Kathy Milligan on Nela Art News and artist spaces

People have powerful feelings about the traffic in Los Angeles. It says something that local officials warned motorists about a temporary roadwork closure on the 405 last year by calling it Carmageddon. Angelenos took the hint, and this weekend they're expected to steer clear of the latest 405 closure, named, of course, Carmageddon 2. That's how it is in L.A., a snarl of overstuffed freeways and commuters who keep their cool, except when they don't. KPCC's Steven Cuevas has this profile of a punk rocker whose music expresses the insanity of L.A. traffic while extolling the virtues of public transit. Couple of things you need to know about Eddie Solis. He lives in L.A., loves the band Kiss, and does not own a car. Being someone who's from L.A., born and raised, and, you know, having a few cars in my past, I saw the city much differently through a different perspective through the eyes of a bus rider. Come on, just all the way to the back. Line 18, Wilshire, Western Station. Just steps from the front door of his home, across the street from a tortilla factory in L.A.'s Boyle Heights neighborhood, Solis catches a bus that connects him with the city's subway, and the commuter train he catches to his day job at an indie record label in Hollywood. It just opened me up to, like, little neighborhoods, galleries, clubs, bars, just everything. Just seeing what's out there, little pockets of the city. Solis' journeys aboard L.A. buses and subway cars informs a lot of the material on The New Los Angeles Part One, Through the Eyes of a Bus Rider, the latest release by the singer-guitarist band It's Casual. The New Los Angeles No one has learned much In Solis' vision of a New Los Angeles, people abandon their cars, climb aboard public transit, and rediscover their communities. One song extols the virtues of the L.A. County Metropolitan Transit Agency's E-ZPass, and the urban underbelly it introduces to the rider. And that's, like, a nod, an homage to, you know, the people who know what you can even go cheaper, and really beat the system, and really steer away from spending money on gas and oil profits and all that. The New Los Angeles It's all it takes for me to witness racial tension, for me to witness illegal aliens. It's not to paint a negative picture, it's just my perspective of what is seen. The New Los Angeles I got a fun bass here. Off the bus and back on the street, we make our way past a jazz saxophonist playing for pocket change, and down a long escalator to catch a train. So, where are we now? We're at the Red Line station, the Pershing Square station in downtown L.A. And what's our destination? We're going to go downstairs another tier, and in about five minutes we're going to get on the Red Line going northbound. Okay, let's go. The Metro Red Line snakes from North Hollywood to downtown Los Angeles. It's the train that inspired its casuals' signature tune, and spawned a viral internet video. It was partly filmed late at night. On a moving train, as it hurtles from station to station, Solis thrashes away on his guitar and barks the lyrics, which celebrate the Red Line and call out the congested freeways that coil around Los Angeles. This is a Metro Red Line train to North Hollywood. The 210, 605, the freeways are not so nice. The I-5, the 210, the freeways are not so nice. The one... The thread that comes out of the record. The one that comes out of the record that ties everyone together is just like, be alive, don't be a victim of having a car. The one that's so nice. The 210, 605, the freeways are not so nice. The I-5, the I-10, the freeways are not so nice. Good afternoon. Welcome to the 95th episode of Los Angeles Nista. I am the creator, producer, and host, Edward Solis. And it is another Northeast L.A. episode. With my instructor. And studio guest. The publisher of Nella Art News and owner of The Glass Studio, Kathy Milligan. How are you? Very good. Nice to be here. Yeah, yeah. This is basically a setup for another episode that's happening next week. And so part one of two. Very important that we come in touch on some topics because news that you're involved in and work is happening weekly. And we need to bring people relevant. People are listening live now and watching. So we want to set up next week's episode, which will be very insightful and articulated. So we're going to have a lot of people on the show. So we're going to have a lot of people on the show. So we're going to have a lot of people on the show. So we're going to have a lot of people on the show. Wanted to let people know about your paper. This is the ninth issue. Correct. Yeah. Really quick, you know, without going into the politics and the backstory of people that don't work with the paper no more. Let's talk about the mission statement of Nella Art News. Well, it's to spread the word of the region, Northeast Los Angeles, and how special it is. And the arts community