s own Angel City and Firestone Walker breweries were supplemented by a buffet dinner provided by Pink  Elephant. But the fun was accompanied by stellar messages about the ecology of the river.

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Tone in Georgia

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A mobile museum taken to schools to educate students about the plight of the river and its potential for greatness and greenness was exhibited in the vast dining hall, and community educator Ban Luu explained its purpose, as guests walked through. “We take it to schools to educate students about the past, present, and future of the river. We teach them what it looked like, and the floods in the 1930s that led to the concrete, how it looks now, and the future possibilities. There’s a part of the exhibit that allows you to create an interactive design. Students can add trees, fishermen, walkways. They can see what it will look like once the concrete is removed.” Luu stresses the historic significance of the river, a significance too often discounted. “If it wasn’t for the Los Angeles River, there would be no LA. In 1781, people came to live here because of the water source.” Luu points out plans to create reservoirs to conserve water for landscaping, and a seed bomb table. “We want our visitors to plant native plants that are drought tolerant.”

Man One
Man One

Creating art at the event, as well as displaying already-created pieces available for purchase, artist Man One’s live-painting of what the River could look like featured the proposed Piggy Back Yard. “The vision includes an expansion of the artists lofts at The Brewery arts complex, park land, retail shops, green sections that are tiered where there are now only railroad tracks,” he explains.

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Lewis McAdams with Tom LaBonge

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Dr. Carol Armstrong from the Mayor’s Office

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Below, Alejandro Ortiz, FoLAR

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During dinner, speakers such as city councilman Tom LaBonge and FoLAR chairman Alejandro Ortiz thanked generous donors, who offered some $340,000 in pledges. In the last year, LaBonge reports, FoLAR has successfully advocated for Alternative 20, and provided a “terrific education program on urban wildlife and the river that educates students and staff at area schools. I look forward to the next thirty years when the work on our river will be accomplished.”

Ortiz added “FoLAR can be trusted people say, and we’re very proud of that. Your trust is something we plan to earn.” Now that’s worth partying about.

 

  • Genie Davis; All Photos by Jack Burke

Mike M. Mollett

Posted on by Diversions LA

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Performance art, sculpture, and installations – Mike M. Mollett is a versatile artist who creates both living and still-form art. The founder of L.A. Mudpeople, and the sculptor of large scale pieces created from found art, shaped into balls and bundles, Mollett’s work offers a look into a different reality, one in which what look like clay statues live and breathe, and bundles of wires move in the wind and become animate themselves.

On the performance art side, Mollett considers his troupe of L.A. Mudpeople to be non-performers who function as “essentially living sculptures.” Mudpeople don’t speak, and move slowly and deliberately, almost as if lumps of clay had shaped themselves and literally come to life. The troupe gets its mud from Silver Lake, Hollywood, and northern California, as well as using commercial mud such as potter’s clay. The artist started his mud-work in 1989, booking himself and others at an African-Reggae club for a single night – and the rest is art-tribal history.

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L.A. Mudpeople vary in number, with sometimes as many as forty members participating in events like the Doo Dah Parade, or conducting walkabouts along the L.A. River, Melrose, or Old Town Pasadena. Their work has appeared in National Geographic Magazine, and exhibitions of their attire and artifacts have been shown at both UCLA and Cal State L.A. They’ve been the subject of a film, imitated by Leonard DiCaprio, and have become an iconic part of Los Angeles’ rich street art scene. The Mudpeople wear their own simple clothing, and create full head masks made from cloth, paper, mud, and binding. Conceptually, these living sculpture performances are all about the freeing of self from time and worry, muddy yogis who, according to Mollett “don’t have to do anything. We just are.”

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Mollett has participated in the Los Angeles art scene for forty-some years, and it’s not all about “mudding-up.” His sculptures are often created from items and forms he’s used from work as a landscape artist, found objects that he morphs into what are essentially time capsules of society and life itself.

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His sculpture balls include pieces like “Migrant World,” a bundle of artifacts that were gathered along the Arizona-Mexico border trails. Tied with rope and cords, viewers see a Mexican shawl, a battered pink backpack, a hat, water bottle, and baby bottle among other objects, built around an ocotillo wand armature. The over all effect is poignant – these are the belongings that people took with them as they migrated from one land, or realm, to the next. Mollett’s rope and wire bound “The Giant Ball,” features the detritus of modern society, such as milk cartons, wine bottles, paper bags, and pill containers. This, Mollett seems to be saying, is what we have allowed ourselves to be made of. The balls serve as personal sculptures that use material collected from Mollett’s life or another’s life, shaping a biography or autobiography of that person.

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Unlike his balls, his Time-Twists of wire and wood are linear, reaching like mysterious urban plants skyward. “The Giant Bundle: A pLAyLAnd Twist” is installed indefinitely at The Brewery Artists Lofts in Los Angeles. His “Woody Bundle” includes an accordion tape measure. “Wild Red Twist” looks like shocking pink licorice has fused into corral, with blue, yellow, and black wires twisting in an invisible ocean wave. “Mostly Electric Story” incorporates rope, wires, and computer cables.

What makes both the Time-Twists and balls so compelling, is the feeling as if these entirely inanimate objects could suddenly become animate – just as Mollett’s Mudpeople do. A sinuous quality infuses the Time-Twists, making the viewer think of snakes, or strands of DNA twining and untwining. The balls are like transparent eggs filled with the stuff that life is made from, ready to hatch into human form.

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Mollett’s “Gate Series” also feels embryonic. In “The 2nd GATE,” Wire mesh is woven with wires, ropes, sticks, bamboo, Dracaena Draco leaves, and twines. Mollett’s “Mostly Friendly GATE” also features Dracaena Draco leaves, orange, wire mesh, sticks, bamboo, wires, and ropes. The flat aspect of the gates resembles a thin slice of human tissue, the wires and leaves the inner-workings of the body, or the inner-workings of technology just as fragile, just as capable of being alive in a technology-driven world.

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Installations like “Leaves in the Poet’s Winter Garden,” a part of Mollett’s solo show at Matters of Space in Highland Park, also use sticks, wires, and pipes to create the illusion of alive-ness. In this piece, pipe and bamboo stand tall, while at the base of these “plants” are small pieces of paper with two sets of disparate words or phrases written on them. A wonderful concept that illustrates the fluidity of creative thought, the passing “leaves” of discarded verbiage. Other installations have included a Mudcave at an Eagle Rock pop-up space, PlayLand, and The Mud Room created for the NadaDada Festival in Reno, Nev. Recently, Mollett was also a part of group exhibitions at Los Angeles Contraventions and the Los Angeles Juried Exhibition. Mudpeople have recently performed at the Highways Performance Space, as well as along the L.A. River, and at Beyond Baroque in Venice, Calif.  You can find out more about Mollett’s work here: http://www.kcet.org/arts/artbound/counties/los-angeles/mike-mollett-la-mudpeople.html

– Genie Davis