Art, Fashion, & Culture

Dank Digits

Incorporating weed into nail art is the new way to show your love for the plant.

SF Weekly

feature-nailsWalk into any nail salon and chances are you’ll be greeted with the smells of rubbing alcohol and acetone. But a new trend is sweeping the nail-art world that might introduce another scent into the mix: marijuana.

Dubbed “weed nails,” the style incorporates cannabis products — such as the leaf itself, ground-up bud, or hash oil — into acrylic nails, and using them to create designs. Like flower pressings, weed can be sprinkled into the clear bedrock of the acrylic, color-blocked into a pattern, blended into an ombre, or bedazzled with rhinestones and glitter.

Louisiana “Louie” Pham, owner of the Orchid Nail Lounge in Santa Clara, has even used ash from a blunt and slivers of rolling papers to create decorations on her clients’ nails. On a Wednesday afternoon in February when I visit Pham at her store, she’s in the process of snipping out the “100” from a fake $100 bill to glue into the center of a weed-flecked acrylic nail. For almost four years, Pham has been doing weed nails, and it all started thanks to the customer whose nails she’s currently working on. (Click here to read more)

Time For A Typewriter Renaissance?

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Salon

IT WAS 4 P.M. ON A THURSDAY, two hours until the end of Jesse Banuelos’ workday. He was standing behind the front counter of Berkeley Typewriter, his trademark green apron tied around his waist. A dozen broken typewriters — some electric, but most of them manual – were stacked in a corner on the brown linoleum floor.

Forty years ago, the shop was at the top of its game. But during the ’90s, as computers became more affordable, fewer customers bought typewriters or needed them repaired. Many typewriter stores went out of business. Berkeley Typewriter laid off some staff and managed to remain open by offering services like printer, photocopier and fax repair. Banuelos is the store’s only remaining technician who knows how to fix typewriters. He never learned how to type on a computer and for a time he worried that the typewriter industry would soon disappear.

He was wrong. In the last few years, both typewriter sales and repairs have increased at the store. Berkeley Typewriter experienced an increase in overall sales in 2011, moving about two or three a week. It’s not like the olden days, Banuelos said, but it’s enough.

Most of the typewriters that he sells or takes in are manual machines made between the early 1900s and the 1960s. The dozen or so brands displayed in Banuelos’ front window read like a row of multicolored tombstones: Royal, Remington, Underwood, Smith-Corona, Olivetti, Corona, Adler, Oliver.

(Click here to read more)

Metro Zu’s Lofty305 Plunges Head First Into the Art World with Miami Showing

The Miami New Times

zutopia

Lofty305 woke up at 9:40 a.m. in his Midtown Manhattan apartment. It was a Monday. He brushed his teeth with non-fluoride toothpaste and rinsed his XS afro with coconut oil. He ate two Butterfingers, worked out at the building’s gym, and snacked on hummus. Then he started painting.

He painted a pink portal with two mounds (“ladies boobs”) coming out of it. He painted long tubular tentacles — one wrapped around the body of a naked lady (“healing her”), another squeezing the life out of a blue shark. He painted jet skies and he painted lamps. He painted a “little shepherd dragon” and a ridge of mountains that looked like watermelon slices. (Click here to read more)

California Girl

Zoe Magee of Zoe Bikini has been selling swimsuits in the Mission for a decade. And yes, you’ll find itsy-bitsy, teenie-weenie, polka dot bikinis.

SF Weekly

summerguide-bikinisOn 18th St. in the Mission, tucked between a salon and a wine bar, is a swimsuit boutique called Zoe Bikini. The brainchild of Zoe Magee — who designs every piece herself — its front half is filled with tropical foliage, healthy, size-6 mannequins, and racks upon racks of brightly colored bikinis.

The back half of the store, behind the desk and dressing room that Magee and her father built, is where the work stations are. Beside a cutting table littered with heaps of half-finished suits, a sewing machine sits equipped with every color thread imaginable, and there’s an entire wall of shelves dedicated to tiny glass jars filled with beads, rings, and other gewgaws.

Zoe Bikini celebrated its 10th anniversary as a brick-and-mortar shop this February, and while that’s a feat for any small, independent business, it is especially so for this shop. San Francisco is not a warm city, and bikinis can be a hard sell because there are so few opportunities to wear them. For years, obtaining a Zoe Bikini wasn’t easy for out-of-towners, as Magee didn’t have an online shopping option on her website until last November. But perhaps the biggest accomplishment is the fact that Magee has been able to retain her location in the heart of the Mission District despite all of the changes that the neighborhood has seen in recent years.

