CABIN NO. 56 GALLERY FUNDRAISER
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Saturday March 25, 2017 | 2:30 PM — 6:30 PM | Big Santa Anita Canyon Children and Dogs Welcome | RSVP | Password is EASTFORK
Feeling very lucky on today’s lucky St. Patrick’s Day. In one short week I’m hosting a pop-up art gallery at the 102-year old cabin in the woods outside L.A that I steward. It’s been an idea I’ve been working to pull off since New Year’s Eve after a fireside chat in the cabin with my longtime friend and artist, Jen Kays.
I was inspired by Doug Aitken’s Desert X and Ansen Seale’s The Corn Crib and Cheryl Haine’s Home Land Security to create a social collision of creativity inside an unlikely space. I wanted to tie it to the seasons, like one of my favorite stories as a kid “A Time To Keep” which gave the first sense I can remember of the natural passing and changing of the world around me and provoked me to look and watch it.
I wanted to pull it off to benefit something I cared about, the Big Santa Anita Canyon Permittees Association, founded in 1928 if you can believe it.
My incredibly talented and dear friend Susannah Castro is flying in from Rio Rico, Arizona on Friday. She’s the main artist. She’ll hang three pieces in the tiny cabin. I curated one of them. She’s never been there.
Shepard Fairey loaned a print to hang in the outhouse (due to the generous quick friendship of Ondi Timoner). So thankful to them both. I have to pick it up this week.
The emotive Highland Park painter and canyon neighbor Bill Wheeler will hang a secret piece in the shed. If you can find it. I have to pick it up this week.
Mixologist and longtime friend Talmadge Lowe connected me with supercool BTL SVC (they make craft cocktails for unlikely places, how perfect). I have to pick them up this week.
The supplies will be transported by mule train to my cabin. The charge is fifty-cents per pound. They depart at 7:30 AM on Friday morning.
Literary friend and super-talented writer Bridgette Bates has composed a special poem for the Spring Equinox (and we’ll deliver it as the benediction of the season to kick-off the afternoon).
The man sometimes known as Ajax Moon, another neighbor and the namesake of the canyon’s Fiddler’s Crossing, is hiking in to play live music. Something rare and not to be missed.
Mary Douglass from Cabin №54 next door says she has a Paint By Number of a deer she never finished and she may dig that up if she makes it down and bring it over.
And finally, my dearest soulmate Missy Laney is doing some home-made cooking in Kitchen Fifty-Six. Just for you. And much more.
You can only experience all this if you hike in on foot. About 1.75 miles each way, and find us (we can also get you reserved parking and a trail guide if you’d like those extra comforts).
My hope is if you’ll come out you’ll have a true adventure, meet cool new people, be in awe of nature, learn some L.A. history, see great artwork, eat delicious food, drink hearty toasts to Spring and tap your feet with abandon listening to Ajax Moon because you just can’t help it.
I put all the details here in this little ole invitation:
I hope you’ll check it out or share it with people you think might dig the idea — and maybe I’ll see you Saturday March 25 in the EastFork, which is also the password to enter.
This is a privately organized event to benefit the Big Santa Anita Canyon Permittees Association, which advocates for the 81 remaining cabins and stewardship of this historic part of the Angeles National Forest.
I’m on the Board of Directors and I wanted to introduce new people to this unique place. Anyone is welcome (kids and dogs on leash too) please RSVP for a suggested donation. We think $50 per person is perfect but $100 per person if you’d like reserved parking and a trail guide, provided by Adams Pack Station and Shoestring Adventures).
If it all works out we have future editions planned and ready for Summer Solstice, Fall Equinox and Winter Solstice too. Thanks for supporting crazy ideas.
*** Joe Beyer | 03.17.2017
