Create:Fixate Presents
Stop-Pause-Now
At Premiere Events Center in Downtown Los Angeles
Saturday, July 16, 2011

LOS ANGELES, CA – Arts organization Create:Fixate (C:F) is once again up to some good with their next exhibit Stop-Pause-Now on Saturday, July 16, 2011 at the Premiere Events Center. C:F’s signature blend features vibrant artwork and music produced by over forty local artists, DJs, land musicians. The excitement begins at 4:00pm with a gallery preview.  The main event starts at 7:00pm and closes at 2:00am.  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 explains the event’s theme, “Sometimes, you’ve got to take a moment, with all that’s whizzing by.  The noise level rises and it becomes an ever-increasing challenge to just be, much less Be Present. So take a moment. Let go of that angst about the past and your worries about the future. Give your undivided attention to what’s going on right in front of you. Pause. Center. Focus.  And when you’re ready, Take Action. Find your way to Now and make it happen!”

All participating artists along with high school students from Sun Valley High School will be creating one piece of artwork that expresses the show’s theme.

Stop-Pause-Now will feature the creativity of over thirty visual artists in the “Optical Lounge” – the evening’s visual feast – presenting a stunning array of painting, photography, multi-media, interactive installation, and performance art. Highlights include:

• Kenneth Ober’s current paintings are meditations exploring and defining time and space through complex fields created by using the excessive repetition of simple, small lines.  The paintings are made primarily with a tool designed for pin-striping automobiles, which is used to apply relentlessly consistent lines of paint to subtly textured canvas.

• At first distance Michelle Matthews‘ works are typically read as photographs. It is only when the viewer steps closer to the piece that they become disoriented by the materiality of the thread. Anonymous spaces become materialized in tens of thousands of stitches, and the thread supplants the photographic pixel.

• In her assemblages, Jena Priebe uses a myriad of media such as mirrors, glass, antiquated found objects, metals, adhesives and the guts of machines.

• Mark Dugally’s love of motorcycles and passion for the extraordinary come together in the rolling creations that are functional pieces of art. His designs are exotic materiality mixed with an aesthetic that questions what we know as “motorcycle.”

• Ken Murphy is a musician, programmer, artist, and tinkerer living in San Francisco, who is interested in the intersection of art and technology.  His latest creation “A History of the Sky” is a time-lapse visualization of the sky, clouds, weather and light.

• Chase, named one of Italian Vogue’s favorite 2006 street artists in the world (alongside Shepard Fairey and Banksy), is an artist/designer and Belgium transplant now based in Los Angeles.  He spends most of his time painting free murals containing uplifting messages in cities around the world. Chase will be doing a live painting installation during the event, which will be auctioned off to raise money for Create:Fixate’s community outreach programs for at-risk youth.

• In 2006, Kat Dawes traveled to Africa seeking to intimately understand the Laws of the Universe, hitchhiking from South to Central Africa and back again for a year with minimal possessions and financial resources.  Her vision inspired her to create a unifying word – NOWism™– that celebrates the practice of wisdom expressed throughout all cultures and ages.  In addition to live painting, Dawes will be giving a short talk about her campaign for the NOW.

The “Audio Lab” – otherwise known as the music portion of the evening – completes Create:Fixate’s vision.  Highlights include:

• Love in the Circus features unique and seductive melodies that combine and blur the lines of electronica, rock, jazz and blues with sultry, edgy, museful hooks. The group has recently played at festivals in Bali, Europe and recently toured Australia and Indonesia over New Years. C:F will be offering a free download of their latest album!

• As a continuation of an alliance with KCRW, C:F welcomes the one and only Jason Bentley who serves as the Music Director of the station and host of their signature program “Morning Becomes Eclectic.”  Bentley, who maintains a distinguished career as a Music Supervisor for film and advertising, is a tireless champion of new music and culture with an influence close to home and around the globe.

• Idiot Savant is the DJ collaboration between Jesse Wright and Ron Levy, the founders of Pocket Underground.  Since 2004, they have been a staple in California house and techno communities.

• DJ Wiseacre, the co-creator of three very successful LA parties, including Lift, will continue his quest to bridge genres of music and people by spinning fine tunes from all over the world, ranging from Brooklyn to the Balkans, from South America to Sweden, from house, to disco, to Afro-Latin broken beat and dub.

