Arriving in L.A.

"...the house we were born in is physically inscribed in us. It is a group of organic habits. After twenty years, in spite of all the other anonymous stairways; we would recapture the reflexes of the 'first stairway,' we would not stumble on that rather high step. The house's entire being would open up, faithful to our own being. We would push the door that creaks with the same gesture, we would find our way in the dark to the distant attic. The feel of the tiniest latch has remained in our hands." Gaston Bachelard - The Poetics of Space

And it has been twenty years since I've been to Los Angeles. Shana and I are here to give an artist talk and scope out venues to develop a future project. But for me this is also a journey into the past. Today we will drive to Canyon Country, where I spent eight of my most formative years. I hear that our house has undergone a million dollar renovation, and that the suburb is much more densely populated. I go there in search of memories, but I know that the landscape will be very much altered. I hope to find some things that have not changed. The transition had already begun when I lived there. We had a hill in our back yard that we would climb up to the top and watch the landscape being inscribed with twisting mountain roads lined with innumerable houses. Everywhere the hills were being reconfigured by bulldozers, and these became our playgrounds. We would ride down the plateaus with our BMX bikes, steal lumber from job sites to build skateboard ramps and explore the drainage tunnels that went below the new roads. I know that what I will find is a very different place. But the train bridge where I dodged a train after egging cars in the middle of the night with Eric Close, buzzed on my first sips of alcohol, will still be there. The hill where we made makeshift snowboards out of skateboard decks and bike tires for bindings the one time it snowed will still be there. And maybe, maybe some of my neighbors will still be there. Maybe I will vaguely recognize a face or two, transformed, like mine, by twenty years of a different life.

Upon arriving in LA, the first thing that draws my attention is the foliage. Even though I grew up here, the palm trees and cactuses seem so foreign and exotic. It feels like another country. Then come the place names; Marina Del Rey, La Brea, Malibu. They are so musical and romantic. I remember reading these names on the freeway signs as a child and dreaming of these places. Some I visited and some I did not, but they all exuded a feeling of great leisure. And as I walk through the streets of Los Angeles, I feel that old slow step coming back, and my speech begins to become a little bit more drawn out. In Wisconsin, we are always in a hurry, because we know that even in the middle of summer, the bitter cold is right around the corner. Here summer lasts forever, and there's nowhere to go, because you are already there.

Sara Daleiden, our host and an old friend from Milwaukee, has put us up in fabulous penthouse designed by Viennese architect Rudolf Schindler. Schindler came to California on a job building furniture for some of Frank Lloyd Wright's California commissions, but soon established his own practice. He built the first examples of international style architecture in California, planting the seeds for the playful explorations of modernism that are so characteristic of the Los Angeles architectural landscape.

After settling in, we had a bit of free time so we drove down to Venice Beach, where I went many times as a child. Here's a quick photo tour:

Greeted by the Buddha

We ran across a classic beach house designed by the Greene Brothers. Later in the trip we will visit the Gamble House. (Correction; this house was built in the style of Greene and Greene, but by a different architect)

Some calisthenics at muscle beach

Reminders of home.