Smart Gals 10th Anniversary Retrospective February 4, 2010

Contact: Christine Louise Berry
Christine@smartgals.org
323.302.2257
Reading Preserve & Speakeasy Bookmark Installation
February 4-7, 2010
12:00pm – 5:00pm
**
Winter Picnic Performance
Sunday, February 7th 2:00pm
Los Angeles, February 4-7, 2010
Smart Gals celebrates ten unusual yet glorious years of creating underground, alternative,
inclusive art happenings throughout Los Angeles. Rejecting traditional venues and modes of
production, Smart Gals was born out of the belief that if you have an idea, nothing should stop
you from making it grow into a fully realized slice of entertainment – be it literary, musical,
theatrical or a strange hybrid of the above. Since 2000, we have built compelling pieces in
collaboration with a range of people and locations, from our oft imitated, never duplicated
Speakeasy salon, to our site specific performance series, Are You Interested?, to our flexible safe
haven, The Reading Preserve. We are ready to put it all in joyous perspective as part of
Barnsdall Park Municipal Gallery’s Actions, Conversations and Intersections Exhibition – all we
need is you.
Smart Gals’ wing of this exhibition will revolve around our temporary sanctuary for society’s
most endangered pastime, the Reading Preserve, and culminate in a Winter Picnic Performance
featuring freshly baked bread from the Bicycle Bread Company, hot coffee from Cafécito
Organico, savory music, and sweet bits of surprising theater performed by the likes Brendan
Constantine, Lori Yeghiayan and others who’ve created original work for our shows lo these
happy years. Throughout the week, guests will be invited to come read quietly, alongside Los
Angeles-based authors who, over the years, have presented their work at The Speakeasy: Noël
Alumit, Aimee Bender, Francesca Lia Block, Cecil Castellucci, Janet Fitch, David Francis. S.A.
Griffin, Christopher Lepowski, Joseph F Mattson, Rita Williams, David Wollock and many
more. In between chapters, guests may browse the complete collection of commemorative
Bookmarks commissioned for The Speakeasy.
All are welcome to participate in the creation of this event, regardless of experience. For more
information, please contact christine@smartgals.org.
A complete list of featured artists, participating authors and performers will be updated regularly
on our web site www.smartgals.org.
Smart Gals
Founded in January 2000, Smart Gals Productions is a nonprofit, public benefit organization
dedicated to developing the greater arts community in Los Angeles, by constructing original
events in unlikely places and creating transformative social gatherings. From The Reading
Preserve™, to our site-specific performance series Are You Interested?™ and one-of-a-kind
semi-literary salon, The Speakeasy™, our work has been featured in the LA Weekly, Los Angeles
City Beat, LA Alternative Press, The Los Angeles Times, The Los Angeles Times Magazine,
Bitch, Los Angeles magazine and on KPFK radio.
With an eye toward inclusive, provocative entertainment, over the last decade Smart Gals has
developed an array of compelling happenings throughout Los Angeles. From a functioning
machine shop in El Segundo to a defunct bank building that became the Downtown Standard to
Cleveland High in Reseda and the outermost sites along the Metro Gold Line, Smart Gals has
beckoned audiences to explore our city and expand their own expectations of what defines art,
performance and creative exchange. This February we are honored to celebrate ten years of
successful programming in conjunction with Barnsdall Municipal Art Gallery’s Actions,
Conversations, and Intersections exhibition.
Smart Gals’ Speakeasy Bookmark Series, 2002 – Present, Alphabetical by Artist
Gary Baseman, I Know My Place
Joseph Biel, November Bookmark
Roger Burns, Detail of Stained Glass Window (Judson Studios)
Louis Cannizzaro, starpower
Albert Cuellar, Graven Fruit
Georganne Deen, Witch Perfume for You Alone
Rachel Deitsch, and then she…
Amy Jo Diaz, Untitled Bookmark
Mark Englert, At Once That Man
Yuriko Etue, Echo Park Lotus
Julien Favre, The Secret of Summer
Tawny Featherston, Princess Bunny
Laurie Frank, The Pissing Flowers
Joey Grana, October Bookmark
Marc Rowan Gravelle, Exordium Candy
Jennifer Harris, Bell Poles
Sarah Heller, Happy Trails to You
Home Grown Evolution, What Is a Weed?
Amy Inoue, Which Came First
Jeff Jones, Hannah and the Cloud
Everett Kane, Column
Lisa Kasparian, Archaic
Jenny Keller, Western Fence Lizard
Christine Kessler, Untitled
Ronit Kirchman, Power Body
Darin Klein, Hollywood Boulevard
Janet Klein, Image Poems: Corn Snow Cowbird and Primrose
Steve MacDonald/Ramblin Worker, Fawn Standing in a Rainbow
Matt Manfredi, Dust Up
Abbie Baron Morganstein, Bunnies at the Power Plant
Allison Moryl, Speakeasy
Amitis Motevalli, Victory
Sierra Pecheur, Villendorf Update
Rick Petrea, 21st Century Red Riding Hood
Charles Phoenix, Charle’s Phoenix’s Retro Holiday Slideshow
Tom Recchion, Orbit
Jeremy Roush, Leaner
Christopher Russell, Story of the Bedwetter
Nicole C. Russell, Even If Our Fingers Fell Off
Mohamed Sharif, between
Jolene Siana, cirKels
Maude Simmons, Catnip
Mike Slack, Untitled Bookmark
Angelica Solis, Recuerdos
J.T. Steiny, Books in Nature 1, 2, 3 (series)
David Stromberg, Mr. Greene
David Trulli, River Path
Rebecca Tuynman, Valdeo
Deniz Uzunoglu, Downtown April 17th: Crying Trinity, With What You’ve Got
Billy Vasquez, City of LA Sidewalk Series: Jacaranda Blossoms
Karen Velas, The Edible-nest Swiftlet
Sara Velas, The Albino Zoo
Marya Villarin, Order in the Cosmos?
Esther Pearl Watson, READ For the Fun of It
Lisa Diane Wedgeworth, Hair Study #5
Sasha Isaac Young, Her Face
Madeleine Zygarevich, Hollywoodnt

Official Website: http://smartgals.org