Bettina Hubby

The eagle side of the Rock and Eagle Shop

Last Saturday, less than a week after she opened the Rock and Eagle Shop on Eagle Rock Boulevard, artist and curator Bettina Hubby heard a man outside the door. "I'm just going to make sure it's not just an adult rock and eagle shop," he said to his children.

The exterior is painted a bright, pot-dispensary green, and the store's name is written in a graffiti-like font, so it's hard to know what to expect. But when the man walked in and saw shelves of rock and eagle paraphernalia -- eagle magnets, eagle do-rags and other eagle-related stuff to the left, and pet rocks, sling shots and rock-related stuff to the right -- he dashed out to get the kids.

More >>

Courtesy of the artist

Jeffrey Wisniewski's Battling Buddhas

If you have family in town for the holiday this weekend, try dashing over to Patrick Painter gallery in Santa Monica to a film of battling Buddhas or to Chinatown's The Company for an overly enthusiastic paintings show. You don't have to know art to enjoy, either.

5. A New Album Release, 40 Years Late
Bob Dylan doesn't follow art that closely, but he likes Terry Allen. It makes sense. While Allen's assemblage and collage borrow as much from folk as pop and surrealism, they manage to stay defiantly individualistic. I don't know what Dylan thinks of Allen's music, but Allen will be releasing an LP at LACMA on Nov. 29. It's a restored recording of a nearly forgotten performance he did in 1971 at the grand opening of his friend Allen Ruppersberg's temporary hotel/hangout on Sunset Boulevard. Ruppersberg will be at LACMA, too, and, since neither artist romanticizes the past, hearing them talk about it should be offhand and amusing. 5905 Wilshire Blvd.; Tues., Nov. 29, 5 p.m.; free. (323) 857-6000, lacma.org.

More >>

Josh White, courtesy Honor Fraser Gallery

Totally doesn't doesn't do its awesomeness justice. But cool...

Shipsearching, Mie Olise's awesome treehouse of an artwork at Honor Fraser gallery, stole the opening-night-in-Culver-City scene for me. You may be wondering, what's a treehouse of an artwork? Is that some newfangled whipper-snapper term for awesome? No, that would make me redundant.

A treehouse of an artwork is one you climb up and sit inside, as if hiding from the world below, with your trusty sleeping bag for comfort, while spying on the gallery-goers below through the spaces between wood slats.

Maybe "treehouse" isn't exactly the vibe it's going for, as the didactic says that Shipsearching speaks to the "intimate and poetic experience of being onboard a ship during a journey." That it does, too. There's a picture of a sailboat projected inside the constructed space.

More >>

Brendan A. Murray

Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School

Santa's workshop came early this year DesignerCon. On Saturday, Exhibit Hall A at the Pasadena Convention Center temporarily turned into a pop-up, pop-art fair and toy market filled with commercial designers and design fans alike.

A group of artists and toy-makers first created the Vinyl Toy Network in 2006. Since re-dubbed DesignerCon, the yearly fair now not only opens its doors to toy artists and retailers, but the public, too -- just in time for the pre-holiday season, mad-buying rush.

More >>

Simone Paz

Tony Dominguez, maker of giant Dia de los Muertos puppets

Tony Dominguez is a 3-D kind of guy. Most people look at a photo and see it only in two dimensions. Dominguez looks at a flat image and sees its geometry in three. He can spin it around in his head. He senses its depth.

As a maker of giant Dia de los Muertos puppets, he is well served by this talent. Lately, though, it seems as if three dimensions aren't nearly enough.

More >>

Well, it's here. A book about cat fur. Crafting With Cat Hair: Cute Handicrafts to Make With Your Cat is out this month from Quirk Books. The idea comes from Japan (of course).

The translator, Amy Hirschman, lives in Los Angeles. She hasn't made the cat hair crafts yet, but plans to get together with her friends to do so with the hair they collect. It will, no doubt, be a fun and highly allergenic time. "I think American audiences are a little more squeamish when it comes to the idea of crafting with cat hair," Hirschman says. "I've found that the reaction is either 'Gross! Weird!' or 'What an interesting idea! This is so cute, I really want to try this! Lord knows I have enough cat hair.'"

More >>

Graham Kolbeins

Chris Weisbart welcomes visitors into his habitat from a sci-fi podium.

Here's a classic Sunday scenario: going to see an animal at the zoo. Except this time, the zoo is actually inside the Melrose Trading Post, a Sunday flea market held at Fairfax High School, and the animal is an eccentric artist. That's the idea behind experimental gallery Mastodon Mesa's new collaboration with the Trading Post, called Zōo.

Every Sunday, an artist will create a habitat for themselves in the morning and work in it throughout the day, attracting curious Trading Post-goers. Zōo began on September 4 with a one-month residency by graphic artist Tara Milch; it will continue over the next twelve months, and feature just as many artists and other undefinable makers-of-stuff.

More >>

Courtesy of Rick Denman

A view of the Great Wall of Topanga in its glory days

Is there anything in L.A. that someone hasn't thought of converting into a drive-through? Art galleries are a rare exception, but on Topanga Canyon, that's about to change, too.

Commuters through the canyon might have noticed a change in the past months: a wall that forms the border of a private property and runs along Topanga Canyon Blvd. near Froggy's restaurant is now covered in art, proclaiming itself the "Great Wall of Topanga." This wall is the brainchild of Rick Denman -- professional bike racer, rigger, and longtime Topanga resident -- who one day got fed up with scrubbing graffiti off his wall and decided to give it a makeover.

More >>

Lisa Horowitz

Origami Yoda, folded by Michael Sanders as part of Alison Redfoot-DiLidda's composition

The Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden at Cal State Long Beach turned out to be a lovely location to learn the art of origami, or Japanese paper folding, on Sunday.

From humble beginnings more than 15 years ago, with only two presenters and about 25 attendees, the 2011 event hosted 40-plus experts teaching a much larger crowd -- several hundred, at least -- how to make 3-D objects from a single sheet of paper.

More >>

Handmade cards speak truth to power at this year's Renegade Craft Fair

Did you leave town this weekend to avoid Carmageddon? Haha, sucker. Those of us not afraid of a little gridlock spent Saturday weaving through the sunny maze of booths at downtown's Renegade Craft Fair, the indie pop-up festival dedicated to all things DIY.

As I anticipated, the fest featured a preponderance of pastel polka-dot dresses, climbing ivy tattoos and side swept bangs. Not quite as expected was the surprising amount of hipster self-awareness, illustrated by Kyle Durrie's greeting cards above. (Check out more of Durrie's work here).

Says the designer, printmaker and three-year Renegade veteran, "I love bikes and mustaches in real life, but I'm sick of seeing them on bags." She worried the sentiment made her sound like a jerk, but we can't say it's not one we share.

Luckily, the reign of ironic facial hair appears to be fast on the decline. Instead, the weekend's highlights included a candle shaped like dog poo, t-shirts inspired by suicidal poets and waterproof gay Care Bear art for the shower. And if you spent Saturday and Sunday hiding out in Tahoe, don't worry. Links to some of the best things we spotted this weekend -- in no particular order -- after the jump.

More >>