Spoke(n) Art Ride participants at the starting point for the November 2007 “We Lookin’ at Art” ride (photo: digablesoul).
This past weekend’s Spoke(n) Art Ride was a bit smaller than usual, but the spectrum of artistic expression on display during NELA Art’s Second Saturday was larger than ever.
Our first stop was at the confluence of the Los Angeles River and the Arroyo Seco. These two bodies of water meet near the intersection of San Fernando Road and Figueroa Street under the 5/110 interchange. We had to scramble down the cement walls of the Arroyo to get to the confluence, bikes in hand.
It was night time, so our view of the recently created murals, pieces, throw-ups, and tags was hindered by low light. I gave up trying to take night time pictures in the river bed, but if you’d like to see images of the work take a look at a series of posts about the “Meeting of Styles” that took place in early October on the LA Weekly’s Lurker blog.
Sadly, about 300 yards of murals were destroyed by the Los Angeles County Public Works Department “buffer” – a middle aged latin american man driving a white pickup truck full of grey paint. On my way to work, I see him making his bi-monthly trips up and down the Arroyo buffing (painting over) all the graffiti along the Arroyo Bike Path. Sometimes, his wife is driving the truck while he sprays.
The sculpture above was created during the course of the evening by Brian – one of our Bike Oven shop regulars. It has since been disassembled – the objects it was made out will one day ride out the door as parts on working bicycles.
Once we extracted ourselves from the Arroyo, it was on to several other galleries. We ended at the Bike Oven – for our first group show, featuring a whole host of pieces, from oil paintings to pottery. We even had some on-the-spot work created by a Bike Oven regular during the course of the evening (see photo above). The show will run until December – so stop in during shop hours to check it out. Our show next month will be collection of photographs of the Los Angeles area. If nothing else, it promises to be a fun opening night party and an interesting exhibition.
If you’d like to see more photos from the evening, take a look at digablesouls’ Flickr photoset for the evening.