When Magee moved into the mint-green-and-white painted space in 2007, there was a fish market on the corner and her neighbors were a tattoo parlor, a noodle factory, and a nail salon. It was also thriving from a retail standpoint. (Click here to read more)

I Rubbed Snail Goo on My Face and It Obliterated My Acne

Pop Sugar

Credit_Hadrian_ShutterstockSome partners call their lovers “bae” or “boo.” But my boyfriend? He calls me “Snail Face.”

Technically, he’s correct. Twice a day, every day, I rub a tablespoon of snail mucin — also called snail secretion filtrate — over my face and neck. Even though it tastes bitter — my boyfriend learned this first-hand by trying to kiss me on the cheek — it’s the only thing that has worked to clear up my adult-onset acne.

I wasn’t a pimply teenager and never had problems with it until I hit my early 20s. Suddenly, I was forming blackheads seemingly overnight, and I had a particularly difficult time battling zits on my cheeks. I had every kind of pimple you could imagine: stubborn whiteheads, deeply embedded pustules, pus volcanos, and fiery-red bumps.

Though I’d been using a Cetaphil face wash for years with positive results, it obviously was no longer working. I turned to other tactics, and over the course of the next five years, I tried a number of zany and not-so-zany treatments. I used Proactive, which worked relatively well, except for the fact that it dried my skin out. I saw multiple dermatologists who recommended myriad ointments, like Differin and Tazorac, as well as prescription antibiotics, all of which I dutifully used, to no avail. Facials became a monthly ritual, and I tried everything from intense extractions to LED Blue light treatments and glycolic-retinol masks. (Click here to read more)

Five Bay Area Summer Camps for Grown-Ups

SF Weekly

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If it weren’t for summer camp, I would have never learned how to make a daisy wreath or shoot a bow and arrow. Both surfing and sewing would be foreign to me, and I’d never have starred in Annie: The Musical either. But all of these things did happen — thanks in large part to my parents, who were too busy to watch my sister and me during the week, and dumped us off at summer camp instead — and I’m better for it.

If you missed out on creating your own fond memories of summer camp as a youth, here’s your chance to make up for it. There are a number of camps geared toward grown-ups hoping to recreate those halcyon days (and an estimated one million adults attend them each year, according to the American Camp Association).

Whether you’re craving a bit of nature, a bite of campfire-roasted s’mores, or a night’s rest in a bunk bed, there are plenty of opportunities around the Bay Area to let your inner kid out this summer. Here are our top five picks. (Click here to read more)

10 Best Used Bookstores In Los Angeles

LAist

We may live in an age of digital and e-books, but don’t let that fool you. Print is still alive in the City of Angels from Inglewood to Eagle Rock. The stores that made our list were chosen based on a number of criteria, like collection size, pricing, ambiance and orderliness (and extra points were awarded for establishments with a store dog or cat). We searched and high low for the best of the best, so chuck your Kindle and use our list to help you locate the bookstore nearest you. As always, leave your own favorites in the comments.

 

Friends1z

 

Friends Book Shop

Of all the used bookstores on this list, none have greater deals or a greater selection than the Friends Book Shop. Located inside the Beverly Hills Public Library, this used bookstore (which is the only bookstore in Beverly Hills, aside from Taschen on Beverly Drive) has a wide variety of books, from fiction, art, and children’s to classics, first editions, and signed copies. It’s been around since 1991 and is run and operated by the Friends of The Beverly Hills Public Library, a garrulous, friendly bunch of senior citizens who are eager to chat about books and help you find whatever you are looking for. Their collection is built from donations to the library and their prices are jaw-droppingly low. They’ve got both a $1 rack and a 25-cent rack, and the bulk of their books cost between $3 and $4. Their specialties are cookbooks, paperback mysteries and coffee table-sized art books. In addition to books, they sell audio books, DVDs and current magazines.

Friends Book Shop is located in the Beverly Hills Public Library at 444 North Rexford Drive in Beverly Hills, (310) 288-2271.

(Click here to read more)

Wynwood’s Danilo Gonzalez To Name Mural Contest Winner: “I Want a Landmark”

The Miami New Times

In the bowels of Craigslist, buried in the catacombs of ‘Community’ is an ad with a plaintive plea. “WE NEED A MURAL!” its title reads in all caps. “SHOW US WHAT YOU CAN DO!” It’s a pithy post, no longer than one sentence, with a photo of a long, single-story warehouse. From its base to its asbestos shingled roof, the building is coated in the same drab grey hue. One half of its awning (also grey) reads, “Warehouse Project;” the other half, “Men’s Corner.” It definitely needs a makeover.

wynwoodwarehousemuraledited“It’s pretty ugly,” says artist and gallery owner Danilo Gonzalez, who commissioned the ad. The building, a former apparel storage facility, had been abandoned for over five years when Gonzalez signed the lease back in 2012. The surrounding neighborhood was a ghost town and the only nearby business was the Light Box at Goldman Warehouse. But Gonzalez had a hunch that things would change. Development in Wynwood, he believed, was to going move west, towards the freeway, not east towards Miami Avenue. “People thought I was crazy.”

