SUNDAY, JUNE 18th, 4:00 to 6:00 PM

DAN HICKS: I SCARE MYSELF - A MEMOIR

Book Signing, Panel Discussion, and Performance

with editor Kristine McKenna,

Hot Licks guitarist Paul Robinson,

Van Dyke Parks, Maria Muldaur, and Jim Kweskin!

Please join us on Sunday, June 18th for a special event to celebrate the publication of the late, great Dan Hicks' autobiography I Scare Myself. Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of “The Summer of Love”, Dan’s editor and close collaborator Kristine McKenna will be signing copies of the book and moderating a panel discussion about Dan’s life and music featuring Van Dyke Parks, Maria Muldaur, Jim Kweskin, and Hot Licks guitarist Paul Robinson. There will also be a short musical performance by the participants following the discussion. 

Dan Hicks didn’t have his heart set on a career in music. It all just sort of happened to him. It didn’t hurt, of course, that he was in the right place at the right time - San Francisco, 1966 - and had a front-row seat for the birth and death of the counterculture.

Among other things, I Scare Myself is a classic story of the sixties. More importantly, though, it’s a story of musical genius. By the time “The Summer of Love” limped to a close in the fall of ’67, Dan Hicks had quit The Charlatans - the pioneering psych-rock band with whom he played the drums - and turned to jazz; the music he’d secretly loved all along, as he began building his own band.

“I just started taking ingredients I liked and putting them together to see what came out,” he writes. What came out was an amazing blend of complex time signatures, unusual instrumentation, and intricate vocal harmonies that took him to the top of the seventies rock world as well as a downward spiral of drink and drug abuse.

Dan details it all with wit and candor in I Scare Myself Emerging from a long wilderness, he eventually returned to recording and performing, making a number of acclaimed albums, including Beatin’ The Heat, a set of duets with Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Rickie Lee Jones, and more. Along the way, his music continued to subtly permeate the culture, turning up everywhere from The Sopranos to commercials for Levi’s and Bic.

Though he passed away in early 2016, Dan’s music, and the stories he tells here, remain as fresh and irresistible as ever. Combining those stories with dozens of rare photographs and a detailed discography by esteemed writer and critic Kristine McKenna, I Scare Myself takes readers on a journey behind the music, and into the life and mind of the fantastic artist who created it.

If you cannot attend but would like to purchase a copy of I Scare Myself signed by Kristine McKenna please click here or call us at 310-458-1499.

QUEER THREADS: CRAFTING IDENTITY AND COMMUNITY

BY JOHN CHAICH + TODD OLDHAM - LOS ANGELES BOOK LAUNCH
SATURDAY, JUNE 10th 4:00 - 6:00 PM
 

Join us Saturday, June 10th  for a book signing and exhibition with John Chaich as part of the Design Field Day at Helms! We'll be showing work from Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community and enjoying treats from our own Culver City community -  a special cocktail from Bar & Garden and the ice cream stylings of CoolHaus!

The exhibition, running through June 24th, will feature work by five Los Angeles-based artists. On view will be fiber and textile work by Diedrick Brackens, Ben Cuevas, Aubrey Longley-Cook, Maria E. Pineres, and Nathan Vincent. Spanning video to soft sculpture and wall-work, the pieces on view range from  life-sized knit and crochet urinals to a stop-motion animation based on needle-point scenes from RuPaul's "Supermodel" video.

Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community spotlights an international, inter-generational, inter-sectional mix of thirty artists who are remixing fiber craft traditions such as crochet, embroidery, quilting, and sewing while reconsidering the binaries of art and craft, masculine and feminine, and gay and straight.

Designed by Todd Oldham and edited by John Chaich, Queer Threads features full-color spreads of each artist's work, intimate details of selections and artist studios, and an introductory essay by Mr. Chaich, who curated the exhibition of the same name that inspired the book.

To further examine how queerness informs their work in fiber and textiles, the artists are interviewed by makers and thinkers from the worlds of dance, design, fashion, media, music, museums, scholarship, and more - many of whom are members of the LGBTQ community themselves and otherwise passionate allies. Queer Threads is not just an exploration of fiber art and crafts, but also a celebration of the creativity, diversity, and vibrancy of contemporary queer culture.
 

If you are unable to attend but would like a copy of Queer Threads signed by author and editor John Chaich,  please place your order on our website here, or call us at 310-458-1499.

The exhibition will be on display through June 24th. 

The Helms-wide "Design Field Day: This Modern Life" will be running all day Saturday. There are dozens of panels, specials, workshops, demonstrations, tastings throughout the Helms "campus" from 12 to 6. Here's a link to the schedule, including a panel lead by KCRW's Frances Anderton. Attendees can enter the "This Modern LIie" sweepstakes to win chairs from Vitra, lamps from Louis Poulson,  a gift certificate from Arcana, and more!

