Thursday, February 29th
Happy Leap Day! With the extra day in the year, those 24 hours feel like a freebie—when you're playing with the house money, it’s easy to throw caution to the wind (a.k.a. drink five margaritas on a work night).
In the bathroom, there was an installation by Charles Hickey, aptly located because many of his artworks are 3-D pen sculptures of bathroom staples such as Head & Shoulders shampoo, ACT mouthwash, and Gilette shaving cream. I was particularly fond of Hickey’s 3-D pen on canvas paintings. He combines classical painting tableaus with playful illustrative elements. I’m excited to see what this up-and-coming artist does next.
After a few margaritas and some polite small talk around the backyard fire pit, we headed over to Mars in Hollywood for an LA Art Week Party that my friend BJ was DJing. At the bar, we had a few more cocktails—“powered by BODY vodka”—and flitted around the plush velvet couches of the dimly lit lounge. I chatted with BJ behind the DJ booth; he said he’d already injured himself on his outfit—a large jacket adorned with quarter-sized discs of metal. In the spirit of indie sleaze, there was a fair amount of The Ting Tings on the playlist, which sparked nostalgia for all those hours I spent at H&M in 2009.