that is living there. And has been living there since the turn of last century. We have historic buildings. We have, well, history of being an arts and crafts community. And the Chicano art movement was flourishing there. And we continue. The 60s and 70s, right? Yeah, yeah. And we continue to have a thriving artist community. I work with some real estate people that have said they look through their list of the last 50 homes. They sold 40% of the people listed artists as their occupation. Wow. And the rest of them are kind of like industry people, you know. Entertainment industry. Entertainment or graphic designers or architects. So we have even more people coming into the community that are artists. So it's just a very vibrant place to be and to be creative. So we try to profile that through the newspaper. So with all that history in place. All the historicals of art in that region geographically. And what's happening now relevant. There's a demand for this. I mean, there's a void that needs to be filled because of the flourishing artist presence. Exactly, exactly. The newspaper is loved and embraced by so many people. And I have to say since the last time I was here, I feel like it has significantly changed my life. And offered me opportunities to have conversations. And there are conversations that not, they don't always happen. You know, and that I have the ear of people that matter. And people come to me for advice. And come to me for guidance and things sometimes. And it's a little daunting. But at the same time, I'm embracing it. Recently, I put together a meeting of the minds of the Northeast Los Angeles arts elders of sorts. Let me interrupt you real quick. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People are coming to you because you've created your world. Yeah. You know, from being consistent... Yeah. ...and no BS kind of woman... I like to get things done... Yeah... You know, I... I... Bless those people who do the neighborhood council... I've been there... Mm-hmm... ...and I... You know, it's a really, really tough job to volunteer for... Not as many things get done as you'd like to think... Because you've got this committee... And ever since I... I... Got... Nila Art... As a... institution of sorts to take care of, I've been able to do things. And, you know, it's a small posse of people. So the decision making is pretty easy, you know, and I get to be the, you know, decision maker most of the time. And then since the newspaper happened, you know, it's been amazing. It's absolutely amazing. Yeah. Let's talk about the recent meeting you had, which there's a lot of details to articulate. And we'll touch on that the second part. Exactly. Yeah. But the majority, the main idea is tell me what? Well, the main idea is we're concerned about artists losing their spaces in the area because of gentrification, because, you know, prices go up. And what we're trying to encourage and trying to figure out exactly how to handle, because it's a permit zoning kind of thing, is that we don't want just an arts district in the area that's just about showing art. We want an artist district where it's about creating art and really embracing the fact that an artist needs to be able to do that. And so we're trying to encourage and trying to figure out exactly how various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various But what happens is speculators come in and they buy up property and they charge more. The rents when I moved in were around a dollar a square foot. Wow. And sometimes less, sometimes a little bit more. And now it's up to 250 a square foot and no artist can have a space there. More than doubled. Yes. And so, you know, we're not going to get an Urban Outfitters. We're not going to get an American Apparel because we can't sustain that. But what we are going to lose in the process are a lot of artists. So we're trying to figure out this strategy. And it's going to involve talking with our local councilmen about what we can do for a zoning kind of thing to make not only workspaces but live workspaces that are reasonably priced so that people can anchor themselves. And there are models out there. So we're doing the research and trying to figure out what's the best way. One of my favorite places is in Glassel Park and it's called Keystone Art Studios. And it's a large industrial building. It's a building that has been subdivided and rents out to artists. They have a gallery space and there's a really wonderful sense of community that you get there. The other thing in the meeting was cultural tourism. And creating situations to encourage people to come into the neighborhood, whether they're coming from across the city or across the country or from around the world. And utilizing the classes that are offered in the area, the galleries, Art Night. And Airbnbs. Because I know a lot of different people that have those. And we want to create packages that are really a good time for somebody to come in. So they can have a day where they're going to go take two or three classes, have a discount at a local restaurant, and a nice little house to stay in for a couple of days. Wow. Yeah. So these are some of the things we're working on for 2014. Now, going back to you as an artist, because first and foremost, you are an artist. Yeah. I play with glass. