Art Walk

The city of Ventura is sponsoring an art walk today in conjunction with area coffeehouses and art galleries to promote the downtown area, which city leaders are trying to revitalize. Twenty-five galleries and seven coffeehouses in downtown are participating in the free, one-day event, scheduled from 5 to 9:30 p.m. Some coffeehouses plan to offer free samples during the "Java Jump," as the event is called. "It's a self-led tour," said Sonia Tower, the city's cultural affairs coordinator.

What could be better than giant donuts, booze and art? Not a lot.  If you plan on taking part in the Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk on Thursday, you can catch Los Angeles artist Manny Castro and his giant donuts, plus a little booze. FactoryLA , a company that promotes fashion made and designed in L.A., is hosting the event. Castro, who is known for his 30-by-30-foot painting of Lady Gaga as Christ and for painting "Tastes Like Hate" on a Chick-fil-A building, will have his donut sculptures on display.

WHAT Sacramento River Water Intake Structure WHERE Around the 200 block of Jibboom Street, at the Sacramento River WHY TAKE THE DETOUR You're jogging or biking from Old Sacramento north along the river and spy something that looks like the Sydney Opera House. OK, maybe you're squinting a little, but this building with white wings that hovers over the river like a dragonfly is no mirage.

It's edgy, it's cool - and it's official: San Diego's North Park made Forbes' list of America's Hippest Hipster Neighborhoods in September, joining such spots as L.A.'s Silver Lake and San Francisco's Mission District. North Park has all the ingredients for the cool school: It's culturally diverse and has art galleries, boutiques, trendy bars with handcrafted cocktails and local brews, and foodie-approved eateries. If you're hip to this scene, check it out. The bed The Lafayette Hotel, Swim Club & Bungalows (2223 El Cajon Blvd.; [619]

There will be an air of urgency to the annual Venice Art Walk next Sunday. The art walk is the principal annual fund-raising event for the Venice Family Clinic, the large clinic on Rose Avenue that provides free health care to the poor and the homeless. Because of the recession, the clinic's needs this year are particularly acute. It is serving 25% more patients than it did a year ago, but is turning away 100 people a day, according to clinic spokeswoman Ellen Robinson.

Up a flight of stairs, down a narrow alley or behind a closed door, sandwiched between Venice's funky stores or inside cold-looking warehouses sit the studios and homes of some of Los Angeles' leading artists. Nearly hidden in deceptively nondescript settings, these workplaces in Venice and Santa Monica usually are closed to the public. But on May 22, about 60 painters, sculptors and other artists will open their doors to visitors for the ninth annual Venice Art Walk.

It's 8 o'clock on a Thursday night, and the Bert Green Fine Art gallery is quietly bustling as art aficionados soberly inspect the first L.A. showing of Valerie Jacobs' politically charged paintings. A block away, a crowd of creative types nibbles on cheese and crackers at the 626 Gallery, where the vibrant work of African American artists Synthia St. James and Charles Bibb is on view. A little farther down the street, the Iron Eyes Gallery has amped up the volume.

The three giant block letters beaming in electric yellow at the Museum of Neon Art serve not only as a flashy window display for the West 4th Street space but as a reminder of what brings together throngs to the sidewalks of downtown Los Angeles on the second Thursday of each month: ART. Downtown's Art Walk turns the streets into an artistic carnival.

When Los Angeles-based artist Daniel Pinkham moved to the Palos Verdes Peninsula in the 1960s, he was already helping to re-establish the Californian plein-air, or open air, painting. Now, 32 years later, Pinkham spends at least six months a year painting in locations throughout the world that let him take full advantage of the outdoor painting style popularized in mid-19th-Century Europe.

Downtown art walk: On the cover of the Feb. 8 Arts & Music section, an item referring to an inside article about the Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk included a photograph of a yellow neon sculpture. The artwork should have been credited to James McDemas.

The Canstruction LA design contest -- in which architects, designers, builders and engineers have created structures made out of cans of food -- will be part of next month's Downtown Art Walk, which takes place on Jan. 10. The structures will be on public exhibition in the Farmers and Merchants Bank Building at 4th and Main streets on Jan. 10 from noon to 10 p.m. and on Jan. 11 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. After the exhibit, the cans will be donated...

