104 Rue de Santa Fe...Davyd Whaley's Salon...SODO...South of
Downtown...Another Saturday Evening Revisited....
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky...
Let us go and make our visit.
...prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,...
And for a hundred visions and revisions...
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,T. S. Eliot
On a balmy recent Saturday afternoon south of downtown in Los Angeles, a new incarnation of Gertrude Stein's Salon...both an animated and stimulating "gathering of people" under the studio roof of Abstract Expressionist artist, Davyd Whaley,and his working studio transformed into an "art gallery" for the occasion...manifested a panoply of multicolored,multilayed,and multitextured dreams and visions on canvas...spread out over the studio's walls and placed on artist easels around the "great space" of 104 Rue de Santa Fe...Davyd's studio at the Santa Fe Art Colony...
Davyd's studio and Salon are a richly dimensioned creative oasis in the heart of the gritty Arts District on the outskirts of downtown Los Angeles...this studio at the Santa Fe Art Colony is part of an original brick building built in 1906 by entrepreneur C. B. Van Vorst, and originally used as a mattress factory until the 1940's.
There are still atmospheric,architectural and environmental remnants of its historical hardcore past in the surrounding "cinema verite" of the nearby manufacturing district...a huge sign is hung on the side of one of the multi-storied buildings that says in huge black capital letters...LEGALIZE LA....and on the street below,a black homeless man sits on the sidewalk up against a chain link fence and dozes in the late afternoon sun.
But inside ...Davyd's beautifully renovated and customized artist studio, and for this afternoon and evening,tastefully appointed Salon...looks out on the "cinema verite" world down below on the street and lights the environs as a beacon of burgeoning creativity...
In the room the women,and men, baby and English spaniel...come and go...talking,laughing,and drinking in the colorful artistic abundance...
Davyd's multicolored,multilayed,and multitextured paintings... all,he says,"originate with my dreams" which he journals at night and during the week takes in to discuss with his Jungian analyst.
Davyd's "livre de reve"...his Dream Book is on display this afternoon backed by his "Galerie des reves"...his Gallery of Dreams..on the right above the display table... his mystical painting "Alchemy Manifest"...
Davyd's creative process as a painter begins with these phantasmagorical,fantastical and highly metaphorical multicolored subconscious images...his dream imagery.
Using a wide array of mediums...canvases,boards, and paper...he paints his narrative subconscious and his nightly dreamscapes.
Although many of the 40 of his newest paintings were displayed this afternoon on artist easels of varying sizes around the "great space" of his studio, he typically paints on the floor...thus even the floor of Davyd's studio looks like one of his fantastic abstract expressionist paintings...
Davyd says his finished paintings often have "many under paintings with different stories"...
I paint by building up thick layers of pigment with a palette knife to more effectively achieve special color effects. A raised surface is important in my paintings to convey feelings and contribute a three-dimensional effect to the overall piece.Creating thick layers of vibrant color is a technique that master artist Vincent Van Gogh also used. My finished pieces contain meandering strokes, thick with color and texture.
The deep spiritual and metaphysical influence of Jungian dream symbolism and mythology is abundantly evident in Davyd's "episodic" approach to creating his glorious canvases:
I believe dreams are meant to happen in series, like a set of books, which have chapters. We do not get all the information on how to live our everyday lives in just one dream. They come in short little bursts like thunderstorms. Just like storms, dreams have layers and patterns. If we piece them together, they build stories...
He goes on to say,
I paint in episodes, each work expressing a moment; each canvas a spiritual sequence, like dreams linked in our subconscious by ethereal themes or meanings.
Just as we don't get all of the information in just one dream...we don't get all of the information in just ONE of Davyd's gloriously convoluted, multicolored,multitextured paintings.
Davyd's attraction to his subconscious and his dream manifestations, as well as to "asymmetrical forms and the energy and power provoked from the contrast of light, depth and color" were all monumentally expressed in the huge 72x164 inches canvas...Fields of Play..the engrossing,and overpowering, centerpiece of his recent Saturday afternoon Salon.
A videographer friend of Davyd's was present to capture the exhilaration of the viewers as they drank in the joyous playfulness of Fields of Play...however, he said he found that many of the guests were too self-conscious to talk about the canvas on camera...and one presumes just too overwhelmed by its monumental power and colorful emotions...a "candid camera" approach would most certainly have been intense and revealing.
