Posies
Thanks to my friend Justin Lui and the Elysian Valley Art Collective, I was happy to participate in the 2nd annual “Illuminate the Night” event in frogtown on 9/23/2023. Prior to the event, Frogtown Arts Director Michelene Cherie reached out and invited me to take a walk along the LA river. She shared some knowledge about poet, scholar, and activist Lewis MacAdams and the “Friends of the LA River.” Over the course of the walk Michelene’s passion for building the Elysian Valley community and revitalizing the river transformed my perception of my surroundings.
The event was a blur filled with smiling faces, heartfelt and silly interactions, gleeful kids, and curious LA residents. I had some wonderful and impactful conversations. I made the artwork above “Posies,” for the event: it is inspired by the LA river. It’s an interactive piece that responds to the viewer’s movements. When you move too quickly, the installation gets “scared” and seems to be inactive, but if you slow down and hold still, plants grow into your silhouette and the flowers attract insects and butterflies. Some kids with a gymnastics background made a fantastic game out of trying to hold the most difficult pose the longest, breathing life into the artwork. The black edge of the projection was not that visible in person I swear :) Also, it's worth mentioning that I usually don't like to settle on "wavy-handy" art (simple mirror-like interaction), but I think in this case simple was better for the context and time-frame.
I was fortunate to meet some other participating artists including Ryan Patrick Griffin and Mike The Poet. We talked about art, music and community. What’s changing and what’s staying the same. Looking forward to next time!
Below is an excerpt from the first page of Lewis Macadam's "The River: Book One:"
1
Los Feliz Blvd Bridge:
The flood water watchers
feel the power of the river
roaring underneath their feet
as the rain pelts the pavement,
swelling the river even further.
This bridge went out in the flood of 1936
A tree trunk broadsides
the bridge's buttresses.
At 30 m.p.h., the whole structure
takes the shock. All of us feel it
in the dark. We laugh nervously,
caught in the headlights
of a video van.
Lit by a field producer, the weather man does his midnight stand-up.
2
To lay this down once and for all.
To lay my burdens down.
To lay my body down.
That'll be the day.
3
Climbing up into the San Gabriels
in a caravan of cars behind Jim
and Jack and Dorothy Green and
Tom Janeway and Torii getting antsy,
"I want to see the creek." We get there.
Torii crawls out on
a branch above a
waterfall, calling
back at us,
"Two rocks!"
When we turn around,
we think we see
the chilly waters descending
into Greater Los Angeles.
4
Catherine Mulholland says
that when she was a girl sometimes
you'd have to row to Van Nuys High School.
Now the school is bordered by deep concrete canals.
There used to be
enough water to
irrigate with
nearly all year-round
around here.
Where did it go?
Literally, where did it go?
Now there's just the
Technical Advisory Board
of Friends of the Los Angeles River
trying to figure out
how much of it
has been lost.
5
Very intense dreams
I must be coming
down with something.
I hope it's nothing
nearly as intense
as my vision of Earth
as the New Mars—
red dust storms rolling
around a planet
that died a long time ago.