Book of the day > Dandy Lion: The Black Dandy and Street Style. Published by Aperture. " Suits that pop with loud colors and dazzling patterns, complete with a nearly ubiquitous bowtie, define the style of the new “dandy.” Described as “high-styled rebels” by author Shantrelle P. Lewis, black men with a penchant for color and refined fashion, both new and vintage, have gained popular attention in recent years, influencing mainstream fashion. But black dandyism itself is not new; originating in Enlightenment England’s slave culture, it has continued for generations in black cultures around the world. Now, set against the backdrop of hip-hop culture, this iteration of dandies is redefining what it means to be black, masculine, and fashionable. Dandy Lion presents and celebrates individual dandy personalities, designers and tailors, movements and events that define contemporary dandyism. Throughout the book, self-expression is communicated through personal style, clothing, shoes, hats, and swagger. Lewis’s carefully curated selection of contemporary photographs surveys the movement across the globe in spectacular form, with all of the vibrant patterns, electrifying colors, and fanciful poses of this brilliant style subculture."
 

Book of the day > Jim Jocoy: Order of Appearance. Published by TBW Books. "Almost 20 years after the release of his first monograph, We’re Desperate, produced with the help of Sonic Youth front man Thurston Moore and fashion designer Marc Jacobs and widely regarded as the definitive catalogue of early West Coast punk fashion, Jim Jocoy’s archive of previously unseen photographs has been re-examined and re-considered to compose Order of Appearance, a new body of work that humanizes his young subjects as they go through their daily lives sharing the tender moments of love and loss that came to encapsulate the late 70s and early 80s as the Summer of Love slowly eroded and gave way to punks’ disaffected view of the world.

Unknowingly foreshadowing the AIDS epidemic that would grip underground communities throughout the country, Jocoy’s poignant photos share an intimacy not unlike that found in the work of Nan Goldin, combined with the underground compulsion and clout that permeates the photos of Katsumi Watanabe, and Karlheinz Weinberger.

Spanning three short years from 1977 to 1980, the collection of images is structured in three chapters, vignettes from a one night affair where emotions range from delight to despair, sober to wasted, clear to blurry to half-way-clear-again by morning. 

Jocoy’s ability to reveal these touching moments of restless youth allows us to feel empathetic towards the bruised knees that start the book off and then laugh at the comical horror of a sunburst-yellow clownish car turned violently upside down from a accident. As a photographer, Jocoy has an uncanny capacity to make even a car wreck look like the best time ever." @tbwbooks #jimjocoy

JOIN US FOR A SPECIAL AFTERNOON OF:

NUDE FIGURE AND VEGETABLE LIFE DRAWING

ROSÉ SIPPING,

BOOK SIGNING,

CONVERSATION WITH JULIA SHERMAN + EVAN KLEIMAN

and, of course, SALAD

S A L A D   F O R   P R E S I D E N T

A COOKBOOK INSPIRED BY ARTISTS

BY JULIA SHERMAN

SUNDAY, JUNE 4TH, 3:00-5:00 PM

A salad is a composition. I am perfectly happy to see cars or clouds or salads as artworks. It’s what you do with them and how you contextualize them that matters.”—Laurie Anderson

The creator of the immensely popular Salad for President blog presents a visually rich collection of more than 75 salad recipes, with contributions and interviews by artists/creative professionals like William Wegman, Tauba Auerbach, Laurie Anderson, and Alice Waters. Sherman loves salad, and she encourages her readers to consider it an everyday indulgence that can include cocktails, soups, family style brunch dishes, and dinner-party entrées.

Salad—with its infinite possibilities—is a game of endless combinations, not stifling rules. And with that in mind, Salad for President offers a window into how artists approach preparing their favorite dishes. Sherman visits sculptors, painters, photographers, and musicians in their homes and gardens, interviewing and photographing them as they cook. Utterly unique in its look into the worlds of food, art, and everyday practices, Salad for President is at once a practical resource for healthy, satisfying recipes and an inspiring look at creativity

Please join us in collaboration with Aesop, June 4th between 3:00 and 5:00 PM for this extra special event as we celebrate the publication of Ms. Sherman's fantastic new Abrams book: Salad For President!

Q + A between Ms. Sherman and Evan Kleiman will begin around 3:30, concurrent with the nude figure and vegetable life drawing. Listen, sketch from life, snack on Sherman's Mexican Fruit Salad (recipe from the book!) and raise a glass! Bring your own art supplies or use the charcoal and newsprint that we will have.

If you are unable to attend but would like a signed copy, please place your order here, or call us at 310-458-1499.