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You must be inspired by seeing a place where you've established yourself growing and people from all walks of life coming to be inspired themselves. How do you feel about the growth as an artist? Well, I have fear, of course, because I am one of those people that has, you know, potentially could have my rent raised. I have a new landlord. It's effective like just the other day. And that's a huge change. It's a huge change. And, you know, they're artists, so they're actually part of the model that we'd like to see happen. And I'm very happy for them. But, you know, change is scary. And, you know, I appreciate they've worked very hard to get to where they are so that they could buy a building on York. Meanwhile, I'm going to, I think, miss my landlord that I had. Because it was, you know, it was a lot of work. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. into the area. It didn't exist back in the day. It's been 10 years that it has, but it's taken people and ridership a while to grasp that it exists. And it's super cheap. It's super efficient. And, you know, I mean, it's not a New York subway that runs 24-7, but don't you think that could bring more foot traffic for events? Oh, absolutely. And in the scheme of the plot for the artist's spaces, it is something we want to factor in. There are individuals that were at this meeting that have had other discussions about creating at each respective gold line station, like in Highland Park, something art historian. I mean, one of them is the Southwest Museum and the friends of the Southwest Museum are working their butts off to keep it alive. And they're fighting with the Autry who has acquired it and has taken, you know, closed it. So now it's only open once. I mean, this is like the first museum in Los Angeles and the collection, part of the collection is not even there anymore. And the friends of the Southwest Museum work very, very hard to keep it alive that there's, this is an issue and they want to have at that station other things to encourage people to come into the area. Yeah. I mean, to me, the, each station has a story. And I think even like somewhere down the line, if you know you, or you could point the right person to kind of curate a tour per station. I mean, I think that, you know, just the gold line itself, that vertebrate brings opportunity to Northeast LA. Sure. The foot traffic or content. The Avenue 57 stop is right by Chicken Boy, Future Studios. He's landmark and you're on Route 66. So, you know, there are- I didn't know that. That's Route 66. Yeah. And so, you know, you have that, you have a couple blocks North near Avenue 59, Slow Culture, which is a newer gallery and, and Figueroa is coming into its own, you know, with- Let's talk about that. Growth and, and activity and, you know, new businesses. There's a new restaurant coming in Avenue 56 and Figueroa, the Greyhound. You've got even Gil Sedito. Yeah. And Gil Sedito's office is right across the street and he wants to be part of Art Walk. So he's planning on having art in his space. Wow. He took, he took over Ed Reyes, right? Yes, he did. Okay. So Gil Sedito then. Yeah. And he's a, he's a huge art lover. He's on the arts committee on the city council and going to be talking to him. Hopefully I'm going by his office tomorrow to set an appointment. And I have to say they were advertisers in the paper for the holidays. Yay. Fantastic. But he, we want to see- We want to start that conversation about the artist district with them. So going by tomorrow with Chicken Boy's dad. Are you familiar with Chicken Boy? I'm not. Can you tell me about it? Chicken Boy, it lives on the top of Future Studio, which is a gallery and store on Figueroa between 55 and 56. And Amy Inouye and Stuart Rappaport are their, as Chicken Boy's parents. Wow. He is really tall. One of those like Michelin man kind of, not Michelin man, but the, the brand name is Michelin Man. And he's one of the break guys. You know, the guys that would hold tires or brakes, but he's got a chicken head and he holds a bucket. He's Chicken Boy. And he's one of the things that makes Highland Park so special. That's great. One of its own, right? Right. In fact, on, you know, I cherish them because page four and five always is the Chicken Boy Gazette in the paper. So, you know, Chicken Boy is represented in every issue. Well, you know what? I mean, I think, especially in LA, you know, there's a lot of institutions per city, like Cal Worthington Ford. Yes. Yes, exactly. Exactly. This is Chicken Boy. I