As part of Create:Fixate’s community outreach efforts the organization continues to empower youth through arts education projects. For the second time, C:F and Sun Valley High School will join forces. The exhibit will feature a collection of work from the students of Andrea Graham, who weave the concepts of emotional and spiritual health with art.  Using the show’s theme, Graham teaches her students to become aware of their preoccupations, so that they can move beyond and learn the benefits of living in the present.

Create:Fixate is an arts organization based in Los Angeles.  It is completing its 9th year of 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.

~The Optical Lounge~

Adam Diaz
Adam Diaz was born and raised in Los Angeles. He attended college at California State University Northridge, obtaining a degree in English literature, with extensive course study in traditional art techniques. He is currently working as an animator for cable television programs, having channeled his traditional visual skills into the world of 3D graphics and animation. The focus in his mature art is both visual and narrative as he includes passages from his verse writings into his paintings. His aim is to form a new experience for the viewer by marrying imagery and hints of narrative–always with a nod to the comic culture.

Alexander Drecun
Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Alexander Drecun moved to Los Angeles in 2004 to attend Occidental College where he received his B.A. in Art History and Visual Arts (Film Emphasis) and his minor in English and Contemporary Literature.  As part of his course work, he studied film-based black and white photography, a pursuit that quickly changed from academic requirement to passion.  Based in Los Angeles, he now divides his time between street photography and his work as a director of photography on feature films, documentaries, and commercials.  The images displayed represent two facets of Drecun’s street work: candid moments of intimacy, humor, or melancholy that speak to the strangeness of the human experience and portraiture documenting the breadth of a singular human experience manifested in appearance.

Ali Matin
Born in Iran, in 1972, Ali Matin started his journey as a freelance photographer in 1991.  He traveled throughout Iran and captured the uniqueness of its diverse nature and culture. His work has been widely published by UNESCO, the Cultural Ministry of Iran, and private publishers.  Today, he pursues his passion in documentary photography; catching the synchronic moments of the unfolding time and defining it symbolically.  Matin is showcasing “Man and Nature” in this exhibition.

Anthony Kraus
A Native American from the Watanak tribe, Anthony Kraus now lives in San Francisco where he is pursuing his masters in Indigenous and Buddhist philosophy at San Francisco State University.  In his free time, Kraus trains as a cage-fighter.  His work as a live-painter and muralist has won awards while at the same time stirring controversy.  He thinks art will save the world.

Ashleigh Sumner
Ashleigh Sumner is a self-taught artist living in Los Angeles. Originally from North Carolina, Sumner received her B.A. in Theatre Arts before moving west to pursue an acting career in stage, film, and television. Influenced and inspired by the social, physical, and artistic environment of California, Sumner expanded her creative pursuits beyond the stage to the canvas. While Sumner is still professionally involved in the collaborative process of performance, she finds tranquility in the solitary process of painting.

Ben Encarnacion aka Benedigital
Ben Encarnacion aka Benedigital escaped the streets of South Central Los Angeles over 13 years ago to become a successful graphic designer and interactive art director. He draws upon a background in graphic design, architecture, fine arts, and animation to produce work for his extensive client list, which includes Warner Brothers, Lucas Arts, Relativity Media, Discovery Channel, Disney, HBO, General Motors, and Kia, just to name a few.

Inspired by his vocation, his avocation began to emerge and 2 years ago Benedigital began creating his own art in earnest. Channeling his personal experiences thru graffiti, painting, computer graphics, and creating mixed media, he addressed issues of gang violence, social injustice, and his rich heritage.  The evolution of his art is a fusion of the underground electronic music scene and his digital fantasy world. Embracing this energy, Benedigital has become a fixture in the growing live painting community in Los Angeles.

Boris Litvinov
Boris Litvinov started sculpting at an early age using materials harvested from broken home appliances and any hardware he could find. More recently, Litvinov has added stone sculpture to his repertoire. As in his early works, the prevailing theme for his art remains a change in physical form, a metamorphosis from a cold, dead media to life-like shapes and forms. As a sculptor, Litvinov reaches into his professional experience as a physical therapist.  He has come into contact with many bodies, resulting in art that often reminds people of natural body curves or shapes.

Chase
Chase is an artist/designer and Belgium transplant now based in Los Angeles. He spends most of his time painting free murals that contain uplifting messages in cities around the world. Best known for his “Remember Who You Are” and “Awareness Geezers” campaigns, the intent behind his work is to inspire people to follow their hearts and to remind them to stay connected to their inner child. In 2006 Chase was named as one of Italian Vogue’s favorite street artists, alongside Shepard Fairey and Banksy.

