Northeast Los Angeles (NELA) Art Gallery Night

As Northeast Los Angeles communities experience greater levels of regeneration and gentrification, the NELA art scene is reaching new levels of notoriety and popularity.

While Eagle Rock is a community long known for being “artsy”, the flood of new and younger homebuyers are populating neighboring communities like Highland Park and Mt. Washington. And judging from the range of successful businesses also sprouting in and around town, they enjoy coffee, micro-brewed beer, vegetarian food and … art. Small, independent art galleries are surging in popularity.

Though some art galleries have been around a while, most have appeared since the epic housing market that made homes in highland park a safe and sure investment guaranteed to bring about a healthy return. As homebuyers have remodeled their homes, several have found themselves in the local art galleries looking for interesting art with which to decorate their homes.

North East Los Angeles (NELA) hosts a “Second Saturday Gallery Night” once a month, put together by NELAart. NELAart is a collective of art galleries and organizations whose aim is to promote the thriving arts community in NELA. This night is a self-guided tour of the artist-run project spaces, galleries, and non-profits found in Eagle Rock, Highland Park, Glassell Park and Cypress Park communities. Here are seven popular galleries that are filled with fascinating displays of art.

The MorYork studio is full of art built with recycled material. Clare Graham is the mastermind behind these works of art. His displays range from chairs and tables built with dominos to lounge chairs made of soda cans. His bottle cap urns and tin can mirrors bring creativity and green thinking to a new level.

The Avenue 50 Studio found in Highland Park is a studio inspired by Latin Chicano culture. The citizens of Highland Park are primarily of Latin descent, and Avenue 50 Studio is committed to showcasing this ever growing, established culture. People of color who are not yet represented in mainstream galleries display their art here.

The artists at Matters of Space specialize in building custom furniture in order to feed their consumer’s inner creativity and personal taste. Matters of Space designs an assortment of furniture for residential places, restaurants, and businesses. They also put on showcases displaying art from designers and artists around the world.

Public Fiction is a gallery that renews its topical series every 3 months. Public Fiction is one part physical space and one part print work. The physical site is stocked with art installations, performances, and happenings on their current topical series. The print work combines pieces of the installations with new contributions to produce a document to complete the topical series.

Museum & Crane is a private art gallery located in Mt. Washington. This is a backyard gallery, which is invite only to create an intimate environment to display contemporary art in all forms. This space assimilates live music and multi-disciplinary performances with art exhibition to generate a magical atmosphere in which artists and friends can inspire and collaborate together.

Leanna Lin’s Wonderland is a playful jewelry studio, shop and art gallery in Eagle Rock. Leanna combines modern and retro designs of jewelry, which can be found, on display and for sale in the back of the store. Leanna also hosts pop-up events and workshops on how to create unique, beautiful jewelry. This is a great idea for a private party or get together.

An artist and his three sons established the Judson Studios of Highland Park in 1897. The Judson family proudly continues to run this studio today. Judson Studios produces original, hand crafted stained, architectural and leaded glass artworks. They can create glass artworks in windows, signs, domes, fine art pieces, and skylights.

NELA is full of unique, individual art galleries and shops. Attending the Second Saturday Gallery Night is an opportunity to support our local artists and enrich ourselves in the art culture of our community.