know what you're saying. So, yeah, Chicken Boy, you know, and I've heard people say, ooh, what is that up there? And it's like, you don't understand. That's Chicken Boy. Leave it alone. Yeah. You know, you play with glass. Yes, I do. Yes. You don't play with many other things. No, no. It's glass. I really like glass. Let's talk about your place, Glass Studios. Tell me when you opened it. Tell me when you committed to opening it and when it opened. Okay. I decided, gosh, it's probably four years ago, a little over four years ago that I wanted to open up a store, a studio. Space. Yeah. I've been making glass beads and other glass things for, at this point, 20 years. But, you know, then it was about 16 or so. And I recognized that Highland Park was the place. I mean, granted, I live there, but York was very enticing to me. And as I watched, you know, more and more businesses, I realized that there's a window of opportunity and I needed to get on it. So I was looking at one space and I almost had it. It was a little bit bigger and really lovely space, but it started getting too complicated. So I backed out of it. And within three days, the space that I'm currently in opened up and I got that. So it's been over three years now, almost like three and a quarter years. And it's been, I have to say, it's been rough. It's been rough because people think that the street is happening and it is to some degree, but most of the people who walk down the street don't walk into my store. I teach classes. I do fabrication. I make things, you know, to sell in my store, but my bread and butter is classes and fabrication for other artists. And so I do tile making for architectural elements. I do glass casting for other artists. The most outrageous thing I've casted in my life is glass casting for other artists. I've casted in my life for glass so far as a typewriter. Wow. It's really interesting. Nine days in the kiln. And then you open it up and you're like, please don't be broken. Please don't be broken. You have a glass casting service. Yeah. Okay. How do you, now what's the component that cast? Like, how do you do it? Well, you have the object that you want to cast and reproduce, right? So it could be clay. It could be whatever you, and you figure out whether you're going to just go one-off, which would be plaster over it. Pull that out. it's malleable. Or if you're going for a rubber mold, you know, or if somebody brings me a rubber mold, I can make a rubber mold or you can bring me a rubber mold. I will then use wax. So it's lost wax casting, very similar to what they do with bronzes and what they do with jewelry. It's a nice complicated process. And I like to say it weeds out the week because not everybody likes to do it. And I like the process and I love the results. So after you've got your wax and you've got it as perfect as you want it to be, because it really will turn out the same in glass, plaster mold, melt the wax out, set it up, flower pot full of glass over the opening, and then let the kiln do the work. And so it melts it, the glass flows into the mold. And if you've gotten all your air holes right and everything, you'll end up with a cast piece of glass. Pretty exciting. It's crazy. So you also... You also dabble and facilitate other things as well though at your studio. I mean, macrame. Macrame. Let's talk about that because come on, how cool is macrame? We talked about this. Macrame is super cool. Yeah, I love it. I'm about to start a wall piece because I have an empty space of wall and I was like, I'm going to put a... Do you get macrame classes also? Occasionally, occasionally, yeah. I think that's amazing. Yeah. And you know what's funny is there's a lot of macrame on York because Matters of Space does macrame and they sell products. And then shop class... A vintage store down the street, they've been picking up vintage macrame pieces. Oh, buy and resell, buy and sell? Yeah. And I'm at some point, probably early 2014, going to teach macrame plant hanging class out of their studio. So that should be fun. Yeah. I mean, so what have you done longer, glass or macrame? Macrame. Since the 70s, right? Yeah. And I wrote a book and so yeah, I hung out at a store. It's called Macromania that was in West LA across from Pickwood Bowl. Wow. And which is now where the West Side Pavilion is. Are you originally from LA? Yeah. Yeah, you are. I am. I've been here since I was two months old. Fantastic. I was born in Sweden and that was the soonest that I could be shipped over. Now, your book that got published, what's it called? Mod Knots. Mod Knots. Yes. You can get it on amazon.com. Is there a home website for that or you just go to Amazon for it? Amazon, yeah. Yeah. So. Now, so your passion for macrame has led you to being published into the marketplace in addition to teach it. Right. Tell us where to find your studio. What's the address? 