Christina Angelina
Christina Angelina has been an artist her entire life. After attending NYU, the Art Center College of Design, and OTIS, she graduated with a BFA from UCLA in 2008. Additionally, through UCLA she has attended universities in Italy and Greece, focusing on Art History and Classics. Angelina has owned, curated and co-owned four galleries, with her present space being Starfighter Studios in Venice, Ca.  Her work has also been featured at the Oscar suites at the Pacific Design Center, LA Fashion Week, the Brewery Art Walk, the Downtown Art Walk, the Venice Art Walk, the Venice Art Crawl, the Abbot Kinney Festival, Equality California Events, the Catalina Art Walk and Lightning in a Bottle. Her work is constantly changing so you can look forward to some new and exciting pieces this summer at Create:Fixate.

Farzad Kohan
The thought provoking works of Farzad Kohan range from drawings and paintings to sculpture, installation and photography. Kohan is widely known for his experimental work using unconventional methods and mediums.

Kohan comments that his work is merely a reflection of how he sees the world around him. “My art reflects what is often a simultaneous experience of both the struggle and beauty that comprises life. With my art, I communicate across cultural divides, language barriers, religion and gender.  I’m a citizen of this world.”

General.LA
General.LA has shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), the Geffen, A+D Museum of Architecture and Design, and the prestigious Art Center College of Design, where he was top of his class. He was creative consultant for the first graphic tee campaign with American Apparel, designer and consultant of Coachella’s 2008 center stage with Pulse Architecture, has just finished designing and co-producing a 300M Major-Studio feature film yet-to-be released, and is principle of his own design firm General.LA and Co-founder of the agency Monumental International Ltd. He has been a guest critic at Art Center College of Design’s Environmental Design and Fine Art program, UCLA AUD, and Southern California Institute of Architecture SCI-Arc. General.LA is currently developing the next evolution of 2001’s Parametricism, this time microgenre-izing specific evolutionary “lexicon.genetics” as well as creating its primary manifestation known as the phenomena of “General.ization,” the unifying formula of the universe.

Hagop Belian
Hagop Belian was born and raised in Syria before moving to the United States in his early teens.  His creative process began while studying at UC Santa Cruz, where he earned a BA in Mathematics. His work explores the possibilities of illusion and how nothing is ever as it seems. It is about the deconstruction of the human condition and the “unlearning” of one’s own belief system.  Each piece allows Belian to reveal another layer of the hologram of life.  He currently lives in Venice Beach where he continues to explore the unreal.

Jaja Dario
Born in Los Angeles in 1979, Jaja Dario was raised in Manila where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Studio Arts-Painting at the University of the Philippines in 2004. Dario’s creative approach revolves around the mystical and transpersonal realms of consciousness, and was brought about by a deeply felt experience of oneness with the universe. Her artistic process begins by being intuitively informed of the song that she names each painting after, then she drafts multiple points of concentric circles with a compass on a wooden panel frame. Dario then sets the stage for a visual journey of exploration in color perspective through value, intensity, and layers of emulsion. She carefully plays with the intervals of time and space, spinning around the wooden panel as she paints, composing and creating her lively geometric tones and harmonious forms in attempt to visually vibrate the music of the spheres.

James Ketover
James Ketover was born in Salt Lake City, UT.  During secondary school in New York he was privileged to study art with the distinguished illustrator, Bill Parsons.  He credits Mr. Parsons with teaching him the importance of careful observation, creativity and execution.  Ketover regards art and design as a constant reminder that there are no creative restraints except those individuals place upon themselves.

This work investigates different modes of representation in order to reveal various qualitative aspects of spatial organization.  The art was inspired by Louis Sullivan’s A System of Architectural Ornament According with a Philosophy of Man’s Powers (1922).

Jasko Begovic
Born in Bosnia, Jasko Begovic creates art that is both probing and poignant, and although his pieces are conspicuously filled with anguish, they are also about alacrity and elation. His art breathes into his memories and has no rules or borders.

Jena Priebe
Conceptual sculptor Jena Priebe lives and works in Los Angeles, California. In her studio in downtown LA, she works to achieve a symbiotic relationship with her life and the creation of her art. She uses a myriad of media and her assemblages include mirrors, glass, antiquated found objects, metals, adhesives and the guts of machines. Some things are haggled over, bartered for, unearthed in a forgotten family attic or pulled from the depths of tangled industrial salvage yards. Her pieces are meant to give the mechanical metaphor of the path we take through the complexities of life.

