ART WALK HOURS EXTENDED UNDER NEW MATRIARCH

By Paul Parcellin and Keri Freeman

Qathryn Brehm, Art Walk’s new matriarch has new plans for for the Downtown Los Angeles event in 2014. The newest being a campaign that encourages visitors to visit the event in the early afternoon as well.

The Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk is a free, self-guided walking tour taking place every 2nd Thursday within the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles.  Galleries, restaurants, bars and private parties which had been taking place during the later, “happy hour” (6pm – 10pm) will now be encouraged to expand from 12pm to 10pm.

This may come as a surprise to some, but to Art Walk organizers it means they will have to open doors early enough to welcome a whole new wave of art consumer. From workers who may take an Art Walk inspired lunch break to students from local institutions who may consider Art Walk a great way to spend an afternoon field trip.

Painter and digital artist Qathryn Brehm, who served as Downtown Art Walk director of operations and then interim executive director, is getting used to her new title upgrade but in all likely hood many of her previous duties won’t change.

Estimates vary, but as many as 20,000 people attend Downtown Art Walk’s monthly event, when galleries and studios open their doors to the public, coupled with the flooding of downtown restaurants and bars that populate the urban landscape.

As she contemplates the future as executive director, Brehm takes time to reminisce about Downtown Art Walk’s beginnings, how far it has come since it began in 2004, and areas where she’d like to place more emphasis.

Brehm says she plans on “encouraging and expanding Art Walk’s relationship with Los Angeles artists, and continuing to develop relationships with the many existing cultural venues in downtown.”

The new executive director says that an ongoing goal will be helping galleries to create more content and fostering cultural connections.

“The kind of cultural synchronicity Art Walk can help generate”, she says.

Downtown Art Walk visitors get to experience the Art Walk Lounge and Art Mart, two main Art Walk venues that serve as hubs for distributing Art Walk information for viewing artwork and special presentations.

This month the Lounge will feature Eric Rosner.  Illustrating in NYC for over 20 years, Eric Rosner has a unique style that captures the Golden Age of Manhattan & presents it to a new participating audience. Ink marker is used to craft stunning iconic structures, this process is combined with digital enhancements that complete a singular vision to showcase his illustrations. Recently, Eric has turned his talents to the most eloquent inhabitants, the buildings of his new home, the City of Los Angeles.

Also the return of the Krampuses Los Angeles Troupe. The Krampuses of legend hail from Germany and Austria. Both St. Nicholas and the Krampuses have their roots in the Alpine region, but the Krampuses are, you might say, the anti-St. Nicholases.

“If you’ve been a bad little boy or girl, the Krampuses will scare the heck out of you,” Brehm says. “It’s kind of tongue in cheek.”

In Germany there are Krampus parades. The Los Angeles contingent is “sort of a rock ’n’ roll version of the Krampuses.” They will perform in the Art Walk Lounge. Then they’re going to run up and down the street and scare people.

Reflecting on the early days of Downtown Art Walk, Brehm notes that the idea for the monthly arts event took shape sometime after artists began moving downtown and a couple of galleries located there. “Most of the area was pretty desolate then,” says Brehm. “There were a lot of boarded up windows and metal gates.”

As a center for artists, downtown has had its ebbs and flows since the middle 1970s. A lot of the buildings that have been developed as lofts were vacant because the financial district left the downtown area back in the 1950s and ’60s. Artists began to occupy those “vacant, beautiful spaces.” Artists started developing the lofts, and in 1981 the city put an Artist in Residence Ordinance in place. Commercial buildings could then be developed as live-in work spaces. There were several galleries downtown in the 1980s.

As for her own artwork, Brehm is in the process of creating a self-published book called, “When Good Toys Are Bad.” It’s a book of photographs she made of dioramas she built. She has worked a lot with toys over the years.

“When you take toys out of the context of play they can become something else. They can become political, satirical or mean.” Brehm began as a painter, but has been working digitally over the last several years. “I’m trying to go back to painting, but it’s not that easy to go backwards,” she says.

For more information visit

downtownartwalk.org.