raw materials

If you’re a collector or a fan of great photography, you’re in luck. Photo LA 2009, an international fine art photography exhibition, is coming to town this month. Held every January, galleries converge on Santa Monica to showcase and sell fine art photographs from some of the most famous names in photography as well as some of the hottest emerging fine art photographers. This year, James Adams, one of the partners here at Raw Materials, will have his work on view at Photo LA 2009 in Jail Gallery’s exhibition booth (In case you don’t know, James is the bald, goateed, deeply cynical one).

James Adams received his MFA from California State University, Long Beach in 2008 and holds a degree in biochemistry from the University of Iowa with postgraduate studies in molecular biology at UCLA. A co-curator of the Greater Los Angeles MFA Exhibition 2007 (GLAMFA), James’ work spans across media and disciplines from video and sound to sculpture, printmaking, painting and installation. You can see more work by James Adams on his artreview website.

We wish James the best of luck in his first showing at Photo LA and if you’re in attendance, we hope that you can stop by to view his work.

For tickets and more information, please visit the Photo LA 2009 website.

Taking over 4th & Main and The Old Bank on December 6th.

That Tom Gilmore is at it again - he’s shutting down traffic leading to 4th & Main on December 6th and throwing the Old Bank District a Holiday Block Party. Inside the Old Bank is an Art Bazaar, with downtown galleries and artists selling art priced for gift-giving. Raw Materials will be there, and this is what we’ll be hawking:

• Framed Commemorative Metal Plate of the Los Angeles Time’s “It’s Obama” front page.
• Framed Commemorative color mini-poster of the Los Angeles Time’s “It’s Obama” front page.

As of press time, we still don’t know whether our table will be inside the Bank, or directly outside on Main Street, but we’ll be there, will you? Stop by the table and check out the quality of our custom art framing and/or buy a piece of history for your loft wall.

Take a short break during Art Walk and Get Your Art Sh*t Together.

We’re not being judgmental, Getting Your Sh*t Together (GYST) is business software for artists of all kinds. GYST guides you through the world of business for artists, keeping you organized, guiding you to resources and helping you set up your practice in a way that allows more time for making art. On December 11th, during the December Downtown Art Walk, Raw Materials will host free workshops and software demonstrations of this remarkable software. Tucker Neel from GYST-Ink will be on-hand, sharing resources, and answering your questions.

The first 30 people to RSVP to gyst@rawmaterialsla.com will receive a free Artist Statement review. Simply email your artists statement to gyst@rawmaterialsla.com. GYST-Ink will review it, make suggestions, and return it to you at the event on December 11th. This offer, and a drawing for a free copy of GYST software is only available to people who attend on December 11th. Deadline to RSVP is December 8, 2008.

Raw Materials is the exclusive retailer of GYST and heartily recommends giving a copy to your favorite artist, especially if it’s yourself.

We’ve expanded our store hours. Our new hours are:
Monday-Friday 10am - 7pm; Saturday 11am - 5pm

As one of the sponsors of the Downtown Art Walk, we will be open until 9:30pm every second Thursday of the month to accommodate downtown art walkers. We’ve started implementing some of our sale pricing in advance of this Thursday’s Art Walk - Strathmore pads are 20% off! Also, you asked for it and now we have it - books and magazines are in! We have Artforum, Modern Painters, Art in America, Wallpaper, and more.

We are still setting up shelves and awaiting delivery of more inventory from our distributors, but we’ve had lots of new stuff come in the past few weeks. The store is filling up nicely as we gear up for our Big Grand Opening in November, but more on that later. If you haven’t been in lately, stop by, check out our progress, and give us your feedback (or just say hello).

The Downtown Artist Project is having a fundraiser on September 12 from 6-10pm at 1247 E. 6th St, Los Angeles, CA 90021. The proceeds will help fund the Art Squared exhibitions, the Downtown Artist Guide, and other projects. In addition to a silent auction of works donated by local artists, the will be a raffle of prizes and gift certificates donated by local restaurants, retailers and other merchants.

For the raffle, Raw Materials is donating some coupons for 20% off all regularly-priced items.

For the Downtown Art Walk this Thursday, August 14, we’re having a special preview sale! We’ve worked with our distributors to get some early shipments of canvas, paper, and other raw materials we thought would be good to grab while you’re out cruising the galleries.

We will be open from 5pm to 9pm.

We won’t be able to accept credit cards or checks at this time, so it’s a cash-only sale.