Santa Monica Canyon People
Posted Wednesday, December 28, 2011

     The result of an enchanting alchemy between the beach and the mountains, Santa Monica Canyon has a rustic beauty that draws a breed of its own. Canyon resident and gallery owner Frank Langen set out to document the community in photographs and the second of two exhibits, 'Canyon People 2,' with photos by Ralph Starkweather, will open this Saturday at Gallery 169 on West Channel Road. The show serves as both celebration and an informal taxonomy of those who choose the canyon as their home. Langen, who grew up in the canyon and in Europe, bought a home of his own on West Channel in 1994. A founding partner in the real estate brokerage firm Deasy/Penner & Partners, he says the impetus for this project came from the real estate business. I've met so many amazing people and gotten really close to them, Langen says. You really get to know who people are through a real estate transaction are they generous, are they nervous, are they mean-spirited, what's their character? Do you want them in the trenches with you if something happens? Though he hesitates a moment before saying so, his years in the business also made him realize the impermanence of everything that we can all be sitting here one moment and then we're not. It would hit home when the siblings or children of someone he'd sold a house to asked him to value the home for the late owner's estate. Or I'd meet someone who would walk by the gallery from the beach to Sycamore, a vibrant old guy, who lived in this great house, and three months later I'd get a call from the trustee that the house is for sale. So he decided that he wanted to document this moment in time, the Santa Monica Canyon as he knows it. His own background as a photographer made the choice of that medium a natural one. He chose Starkweather to execute the project. Starkweather grew up in Santa Monica, but has worked around the world as a photographer. At one of Langen's openings, he took a shot of the simple, but striking gallery a two-story, modern, cantilevered glass and steel building'and later slipped a 4-by-6 black-and-white print of the shot under the gallery door. Langen loved the image, kept it on his desk for months, and a relationship grew. The criteria for 'Canyon People' were simple, the subjects had to live or work there and have some sort of experience or personal connection with Langen. The list includes about 150 people in all, singles, couples and families, old and young, renters and homeowners, together with restaurant owners, waiters, a valet, a bartender, a mailman and a homeless man who has been a local fixture (and a productive one, constantly sweeping the sidewalks of West Channel clean) since the mid-1980s, according to Langen. It was a big project, with Starkweather photographing groups of as many as 14 people at once, and wrangling plenty of children and dogs for the shots. But he found the process 'just a joy.' Architect Doug Suisman, his wife Moye Thompson, a ceramist, and their kids Claire, 12, and Teddy, 10, participated. Doug has lived in the same house in Santa Monica Canyon since his single days, 18 years ago. Like the growing house, the canyon has changed over time. 'We want places that are alive and are always evolving,' he says, but 'the canyon holds onto its history and its tradition. Suisman, who designs urban districts and public spaces, has a quote from Winston Churchill on his firm's Web site. We shape our cities and our cities shape us. Asked how the canyon shapes its residents, he says, it 'demands a kind of openness, informality and tolerance that always draws a certain kind of people here.' Langen agrees. 'I see this amazing sort of common denominator of the souls that congregate and choose to live here. There's this common thread of creativity and we're honoring that.' For Julie Hendricks, the canyon is alive with energy. She's lived there since 1967 and says it's 'the best place to raise children' because of the burbling creek, the beach and the park at the Rustic Canyon Recreation Center. It's 'like a little paradise.' Hendricks grew up in the heat of San Bernardino, and after World War II her father used leftover materials to build a little summer beach house in the canyon. She moved back to the area after a divorce, when her children were 2, 7 and 9, and rented a small house on East Rustic Road just across from the creek. She recalls 'hearing the frogs in the spring and Dale Hale playing his banjo, echoing through the canyon.' A friend of the family ultimately helped her with a $4,000 down payment on a house in 1969 and she's been there ever since. Hendricks taught at Washington, John Muir and Roosevelt elementary schools and still volunteers weekly at Roosevelt in Santa Monica. On the first Earth Day, in 1970, she resolved to bike to work. She would ride with a friend and 'we would solve all the problems of the world on our bike ride,' she laughs. She still uses a bike to get groceries, library books and volunteer at school. 