(Click here to read more)

The Best & Worst of Christina Hendricks’ Red Carpet Outfits

christina hendricks, mad men,

Portable

WHEN ACTRESS CHRISTINA HENDRICKS  first started attending red carpet events, finding something to wear was a challenge. “Not one designer [would] loan me a dress,” she told Scottland’s Daily Record in 2010. But it wasn’t personal, said the designers. They just didn’t have anything bigger than a size two.

Over the years, Hendricks, who plays Joan Holloway in Mad Men, has learned how to navigate an industry that favors bones over bust. Instead of hiding her size 14 figure, she wears tailored, form-flattering pieces that cinch her waist and hug her curves. She prefers bright, loud colors, plunging necklines and has a weakness for the flashy and ornate. She’s worn outfits adorned with feathers, tassels, leather, sequins and ruffles, as well as Swarvoski crystals and decorative flowers as large as her head. Sometimes her red carpet ensembles are a hit and sometimes they’re an epic miss.

With the 7th season of Mad Men around the corner, we thought we’d take a look at some of her most memorable past red carpet ensembles.

 
(Click on the link to view the slideshow)

the coolest shop in hollywood that you’ve never heard about

 

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Portable

In the heart of the nightlife district in Hollywood, amidst a sea of parking lots, there’s a lone two-story house. It’s an old wood-frame structure, surrounded by a spiky black fence and anemic rose bushes, and it has somehow remained standing all these years. From the street, it can be hard to tell just what this structure is because there’s no signage out front. But for those in the know, it’s an offbeat, avant-garde clothing store that sells vintage and handmade pieces. It’s hardly been open a month, and yet the store already has a slew of celebrity, high-profile customers. Kid Cudi and Kristen Stewart shop there, as do Chloe Sevigny and Jaime King.

The Evil Rock’N’Roll Hollywood Cat, as the store is called, was started by a 25-year-old filmmaker named Juju Sorelli, who moved to Los Angeles from Paris over six years ago. Though she got her degree from the Fashion Institute of Design and Marketing, she had never actually planned on opening her own store. For years, Juju has lived in Hollywood and the big blue house on the corner of Las Palmas and Selma venues had always been somewhat of a mystery to her.

(Click here to read more)

brad elterman: the original teenage paparazzo

brad elterman

Portable

THROUGHOUT THE SEVENTIES AND EARLY EIGHTIES, Brad Elterman made a name for himself photographing candid, evocative photos of both counter-culture and mainstream icons. He photographed Joan Jett flipping the bird while backstage at the Whiskey and Robert Plant as he kicked a soccer ball in Encino. He shot The Ramones and The Sex Pistols, as well as Alice Cooper and David Bowie. He took photos of Madonna and Michael Jackson, and even Muhammad Ali and Brooke Shields.

Elterman was seemingly everywhere and always at the right time, until the mid-eighties when he simply stopped. The photography industry had changed, as had the music and cultural scene, and Elterman lost interest. After over two decades of keeping a low profile and focusing mainly on his business ventures, Elterman returned to photography in the early 2000s.

Though the people in his photographs have changed, his focus has not. Elterman’s photos are just as raw and edgy as they were in the seventies and his passion for photographing musicians and avant-garde artists remains unchanged. In the last few years, he’s snapped photos of everyone from Mac DeMarco, The 1975, Sky Ferreira, and Tyler The Creator to Jared Leto, Kris Kidd, Sandy Kim, and even Paris Hilton. With his upcoming show at Milk Studios in Chelsea later this month, we thought we’d take a moment to catch up with the prolific culture chronicler and shine a light on some of his most memorable photos from the past 30-something years. (Click here to read more)

Up In Flames

When Glendale artist Joy Feuer first visited the burned remains of the Cisco Homes warehouse in Pasadena, she looked beyond the charred furniture ruins and saw potential.

“Everyone kept saying, ‘There’s nothing left. It’s all destroyed.’ But I knew that something could come out of it,” she said.

Months later, Feuer’s vision became a reality when she founded ART from the Ashes, a nonprofit organization that creates art from the wreckage of local fires. In November of 2008 their first show featured monolithic statues, spiral wall installations and free-standing art pieces fashioned from fragments of corroded wood, twisted metal and shards of glass.

On the opening day, flutes of champagne were passed as visitors viewed the 90 works of reclaimed art incorporating materials from the previous fire site. More than 500 exhibit visitors raised $12,000 in donations for Cisco Homes and the charity group Making Education the Answer.

(Click here to read more)

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