The Secret Growing: On the New Spiritual Art Canon
IN OCTOBER 2022, I received an invitation to celebrate the Scorpio new moon eclipse with a group of creative women. The invitation was illustrated with a 1915 painting by the Swedish artist and mystic Hilma af Klint, The Dove, No. 14—a rainbow sphere with a white center against a black background, astrological glyphs in each corner.... More
The Casita on Calle Colima: Reflections on a shape-shifting Mexico City
“Hermosa casita en la Colonia Roma,” read the listing that popped up on Airbnb when I was searching for a rental in Mexico City in the spring of 2022. The main image showed an elegant, periwinkle-blue row house with white trim, beside an identical house painted deep indigo and another, bubblegum pink. Potted plants and... More
The Art of Reparation: Lauren Bon Imagines the L.A. River After Us
Inside the small, ground-floor gallery, the air is moist and fragrant with dirt and hanging bundles of sagebrush, amaranth, yerba mansa and ephedra. One wall is lined with topographic maps; against another, teardrop-shaped beakers steadily drip water solutions into contaminated soil, filtering out lead, arsenic and other toxins through ceramic pipes. Around a corner, a... More
Heads Up: A Q&A with the Mexican American Milliner Gladys Tamez
When Lady Gaga appeared on the cover of her 2016 album, Joanne, unadorned except for a gently tapered pink felt hat, the Mexican American designer Gladys Tamez officially stepped center stage. She launched her line, Gladys Tamez Millinery, in Los Angeles in 2014 and would become one of the first Latina hat designers in the... More
Brother Nature: Obi Kauffman and his California Field Atlas Series
“This is a love story.” So begins Obi Kaufmann’s The California Field Atlas (Heyday), an illustrated guide to the natural world of California that sat atop the San Francisco Chronicle’s nonfiction bestseller list for six months in 2017, and then spawned a series —the fourth volume of which The Coasts of California was published... More
Like A Rainbow: Ariana Papademetropoulos and the Emerald Tablet
Ariana Papademetropoulos. “Origins” (2021). Oil on canvas. 84” x 120”. Courtesy of Ariana Papademetropoulos and Jeffrey Deitch Los Angeles. The artist Ariana Papademetropoulos moves effortlessly between dimensions. With her recent show, The Emerald Tablet, she took us over the rainbow. In this interview for Flaunt, she spoke about how she got there. The paintings of... More
Star 80: Nick Taggart’s LA Stories Encapsulates an Era and a City’s Electric Energy
When the British-born artist Nick Taggart came to Los Angeles in 1977, he planned to stay for three months. Four-plus decades later, he is still here, living on the same Glassell Park street he was told about at a Stranglers show in London. Then twenty-two, Taggart, who studied illustration at Cambridge School of Art, found... More
Corita Kent: Pop Artist, Public Servant, Rebel Nun
“To be fully alive is to work for the common good.” —Corita Kent The artist best known as Sister Corita was born Frances Elizabeth Kent in 1918. She grew up in Hollywood but she was no beach bunny or glamour girl; at 18, right after graduating from high school (and to the surprise of her... More
The New Face of the Hotel Figueroa
Elegant and airy, lit by natural skylights and chandeliers, warmed by wood paneling, plush seating and a central fireplace, and decorated with contemporary art, books and rare objets: This quietly luxe first impression of the renovated Hotel Figueroa was not what the real estate developer Bradley Hall had in mind when the property came on... More
Gangsta Gardener Ron Finley
In South Los Angeles, the term “gangsta” isn’t typically associated with flowers, fruit trees, or fertile bins of compost, but one day it will be, if Ron Finley has his way. For the self-named “Gangsta Gardener,” planting an edible garden is an act of resistance and empowerment, not to mention a smart financial move. “Growing... More
Maripol: Polaroids From The Underground
In 1974, a book called The Faith of Graffiti, featuring photographs by Jon Naar and an essay by Norman Mailer about a new art form rising from the streets and subways of New York City, found its way into the hands of a student at l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Nantes, France, named Marie-Paule. A seminal... More
Frogtown: A Creative Hub Blossoms Along the L.A. River
Turn onto the wrong street from Riverside Drive and you might never find it. You’ll hit the 2 or the 5 freeway, or maybe wind up at a side entrance to Home Depot. But once you do enter this neighborhood of single-family homes and low industrial buildings, nestled along the curving, soft-bottom section of the... More