There was a richly textured audience of fellow artists like Magda Audifred from the Brewery Artists Colony across town,and photographers,actors,dancers and other creative soul-mates from Davyd's "creative circle" of friends, as well as his co-host and life partner the brilliant and cutting-edge television Director and filmmaker, Norman Buckley.
Davyd's creative circle of friends, and his dazzling paintings created an unforgettable and inspiring afternoon Salon with the backdrop of old,historic industrial Los Angeles.
This is a "virtual" cinema verite walk around Davyd's Salon,from front door to back door...play your favorite background music,as Davyd and Norman did on this Saturday afternoon, and you will surely hear "the mermaids singing"....just as I, and all those fortunate to be there,heard the mermaids singing for them!
"Cadence"...Davyd's huge companion painting to "Fields of Play"...exemplified the beautiful rhythmic flow of people,and one very bright and lively English spaniel named Chaucer,throughout Davyd's studio and Salon on this inspired and inspiring afternoon...
Ionesco's ghost seemed strangely present along with Les Chaises...the inscrutable Chairs....one wonders what "invisible" guests were sitting in these abstract creations....
Davyd Whaley...abstract expressionist.."artist of dreams"...
"cher Maitre"..Norman Buckley..co-host,Davyd's life partner,and television Director and filmmaker extraordinaire...Alice B. Toklas said that Gertrude Stein always referred to Matisse as "cher Maitre"...but with a decided edge in her voice...which may just have been Alice's Byzantine version of Gertrude's term of endearment....
As guests came through the back door,and once they were inside,there was a wonderful catered lunch of hotdogs and all the fixings....even the caterers were "installed" artistically...surrounded by three knockout Whaley paintings....
Guests coming in and meeting new compadres....
The Expatriates...Neil (an actor from Canada) and Pablo ( a delightful raconteur from Argentina)...
This guest's bag was an abstract expressionist painting in itself...
The viewing and social dynamics continue....
My imagination titled this painting "Thirsty Horses"...
There were even a few Whistling Girls at the Salon....
Dancer Donna King (aka "Bombalu in the original Broadway production of CATS)
The actress,writer, and photographer....Karen Huie....
Some more amazing Whaley paintings...
There were even abstract paintings hung in the loft...
And back downstairs again........
Tom Keegan who actually had dinner one evening with Joseph Campbell after a play Campbell's wife,Jean Erdman,was directing...Tom said Campbell even paid the check while his wife protested that the actors could afford to pay it themselves...and while he paid the bill, he explained to everyone the symbolism on the dollar bill...
One of the attendees, Yael Russcol who is developing a series called,Dogpark,brought her English spaniel,Chaucer, with her...he seemed more interested in the hotdogs than the paintings....
Chaucer entertains the guests....
Norman practices his yoga stretch.....
Davyd and photographer Yael Russcol.....
Rain and her Daddy.....
Karen Huie and Rain.........
Kathleen Fennessy....Yael Russcol kindly took these "portraits"...
Norman Buckley...staying connected...he has thousands of followers on Facebook and Twitter.....
Rain and her proud parents......
Davyd strikes a few poses......
Norman makes a point...and Chaucer contemplates sitting on his lap....
Chaucer found a decorative ball on one of the tables and quickly made it his favorite "toy"....
Ketzigirl's discerning girlfriend exits with her very astute painting purchase......
Norman relaxes at the end of a brilliant Salon....
Waterlilies...by Davyd Whaley and fellow abstract expressionist painter and friend,Andy Berg...Waterlilies wasn't on display at the Salon, but it is on display in my heart...and once it's framed...it will be on glorious display in my home.......
I want the inaccessible.Other artists paint a bridge, a house, a boat and that's all. I against it want to paint the air which surrounds the bridge, the house, the boat....
Or the ebullient joy, passion, conflict, and tempestuous beauty of ephemeral,transitory dreamscapes at play in the fields of the subconscious mind......
See David Whaley, "Dreamchaser",illuminating article in ARTWORKS Magazine, Spring 2011 Edition.
(photos by Norman Buckley)
All photographs were taken with a Panasonic Lumix digital camera with a Leica lens by Kathleen Fennessy (except as noted).
