Posts Tagged ‘sin turistas’
blake shane
profile.
the homeless artist blake shane owned a neon company in the 80s and reproduced the iconic neon looks that were popular during the time. he lost his business and warehouse and currently lives in his truck with a parrot. he spends his time between highland park and an encampment in simi valley. he also spends a lot of time in “slab city” where there are hundreds if not thousands of homeless encampments in the dessert.
blake shane’s anonymous street art can be seen in various parts of los angeles, he claims he has done a couple hundred pieces in northeast los angeles over the last ten years. you will recognise a blake shane piece by the obsessively hammered metal work of a oxacan silversmith. he recycles discarded consumer and industrial metal that that has outlived its usefulness in our above ground world. the parts are flattened and sometimes cut into the abstract forms. before their new life as an art object they were as common as a hubcap or manifold. he nails them to the many telephone and power poles that populate the older neighbourhoods of los angeles. his pieces are sometimes small unnoticeable anomalies in the urban landscape to other that are several feet in height that wrap around a utility pole with the casualness of a runaway vine or as some ornate masked face of an urban totem.
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sin turistas preview
these few images are from the sin turistas workshop project that i organise and instruct. the student works can be found on our facebook page, but these are some of mine that were shot during various sessions.
highland park is an old neighbourhood of los angeles that is rapidly changing. it appears to be facing a similar fate as in brooklyn, new york. the residents in highland park were primarily 70% latino in the mid 2000s. their environment is rapidly being replaced by a hip, young, urban and middle class white environment. while the latino population has fallen a small amount, the white population has exploded leaving latinos at 53% of the population. the changing landscape has raised nieghbourhood’s property values and shifted the business services. these rising values have started to displace the most vulnerable.
this set of images goes back and forth from both groups, just as the arguments go back and forth between economic development versus displacing the existing economies. this topic is a personal project. i grew up in northeast los angeles of which highland park is the northern most area. i have been watching this change since i was a boy from one immigrant group to another.
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workshops in march
reserve your space now for the next sin turista workshops OR forward this to someone who loves photography!
registration deadline is febuary 28!
• intro to digital cameras: (@ avenue 50 studio, highland park)
saturday 9 am -12 pm (march 3, 10, 17 and 24)
learn and practise how to control your digital camera
• intro to digital tools: (@ undefeated creative studio, DTLA)
sunday 2-5 pm (march 4, 11, 18 and 25)
4-session intensive photoshop introduction
• black & white photography: (@ avenue 50 studio, highland park)
saturday 2-5 pm (starting soon)
explore digital b&w techniques and image story telling
join us for a unique urban experience. sin turistas workshops
for update information and discounts “like” us on facebook!
student: pat anderson
pat’s final essay began as a study of barriers in highland park and their nature to restrict access. slowly her vision evolved through some personal introspection to the idea of confinement illustrated by her discoveries. pat is resident from sunland, but has a close connection to highland park.
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student: sylva blackstone
sylva is a resident and arborist of highland park who has had a love affair with it and its history for many years. she reveals a small town and sweeter side of highland park with these selected images.
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student: tina cacho
tina is a transplanted resident whose images share a nostalgic vision of highland park. she explores the highly visible icons of the area that lead us to the mysterious and little known buddhist’s temple on figueroa only to hint at its contents.
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student: dana collins
this essay entitled “journey”, novice photographer and recent resident of cypress park, dana collin’s project becomes a unique portrait of highland park and explores a sensitive, revealing story of jesse a local personality.
student: dan pellitier
a musician by training, dan returns to highland park to photograph with an abstract sensibility and unconventional point of view. these selected images express his vision with rhythm the esoteric discoveries of his home for many years.
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student: ande richards
non-resident ande covered many topics from portraits of people to environments, but the exploration of multiple realities through these abstractions set the selected images apart from her other work.