Get your art on at the biannual Brewery Art Walk, which is held in what is being dubbed the "world's largest art complex. " With more than 100 artists in residence, this massive former beer brewing company complex offers something for every genre of art enthusiast, as well as plenty of entertainment and refreshments. The Brewery, 2100 N. Main St., L.A. Free. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sat. and Sun. http://www.breweryartwalk.com.

Despite hovering tensions in downtown Los Angeles and concerns that Occupy L.A. protesters might clash with LAPD officers, Thursday night's Art Walk unfolded with no incidents. Attendance was down, with many joking that there seemed to be more police on bicycles and motorcycles than gallery-goers. The crowd could have been reduced by worries about clashes between police and the protesters. At last month's Art Walk, there was a near riot as police officers tried to control Occupy L.A. members who were scrawling slogans and drawings on the sidewalks to protest downtown gentrification.

A party atmosphere prevailed Thursday night at downtown Los Angeles' Art Walk, a month after violence erupted at the popular event. Art Walk, which began as a local art crawl in 2004, has evolved into a showcase for a revitalized downtown, attracting thousands of people who crowd sidewalks, visit clubs, eat at restaurants and food trucks, and turn the historic core into a colorful festival on the second Thursday of each month. But at the July event, Occupy L.A. activists armed with chalk scrawled political slogans and drawings on the sidewalks to protest downtown gentrification, which has pushed out some of the area's poorer residents.

The protesters who rolled into town on a chartered bus Wednesday were united by a single cause: chalk. They had come to show their support for Occupy Los Angeles, which last month clashed with police at downtown's Art Walk for chalking political slogans on the streets. That melee, which left four officers injured and 17 people in handcuffs, catapulted the foundering protest movement back into the spotlight and spawned sympathetic demonstrations across the nation. Thursday marks the first Art Walk since the incident, and it is shaping up to be an eventful night for the Occupiers.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said after an initial review of last week's skirmish between officers and protesters during downtown's monthly Art Walk event that he believes the department "overall responded appropriately. " He added that department officials were conducting a more thorough review of the night's events, in which they would look into whether the "hard-line enforcement" approach that police took was necessary. "I would much prefer to resolve these things through negotiation and cooperation, rather than hard-line enforcement," he said.

Poof! It's Gone: Sweden, meanwhile, discovered a new meaning to the term "art walk" Monday when an art gallery visitor walked off with a painting valued at $600,000. The heist occurred while the gallery owner was busy talking on the telephone. A man unhooked the landscape painting, "Sandhamn" by Anders Zorn, and carried it out of a gallery in Uppsala, 60 miles north of Stockholm. Zorn was a prominent turn-of-the century artist in Sweden.

"Have you seen my 'Phalanges Monster'?" Santa Ana artist J.J. Martin--sporting mascaraed lashes, dreadlocks and a tutu--asked a visitor. If it was the bobbing object at the street corner made of dozens of inflated white surgical gloves bound together to resemble a rotund ball of udders, it was hard to miss. Martin and his "Phalanges Monster," a piece made for public display, are just a few of the oddities you might find during an art walk.

It's just chalk. The stuff teachers used to explain math equations, before high-tech whiteboards and PowerPoint. The stuff kids use to draw hopscotch grids on the sidewalk. The stuff cops used to outline homicide victims' bodies before the coroner carts them off. That's why I have a hard time understanding how chalk drawings sparked a violent melee last week at one of the city's most popular cultural events. Seventeen people were arrested and several officers and bystanders were injured when police moved in on Occupy L.A. activists whose chalk drawings were meant to engage the crowd at Art Walk a monthly showcase and celebration of art, food and entertainment that turns downtown into a giant party.

If drawing on the streets with chalk is a crime, I'd like to report a massive breakdown of civil authority in my neighborhood. I recommend a phalanx of officers in riot gear, because some of these 8-year-olds drawing hopscotch grids on the sidewalk are lawless vandals who won't hesitate to get sassy with authority figures. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking seems to have prompted Thursday night's heavy police response at ArtWalk, one of downtown L.A.'s most successful community events.