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I've been meaning to mention J. Michael Walker's unique artistic take on Los Angeles for weeks now, just for its scale alone. But it keeps slipping out of mind at the wrong times. Now the L.A. Times has done a feature on him. What Walker is doing is researching the background of every street named after a saint, then painting an image inspired by what he finds. That's every L.A. street with St., San or Santa in the name. He's got 60 so far, with 26 to go. He calls the project Todos los Santos de los Angeles. "I believe these stories have been waiting to be revealed," Walker says. His show of 10 paintings of saints off Sunset Blvd. is at Gallery 727 downtown through November 5.
It's worth a note that so many times the ideas independent writers think about pursuing are finally pursued by the Times. The lag time is frequently in years, not months as in Kevin's case, I'd also note. But at least they are sometimes on the same wavelength.
Posted by: Joe Shea at October 18, 2003 10:23 AMI hope this guy isn't looking through Butler's Live of the Saints for Saint "Fe". Or Saint "Cruz".
Posted by: Bob Timmermann at October 18, 2003 10:24 AMGreetings, i just dropped by via Google
Thanks, first of all, to Kevin for the mention and recommendation of my "All the Saints of the City of the Angels" project.
Then, I'd like to respond briefly to a couple of these comments.
For Joseph: I'm not doing freeways, sorry, just streets; but there is a wonderful Santa Ana Boulevard in Watts that I am anxious to portray next year. And yes, I have already portrayed "your" St George Street, in Los Feliz; you can see the painting on the website, w/ refs to Ethiopia, Western Exterminator (he's patron saint of exterminators), and some of the street lights you have there. I'll try to add more to the site as time allows.
For Bob,sorry, but I do indeed use Santa Fe (it is also on the website)because the meaning of it & the connection to the destruction of El Pueblo are too good to pass up. Thanks nonetheless.
Best,
jmichael
of LA Observed
I hope he's counting Santa Ana Freeway. I don't know much about Ana Freeway.
I live on St. George myself, a very short street. I'll bet it's one of the 26 he has yet to depict.
Posted by: joseph at October 18, 2003 10:17 AM