'I try to bike every day,' Hendricks says, adding that her rides sometimes take her up steep Temescal Canyon Road. But some days she substitutes tennis. 'I know that I'm 77,' she says, 'but I'm in denial.' Danny Robinson and Hylton Lea, who have lived in an apartment almost next door to the gallery for more than 10 years, 'felt honored to be a part of the project,' Robinson says. For them, the magic of the canyon resides in simple pleasures like being able to walk to the beach every day and run uphill to Will Rogers park from their house. In a way, 'Canyon People' is also a piece of performance art, as most of the subjects will come together for the exhibit's opening, checking out their neighbors and their own photographs for the first time (other than in a very few cases, Langen and Starkweather were given discretion to choose which image to hang and the subjects did not review the results of their photo shoot). Most of Langen's openings are convivial, neighborly affairs. The crowd varies depending on the art, but most events include kids chasing each other through the small yard and up the hill, more than a few dogs as guests, old friends excited to renew acquaintance and others caught up in a lively chat for the first time. But the first 'Canyon People' show, last December, was even more than that. 'This thing exploded,' Langen says. 'People were in love with themselves. It could have been a complete disaster,' he acknowledges, since no one really knew what to expect, but 'it really moved people.' Suisman credits Langen with doing something special for the neighborhood. 'Frank is such a great asset to the canyon. He always had the vision of creating this community space and gallery and now he's done it. It's really a gift to the community.' Gallery 169 opened in the fall of 2008, even though Langen's source of income, the real estate market, had come to a screeching halt. His early exhibits showcased artists he viewed as local treasures, like Julius Shulman, Peter Gowland, Peter Alexander and Don Bachardy. (Both Shulman and Gowland have since died. Gowland's wife Alice was photographed for Canyon People seated next to a large-format camera her husband invented.) The idea for the gallery originally grew out of Langen's interest in photography, but it's become more than that, he says, pleased with Suisman's notion of the space as a community center. 'It's been a really soul-nourishing endeavor.' Langen lives with his life partner Diana, 9-year-old Max, 9-year-old Anouk and their 17-month-old son Levi near the gallery. Those who are part of Canyon People 2 will get another gift from Langen: once the exhibit is over, their photographs will be theirs to keep. 'I'm actually for the first time starting to get a little sad because we're at the back end of this,' Starkweather says. 'I was thinking 'oh, my gosh, can we do Canyon People 3?' Starkweather says. Some residents who couldn't be part of the first show, like Ray Kappe and his wife, Shelly, were 'musts' for Langen, and spurred his commitment to a second show. But the process has now come to a close. He notes that two of the people photographed for the first show, restauranteur Giorgio Baldi and longtime resident Claire Vaughn, have already passed away. 'I feel like the idea was to capture a moment in time,' Langen says. 'How long is a moment?' he wonders aloud. 'That's the idea. Here it is ' and then it's gone.' Gallery 169, 169 W. Channel Rd. in Santa Monica Canyon. Other gallery hours by appointment: (310) 963-3891. By Elizabeth Marcellino, Staff Writer...Read Article

Bradbury House in Santa Monica Canyon
Posted Thursday, May 20, 2010

     Bradbury House in Santa Monica Canyon Proposed For National Register of Historic Places In 1981, Palisades resident Earl Fisher and his daughter, Audrey, were out for a bike ride in Santa Monica Canyon when they came across their future home. They stopped to admire a two-story residence featuring Spanish Colonial Revival style architecture and situated on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. After talking to the housekeeper (who was washing a car in the driveway), they discovered that the home was for sale. Audrey, who today designs costumes for HBO's 'True Blood,' looked at her father and said, 'Dad, buy it. Mother will love it,' Earl recounted during a recent interview with the Palisadian-Post. The seller told him he was unwilling to negotiate the $1.2-million price tag. Earl and his wife, Carol, would