Ultimately, she wants to express the magic of those things we often take for granted. To capture the simplicity of wonder and joy we sometimes forget for our everyday surroundings.

John Lavezzo
John Lavezzo makes orb paintings.  The space created is threefold: optical illusion, abstraction and relief.  The optical illusion occurs when tinted, cast and painted plaster hemispheres are perceived as a two dimensional surface.  The abstraction exists in the form of colors, shapes and patterns made up of orbs and the space of the canvas.  The relief is revealed in the physical presence of the work. Changes within the orbs and their placement are made in an improvisational way as influenced by his mood, energy level, and intuition.

Justin Snyder
The Long Beach based artist Justin Snyder is an emerging painter living in Long Beach, CA. After spending 8 years working as a film editor for Twentieth Century FOX, he has now taken his art career full time. His latest body of work, consisting of paintings on canvas and wood, has been described as dimensional layouts of echoing harmonics, distorted body forms, and organic abstraction.  Snyder is an active figure in the Los Angeles Art Community and has become an activist and outreach worker around issues on homelessness and starvation.

Kenneth Ober
Kenneth Houghton Ober was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on February 22, 1972.  He studied Art, Art History, and Literature at the University of Maryland in College Park for two years. The art and culture of Asia served as an introduction to Buddhist philosophy, which led him to Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.  The desire to connect with a larger art world brought Ober to California, where he graduated from Otis College of Art and Design in 2001.

Ober’s current paintings are meditations, exploring and defining time and space through complex fields created by using the excessive repetition of simple, small lines.  The paintings are made primarily with a tool designed for pin-striping automobiles, which is used to apply relentlessly consistent lines of paint to subtly textured canvas.

Kuger Peterson
Kuger Peterson is an artist based in Los Angeles.  His surrealistic assemblages ventilate his political concerns and ignite a dialogue between the viewer and the subject.  Ironic situations and rhetorical subversions inspired by the media and our dominant institutions fuel each piece.  Instead of passively absorbing the work, the viewer is confronted with moral dilemmas, implied narratives, and familiar imagery.

Mark Dugally
Mark Dugally is an artist, designer and bike builder in the Los Angeles area. A native to the area, he grew up around architectural design and a family business of custom homes. His love of motorcycles and passion for the extraordinary come together in the rolling creations he creates, which are also functional pieces of art. Dugally’s work is all about exotic materiality mixed with an aesthetic that questions what we know as “motorcycle.”

Michelle Matthews
Michelle Matthews is a photographer, artist and graphic designer.  Since 2007 she has been creating a body of work that relates to the representation of photography through embroidery. From a distance, these works are typically read as photographs. It is only when the viewer steps closer to the piece that they become disoriented by the materiality of the thread. Anonymous spaces become materialized in tens of thousands of stitches, and the thread supplants the photographic pixel. What has been typically a medium of celebration, national pride, corporate championing and consumer trade, becomes a place for making the banal and insignificant heroic, bringing into focus, the history, consequence and potential of our built environment. Although we build it, at the end of the day, Matthews’s work brings attention to how space defines us as both individuals, and as a society.

Mister Pike
Mister Pike produces art in the time and space of inspiration, on street walks, using discarded materials.  This disregards the art object, instead encouraging art as a re-arrangement of what is already there.  It is “art” only for the time it remains intact, the digital photograph being the record of art taking place.  Mister Pike creates a story using comic strip narration, a medium easily understood by anyone. Graffiti, vandalism, and invasion of public space are also brought forth in his art, yet the materials in the pieces were already there and can easily be removed.  The messages are typically playful with a humorous approach to serious topics.

Patrick Haemmerlein
A native of Kinderhook, NY, Patrick Haemmerlein is a freelance designer and artist living in Los Angeles. After receiving his BFA from The Savannah College of Art and Design in 2000, Haemmerlein took a long road trip across the country and settled down in LA.  There he began to obsessively photograph the city and its components. He gradually moved into a new art form as he started to combine and create the images he was shooting. Reflecting on the issues of the day, Haemmerlein explores themes of nature versus industry and how they can coexist or clash.

