The Brewery ArtWalk is a twice annual open studio weekend at the art complex. With over 100 participating resident artists, you will have the opportunity to see new works, discover new favorites, speak with the artists, and purchase artwork directly from the artists at studio prices.

Brewery ArtWalk
Spring 2010 – April 17 & 18
11:00 am – 6:00 pm

2100 North Main Street
Los Angeles, CA 90031.
http://breweryartwalk.com/ 

Art & the City: Los Angeles An Ovation TV Original Thursday, April 15, 2010 @ 9:30pm Explore the Los Angeles art scene from home – Just Program your DVR. Host David Keeps uncovers discoveries of arts and design in highly regarded attractions as well as uncovered corners throughout the US and Europe. In this episode, David explores the scene in Los Angeles. Ovation is a television specialty channel that airs programming dedicated to the arts and contemporary culture. It features programming devoted to performance, people, art, music and film. In addition, Ovation features in-depth profiles on various artists and performers, Arts news from the U.S and around the world. 

City Councilmen Tom LeBonge has been kicking around an idea for some time now that would connect the Southern California Institute of Architecture to the Arts District located just south of the campus using an existing rail line that has been previously abandoned. This idea didn’t gain much support from the Mayors Office when it was first introduced four years ago. So when LaBonge was asked by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to sit in on the Feb. 25 Metro board meeting in the place of Councilman and Metro board member José Huizar, LaBonge made his pitch again.

Lebonge commissioned a feasibility report to be completed by Metro Staff. The report would include the environmental impacts of adding a service car to the Red and Purple Lines that would service a new station at Sixth Street near Santa Fe Avenue. Lebonge wanted to make it clear that no new track would need to be constructed and a platform could easily be erected either there or near Third Street.

LaBonge envisions the line extension as a way for people to get to and from SCI-Arc and the Arts and Industrial districts, and possibly as an opportunity to reduce congestion at Union Station’s Patsaouras Transit Plaza.

“If I can use a baseball analogy, a lot of times you try to get a hit and maybe you get a hit to the outfield but you don’t score,” LaBonge said. “I didn’t hit this one out of the park, but we’re at least in play to get around the bases.”

Ah, the resilience of the Los Angeles economy.  Although California was, perhaps, the state hit hardest by the current housing crisis, Los Angeles bounces back above the rest of the state and other big cities throughout the country, with an overall economic resurgence that places it in ninth place for all American cities. 

The factors considered for this ranking are 

·        unemployment rate
·       job growth
·       expectations for continued job growth
·      positive change in median sale price for single-family homes
·        metropolitan gross domestic product 

Los Angeles has strong banking and finance industries and a housing market that, while it suffered a major pricing bubble and burst, has seen an increase in demand.  After falling to a median $311,100 in the second quarter of 2009, home sale prices jumped 11% in the third quarter and another 2% between the third and fourth quarter of 2009 to a median of $342,700, according to the National Association of Realtors, making Los Angeles number four in sales price improvement for all U.S. metropolitan cities. 

Part of L.A.’s dramatic rise is due to the fact that our real estate woes began earlier and were more pronounced than most of the country, so our easing began a little sooner.  Some of the economic reasons for this recovery are the evergreen industries that comprise our city… industries like government, defense, education and technology – sectors that will always provide work, even in a national slump.  Our industry diversity, a business infrastructure not solely invested in one industry, gives us a healthy, resilient economy and very good prospects for the future.