have only one opportunity to tour the 1923 house, which was originally built for Lewis Bradbury Jr., son of the mining and real estate tycoon who owned the Bradbury Building in downtown Los Angeles. Bradbury commissioned the famous Santa Monica architect John W. Byers to design the 14-room house, located on a 0.38-acre parcel at 102 Ocean Way. When Earl and Carol went inside and saw the Moorish-styled patio decorated in colorful tiles and patterned after the El Greco House and Museum in Toledo, Spain, 'it was so thrilling,' Earl said, adding he knew they had to buy it. Earl, chairman and founder of Stern, Fisher, Edwards, Inc. (an independent investment advisory firm), had visited the El Greco House and Museum 15 years earlier. Now, 29 years later, the Fishers are enjoying their home, while staying busy restoring and preserving it. On January 29, the California State Historical Resources Commission approved the house for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, and the National Park Service must now ratify the status. In 1994, the house was awarded Los Angeles City Historic Cultural Monument Number 594 with the help of the Pacific Palisades Historical Society. Earl Fisher explained that the house, featuring a terra-cotta tiled roof and adobe brick walls covered in an outer layer of stucco, has historic significance because it was the first major commission for Byers, and it established his reputation as a Spanish Revivalist and expert in adobe construction. A native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Byers (1875-1966) was entirely self-taught in architecture. Although he mostly designed in Spanish Colonial Revival style, he did branch out to Monterey Colonial, English, French Norman and American Colonial. He designed homes in Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, La Ca'ada, Coachella Valley and Victor Valley. For the Bradbury house, 'Byers created the adobe from soil onsite,' Carol said, adding that the adobe brick walls contain rock and straw. It is believed that he also used lumber from the Long Wharf, a deepwater port with a 4,720-foot wooden pier that extended into the ocean from the mouth of Potrero Canyon. Southern Pacific Railroad Company head Collis P. Huntington built the wharf in 1893, precipitating a political debate over whether San Pedro or Santa Monica Bay should be the official harbor of Los Angeles. San Pedro won out in 1897, and the Long Wharf was dismantled around the time the Bradbury house was built. For the Moorish-styled patio, Byers used tiles in a multitude of colors to decorate the walls and floor. The majority of tiles likely came from the S & S Tile Company of San Jose, owned by A.L. Solon and F.P. Schemmel. Nestled between the two wings of the house, the patio is surrounded by three walls, which have a four-foot wainscot of glazed tiles. The first-floor doorframe and windowsills are also covered in tile. In hues of blue, gold, white, green and black, the tiles' motifs range from geometric to floral. The patio floor is tiled with square pale-red pavers accented by diamond-shaped smaller tiles of blue, black and yellow. 'I still see things I didn't see before,' Carol said of the tile work, which she describes as a work of art. Tiles are a theme in other locations of the house. The main entrance features a darkly stained oak front door with brass hardware surrounded by blue tiles and an outer row of tiles with a sycamore design. When Bradbury owned the house, he apparently leased the property to Marion Davies in the mid-1920s, while her beach house (where the Annenberg Community Beach House now sits) was being constructed. He also leased to actor Richard Bennett and his second wife, Angela Raisch. 'A major scandal erupted in April 1934, when Angela sued for a separation, saying that Richard had humiliated her, beaten her, and stabbed her in the cheek with a nail file after she found him clad only in a bathrobe in a room with his female secretary,' according to 'Santa Monica Canyon: A Walk Through History' by Palisadian Betty Lou Young and her son, Randy. 'He pleaded for reconciliation in a letter with the memorable words, 'Can't you find some place in your heart to adjudicate this cul-de-sac? I love you. Dick.'' The house has not undergone many changes since Bradbury owned it. However, in the 1970s, Southern California architect Wallace Neff altered the garage and guesthouse wing. A swimming pool was also constructed. The property ownership switched several times before Carol and Earl purchased it. At the time they bought the home, 'it was in beautiful condition,' Carol said, adding that all they did was general maintenance and upkeep until the 1994 earthquake, when some of the walls moved and cracked. Carol, who has degrees in fine art from Otis College of Art and Design and in architecture from UCLA, is working closely with an engineer to retrofit the house. The adobe walls are being seismically upgraded and strengthened with steel rods and plates anchoring them. The work is 90 percent complete. 