Book of the day > Katherine Bernhardt. Published by CANADA. Edited by Dan Nadel. Text by Nicole Rudick. “This is the first book to provide a comprehensive overview of Katherine Bernhardt’s wildly popular pattern paintings. Spanning 2013 through 2016, it collects over 100 of her brightly colored canvases. Well known for paintings of super models ripped from glossy fashion magazines and, more recently, Morrocan rug motifs, in 2013 Bernhardt dropped all direct quotation and now paints straight from her imagination, mining her own fertile reservoir of experience, imagery and sensation. Since then, Bernhardt has produced paintings that mix an assortment of objects reflecting her daily experiences, from life in New York to her love of Puerto Rico, her Saint Louis roots and family life. The objects are painted with incredible verve and tenacity, and include a jumble of the following items on colorfully activated grounds: watermelon slices, boom boxes, computers, pizza slices, cassette tapes, hamburgers, basketballs, old cell phones, airplanes, fruit, sharks, water, sea turtles, cigarettes, sharpies and keyboards. Bernhardt presents a slightly delirious feeling of New York City, the out-of-date and the up-to-the-minute all in one.”

Book of the day > People in Cars by Mike Mandel. Published by STANLEY/BARKER. "Mike Mandel grew up in the San Fernando Valley, and as an kid in the 1950s could walk just about everywhere he needed to go: to school, or later down the street to the open field to collect rocks or catch lizards. All of his friends lived on his block, so he didn’t think too much about the time he spent in a car. But by the time he reached twenty in 1970, he realised how large a role the car would play in his life, and so began to photograph the inhabitants of 1970s California in their cars.

'On a late afternoon with the light low in the west I’d regularly find my spot on the corner of Victory Blvd. and Coldwater Canyon Ave. in Van Nuys (ironically, so close to home I could easily walk there). It was a busy intersection with a wealth of cars pulling my way to make a right turn. I was using a 28mm wide angle lens on my 35mm camera, which meant that I had to get in pretty close to the window to get my shot, and when I did there would inevitably be a reaction: surprise, amusement, and on some few occasions, annoyance.'

'In contrast to how this project might play out today, it seemed then that people enjoyed being recognised by the camera and readily participated in the playfulness of the moment. It was warm outside, the car windows were open. It was the window that framed and instilled these portraits with the language of the automobile environment'" — Mike Mandel

We're honored to be among the top choices for  99U,'s worldwide Best Design Bookstores! 99u is "an editorial property based in New York City that tells the stories of leading creatives around the world who are mastering their crafts, building incredible careers, and shaping their industries. They have a vibrant website, quarterly magazine, and email newsletter that goes out to 735,000 people every week." Have a look!

www.99u.com

www.behance.com

Book of the day > Entryways of Milan - Ingressi Di Milano. Published by Taschen. "First impressions count, especially in Milano. In this unprecedented photographic journey, editor Karl Kolbitz opens the door to 140 of the city’s most sumptuous entrance halls, captivating in their diversity and splendor. These vibrant Milanese entryways, until now hidden away behind often restrained facades, are revealed as dazzling examples of Italian modernism, mediating public and private space with vivid configurations of color and form, from floors of juxtaposed stones to murals of minimalist geometry.

The collection spans buildings from 1920 to 1970 and showcases the work of some of the city’s most illustrious architects and designers, including , and Luigi Caccia Dominioni, as well as non-pedigreed architecture of equal impact and interest. The photographs for the publication were exclusively created by the Delfino Sisto Legnani, Paola Pansini and Matthew Billings, each evoking the entryways with individual sensibility and a stylistic interplay of detail shots – such as stones, door handles, and handrails – with larger architectural views.

In the well-documented realm of 20th-century Italian design, Kolbitz has stepped over the threshold and delivered a brand new area of enquiry in Milanese modernism. With the rigor of its multi-faceted research, poised photography, and breadth of its featured hallways, this is an invigorating new reference work and an inside look at the city’s design DNA across high to low architecture."

Book of the day > Alice Neel: Uptown. By Hilton Als. Published by David Zwirner Books | Victoria Miro. "Known for her portraits of family, friends, writers, poets, artists, students, singers, salesmen, activists and more, Alice Neel created forthright, intimate and, at times, humorous paintings that quietly engaged with political and social issues. In Alice Neel, Uptown, writer and curator Hilton Als brings together a body of paintings and works on paper of African Americans, Latinos, Asians and other people of color for the first time. Highlighting the innate diversity of Neel’s approach, the selection looks at those often left out of the art-historical canon and how this extraordinary painter captured them; 'what fascinated her was the breadth of humanity that she encountered,' Als writes.

The publication explores Neel’s interest in the diversity of uptown New York and the variety of people among whom she lived. This group of portraits includes well-known figures such as playwright, actress and author Alice Childress, the sociologist Horace R. Cayton, Jr., the community activist Mercedes Arroyo; and the widely published academic Harold Cruse, alongside more anonymous individuals of a nurse, a ballet dancer, a taxi driver, a businessman and a local boy who ran errands for Neel.

In short and illuminating texts on specific works written in his characteristic narrative style, Als writes about the history of each sitter and offers insights into Neel and her work, while adding his own perspective. A contemporary and personal approach to the artist’s oeuvre, Als’ project is 'an attempt to honor not only what Neel saw, but the generosity of her seeing.'”