Rebecca Cabage
Rebecca Cabage graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology with a BFA in Photographic Illustration. After graduation Cabbage moved to Los Angeles, seeking solace in the California warmth and sunshine after 4 years in the cold, cold winters of upstate New York.

Cabage has worked for clients such as Honda/Acura (via Genex) and Virgin Records.  She has also shown her work in various galleries in Los Angeles, including MOPLA and AFTA. In addition to photography, she works as the Director for Studio Bookings at Smashbox Studios. She is currently in production for her book “Save the Salton Sea.”

Sonja Solinas
Los Angeles artist Sonja Salinas, a.k.a. Little Sonrisa, paints quirky worlds that might exist in the gap between reality and dreams. These whimsical creations are influenced by the dark lowbrow movement and the strange universe of surrealism.

Having a strong background in graphic design, the artist works not only digitally, but also in oil and colored pencil on wood panel and canvas.  Her latest body of work, a collection of eccentric humanlike birds telling nostalgic stories to the child within is her interpretation of mythology, in which birds have been symbols of power and freedom, linking the human world to surreal realms that lie beyond ordinary experience.

Stephan Canthal
Technology is a key component in the work of Stephan Canthal.  He began experimenting with the photographic medium while pursuing a Fine Arts degree at California State University of Long Beach.  His interest in advancing this medium and its process has led him to printing on multiple surfaces, including aluminum, wood, film, and specialty papers. As he explores the idea of printing images on different surfaces, he has begun to use texture not only to accent the image, but also to create a communication between substrate and imagery.

Yu Cotton-well
Yu Cotton-well was born and grew up in Yokohama, Japan.  A decade ago, she decided to move to California to expand her cultural and artistic experience. She uses fiber as her main medium and often blends different kinds of materials, including every day objects.  She seeks to create a relationship between her personal life and her artwork, as well as to convey a message that she believes is always hidden in everyday life.

Cotton-well also likes to combine written materials with her visual media to deepen the meanings both visually and conceptually. Her recent piece “3yrs 9mons 25dys” transforms ordinary diaries into a three-dimensional piece with her personal memories placed in drawers.  Cotton-well wishes to capture those delicate moments in life where we pause and look inward to reflect.

~Video Artists~

Stuart Scanlon
For the last decade and a half Stuart Scanlon has created animation, motion graphics and visual effects for commercials, film titles and theme parks. In recent years he has fused those talents and his formal music training to create musically inspired video work. His desire to return to his live performance roots and his love of the underground dance music scene has inspired his process of designing fixed visual compositions which he deconstructs and reassembles in real-time. His work can be seen on permanent installation in Anaheim, Orlando, Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong as well as appearing temporarily in the hills of San Diego, the deserts of Nevada, the warehouses of Los Angeles and televisions near you.

Ken Murphy
Ken Murphy is a musician, programmer, artist, and tinkerer living in San Francisco.  He is interested in the intersection of art and technology.  His past projects include abstract, luminescent artworks using LEDs and “Blinkybugs”–simple, blinking electronic insects that can be built from few parts.  They are now available in the form of a combination book and kit.  He also has written how-to articles for Popular Science and Make Magazine.  His musical background includes film scoring, as well as producing “music buttons” used by NPR programs such as “All Things Considered.”

“A History of the Sky” is a time-lapse visualization of the sky, clouds, weather and light over a long period of time.  An image of the sky is captured every 10 seconds for a full year; the images from each day are assembled into a movie, and the days are arranged chronologically.  The mosaic of time-lapse movies reveals the cyclical patterns of sunrise and sunset over the course of the year.

~Live Painting~

Kat Dawes
Dynamic and charismatic, Kat Dawes can be recognized by her signature double braids and head wrap. Communicating with her entire being, Dawes’s contagious energy makes her compelling and memorable.

In 2006, Dawes traveled Africa to intimately understand the Laws of the Universe, hitchhiking from South to Central Africa and back again for a year with minimal possessions and financial resources.  Her vision inspired her to create a unifying word – NOWism™ – that celebrates the practice of wisdom expressed throughout all cultures and ages. NOWism™ is a universal reminder service, encouraging people to participate in the present moment by BEING their desired results…NOW.

In addition to live painting, Dawes will be giving a short talk about her campaign for the NOW.

