Last weekend Kyle and I took a short trip up the 5 to CalArts for their first ever Print Fair. We were invited by our friend Bijan Berahimi, who’s work you see at top (and Scott Berry below it, which we picked up at the fair). You can read a full review of the event over on Los Angeles, I’m Yours if you’re interested. I personally wanted to touch upon the nature of the print fair, and how the art and design community should encourage more things like that to happen.

I feel like there aren’t a lot of opportunities for young people to showcase their work in the real world these days. On the Internet it feels like you’ve got a million different venues, but not in the physical world. Maybe this is a Los Angeles problem? But I doubt it. Having a REAL event is especially important with something like a print fair, where you can grab a zine, flip through it, smell the ink on the paper. There’s a tactile sensation that gets lost when you view an artists work online.

The whole thing really inspired me. It made we want to get a ramshackle group of local artists and showcase/sell stuff to random people. Maybe even sell some brownies and lemonade. And I think other people should do the same. Take the talented people, young or old, in your local city and give them a place to shine. That’s part of why we started Los Angeles, I’m Yours. Doing it in the physical world though is where things get interesting again. I’ve already spoken to a couple of close friends about doing something like that during the summer, but one event in a year isn’t enough.

If you live in Los Angeles and would be interested in working together on something int he real world then email me. There’s a little button in the sidebar, it’s easy. Even if it’s insane and we need a million dollars, go for it, we can always find someone willing to give us money to make something happen. This is my attempt at being proactive, hopefully you do the same.