Please Happy

Rickey Smith has found his life’s work.

He wants to open little kiosks all over Los Angeles that sell food that is grown on site. He wants one day a week to be devoted to feeding the hungry. He wants his cafés and gardens to empower “city dwellers” to take control of their food source. And he wants to do this in a zero waste, environmentally friendly way.

In this audio slideshow, Smith talks about his vision for Urban Green, a company he started in 2001 with the motto “Waste Not, Want Not.” From his flagship kiosk in downtown Los Angeles, Smith describes his dream of splattering Los Angeles with self-sustaining storefronts that will serve the community, educate and inspire.

“We hope that urban green will be there as a voice of reason and as an urban oasis in the chaos,” Smith said.

To fund the nonprofit side, Smith also caters and sells homegrown food to grocery stores. While the sustainability of the flagship project (which began in June) is yet unknown, he has started planting seeds – literally and figuratively – and he’s hoping to watch them grow.

Over the next couple weekends, Smith will host events on subjects ranging from food to music to yoga at the flagship store on Spring Street.

Here’s another little Watts story. As you can tell, I have taken quite a liking to Rosa Gutierrez and her children.

Cruz Pineda.

Katie Bachler spent her Tuesdays this summer on East 107th street in Watts, observing nature with neighborhood kids.

The 28-year-old taught her students how to break open a peach pit to reveal the almond-like center, how to find natural beauty in their city street and how to document it in personal journals.

Bachler and friend Sarah Dougherty taught a weekly class to kids who live across from the famous Watts Towers. The natural history of Los Angeles was the subject. Bachler is a graduate of the Masters of Public Art Studies program at University of Southern California. But, it’s really the intersection of art and nature that inspires her and inspires her to teach.

“We came up with this curriculum about native plants in L.A.,” she said. “How nature’s in the city and you can find beauty everywhere.” Read more

This was first published on Intersections: The South L.A. Report.

Rosa Gutierrez is the mother of 10 children. But, she might as well be the mother of the entire East 107th Street block. She helps organize, facilitate, motivate and inspire all the residents who live across from the iconic Watts Towers. She lives at the end of the block and works at The Watts House Project, brainchild of Los Angeles artist Edgar Arceneaux.

In its own words, The Watts House Project is “an ongoing, collaborative artwork in the shape of a neighborhood redevelopment.”

Arceneaux says that the houses on this city street can, themselves, be used as a metaphor for the project.

“Even though houses … appear to be separate, they’re totally completely connected together,” he says. “The same electrical systems connect them together, the same plumbing connects them together, the same streets and sidewalks connect them together, but then also like the fabric of the community, these interrelationships that go back, these experiences that go back. That thing … shows that to improve one house is to improve the entire neighborhood.”

Together with a team of employees, volunteers and residents (kids included), Gutierrez and Arceneaux have installed fences and landscaping, planted veggies, screened films, hosted parties and are planning to renovate several empty houses with the intention of opening a neighborhood-run café.

The project is funded through a combination of support from foundations, art museums and donations. And, while it has yet to be duplicated, The Watts House Project is modeled after artist Rick Lowe’s Project Row Houses in Houston.

It’s easy to forget that Los Angeles is a desert.

Just in case you were curious.
Spring Street. China Town. Los Angeles, CA.

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Alabama Chicken

It’s my 53rd week living in Los Angeles.

Lots has changed since I left Jackson Hole last August.

Happy Week 53 to me.