From Cotton to Agave....and beyond

Folk Art Everywhere recently led curious Angelenos on walking tours of the Leimert Park and Boyle Heights neighborhoods. In Leimert Park, we explored the sculpture-like home of artist Timothy Washington, then visited our Folk Art Everywhere partners, Lucy Florence Cultural Center, Eso Won Books and Adassa's Island Cafe.

Among other things, Timothy described his sculptural process, which involves a creative and strong goo based on cotton and glue!

See for yourself...





And in Boyle Heights, we started out learning about how spools of white thread-like substance from the agave plant are used for embroidery in mariachi hats!




From there, artist and urban planner James Rojas led us around Boyle Heights, beginning at the Mariachi Plaza--whose bandstand not only sits on top of a new Gold Line station, but also marks the spot of a now-gone donut store that used to serve as a gathering spot for mariachi musicians.



We then moved on to peek into some intriguing front yards in the neighborhood.


To conclude the first rotation of Folk Art Everywhere, we held a "Folk Wedding" at Plummer Park in West Hollywood last weekend. Performers shared traditional wedding dances from Estonia, Armenia and Uzbekistan...




And then the whole village broke out in dance:




There's more where that came from. Stay tuned for more Folk Art Happenings!