~Fashion and Jewelry Designers~

Delevo Designs
After graduating from Columbia College, Deborah Vogt became a founding member of The Conjugate Projekt, Transamoeba Studios and The Chicago Art Department, participating in the creation of many collectives, multitudes of events and performance art installations throughout Chicago. She began creating her line of jewelry, Delevo designs, in the year 2000, even traveling to Bali to teach her stylized designs to the master artisans there. Upon landing in Los Angeles, she worked with several high end designers, and early in 2010 co-founded d i a l e c t gallery on 6th Street downtown. She now divides her time between curating and singing in her band, Early Bird Circus. Her jewelry is hand-crafted, elegant and simple, using fine woods, sterling silver and gold, precious and semi-precious stones and recycled materials to create universal and distinctive designs.

ONA Los Angeles
Leona Giddings, aka Ona, began her mission to be a fashion designer in 1999. She attended a fashion program in her home town of Tucson AZ, then in 2000 moved to Los Angeles when accepted to FIDM.  For ten years she worked in the fashion industry, learning and developing her skills, working as a pattern maker, assistant designer at Fredericks of Hollywood and eventually moving on to “ready to wear” in technical design.

ONA Los Angeles can be described as a fiercely elegant collection of Men’s and Women’s contemporary clothing. Dresses and tops for women are often versatile, making them wearable several different ways. Many of the printed styles feature exclusive and original textile artwork.

Viola Living Jewels
Jessica Viola is a botanical designer and the founder of Viola Living Jewels and Viola Gardens. For the past thirteen years, Viola has been cultivating her design portfolio and practice based on sustainability, whole-system solutions and artistic vision.  Viola Gardens was born nearly six years ago, specializing in permaculture-based botanical design, CA 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.  Viola 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.  The collection features fashion-forward botanical jewelry; amulets of our wild essence.

Fahmina
Topanga eco-designer Fahmina is tarnishing the thought that leather can’t be green. The Bangladeshi New Yorker model reconstructs gorgeous, handmade leather accessories from reclaimed and pre-cycled leather. 100% of the leather used is pre-consumer waste, salvaged from factory cutting tables.  Mixing colors and textures fearlessly, she creates elegant design that is chic, urban and utilitarian, hand made with excellent quality.  The fanny clutches are an instant hit because they are a chic rendition of the good ol’ fanny pack. Other merchandise includes bangle style Slit Cuffs, gauntlets, Komorbondhs, and belts for men and women. Earrings are constructed with leather and14K gold hooks or sterling silver hooks, and are therefore are hypoallergenic.  Everything is designed and engineered with ingenious simplicity.  This is an eco-conscious company paving the way towards a green and sustainable world. Leather art from the heart.

Mamacita Jewelry
Mamacita Jewelry by Erin Ferro began in 1996. Each piece is handcrafted and one of a kind. Usually made from 18k gold filled wire and chain, each piece is wire-wrapped with love. Mamacita gathers inspiration from her family and friends, Quintano Roo, the ocean, the desert, and the semi- precious stones, wood, shells, feathers and beads that she collects along the way. You can find Mamacita at the outdoor artist market on Abbott Kinney in Venice on Sundays and in various boutiques.

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!

Solsis Clothing for the Soul

~The Audio Lab~

Slash Fiction
Slash Fiction is the remix-slash-DJ duo comprised of Henry Slash and Mick Fiction (with additional production from Chris Winston) and signed to Sleazetone Records. They are the resident DJs at Full Frontal Disco and have lovingly destroyed the dance floor at other clubs, parties and events too numerous to list.
http://www.myspace.com/slashfiction
http://soundcloud.com/slashfiction

DJ Miss Bliss
DJ Miss Bliss is one of the only female DJs in town that still spins vinyl records.  You can catch her all over Hollywood at places like The Viper room, The Foundation Room, King King and Cinespace. When she is not digging for records or spinning her bliss, she is surfing waves at the beach.  Don’t miss the bliss.
www.julieji.com

Jason Bentley (KCRW)
Jason Bentley serves as Music Director of KCRW and host of their signature program “Morning Becomes Eclectic.”  He has had a distinguished career as a music supervisor for film and advertising, and has worked an exhaustive DJ schedule in bohemian Los Angeles. Bentley is a tireless champion of new music and culture with an influence close to home and around the globe. Bentley is no stranger to the business side of music, having worked in A&R at Maverick and Island Records, music supervising the Matrix trilogy, and consulting for countless advertisements, video games, and live events. While acting as the Music Director of the station where he’s grown up – literally and figuratively – is a challenging task, Bentley is devoted to leading KCRW’s team of talented DJs into a new era.
www.kcrw.com/jasonbentley