'When we moved into the house, I had already decided I wanted to do architecture,' Carol said. 'Little did I know what Mother Nature had in store for me.' Carol, who spends all her time working on the house, said it's challenging work because she must be careful to preserve as much as possible when making any repairs. For instance, when some tiles on the roof need to be replaced, she must find a close match. 'It's a wonderful opportunity for someone like me who studied art and architecture,' Carol said. 'It's challenging and so complex.' By: Danielle Gillespie, Staff Writer

Photographer Busch Pours Images into 'H2O' Gallery
Posted Thursday, May 20, 2010

     The theme of the 'H2O' show at gallery 169 in Santa Monica Canyon was clear from its title. But the scope of work by photographer Douglas Busch left some guests of the intimate, modernist gallery at the May 8 opening imagining a second artist. Combining vintage black-and-white contact prints downstairs with vibrant digital color images upstairs, the exhibit offers up water in a wide range of incarnations and shows distinctly different versions of the artist's vision. The large-format black-and-whites focus on structural elements' some man-made, some natural, like rocks'on or near water. A meditative, faraway shot gives Malibu Pier the long, narrow look of a bridge to nowhere, floating above a near invisible ocean. Another peers in close-up between sand and shadows of the weathered wood underbelly of the Santa Monica Pier. The perspective of each vintage platinum or silver chloride print seems quite deliberate. 'I only take one image,' says Busch, a resident of Malibu. 'If you don't commit to the image, it comes across.' An anecdote illustrates that commitment. In the 1980s, Busch was working with 12' x 20' cameras (originally designed to capture large groups at banquets) but wanted to photograph Spider Rock, which stands 800 feet high in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona. He completely rebuilt a camera to get the vertical format he needed and drove more than 1,500 miles from Chicago to the national park. There, he shot only two exposures before packing up to drive home. 'I'm a purist,' he says, adding, 'I never crop,' but only use precisely what is 'in the glass.' The digital color photos reveal another sensibility. These, says Busch, 'are about mood and emotion, [transitioning] from subject to metaphor.' Most show the ocean uninterrupted to the horizon. Quite abstract, they have a painterly quality, even in near miniature''some works printed on alumibond measure only 6' x 6.' Three larger photographs displayed together serve as a study in vivid primary colors. The first, a close-up of undulating ocean unbounded by sky or shore, is pure indigo. The next two show an expanse of the Pacific at sunrise or sunset. Both sky and water are caught in a hot dandelion yellow in one and a vibrantly surreal red in the other. It seems the colors must have been altered in the printing. But Busch says no: 'Go to the beach and sit there to see the drama that unfolds in changing light.' Busch worked with large-format cameras for more than 35 years, designing some of his own, including a 40' x 60' model that he says is the world's largest portable camera. He began working with smaller digital cameras as a way to reanimate his vision. A gallery table, filled with both coffee-table and 6' x 6' images, includes landscapes, street scenes, the ruins of European castles and Native American pueblos, nudes, gardens, self-portraits, heavily tattooed subjects and snapshot-like images from Miami shot as commentary. That's all before considering the 58-year-old artist's extensive work as a residential design-builder ('it's three-dimensional art for me') and his ardent environmentalism. At one point, he mentions the need to avoid 'getting stale.' But it's quickly forgotten as he moves on to his recent work in China, an exhibit to showcase street scenes from Moscow, and development of a center to educate consumers about green building materials. With so many ideas in his head, it's no wonder some thought his photographs were the work of multiple artists. But no, just one artist with multiple personalities, in a good way. 'H2O' shows at gallery 169, 169 W. Channel Rd., through June, by appointment only. Thirty percent of the proceeds from works sold will go to Heal the Bay. By: ELIZABETH MARCELLINO Please Contact: Frank Langen at 310-963-3891.