5052 York Boulevard. And I'm between Avenue 50 and Avenue 51 in Highland Park. And that is Los Angeles, of course. Of course. Yeah. So if you were going to Google it, it's 90042. Now, being a busy woman. 902 various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various various Stuff, right? Yeah. And, you know, if the wrong person answers, they're like, she's ordering a Kathy. What's that? Oh, no, don't worry. We got it. And I do have to say, I like one of our newest additions in the neighborhood, which is Donut Friend. Donut Friend. Donut Friend. Yeah. You can customize donuts there. Wow. And their traditional raised donut is vegan. I'm not vegan, but I don't do dairy. Are you vegetarian? No. Okay. Pescatarian with a little meat now and then. Right. Um, yeah, so I don't do dairy. Their, their traditional is, is vegan. So I can have, I can go in there and get a donut, which I can't really do at any place. That's really cool. Yeah. And then scoops also for ice cream. Yeah. Yeah. Because they do a bunch of non-dairy flavors. Okay. I got it. Oh, wait, one more. Sonny's Hideaway. Sonny's Hideaway. So good. The octopus is amazing. I got, I got an, a Northeast LA fun fact for you. Okay. Okay. What movie was filmed at the Highland Park American Legion Hall? Ooh. Ooh. Gosh. I don't know. Was it, I mean, Reservoir Dogs was on, on, uh, York. Yeah. But. A performance in that building. What? I don't know. La Bamba. No way. That's total, you know, like street cred, Mexican American street cred. There you go. Absolutely. You gotta know that. Absolutely. Well, you know, I mean, we've got Mark Maron invading the neighborhood yet again, um, for his second season, which is set in Highland Park. Oh. Very cool. That's cool. Um, one thing I am at, I'll, might as well pitch the, uh, something at the glass studio. One, one more thing is I'm adding traditional glass blowing into the mix. Okay. What's traditional glass blowing? What people are used to seeing when they see like the Italians and the, you know, when they stick the pole in the glory hole and they've spin it around and, you know, doing all that stuff. And, and, uh, we're in the midst of putting together all the equipment for that. And I've talked to an electrician today and, you know, doing some electrical work. And it's very exciting. We're going to make for the big beginner, beginner, beginner, uh, you can take a paperweight making class and make a couple of gorgeous paperweights. So. It's extremely admirable. Um, before we leave, I want to just let people know about your, your, um, your, uh, published paper called Nela Art News. Do you have a website for that? That you update? Um, I, I generally, uh, the, you can go to nelaart.org for our website and the paper is posted there. Um, a PDF of it. A PDF of it. And, uh, the map for the second Saturday. We just had second Saturday last night and it was a fun, bustling night throughout Northeast Los Angeles. Lots of art, lots of people. Fantastic. Yeah. Very cool. And the new council member, he's going to make his office part of a component in the monthly art walk. Yeah. Yeah, he is. Wow. And he, he's been known to show up to, to, um, galleries and, uh, he's proactive. He's totally, he bought a beautiful piece of art at the Avenue 50 studio fundraiser. I think he spent like $800 and he's planning on having that in his office. Um, and our state assemblyman, Jimmy Gomez was out last night, um, tweeting about the various, um, shows he saw. He's, he's coming by to take a blowing class, him and his wife. Very exciting. And do you have a website for you? The Glass Studio? Yeah. The glassstudio.net. Okay. Yeah. Great. Now, question for you. Uh-huh. What's your favorite Metro line? Uh, the Gold Line. The Gold Line, of course. The Gold Line. Yeah. Whenever I have to go to City Hall. It's a Gold Line trip. Easy, right? Oh, totally. Grand Park? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Red Line? Gold Line? Totally. Yeah. No, it's great. It's great. I'm, and I'm looking forward to it. The extension. The extension to the beach. Yeah. Because I have a really good friend in Culver City. I have a number of friends in Santa Monica. Driving out there is never a problem. It's driving back. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, let me tell you, I just had the MTA in here Wednesday. Oh, cool. Ann Chen, she's a communications director. And in 2016, the extension. The extension of the Gold Line will be open from Sierra Madre to the city of Azusa. Wow. So, you know, they're going to make that much headway within two years. That's crazy. So, it's going to keep growing. Well, that's all. You know what that also means? A lot of art opportunities. Because there has to be art at every metro station. Yes. Yeah. At every metro station. So, it's really exciting in terms of what's available for public art. Absolutely. And with that, we'll see you next Sunday. Thank you so much. Hey, thank you. For coming in today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.