Love in the Circus
Love in the Circus features unique and seductive melodies that combine and blur the lines of electronica, rock, jazz and blues with sultry, edgy, museful hooks. The group was formed by singer/bassist Leanna Rachel and multimedia producer/guitarist Chris Brickler. Curtis Cunningham joins the group on drums, Eric Hargett on keys/saxophone and Cha Chi on percussion/synths. The High Priestess and Leah Zeger add beautiful textures on the harp and violin, respectively. The group has recently played at festivals in Bali, Europe and just toured Australia and Indonesia over New Years.
www.loveinthecircus.com

Morgan Alexander (Bottom Floor)
Morgan Alexander began building a sonic home in house music during the early nineties.  Career highlights include a residency with LIFE, Boston’s largest deep house night, traveling with Mountain Dew’s entertainment presence for the X Games, regular features on the West Coast, and hosting “Wednesday Revolutions,” the deep installment of Boston’s revered electronic dance music show on WERS 88.9FM.  Alexander volunteers a healthy portion of his time to a board appointment with NextAid – the dance music community’s response to vulnerable children and youth in Africa.  2011 finds him very much at home in sunny Santa Monica, producing Bottom Floor.  The venture, formed with Halo of CityDeep Music, provides a multi-faceted platform for DJs and producers prolific in their ability to squeeze soul out of machines.
www.thebottomfloor.com
www.facebook.com/morgalex

WISEACRE (theLIFT – LA / LOUIE and CHAN / FOUND LOVE – NYC)
Living in the seaside republic of Venice for 20 years, DJ Wiseacre initially established a successful career as a commercial/fine art photographer. In 2003, he decided to pick up some vinyl, a couple of turntables, a mixer, two speakers and a few friends in orderto begin the labor of love we call “throwin’ parties”. Since this time, Wiseacre has put his love for photography on hold and co-created three very successful LA parties, FUNKY IN THE MIDDLE, CUSTOM SUNDAZE and now the LIFT, which after one year is expanding to San Francisco and New York.
http://www.facebook.com/djwiseacre
http://www.louieandchan.com
http://www.facebook.com/tryandfindus

Macaya
Disco to Afrobeat, funky house to electro, soul to punk, downtempo to rock– as long as it sounds good and makes heads bob, he’ll play it. Born in the Bay Area, raised in the Pacific NW via Chile, and now a ten year resident of LA, Macaya spent time behind the decks at LACMA, The Viper Room, Tarfest, CTA Theatre Project, The Echo, Mountain Bar, and many gallery openings and/or apartment parties. He paints when he’s not DJing: www.jasonmacaya.com

Idiot Savant (Pocket Underground :: the DoLaB/Woogie)
Idiot Savant is the DJ collaboration between Jesse Wright and Ron Levy.  They cofounded Pocket Underground in 2004 as an outlet for less obvious, fun-filled events in LA and have been a staple in the Southern California House and Techno communities for over a decade.  Jesse is the Managing Director for the Woogie Stage at the Lightning in a Bottle Festival, created by the amazing collective the DoLab.  Ron has released numerous records since 2001 and smells better than Jesse.
www.facebook.com/idiotsavantmusic

Ketchup Soup
“Accordion diva Mrs. Hobbs has a new project — a collaboration with singer/songwriter lovemando called Ketchup Soup, in which her penchant for torchy, slightly surreal, old-timey French jazz-inspired numbers finds a sympathetic, if slightly more gritty, urban counterpart. Together they compose and interpret music with an arresting, romantic, and slightly noir vision of the modern bohemian cabaret.”
– Shana Nys Dambrot, Flavorpill.com
www.ketchupsoupband.com
http://www.listn.to/ketchupsoup

Shayn Almeida
As former product specialist for Native Instruments and Stanton DJ, Almeida has held residencies at clubs such as Spundae, Avalon, and Sugar.  Mixing various styles of House, TechHouse, Breaks, and Dubstep, Almeida has  played at events ranging from Earthdance, Moontribe, and Boombox, to Burning Man and the Democratic National Convention.  After taking a five year hiatus to concentrate on his Yoga studies, Almeida is now back on the scene focused on DJing and Music Production. He is currently working on original music and remixes for the dance floor, as well as down-tempo, dubbed out tracks for the yoga community.
http://DjShayn.com
http://twitter.com/ShaynAlmeida

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